Page 11 of Sawyer (The Maddox BRAVO Team #1)

Camille

Sunlight drapes the veranda in honey, but I’m already on my third espresso and fifth checklist before the first ray crosses the marble threshold.

Six days—now five—until two hundred philanthropists and four hundred socialites descend on Kingsley House for the annual gala.

Normally I’d be thrilled; this year the event feels like a live‐wire negotiation between purpose and peril.

I pad barefoot through the ballroom, clipboard tucked under one arm, earbuds feeding me a rapid‐fire update from my assistant, Megan, who’s wrangling vendors off-site.

While Megan rattles off linen delays and canapé counts, the far doors open and Sawyer strides in with the brAVO Orange Team—four operators in muted polos that somehow still scream cavalry.

Sawyer wears charcoal tactical pants and a long-sleeve black henley that hugs his biceps with indecent devotion.

He moves with quiet authority, pointing out blind spots, issuing radio checks, marking doorways with discreet adhesive sensors.

The Orange operators fall into formation around him like planets around a sun. For a second I just … watch.

His focus is laser, but when he catches me staring, his expression softens, a flicker of warmth beneath the ice. My pulse speeds up. I force myself back to the task list, but every tick of the pen echoes want, want, want .

The day blurs into stations:

Florist consult. (“No peonies near the heat sensors, Ms. Kingsley.”)

AV team test. (“Screens must not block camera sightlines.”)

Catering walkthrough. (“Badge every sous chef.”)

Everywhere I go, Sawyer or an Orange operator floats at the edge of my vision—unobtrusive but monumental, like living statues ready to leap the moment reality tilts. It should feel oppressive. Instead it steadies me. And stokes something wicked.

Because how do you stay purely professional when the person guarding your heartbeat looks at you as if it’s already his territory?

Later in the evening, the last vendor van rolls away. The estate exhales into a hush of cicadas and shifting light. I find Sawyer in the back garden, calibrating a discreet drone pad beneath the wisteria arbor. He checks something on his tablet, completely absorbed.

I lean against a column, arms folded. “You’re supposed to take breaks, Soldier Boy.”

He answers without looking up. “Break comes when you can sip wine without looking over your shoulder.”

I push off the column, crossing to him, my voice soft. “What if I look over my shoulder … and find you?”

That arrests him. His head lifts, and his gray-green eyes lock onto mine. Heat sizzles down my spine. For a long beat neither of us moves—then a chime sounds on his tablet. He swipes, expression shuttering. “Motion sensor test complete.” But his voice is gravelled, affected.

“Come inside when you’re done,” I say, hoping the invitation buries itself under the innocent wording. “Dinner’s at eight.”

Dinner, while lovely, is a memory I barely tasted.

Vanessa’s texted that she’s safely tucked in at her condo; Riggs is on the night perimeter shift.

Edgar retired early. The mansion feels too big, too dark, too echoing with what-ifs.

I pace my bedroom suite, replaying every awful scenario this coming week could birth.

A faint knock raps. Sawyer steps in, gaze sweeping, confirming all clear before focusing on me in my oversized Stanford sweatshirt and boxer-short pajama bottoms.

“Hall post secured,” he says. “You should sleep.”

“You too.” I pat the edge of the bed. “Which is why you should sit in here instead of the hallway. That chair—” I point to a high-backed armchair near the window—“looks marginally more comfortable than a floorboard.”

His jaw ticks. “Cam…”

“Platonic proximity,” I assure. “Guardian‐angel chic.”

He hesitates … then nods. “Ten minutes. Then I’ll rotate with Riggs.”

He crosses, drags the chair closer to the foot of the bed, and sits. Shadow pools around his shoulders, the moonlight cutting along his cheekbones. The silhouette alone is a whole romance novel.

I slip under the duvet, but sleep is a mirage. I can feel him watching—alert, heart beating in sync with the pulse thrumming in my ears. The room smells faintly of cedar and linen. That combination is becoming a Pavlovian arousal.

Minutes tick by. We say nothing, yet every second furls the tether tighter. Finally I can’t stand the distance. I can’t breathe.

“Would it ruin your professional reputation,” I whisper, “to lie beside me—just to help me sleep?”

Silence spikes. He shifts, tension coiling. “You know the line we’re dancing.”

“I know you drew it,” I counter. My voice shakes but I keep going. “It’ll be there in the morning. Tonight, I need to borrow warmth.”

His exhale is a ragged cliff edge. He rises—slow, deliberate—and approaches the bedside. “On top of the covers,” he says, as if reminding himself. “Armed.”

“Promise not to steal your sidearm.” My smile is shaky, but real.

He slides in, fully clothed, lying stiff as a board. I turn on my side, facing him. The duvet separates us, yet heat radiates between our bodies like an illicit current. I take one brave inch closer.

“You okay?” he murmurs.

“Not even a little,” I admit. “Someone wants to ruin everything good and colorful. But right now, with you here, I can almost pretend they won’t.”

He lifts his hand, hovers, then cups the nape of my neck, thumb stroking tiny circles. Fireworks ignite low in my belly.

“It won’t end like that,” he vows, voice earthquake steady. “I’m walls and doors, remember?”

“More than that,” I whisper. “You’re the reason I keep breathing deep.”

A soft, incredulous sound escapes him. He leans in, forehead resting against mine. We breathe each other’s air. If I angle my mouth two centimeters, I’ll taste him. Every cell begs.

He whispers, “After the gala.”

I nod, but my control snaps. I press the gentlest kiss against the corner of his mouth—barely a brush, a promise etched in air.

He trembles, and I feel it. But he turns his head, captures my lips fully with his for a heartbeat—hot, sure, infinite—before pulling back.

He never deepened the kiss, yet somehow, it was the hottest kiss I’d ever experienced.

His eyes are molten. “Sleep now, Cam.”

Somehow, wrapped in electric silence, I do. His heartbeat thunders under my ear, and the last thing my mind records is the safe weight of his arm above the covers, curved protectively around my hip without truly holding, yet holding everything that matters.