Page 12 of Stealthy Seduction (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #5)

T he backyard patio glowed with warm, golden light from string lights that May and Kennedy had strung in crisscrossing patterns. The bulbs created soft pools across the pavers, and the flickering flames from the propane heaters stationed around the seating area added to the glow.

Steele stood near the outdoor bar, nursing a glass of sweet tea and watching his teammates make dinner.

The outdoor kitchen hummed with activity, and one of the guys had the idea to fire up the brick pizza oven. It was their thing, making homemade pizzas after a successful op.

They hadn’t completed an op, but Steele felt the morale in the group lifting just from the buzz of having a common goal along with the scent of pizza sauce in the air.

Tonight felt different. After everything that happened with Izzy, with Drysdale’s murder, with the growing threat of Cipher closing in, they all needed this. A moment to breathe. To remember what they were fighting to protect.

Across the patio, Mason was arguing with Chickie about sauce distribution while Sinner worked the pizza oven with the kind of intense concentration usually reserved for defusing bombs.

Steele’s attention kept drifting to Izzy.

She sat at one of the wrought-iron tables with Alyssa and Sophie, the light catching the auburn highlights in her hair. The women were chatting quietly, their voices mixing with the hum of the heaters.

But Izzy wasn’t interacting with them. She just sat there, her hands wrapped around a mug of something hot, staring off into the darkness with that hollow look he was beginning to recognize and those cute freckles standing out starkly in the pale moon of her face.

Worry gnawed at his chest as he watched her. She’d been through hell tonight—witnessed a murder, fled through the city in fear, forced her way into their base seeking sanctuary. Most people would be a wreck.

Izzy wasn’t totally losing her shit, but she wasn’t totally okay either. She seemed to be holding it together with the kind of brittle composure that made him think she was about two seconds away from shattering.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

Setting his tea aside, he crossed the patio with purposeful strides, the heaters warming his face as he passed them. The conversation at Izzy’s table quieted as he approached, and he caught Alyssa’s knowing look before she and Sophie found excuses to drift away.

“Hey.” He settled into the chair across from Izzy. “How are you holding up?”

She blinked, as if coming back from somewhere far away. “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.” The word came out gentler than usual, tinged with concern rather than challenge. “You’ve been staring at nothing for the past twenty minutes.”

Izzy’s fingers tightened around her mug, and for a moment he thought she might actually talk to him. Tell him what was going on in that sharp mind of hers.

Instead, she stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the pavers.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice was tight with frustration.

Steele’s stomach dropped. What the hell? Was she talking about leaving? Or about the thin thread that connected them? Had he pushed too hard, moved too fast, made her feel trapped when she was already dealing with—

She marched across the patio with determined steps, heading straight for Sinner, who was in the process of adding what looked like an entire bag of cheese to his latest creation.

Then he realized she was staring at the pizza station with the kind of horrified expression usually reserved for natural disasters.

She stopped directly in front of the big man. “Hi, I’m Izzy,” she announced.

Sinner looked up from his pizza, blinking in mild confusion. “Hi, Izzy.”

“No,” Izzy said with the patience of someone addressing a particularly slow child. “This is the part where you say your name.”

“Hi, I’m Sinner.”

She looked him over. “I bet you are.”

Sinner’s massive hands paused in their cheese distribution efforts.

“The real sin is how you’re making that pizza.”

He gave her an amused glance. “I know how to make pizza.”

“I bet you put pineapple on it, don’t you?”

Sinner’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and Steele’s amusement deepened. Izzy had just unknowingly stepped into one of the team’s longest-running debates.

“What’s your role on the team?” Izzy tilted her head in the most charming gesture Steele had ever seen in his life. She was also clearly oblivious to the building tension.

“I make the pizza,” Sinner replied with the kind of straight-faced delivery that suggested he was either completely serious or the world’s best comedian.

“What’s your real role?”

“Told you. I’m the pizza maker.”

Izzy stared at him for a long moment, as if trying to determine whether he was messing with her. Finally, she sighed in defeat.

“Okay then. Pizza maker.”

Steele found himself grinning as Izzy crowded in so Sinner had to step aside.

