Page 14 of Stealthy Seduction (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #5)

When he finally rose over her, his lips glistened with her taste, his chest heaving. Her eyes fluttered open, dazed and shining with something more than lust. Something that dug deep into his chest and squeezed tight.

She reached up, caressing his jaw with trembling fingers. “No one’s ever—” She cut herself off, swallowing. “No one’s ever made me feel like that.”

A fierce surge of pride lit him from the inside. He kissed her gently, slowly, letting her taste herself on his lips. Then he tore off his remaining clothes, donned a condom and pressed against her, groaning at the slick glide of her body welcoming him in.

He slid deep inside her, filling her in one long thrust that left them both gasping.

Izzy clutched his shoulders, legs wrapping tight around him. “Hudson!”

The sound of his name on her lips wrecked him. He drove into her, solid and steady, every thrust more than pleasure, every kiss more too.

She met him stroke for stroke, her cries mixing with his groans, their rhythm building into something wild and consuming. He buried his face against her throat, breathing her in, holding her like he’d never let go.

Her body tightened around him. Christ, he felt the tremors of her orgasm starting again.

He reached between them, finding her swollen bud with his callused thumb, pressing, circling, demanding her release. “Come for me again, Izzy. I want to feel you fall…apart…around me.”

Her scream was muffled against his shoulder as she broke, clutching him with frantic strength. The rippling squeeze of her body pulled him over the edge, and he thrust once, twice, before spilling into her with a growl that shook his chest.

For long moments they lay tangled, breaths ragged, bodies slick with sweat, hearts pounding as one. Steele pressed his forehead to hers, easing her damp curls back from her face.

“You’re everything I never thought I could have,” he murmured.

Her smile was soft, sleepy, but filled with something fierce. “Can’t have? Pretty sure you just laid claim to every inch of me.”

This was so much more for him than sex. He could talk to her.

He held her close, the weight of the world lifting from his shoulders for the first time in years. In this bed, with her wrapped around him, there was no mission, no danger—only Izzy. And he knew, deep in his bones, that he’d burn down the world before letting anything touch her.

* * * * *

Izzy lay tangled in Steele’s soft, high-thread count sheets, the warmth of his body pressed along her back, his arm heavy around her waist.

The mansion was hushed, and she tried not to think of the silence as almost eerie after the night she had.

But for such a big house filled with so many people, no footsteps tapped down the halls, no clatter of someone grabbing a late-night snack came from the kitchen.

Just the steady rise and fall of Hudson Steele’s chest against her shoulder.

The sex had been good. Better than good—the kind that left her boneless and trembling and her mind reeling…

Her heart hammering in ways that had nothing to do with simple physical release. She should’ve been floating on the aftershocks of bliss and drifting off into sleep wrapped in his arms. And part of her was. But another part, the part that never seemed to shut off, kept spinning.

Good sex was easy to explain. Good sex with a man like Hudson was a tangle she didn’t know how to unravel.

She shifted slightly, trying to settle her thoughts. His arm tightened, pulling her closer until his lips grazed her hair. “Where are you going?” His voice was rough from sleep and sex, that deep gravel that always seemed to scrape her insides raw.

“Nowhere.” Her murmur wrapped around them. “Just thinking.”

“Dangerous habit.”

She huffed a laugh, but it was quiet. “I’m a reporter. Thinking is literally my job.”

“Good point.” His lips ghosted over the back of her shoulder, and the rush of warmth sent another ripple of goose bumps across her skin, confusing her even more. Because while her body screamed to just melt into him, her brain lined up questions like bullets.

“Hudson…” She hesitated, his name heavy in her mouth. “I need to understand something.”

His sigh was low, patient, but she could feel the tension creeping back into his muscles. “That sounds like the start of an interrogation.”

She rolled halfway toward him, propping herself on one elbow so she could study his face in the low light spilling from the cracks in the blinds.

His expression was shadowed and unreadable except for the faint pull of exhaustion around his mouth.

“It’s not an interrogation. It’s just…this.” She gestured between them, at the bed, at his body still pressed against hers. “It’s good. Really good. But it’s also confusing. I need to know what’s going on.”

His gaze searched hers for a long moment before he sat up against the headboard, dragging her easily with him until she was tucked under his arm again. “Confusing how?”

“Your life.” Her voice came out sharper than she intended.

She softened it, but the frustration lingered.

“This team. What it means. I’ve been trying to analyze you all since the moment I got close enough.

And I can’t get a clear picture. I’m used to digging and finding the truth, but with you…

” She exhaled, the sound full of exasperation. “It feels impossible.”

Hudson was quiet for a long beat. Then the words came, low. “You want me to define us.”

