Page 8 of The Tracker (Cowboys of Silver Spur Security #5)

DAWSON

T he conference room had smelled of fear and arrogance—an expensive blend, like cologne masking something rancid beneath. Dawson had stood at the rear of the room, arms folded, jaw locked, scanning the faces around the polished mahogany table with the precision of a sniper—calculating, clinical.

Each board member had been a study in tells: the VP of Operations had drummed his fingers, too fast and too loud; the General Counsel, red-faced and silent, had clutched his leather portfolio like it held a lifeline.

He had noted every twitch, every tight-lipped smile, every sideways glance toward Peter Rhodes.

Not a single one of them had met his gaze directly.

He hadn’t needed to be a profiler to read the truth—there had been rot beneath the corporate sheen, and too many of those polished professionals had been knee-deep in it.

One or two might have been clean, but Dawson had staked his life on worse odds before—and never without a weapon within reach. He hadn’t bothered hiding the fact that he was watching, that he was cataloging every face, every movement, every carefully measured lie.

Evangeline had sat straight-backed at the head of the long table, her posture regal but edged with tension.

Dawson had kept his gaze moving, reading the room.

One board member had tapped nervously at a Montblanc pen, shooting glances toward Rhodes like a dog waiting on a command.

Another—the CFO—had tugged at his collar and refused to meet Evangeline’s eyes.

Only one woman near the end—older, sharp-eyed, legal—had watched Evangeline with what might have been concern. Or calculation. Dawson hadn’t decided which. Either way, he’d filed her away with the rest.

Every twitch. Every shift in posture. Every non-answer. They had painted a picture far louder than any of the polished words being spoken aloud.

Evangeline’s voice had remained calm, her expression polished to an ice-smooth veneer.

A princess on her throne, fending off wolves in designer suits.

But Dawson had seen the cracks she didn’t want anyone else to notice—the slight tremble of her hand as she adjusted her glasses, the fractional pause before responding to Rhodes’ veiled threats.

She had been holding on by a thread, and something in that—something raw and fraying—had sparked a firestorm inside him.

He'd never expected to feel it again—the need to steady someone else, to shield them from the storm.

But watching Evangeline sit there, barely holding the line, it had slammed into him hard.

He wanted to be the one to strip away the armor she wore like silk and steel, to show her what it meant to be protected without condition.

What it meant to be truly seen—and still held anyway.

The knowledge that she was barely keeping it together hadn’t made him dismiss her. It had made him ache to hold her up. To command her into stillness. To bring her to her knees—not to break her—but to show her that surrender wasn’t weakness.

Not when it was given to someone who could carry the weight.

And seeing that—seeing those vulnerable edges peeking out from all that polish—had hit him harder than he liked.

It had called to something deep and anchored inside him.

Something that wanted to wrap her in silence and steel.

To strip away the mask and rebuild her from the ground up, on his terms. Because dominance, as he understood it, had never been about breaking someone.

It had always been about holding them together when they couldn’t do it themselves, and damn if he hadn’t wanted to be that anchor for her.

And what twisted low and dark in his gut wasn’t just that he’d seen it.

It was that she hadn’t known. Hadn’t realized how clearly he’d read her fragility, how deeply he’d cataloged every flicker of vulnerability she’d tried to hide.

And he wasn’t sure if that made him feel protective—or predatory.

He’d followed her into her office, watching her carefully, noting the way her shoulders stiffened beneath the calm facade she wore like armor. They'd exchanged barbs and then gone to neutral corners as Evangeline worked and Dawson watched.

Rhodes, oily and confident, had joined them later in the afternoon and tried to plant himself in her space like he owned it.

Dawson stepped in, quiet but unyielding, and the man slithered away, muttering.

But not before Dawson noticed the flash drive half-hidden in Rhodes’ palm—a whisper of silver sliding into a pocket that had no business holding it.

That was his second red flag of the day.

He couldn’t shake the way that flash drive had glinted beneath the fluorescents—just for a second, it had caught the light like a blade, sharp and deliberate.