Watching Izzy take charge, even over something as mundane as dinner prep, was like seeing her come back to life. The hollow look was gone, replaced by the fierce determination he was beginning to recognize as pure Izzy.

He loved watching her don a pair of food prep gloves and then roll out the dough on a pizza stone with the skill of a master. Clearly, she’d done this a time or a thousand.

As she worked, she demoted Sinner from pizza maker to assistant to the pizza maker. Soon, he was passing her bags of cheese and bowls of toppings.

Steele kicked back in his seat to admire her.

But seeing her talking to another man—even if that man was Sinner, who had about as much romantic inclination as a block of concrete—and Steele’s amusement curdled into something hot and uncomfortable in his chest.

“Are you hearing this?” Mason appeared at his elbow, nodding to the ongoing pizza debate between the pair.

“Yeah.” Steele didn’t take his eyes off Izzy.

“She’s got balls, I’ll give her that. Nobody questions Sinner’s pizza authority.”

Con materialized on Steele’s other side, his presence commanding even in the relaxed atmosphere of the patio. “I see why you wanted her to stay here.”

“So she’s protected,” Steele said automatically, though his attention remained fixed on Izzy as she gestured emphatically at whatever monstrosity Sinner had in the oven.

“Mm.” Con’s tone was neutral, but Steele caught the undercurrent and knew he was being assessed, analyzed and his motives appraised. “You’re too close to this.” Con’s voice was matter-of-fact but didn’t carry the bite of authority.

“I’m not too close,” Steele protested, even as part of him recognized the truth in Con’s words.

“Then go inside.”

The order was delivered casually, almost conversationally, but Steele felt the strength behind it.

He glanced back at Izzy, who was now apparently giving Sinner a lecture on proper sauce-to-cheese ratios…and hesitated.

Should he leave her out here with Sinner? The big man was harmless enough, but—

Con read his reluctance. “That’s an order.”

“What for?” Frustration bled into his voice.

Con’s lips twitched in what might have been amusement. “Someone has to stock the drinks if we’re having pizza.”

Steele stared at him. He recognized the manufactured excuse for what it was. Con was testing him, seeing whether he could follow orders when they involved walking away from Izzy.

Steele never bucked an order. He executed every single one he’d ever been given.

But if Con couldn’t trust Steele to maintain professional distance, he couldn’t trust him with anything related to her protection.

That didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

“What does Sinner even do?” Steele asked, grasping for reasons to delay his departure. “I mean, really do. On the team.”

Con followed his gaze to where Sinner was now allowing Izzy to rearrange toppings on his pizza, the big man’s expression suggesting he was either deeply offended or grudgingly impressed by her audacity.

“He makes the pizzas,” Con replied with perfect seriousness.

Steele gave him a flat look.

“And occasionally he kills people,” Con added as an afterthought. “But mostly, he makes the pizzas.”

With a reluctant grunt, Steele headed inside, the warm glow of the patio lights fading behind him. Even as he walked away, he could hear Izzy’s voice carried on the evening air, animated and alive in a way that made his chest tight with things he didn’t want to name.

He was definitely too close to this.

And he was beginning to think that might not be entirely a bad thing.

* * * * *

The minute Hudson walked into the mansion, Izzy’s entire body went on high alert. This awareness of him, of every twitch he made, every look he sent her way…it wasn’t something she’d ever experienced before.

She continued rolling out dough and exchanging insults with Sinner about who was better at making pizzas.

“Where do you get your dough?” she asked as she pressed it into a deep-dish pan.

“I make it myself.” Sinner sounded insulted that she would ask such a heinous question, as if SEALs were known for their Chicago-style.

She glanced over her shoulder at the door. Hudson didn’t reappear. “Where did you learn how to make dough?”

“Grew up in Chicago. Worked for my uncle’s pizza shop since I could lift a sack of flour.” He scattered ham and sausage over the surface of another pizza. “Who taught you how to make pizza?”

“I worked at a place in Brooklyn all through high school. They’re world-class.”

“Hmph.”

She inwardly smiled at Sinner’s reaction to her. Talking about something as silly as pizza wouldn’t erase what happened to her today—but it was helping it fade to the backdrop.

Now if Hudson would come back out, she would feel even better.

They fired three more pizzas before her lover finally stepped onto the patio.