“Yes.” Her chest tightened. “I don’t do well with gray areas. I tell stories for a living—I need beginnings, middles, endings. Facts.”

He tilted his head against hers, lips on her temple. “Izzy, what I do doesn’t come with definitions. Hell, most of the time it doesn’t even come with rules I get to make.”

“You’re black ops.”

He exhaled through his nostrils. “Yes. You want a definition, but maybe you don’t want to hear it.”

“I do.” Her words came with a quiet conviction. No matter how difficult a story was—even her own—she had to hear it.

He sighed. “Black ops means operating in the shadows. It means being a ghost. Sometimes…it means being dead.”

She flinched at the bluntness of his words, her breath catching. “Dead?”

“That’s what the world thinks,” he said quietly. “That’s the only way we can operate. Our names don’t exist. Our missions don’t exist. And that makes it hard to have…” He broke off, dragging a hand through his hair. “Hard to have anything outside of it.”

“Like wives,” she whispered. “Families.”

His silence was answer enough.

Izzy pulled back just enough to see his face.

Her chest burned with a strange mix of anger and grief.

“So what are we doing then? Because I finally—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard before pushing on.

“I finally found someone I actually want to connect with. A place I feel safe. And now you’re telling me it’s impossible? ”

He winced, his big hand coming up to cup her cheek. “I’m not saying impossible.”

“It sounds like you are.”

“I’m saying hard.” His thumb skimmed over her skin, gentle. “But you should understand this better than anyone.”

Her brows drew together. “How?”

“You’re a reporter,” he said simply. “You know what secrecy feels like. You can’t tell me everything you uncover.

Sometimes you have to protect your sources, hold back pieces of the truth because putting them out there would ruin people or cost lives.

You live with that. You understand the rules of silence. ”

She stilled. He was right.

Dammit, he was right.

Before Syria and her long break from the world, she lived every day walking the line between what she could reveal and what she had to bury to protect someone who’d trusted her.

“And I understand the flip side.” His eyes glittered at her through the darkness. “I can’t tell you every detail about missions. About the team. About the things I’ve done. But I can give you the parts that matter. Just like you do when you choose your words.”

She stared at him, torn between fury and reluctant understanding. Because he’d laid it out in a way she couldn’t ignore. They lived in the same world, just different sides of it.

Still, her throat tightened. “But you’re telling me that you’re supposed to be dead, Hudson. How do I reconcile that? How do I build something with a man who doesn’t technically exist?”

The vulnerability in her voice felt foreign, almost frightening to her own ears after all she’d worked for to heal. But she needed him to hear it.

Hudson pulled her closer, tucking her under his chin, his heartbeat steady against her ear. “I exist.” His words were low and firm. “I exist here. With you. In this bed. That’s real.”

Tears pricked her eyes, hot and unwanted. She blinked them away. “You make it sound simple.”

“It’s not.” His grip tightened around her. “It’s the hardest damn thing in the world. But I’ll take hard if it means I get to keep us.”

For a long time, she let the silence stretch, the only sound the faint whisper of their breaths. She wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that she could balance her job, her truth, her hunger for answers—with this man who was nothing but shadows and secrets.

But the journalist in her screamed. How could she keep digging, keep doing her job, if she was tied to him? Wouldn’t it always be a conflict? Wouldn’t she always be caught between telling a story and protecting him?

The anger rose again, distinct and bitter. “You make it sound like I should just accept it. Accept being in the dark.”

“I’m not asking you to stop being who you are,” he said gently. “I’m asking you to trust me the way I trust you. With boundaries. With lines we don’t cross. That’s how the team works. That’s how we stay alive.”

She let out a shaky laugh. “Team dynamic and rules. You even talk about this like it’s a briefing.”

“Maybe it is.” His mouth swept over her hair. “Rule one: protect the mission. Rule two: protect each other. And you…” His hand slid down her arm, fingers twining with hers. “You’re not just another mission to me, Izzy.”

Her chest ached, torn between hope and despair. Because she wanted to believe it. Wanted it so badly that it scared her.

She finally whispered the question burning her throat. “So what are we?”

Hudson exhaled, a sound that rumbled through her bones. “We’re whatever we can be, as much as we can be. And if that’s not enough…I’ll understand. But I’m not walking away.”

The words settled between them, solemn and terrifying and beautiful all at once.

Izzy lay there in his arms, her heart pounding against his chest. The sex had been good—better than anything she’d ever known. But it was this—this messy, confusing, impossible conversation in the dark—that might undo her completely.

Because she wanted him. She wanted them. And she didn’t know if wanting was going to be enough.