A warning, maybe. Or a signature. His gut twisted with recognition—the kind that came from years in the field, when a detail too small to matter suddenly screamed for attention.

The first had been earlier that morning when his laptop caught a flagged outbound signal—a data packet sent from a shadowed server in the Shaw Petrochemical system.

Dawson had already begun pulling logs and IP histories. Someone was siphoning files.

He should be focused on tracking the breach, not cataloging every flick of Evangeline’s lashes. But hell if his brain was cooperating.

He watched her now from the threshold of her office, noting the contrast between the soft drape of her borrowed sweater and the steel in her spine.

The deep V of the top exposed just enough to make his thoughts stray—her curves were distracting in ways he hadn't prepared for. But it was the way she held herself, cowboy boots grounded and battle-ready, that got under his skin. The incongruity hit him hard—this woman was grit wrapped in silk, command cloaked in vulnerability—and his control slipped another inch. Her posture rigid as she answered emails, the line of her throat exposed where she’d tied her hair into a loose knot.

Her clothes—clingy, too casual for the corporate shark tank—did nothing to dampen her authority.

Or his distraction.

Dawson leaned against the frame, watching.

The image of her bent over that desk— one that had never actually happened, but was just now taking root in his imagination—had triggered the moment she squared off with him across it, and it pissed him off.

Not because he didn’t want it—God help him, he did—but because he did want it, and that want was a distraction he couldn’t afford.

She was an op. A mark he had to protect. That should’ve been enough. It had to be enough. But it wasn’t, and that worried him in ways he didn’t have the luxury to unpack. He couldn’t lose focus now. Not when the danger was mounting—and not when her life depended on his clarity.

Still, the fantasy wouldn’t let go. It hit hard and fast the second she’d stood at that desk, spine straight, eyes blazing, daring him without a word. That moment had carved itself into him like a brand. He was supposed to be reading intel—reading her—but instead, his body had read the invitation.

The image surged to life—sudden, consuming, impossible to ignore.

Evangeline, bent over the polished surface, her breath fogging the lacquered wood, skirt bunched around her hips, feet braced wide.

His hands gripping her hips, steady and unyielding, commanding her with nothing but voice and control.

Her legs trembling—not from fear, but from the raw, unfiltered intensity of being claimed.

Her spine arched, taut beneath his palms, her throat bared in unspoken surrender.

It was primal. Consuming. A breach in every disciplined line he lived by.

The sharp slap of skin against skin would echo off the walls—a rhythm that didn’t belong in an office but thrummed through his veins all the same.

His voice, low and wrecked with restraint, would strip away the last of her defenses as he bent to her ear and whispered how beautiful she was when she surrendered.

Not because she had to. But because she wanted to. Because she trusted him to hold her together, even as he broke her apart.

The vision made his jaw tighten, blood pounding in his temples.

He hadn’t even spoken to her—just watched from across the room—and already, something about her disrupted the stillness he relied on.

Not lust. Not yet. Just an itch at the edge of his awareness, a subtle shift in the air he couldn’t quite name.

He told himself it was instinct. The way she held herself—poised but bracing, like she expected to be hit and planned to smile through it. That kind of composure always caught his attention. Always made him wonder what it was costing her to stay upright.

His jaw clenched, breath dragging through his nose as the fantasy dissolved—hot, shattering, unwanted. Not now. Not with her scent in the air and danger still circling. He shoved it down, tamping the need beneath layers of discipline sharpened over years of restraint.

He pushed off the wall and crossed the room.

"You're pushing too hard," he said quietly, eyes locked on her screen.

She didn't look up. "And you're hovering. Again."

"Because someone tried to kill you."

Her fingers paused. The corner of her mouth twitched, like she wanted to snap back with something sharp, but couldn’t quite summon the edge.

He circled her desk, hands in his pockets. “You look wiped.”

She didn’t look up. “Wow. Sweet talk like that, no wonder the ladies line up.”

“Good thing charm’s not about appearances—I get by on personality alone.”

That earned him a glare. “You’re exhausting.”

He leaned in, voice low and amused. “Not yet. But keep going—I’m starting to feel inspired.”