His intense stare hit her with a force that she felt to the tips of her toes. She gripped the granite edge of the counter to steady herself. But that tightness in her lungs eased, allowing her to draw a deeper breath.

For three loaded heartbeats, she couldn’t look away or focus on the story Sinner was sharing about his uncle’s pizza shop.

Especially when Hudson crossed the pavers to her in measured steps, oozing confidence.

As he passed behind Izzy to the brick oven, she inhaled deeply, her head filling with his masculine scent. The memory of him opening the gates and him yanking her into his arms surfaced all over again.

Now she couldn’t quit thinking about burying her face against his chest. How safe he felt. How good he smelled.

He leaned past her to peer into the brick oven, and her insides clutched with want.

As Sinner concluded his story, she offered him a smile.

“Thank you for sharing your family stories with me. I think it’s time to test your recipe for myself.

” She nudged the next pizza in their assembly line toward the SEAL, and he whisked it up on his fingertips, spinning it as he showered it with cheese.

Izzy felt the burn of Hudson’s stare on her as she peeled off her gloves and dropped them in the wastebasket. Her hands were slightly unsteady, but for once, the cause wasn’t her nerves.

He scooped up one of the deep-dish pizzas and snagged two plates from a stack. Then with a slight twitch of his head, he led the way to a vacant table.

The late-autumn evenings were cool, but here on the patio, it was toasty thanks to the heaters providing enough warmth that she didn’t even need a coat.

She watched as he expertly served her a slice of the pie. Not exactly looking at her, but completely aware of her—as aware of her as she was of him.

They picked up their slices and began to eat in companionable silence. At the first bite, her stomach woke up and reminded her that she hadn’t eaten for hours, and her mad dash across the city had expended every ounce of energy she had. For the past hour, she’d been running off pure adrenaline.

Suddenly, a muscled form hovered over her. She looked up to see Sinner.

“Well?” He tipped his square jaw toward the pizza in her hand.

She sat back, pressing a palm over her stomach. “Oh my god. The cheese?”

He groaned. “Don’t tell me it’s too much.”

She chuckled. “I was going to say it’s a moving experience.”

A cocky grin spread over his face. He gave her a single nod and walked away with an entire pie of his own.

Hudson sliced a glance her way. “You just created a monster.”

“Well, if his only job is making the pizzas, he should at least feel good about it.”

They shared a smile.

Then Hudson looked deeper into her. “Izzy—”

A sudden holler from the other side of the patio was accompanied by a splash as somebody dived into the pool. Several more people jumped in.

“Hey, Steele! We could use you on our team!”

He twisted in his seat and called back, “Not tonight.”

A ball sailed over the net stretched across the center of the pool. Izzy reached for another slice of pizza—surprising when only an hour before, food had been the furthest thing from her mind.

She arched a brow at Hudson. “Pool volleyball?”

“The pool’s heated, as you probably know.”

“Does no one just sit still around here?”

“We work hard, we play hard.” He held her stare for a beat longer, making her mind dart to a different kind of play.

She chewed thoughtfully, appreciating the delicious blend of cheeses Sinner had heaped on. “That’s a great philosophy, but does no one believe in dessert? I could go for some ice cream.”

His eyes gleamed from more than the twinkle lights. “You’re in luck. Losers scoop ice cream sundaes.”

She looked toward the pool crowded with SEALs and some of the women, all laughing and having a good time.

Each woman had carved out a role here, contributing in ways that made them indispensable.

In the end, Izzy got her prize even though she didn’t compete in the volleyball game—two generous scoops topped with whipped cream and a bright red cherry, courtesy of Chase’s team losing to Con’s.

After the patio emptied and the team members drifted away. The couples murmured quiet goodnights as they headed to bed.

Izzy found herself alone. She stared at the closed French doors, uncertainty creeping through her chest as she wondered what came next—where she fit in this carefully coordinated world.

A warm, rough hand closed around hers.

She looked up and tumbled headlong into Hudson’s burning gaze, her pulse immediately quickening at the intensity she found there.

“I’ve been trying to get you to myself all night.” His tone was low and rough with promise. “It’s time.”

Her pulse stuttered. “What are we doing?”

“I’m taking you to bed.”