Page 17 of Sawyer (The Maddox BRAVO Team #1)

Camille

The mountains rise out of nowhere—jagged silhouettes against a bruised-lavender sky—and I realize I’ve never truly seen night until now.

No city glow, no highway glare. Just a velvet hush pricked with stars and the low purr of our convoy weaving up a switchback ridge that feels halfway to the moon.

It’s both beautiful and unsettling: beauty because the air smells like woodsmoke and pine sap, unsettling because the blackness presses so thick it could hide anything.

Sawyer said the safe house is “quiet,” but the word feels hilariously inadequate when the gates finally loom into the headlights.

Twelve feet of reinforced wrought iron, capped with discreet razor wire, slide inward on whisper-silent hydraulics.

Beyond, twin beams sweep the drive in a lazy X—motion-tracking floodlights.

“Welcome to Bastion,” Sawyer says from the driver’s seat, voice a soothing rumble in the dark.

He’s been calm the entire three-hour drive, but that calm is bulletproof Kevlar stretched over a soul currently set to siege mode.

I can feel the tension in the way he grips the wheel, a white-knuckle promise that this place will hold.

Rae’s SUV turns off down a graveled spur leading to a small A-frame with a wide veranda—the security house. Andersson flashes his high beams twice.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Means all clear and he’s moving to watch the perimeter,” Sawyer's voice is smooth and controlled.

“All that from two flashes of light?”

Sawyer eyes me with a quick smile. “Yeah.”

Then he kills his engine. Their shadows flit across the porch, rifles slung, night-vision goggles lowering. I briefly wonder what sort of neighborly welcome the local wildlife will receive from them.

Our own vehicle climbs another hundred yards to the main residence.

It's a modern glass-and-stone structure perched on a rocky ledge, as if an architect decided to sculpt safety from granite.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the valley, but privacy screens already tint the glass.

At the top of the driveway, Sawyer taps a code into an inconspicuous panel and the garage yawns open.

We glide inside, the sound of the engine echoing off concrete.

For several heartbeats, silence reigns—then doors thunk, and I follow him into an airlock-style foyer. Biometric reader glows blue before accepting his thumbprint and voice. The heavy bolt slides. We’re inside.

The security brief he rattles off as we tour is equal parts impressive and alarming:

Thermal perimeter grid —invisible beams that trip silent alarms before anything organic gets within 200 feet.

Steel shutters hidden in the walls, able to deploy over every pane of glass in under seven seconds.

Panic room tunneled into the mountain, stocked for a week.

Faraday cage office for secure comms and evidence storage.

Backup generator capable of powering a small village.

The house itself is sleek—charcoal slate floors, raw cedar beams, minimalist furniture in dove-gray suede.

A stone fireplace anchors the living room, currently dark but stacked with logs.

Every line, every texture feels curated to soothe.

Yet it also whispers safe in a way my childhood mansion never managed.

Sawyer’s arm circles my waist as he points out motion detector panels and the coded lock on the wine cellar. He smells like the cedar beams—a scent I’m fast associating with home.

“You built this?” I ask.

“Dean did. Company asset.” He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand warm against my skin. “Few people know it exists.”

“Can it really stop whoever’s hunting me?”

“Yes,” he says. “But I’m the redundancy plan.”

He turns me gently, so I face him. The glow from recessed spotlights paints half his face gold, the other half night. “It ends here, Cam. We’ll identify them, and then you’ll be free to paint your whole damn city.”

His certainty wraps around me like the thickest wool blanket. But I still ask the question I haven’t dared voice: “And afterward? When you’re not charged with babysitting me?”

He steps closer, his heat radiating everywhere. “Afterward starts tonight.”

The words pulse through me, lighting every nerve. I slide my hands up his chest—silk shirt over granite muscle—and feel his breath hitch. My own breathing stutters, but I push ahead. “Show me the rest?”

His smile is slow, dangerous. “Master suite,” he says, pressing a wall plate that reveals a hidden corridor.

Cool air strokes my ankles as we descend three steps into a wing suspended over darkness.

Across the glass wall, the valley yawns, scattered with pinpricks of distant cabin lights.

It feels as though we’re drifting above the world.

The bedroom itself is wider than my entire Manhattan studio rental from college. A platform bed faces the window, the fireplace opposite, and a thick ivory rug begging for bare feet. The bedspread is charcoal linen, rumpled like storm clouds.

