Page 13 of The Tracker (Cowboys of Silver Spur Security #5)

DAWSON

H e stood in the kitchen, palms flat on the counter, shoulders rigid with the tension knotting every muscle. The dim hum of the refrigerator offered the only sound, but his thoughts roared louder—images of her flushed cheeks, parted lips, and the fire she ignited in him flashing behind his eyes.

He’d been trained to withstand torture, interrogations, firefights—but nothing had prepared him for this. His jaw clenched, restraint pounding behind his eyes like a second heartbeat. Every instinct clawed at the edges of his control, urging him to act.

He wanted to go to her, to finish what they’d started. But years of discipline and control kept him rooted in place. She wasn’t just a temptation—she was a complication he couldn’t afford.

The echo of her footsteps still pulsed through his nerves, like the dying ring of a struck bell.

One more second pressed against her, one more inch of her heat sinking into his skin, and he’d have lost every ounce of restraint and taken her against that goddamn brick wall, uncaring of consequences or control.

He wanted to—God, he wanted to—but that desire was the very thing threatening to unravel everything he'd built to keep himself in check. It wasn’t just a craving. It was a fault line trembling beneath his feet, ready to split wide open.

Dawson blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the weight pressing down. This wasn’t about want. It couldn’t be. Not when her life was on the line. Not when the lines between protection and possession were already fraying faster than he liked.

She was a job. A contract. A mission wrapped in stilettos and secrets. He’d handled difficult people before—slippery informants, terrified witnesses, spoiled heirs. But none of them made his pulse stutter like she did. None of them felt like this.

Except she wasn’t. Not anymore. Not after that kiss. Not after the way she’d looked at him, touched him, molded her body into his with that raw, reckless hunger. He could still feel her heat, the tension in her thighs around his leg, the sound of her breath catching as he took control.

He paced the length of the loft, footsteps muffled against the hardwood, the stillness pressing in from all sides.

The soft tick of the kitchen clock sounded deafening in the silence she left behind.

Her bedroom door remained shut, the same way his fists stayed clenched at his sides.

She hadn’t come out—and he hadn’t gone in. Not yet.

Dawson thought of Reed and Harper. Jesse and Keely.

Gavin and Roxie. Hawke and Vanessa. Each of them had found more than just love—they’d found safety, belonging, a home in another person.

Their laughter, their battles, their unshakable bonds echoed in his mind.

And here he was, standing alone in a dim loft, silence pressing on him like a vice, wondering if he would ever find what they had.

All of them had found a way through the chaos.

Through danger. Through pain. All of them had someone who looked past the armor and demanded more.

She wasn’t just beautiful. She was smart. Strong. Brave in ways she didn’t even understand yet. And beneath all that polish and poise, there was a hunger—a need—for something deeper. Something real. Something he could give her.

His feet moved before permission caught up with reason, bringing him to her door on instinct alone.

He hesitated, palm hovering midair, heart a slow-drum thunder in his chest. One beat.

Another. Then he knocked once, the sound loud in the silence—and pushed the door open, stepping across the threshold that might change everything.

She was sitting on the bed, still in that damn dress, her posture deceptively casual—but Dawson’s breath hitched all the same.

That fabric clung to curves already seared into his memory, the ones he’d dreamed of touching, tasting, owning.

Her Kindle lay abandoned beside her like a forgotten offering.

Evangeline’s gaze flicked to him, slow and deliberate, the corner of her mouth curving—not in a smile, but something far more dangerous: challenge. Her head tilted slightly, assessing him like a chess opponent, daring him to make the next move, the air between them crackling with unspoken demand.

He hadn’t even touched her yet, and his body was already strung tight with the kind of arousal that had stalked him all night.

If she’d walked out into the room earlier—spun around in that dress with mischief in her eyes—he might have pinned her against the nearest wall and taken her without preamble, without words.

Not because he was weak, but because she made him crave surrender in ways that had nothing to do with power and everything to do with need.

