Page 20 of Stealthy Seduction (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #5)

Con shook his head. “Not definitely, but we had suspicions. We suspected you might be exposed at Times Square, and Steele mitigated the damage by getting you out of there as quickly as possible. The team used all available resources to ensure you weren’t followed.

We stand together. That’s how we keep people alive. ”

Izzy pushed out a breath as if releasing some of the air locked inside her. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“You’re here,” Steele said simply. “Until it’s over.”

“I can’t just be here.” Her voice gained strength. “I can’t go back to work either. I need to do something. I can’t just sit around and wait.”

Kennedy’s voice was gentle. “You said you tried journaling. Maybe you can do that again?”

“Forget the journal,” Izzy said with sudden vehemence. Her hand seemed to quiver a bit, then she clamped it into a fist, her thumb tucked in. “I’m writing a book . About my time as a hostage and how that created a snowball effect for so many people.”

Con’s mouth fell open. “Um—you were sworn to secrecy—”

“Not now, obviously,” she said quickly. “But trust me, you want me to have something productive to do with all this information.”

“Anything you write goes through me. This is classified information, Izzy. All of your friends are in jeopardy if the wrong thing leaks out.”

Steele could see her mind working, that sharp journalist’s brain trying to organize and process everything she’d just learned. The terror was still there, but it was being channeled into something else—purpose, maybe, or the familiar comfort of a story worth telling.

She looked around the room with new energy. “I need a pen. No, a laptop! I need to start getting this down while it’s fresh.”

Recognizing the look in her eyes, Steele stood. “I got this under control. Izzy, come with me.”

He led her toward the door, knowing that writing this out, reporting on it even if she was the only person to ever see it, was a way to work through the information in her own way.

He only hoped that having something to focus on besides her fear would help keep her sane until they could end this thing once and for all.

* * * * *

As Hudson led Izzy through the mansion, it was starting to look less and less like a home to her and more like a SEAL team base.

She didn’t know what changed. The walls, the expensive marble floors, the high windows that let in lots of natural light were the same. The furniture was still the minimal, military-issue equipment that was here before.

Maybe her view of what really went on here had changed. Now she saw the security cameras positioned at every corner, the reinforced door frames that couldn’t be easily kicked in, the way every piece of furniture could be moved quickly to create defensive positions.

The elegant chandeliers weren’t just beautiful but chased away all the shadows. The marble floors weren’t just luxurious—they were easy to clean blood from.

Those lazy evenings with margaritas and girl talk morphed from what felt like a sanctuary for friends to a fortress built for war.

Hudson’s grip on her hand was solid as they climbed the grand staircase leading to his room.

The place was quiet with only the sound of their feet on the marble treads. But her mind still boomed with the noises of Times Square.

First there had been the normal excitement—the woman speaking passionately about healthcare through the crackling PA system, her words barely audible over the noise of city life.

She’d even heard children laughing and squealing as they ran through the forest of adult legs, treating the whole thing like an adventure.

Then everything changed in an instant.

A LIFE FOR A LIFE.

“Izzy.” Hudson’s voice cut through the screech of dark alarm in her mind, and she jolted.

“Jesus, honey.” He pulled her through the open door into his room.

She looked around. “What’s the possibility of getting a desk moved in here, or a laptop? Also, I need notepads, pens.”

Slowly, he curled his fingers around her wrists. His eyes burned into hers with an intensity that made her body prickle. Made her want to get closer to him.

To be in his arms. To be safe.

The sound bursting past her lips was soft but might as well have been a gunshot for how Hudson reacted.

He hooked his arms around her body, wrapping her close as he turned toward the bed.

When he laid her on the mattress and tucked her against his chest, she realized just how much she was shaking.

“Hudson…” She curled her fingers into his chest, bunching his shirt, clinging to the one thing left that seemed solid in this world.

She broke. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand anything anymore.” She shook her head, and his broad palm came up to cradle it. She sucked in a breath, filling her senses with her lover’s masculine scent mixed with a crisper tang, like leather.

When she shook her head, her nose brushed against his throat. “I thought I moved past all this fear. I was actually leaving my house again. I was ready to work again.”

“Christ, Izzy.” He pressed his lips to the spot between her eyes with a heated pressure.

She wished he could erase the memories from her with a simple kiss. “Now I’m being hunted because I was part of the event that stopped the militia from intercepting a bomb…that then killed the mother of a man who later became a terrorist?”

His breath rushed over her hair. “That’s the gist of it, yeah.”

She snorted, the sound bordering on hysteria.

Hudson cupped her face in his big hands. “Izzy, look at me.”

Just meeting his stare stripped away a layer of her panic.

“Breathe with me. Ready? Take a breath in.”

She did.

“One, two, three,” he counted. “Now let it out. One, two, three. Again, honey. In…”

For several minutes, he guided her through just taking one breath at a time. She’d been through half a dozen meditation workshops, but focusing on her breathing had never worked so well to calm her down.