The look she shot him could’ve curdled cream.

And yet, he saw it—the flash of color in her cheeks. The way her spine straightened, her breath caught.

She needed control like air. But she craved the opposite, too. He knew the signs. The bite in her tone. The polished perfection just begging to be stripped away.

He leaned in, close enough to catch the scent clinging to her—his shampoo, not hers. Something clean and masculine with a hint of cedar, now warmed by her skin. His voice dropped, low and smooth, the kind of tone meant to curl heat down a woman’s spine. "You’re unraveling."

He saw the moment it landed—her flinch was slight, just a flicker of muscle near her temple, but it ignited something primal in him.

Protectiveness, yes, but also something darker.

She was standing on the edge, and some part of him—too instinctive to deny—wanted to push her just far enough to catch her.

To force her to see he could hold her there, safely, no matter how hard she fell.

“And you’re scared to death someone might notice. "

He backed off before she could throw something. Not that it would’ve helped. He’d already memorized the shape of her mouth when she was mad.

Dawson turned back to his laptop, fingers flying as he pulled another set of server logs. More flags. More evidence. Whoever was doing this wasn’t sloppy—they knew what they were looking for.

And that meant someone on the inside.

He felt Evangeline behind him, her presence like static electricity at his back.

“Do you always work like this?” she asked finally.

He didn’t turn around. “Like what?”

“Like a machine. Like nothing touches you.”

He stared at the screen a second longer, then shut it.

“Touch is overrated.”

A lie, and they both knew it.

His voice sounded flat to his own ears, hollow in a way that scraped against the truth he’d spent years denying. The moment the words left his mouth, Dawson felt the echo of them in his chest—tight, suffocating.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, lips parting as if to speak, but she said nothing.

The silence that grew between them was thick and charged, every nerve suddenly alive to the dangerous thrum she always seemed to rouse in him.

He didn’t move, but the distance, the heat, the truth rippling out between them felt inescapable—too late to take back, and far too revealing to ignore.

He turned to face her fully. Her lips parted slightly, eyes narrowing like she wanted to pick him apart.

“You’re watching me,” she said.

“You make it hard not to.”

“You’re supposed to be watching the case.”

“I am.”

He took a step closer, watching her chest rise. “I see everything.”

Evangeline stood her ground. But her hands gripped the desk again. Always that damn desk.

“Careful, Dawson,” she said. “You’re dangerously close to sounding interested.”

“Sweetheart, if I were interested…” He stepped into her space, close enough that her scent enveloped him—jasmine and something warm and feminine, lush and decadent.

Her eyes widened, breath catching, but she didn’t move.

Her fingers flexed against the edge of the desk, a subtle tell.

Heat climbed her neck, blooming across her cheeks as she met his gaze head-on.

For a heartbeat, her lashes fluttered, and something unreadable flickered behind her eyes—shock, maybe.

Or want. Or both. Her breathing shallowed, but still, she didn’t flinch.

She absorbed the moment like the first prickle of lightning before a storm, humming just beneath her skin, holding the charge in silence.

“…you’d already be on your knees.”

Her breath hitched. Just once. Just enough.

But instead of answering, she turned and walked away.

Which was fine.

He wasn’t done—not yet. There was still a case to solve. This wasn’t just a leak. It was Peter. And someone working with him —someone smart enough to stay hidden and dangerous enough to make it count.

And then there was her. A woman unraveling in ways that could break them both wide open.

She was under his protection now— or under him , the thought flaring hot and possessive. It wasn’t just instinct—it was primal. She wasn’t simply another assignment. She’d slipped past every wall he’d built, igniting something raw and territorial that scared the hell out of him.

This was not only unprofessional, it was dangerous. Letting it get personal had cost him before. He’d buried men for that mistake. He couldn’t afford to do it again. Not with her. Not when the stakes were this high.

One thing was certain—the bastard was going down.

And Evangeline? He’d make damn sure she made it out alive. Whole. Safe. Protected.

And if it meant getting his hands dirty—again—so be it.