But he didn't let himself give in—not because he didn’t want to, but because if he touched her now, there’d be no stopping. No walking away. And tonight wasn’t about giving in to impulse. It was about drawing the line before it disappeared completely.

“You need to tell me to leave, Evangeline.”

He wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. Part of him longed for her to send him away, to give him an excuse to retreat behind the walls he’d spent years fortifying. But another part—hungrier, more reckless—hoped she’d ask him to stay, to step over that invisible line and never look back.

Her eyebrows arched. "Do I?"

He crossed to her in two steps, stopping just short of touching her. “Yes because once this starts, it doesn’t stop until I say it does. You want more, you get it. But you get it my way.”

Something sparked in her eyes. “Then show me.”

His breath caught. Christ, she didn’t even flinch—didn’t blink, didn’t break eye contact. Her stillness wasn’t fear, but something far more dangerous: intent. The kind of raw, focused submission that ignited every dominant instinct he’d ever buried deep.

He hated to break the intimacy that seemed to be building, but he also didn't want to proceed until they both knew the other was safe and that with her he preferred to not have to use a condom. “I'd prefer not to use condoms..."

"Plural?" she sassed.

He nodded. "Count on it. I’m clean. Regular tests through work. You?”

She nodded, more solemn now. “Also clean, and on birth control. I'd prefer nothing between us as well.”

“Good.”

He reached down and took her hand, lifting it slowly until her wrist was exposed. Then the other. Her pulse beat fast under his fingers. “You don’t move unless I tell you to. You speak when I ask. You stop this with one word—red. Understand?”

That boundary, that pause, wasn’t hesitation—it was discipline.

Years of field protocol, trauma intervention, and Dom training had ingrained the importance of informed consent so deeply it lived in his muscle memory.

When someone put their body in your hands, it wasn’t a thrill—it was trust. Sacred. Absolute.

A tremor ran through her. “Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I understand.”

He leaned in, his mouth brushing her ear, warm breath stirring the fine hairs on her neck. “Then stand up and strip.”

His voice wrapped around her like velvet and steel.

The heat of her body bled into his space, brushing against his self-control like a match to dry tinder.

The cool loft air kissed his skin, but it did nothing to cool the fire curling low and hot in his gut.

Her scent—jasmine laced with something darker—wrapped around him, familiar and utterly female.

She rose, slow and trembling. Her eyes stayed locked on his as she slid the dress down her body, the silky fabric whispering over her skin and pooling at her feet.

A faint shiver chased down her spine as the cool loft air kissed her bare flesh, the contrast to the lingering heat of his gaze making her nerves sing.

The faint scent of her perfume rose between them, thickening the tension until it pressed against her skin as palpably as his hands soon would.

No bra. No panties. Just flushed skin and fire in her gaze.

Her nipples peaked as if begging for his touch, the temperature shift painting her skin in goosebumps. His restraint stretched taut as her breath hitched, lips parted, body already pliant with anticipation—and she hadn’t even moved.

He didn’t touch her yet. He circled her with slow, deliberate steps, his gaze scorching a path across her bare skin.

Every inch of her was cataloged—flushed cheeks, the subtle tremble in her thighs, the hard points of her nipples, the rise and fall of her chest as her breathing quickened.

His presence wrapped around her like heat from a furnace, heavy and consuming, the air thick with the scent of anticipation and arousal.

"You’re beautiful," he murmured, voice rough. "But you already know that. I’m going to show you something more. What it means to belong."

She swallowed hard, the sound barely audible, her pulse a wild flutter beneath the skin of her throat. Heat flashed through her body, anticipation laced with something sharper. Her thighs quivered, not with fear, but with the need to be touched, claimed, taken.

“On your back on the bed, hands above your head."

Her lips parted on a shallow breath as she slowly turned and crawled onto the bed, her skin humming with the promise of what was coming.

Her lithe form quivering like a leaf in a storm, her porcelain skin painted with the rosy hue of desire.

He retrieved a pair of supple leather cuffs from his weathered duffel bag at the foot of the bed—a constant companion, a habit born of experience.

He had to leave his kit there as he had never had a woman in his bed, his space, his life.