She tumbled into the depths of his eyes. Each little steely gray ray grounded her in the present. There was something hypnotic about the way the colors shifted—pewter near his pupils, lighter silver at the edges, with faint specks of pale blue that caught the lighting he’d switched on over the bed.

She could lose herself in that steady gaze, let it wash away the questions and horrible certainty that her nightmare was far from over.

Hudson drew the pad of his thumb across her lips, and she released the breath she’d been holding in a puff. “Good. Better?”

“A little.”

He slipped his hand around her nape, his long fingers teasing into her hair. “I realize this is a lot to process. I just want you to know that you have time. You’re safe here.”

A shiver rolled up her spine, and she curled closer to him.

The thud of her heart began to slow to a softer thump…that turned into a patter.

His chest rose and fell against her cheek in a steady rhythm that seemed to reset her frantic heartbeat. His body heat was a shelter from the storm raging in her mind.

She’d spent three years battling to find peace within herself, to be her own anchor when the memories threatened to pull her under. But this—being held by somebody who was so familiar with danger, who faced it and survived it—felt different.

This was allowing herself to be vulnerable with someone strong enough to carry the weight of her fear without breaking under it.

Somewhere between their first poker game and this moment, Hudson Steele had become more than just her protector.

He’d become the person she thought about when she woke up and the last before she drifted to sleep at night.

And that realization scared her almost as much as the masked figure on the billboards, because caring about someone this much meant having something precious to lose, and she wasn’t sure she was brave enough for that kind of risk.

“Stockholm syndrome.” Her words were muffled against Hudson’s muscled chest.

He leaned back to look at her. “What?”

“That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

His brow crinkled in an adorable way that made her hand itch to smooth it. An impulse that made her even more convinced that she was losing her mind.

Over Hudson Steele.

No wonder. Between his hardcore protector big dick energy—and reality too—and this tender, supportive side, the man seemed pretty damn perfect.

Other than the fact that to the world, he didn’t exist.

She sat up and scraped her hair out of her eyes. “There’s nothing logical about you and me.”

As he pushed into a sitting position facing her, the ridges of his abs rippled under the thin cotton of his shirt. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She blew out a breath. “In times of great stress, people find someone to cling to.”

“You’re saying that someone is me,” he said slowly.

“Yes.”

“You’re not in captivity, Izzy.”

“I can’t go anywhere, can I? That’s the very definition of captivity. Besides, you’re dead. So this relationship can’t go anywhere. There’s no future.”

He gave her that smoldering look that tore apart every shred of her self-control and made her ovaries burst at the same time. As he ducked his head, she caught the twitch of his lips at one corner.

“All I heard is that you have feelings for me.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s your takeaway?”

“I mean…I get it.” When he shifted, his biceps bulged even more. Was he flexing, or just that muscled?

“What do you get?”

“If I was stuck with someone as hot as me, I’d fall for me too.”

The one thing she never expected happened—she laughed.

A full, hearty, belly laugh erupted out of nowhere. She threw a punch toward his arm, but he caught it and hauled her into his arms.

The laughter felt foreign after everything that had happened, but also necessary—like her body was finally releasing some of the tension that had been coiled tight since Times Square. She relaxed against his chest, letting herself sink into the solid comfort of Special Operative Hudson Steele.

“That’s better,” Hudson murmured against her hair. “I was starting to worry you’d forgotten how to do that.”

“Laugh at your terrible jokes? Trust me, that is definitely a skill that requires training.” She tilted her head back to look at him. “So what exactly does one do at a secret SEAL base when they’re not, you know, saving the world or fighting masked psychopaths?”

“Well, there’s pizza making, as you’ve discovered. Pool—both the swimming and billiards variety.” His thumb traced lazy circles on her shoulder. “You are already well-versed in hot tub and margaritas with the ladies. Something about girl-talk, I think?”

“Now you’re speaking my language.” The idea was enticing—sitting in warm, bubbling water with Alyssa and the others, talking about normal things like favorite movies and weekend plans instead of terrorist threats and Syria flashbacks.

But so was the thought of staying right here in his arms.

“What about you? What do you do to unwind?”

His hard mouth quirked at the corner. “I play poker with beautiful journalists and let them take my money.”

“Let me?” She raised an eyebrow. “That implies I need your permission to kick your ass at cards.”

His smile was warm, heating those gray eyes in a way that made her stomach flutter. “Speaking of which, I owe you a rematch.”

“You’re on.” The words came out before she could think about them, but she found she meant it. The idea of sitting across from him again, watching him try to bluff his way through a hand—it sounded wonderfully, perfectly normal. “Very soon, you and me, cards on the table.”

“Is that a promise or a threat?”

“Both,” she said, and was surprised to find she was smiling again.

Maybe she couldn’t control what Cipher had planned for her, couldn’t predict when the next threat would come or what form it would take.

But she could look forward to something—even something as simple as a poker game against a man whose arms felt like home.