Sawyer sets my overnight duffel on a bench, then palms a tablet on the nightstand. “Shutters, set privacy.” A hush of motorized steel slides over the window, leaving us in a warm lamplight. My pulse thrums louder than the motors.

He moves to the sideboard, producing two tumblers and a bottle of single-malt. “One finger or two?”

I lean against a cedar post, fighting a quiver that has nothing to do with the chill. “Two.”

He pours, passes a glass, and clinks his with mine. The liquor burns honey-peach then settles with an oak finish—liquid courage for a woman who nearly lost everything. I set the glass down half-empty.

“I’m still wearing your T-shirt,” I murmur. A smile tugs my mouth. “It feels… protective.”

“The shirt can stay,” he says, stepping in until his knees brush mine. “But everything underneath…” His hands slide up the hem, warm palms cupping my waist. Sparks fly.

“Approved,” I breathe against his lips.

We meet midway—a kiss that begins gentle but segues instantly to hungry. The taste of scotch and adrenaline linger. His hands skim my ribcage, his fingertips mapping. He teases the shirt higher, knuckles brushing against my satin panties. I whimper. He groans, deep and raw.

My fingers find the first button of his shirt— flick, flick —exposing heated skin and the scattering of scars he never speaks about. I kiss one pale slash, and feel him tremble.

“Cam,” he rasps, tugging my shirt off in a single glide. The satin panties remain, but the rest of me shivers naked under his heated gaze. He stares as if cataloging every brushstroke—appreciation that is almost worship, never ownership. It thrills me in a way I've never felt before.

He cups my face, kisses me slower, like a fine wine tasting. I melt against him, palms roaming his torso, down the slope of his abs to the top button of his pants. He intercepts my hand, eyes sparking. “Bed, first,” he growls. It’s a playful command that shoots straight to my core.

We tumble onto the mattress, laughter tangled with moans.

He props over me, arms bracketing my head, studying me like I’m the final fuse he must cut just right.

Then his mouth trails down my throat, over my collarbone, to the heavy ache of my breast. His tongue flicks over my pebbled nipple, his hand cupping the other, and my back arches off the sheets.

I explore him too. His shoulder blade ridges, a bullet scar along his flank, each discovered with lips and fingertips. He mutters half-sworn promises against my skin. Don’t stop. You own me. Never leave . Each vow counters the fear that has dogged me since the first threat note.

When he finally divests the last barrier—silk sliding, trousers kicked away—the world shrinks to heat and breath and the way we fit together perfectly, like two halves realigning.

“You handle my cock like such a good girl, Cam.” He sinks into me with exquisite slowness, and the hush that follows isn’t silence; it’s a chord finally resolving.

The mountains could fall, and I would barely notice.

We move together, rhythm guided by instinct and the deep hum of shared adrenaline.

I clutch his shoulders, nails scoring lightly.

He groans, thrusts deeper. I gasp, meeting him with rising abandon.

Each glide is a brushstroke, layering color onto canvas until the picture bursts in brilliance—my release, his, mingling in a wild crescendo that leaves us trembling, panting, clinging.

After, he doesn’t roll away. Instead, he gathers me close, my cheek to his chest. Our breaths sync with the distant hush of pines swaying outside steel shutters.

“I told your father I’d keep you whole,” he murmurs, fingers tracing lazy spirals on my arm. “I intend to keep that vow.”

“My father worries about stock prices,” I mumble into his skin. “I worry about you running into bombs for me. Seems lopsided.”

He chuckles, a rumble under my ear. “Bomb defusing is easier than resisting you.”

I smile, pressing a kiss to the sternum scratch I left earlier. “We have forty-eight hours before we head back. How do we spend them?”

“Layering defenses. Loving you. Not necessarily in that order.”

The word love slips so naturally it stuns me. I lift my head, search his face. No flinch. No back-pedal. Just truth shining in those gray eyes.

I tuck closer, letting his heartbeat lull me. Tomorrow will bring forensic calls, suspect lists, maybe another threat. But tonight, inside steel-sealed walls on a lonely mountaintop, I finally feel like the attack dog at my side and the tempest in my chest are on the same side.

And that, I decide as sleep steals me, is a masterpiece worth any fight.