Page 65 of Boomer

The next day, Taylor didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She told herself she needed tocheck inwith Boomer. Maybe make sure he was still cleared for duty after yesterday’s SSE.Maybe gauge his readiness for the next phase. But really? She just wanted tosee him.

God, her body was still humming from the cages. Every time she blinked, she felt his mouth on hers. Every time she shifted in her seat, she felt the ghost of his thigh pressing up between hers. She’d barely slept with the ache of wanting, and now she was prowling the halls like a woman starved.

She’d stopped Breakneck in the corridor and tried to sound casual. “Have you seen Boomer?”

The sniper had smirked, all boyish charm and wicked eyes. A teen-idol face with a filthy mind behind it. “Your big man? Oh yeah. He’s in the pool. Said he needed… cold water.” He leaned in like he was sharing a state secret. “Why would he need that, do you think?”

Taylor narrowed her eyes, groaned. “Shut thefuckup, you little shit.”

She bumped his shoulder hard as she passed. He laughed like hell, the sound echoing down the hall, and when she glanced back, that smug bastard winked at her.

She flipped him off without missing a step.

At the pool, Boomer was in the water all right, swimming smooth laps in a pair of tiny, clingy khaki shorts and nothing else. Fins on his feet, his back arched on the rise, water streaming down the long, muscled line of his spine as he cut through the surface like a goddamn torpedo.

She stopped. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

The man wasart. All muscle and grit and grace, every inch of him sculpted like a war-forged statue. His shoulders rolled with each stroke, wide and commanding. His body gleamed, wet and golden in the Lisbon sun.

She stared.

Just stood there and stared until he stopped mid-lap, treaded water, and turned his head like hefelther.

His eyes locked on hers, and thelookhe gave her burned straight through her like molten fire. Her lungs went tight. Her mouth opened to suck in a heated breath.

Her phone rang. She jumped, snatching it from her pocket, voice rough and hoarse. “Hoffman.”

“Taylor,” her boss said crisply. “Get over here to the MAOC Command Center. I want a full briefing. You’re being handed operational command on the interdiction phase.”

Her pulse leapt. “Sir?”

“You’ve earned it. Now don’t waste time. Ten minutes.”

The line went dead. She lowered the phone, fingers numb. She should’ve felt proud. Instead, she feltruined. She looked back at the pool just in time to see Boomer pull himself out of the water. Slow. Wet. Deliberate. She closed her eyes. Could barely breathe. “Fuck,” she muttered.

Boomer strode toward her, water slicking down his chest in lazy rivulets, each droplet carving paths between ridges of taut muscle. The khaki shorts clung low on his hips, soaked to a darker shade that leftabsolutelynothing to the imagination. Every flex of his thighs looked carved by intent, powerful, solid, thighs made for breaching doors or pinning a woman flat.

The fabric cupped him like a second skin, and oh my, he was...not modestly endowed.

She made a noise, soft, broken,feral, and quickly looked up, only to find his eyes locked on hers like a predator watching his prey twitch.

He was unfair. Impossible. A walking threat to sanity.

His abs were cut and deep, the kind you could lose your breath tracing with your tongue. Drops clung to the soft indent of his hips, gathering just above the waistband like a temptation spelled in water.

He was soaked. Barefoot. Tanned.Dangerous, and her entire nervous system wentoffline.

“What? Don’t tell me you have to go. Not after the night I spent thick and hard for you. I want my hands on you, to get inside you…Taylor…I’m?—

“I do have to go,” she wailed, instantly wet from not only his words but the way they sounded, gravel and Southern heat wrapped around each syllable. Her knees almost buckled. She reached out a hand to steady herself on a deck chair. “It’s my boss. He wants me there pronto. We can’t get a goddamn break.”

“Apparently not,” he said, voice low, teasing.

Her eyes raked over him. She wasdying. He stopped in front of her. So close she could feel the heat coming off him.

“That’s not helping, Tay,” he whispered. His fists clenched even as his arms raised. “Goddamn go,” he added, his voice wrecked and quiet. “Before we both get into trouble.”

She laughed, throat dry, body aching. She turned on her heel, throwing the words over her shoulder as she walked away, afraid of what she would do if she looked at him again. “We’realreadyin trouble.”