Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

“What now?” Nash asked once they got back to their rooms.

“I need some...space, if you don’t mind,” she said carefully. “After everything that's happened between us, you're even more of a distraction. Can you maybe direct that energy somewhere else for, like, thirty minutes? Then we can grab something to eat. I just...need to try something. Alone."

He immediately nodded. "Of course, Grace. Whatever you need."

He shifted his duffel, relaxed and easy. "I was thinking about checking out the weapon Caspari got me. I normally clean my own gun."

Her body heated.God help her, she was thinking about cleaning something else entirely. Focus, Grace. "Okay. That sounds good," she said, aiming for professionalism.

"Can we leave the connecting door open?" he asked casually. "I don't like the people I'm supposed to protect being out of my sight."

That was how Grace ended up in her room on her laptop, while Nash was in his, field-stripping a Glock with a casual, lethal grace that made it impossible not to watch.

When he pulled out the gun oil and cleaning cloth, he caught her staring and gave her a sidelong glance.

"It might help if you stop watching me," he teased, "and plant your butt."

"I rest my case," she muttered, and pulled the door partially closed. Nash grumbled, but didn’t argue.

She opened her laptop, dug into the logs she'd pulled at the last minute from OrdoTech.

This time, with her pulse steady and her brain working properly, she found it,a ghost vendor, hidden under layers of scrubbed approvals and dead codes. Someone had buried it deep. Too deep for it to be a mistake.

She smiled.

"Caspari said you flagged something. You confirmed it," she called out.

"Invoice discrepancies," Nash said from the other room. "The old money switcheroo. Shell games."

She nodded to herself, piecing it together.

"So, the common thread remains OrdoTech," she said. "That’s what made Caspari put two and two together. Different threads, same sweater." She leaned back in her chair, a new fire kindling low in her chest. "You hunted the financial funny business," she said. "Time for me to dig up the digital skeletons."

"We'll meet in the middle," Nash said quietly.

For the first time in months, Grace smiled. A real one.

Her finger hovered over the keyboard, a shiver running down her spine. This was the first breadcrumb they’d found. The glitches replayed in her mind, suddenly sharper.The elevator jerking, snapping her back to the drone malfunction. The impact. The explosion. The vending machine spitting every chip bag but the one she wanted. Comical, if it wasn’t so eerie. Add in the gamesmanship with Rory. Someone was nervous, and that was still very good for them.

Nervous people slipped. Nervous people showed their hands.

Maybe not the whole company. Maybe just someone inside it, or maybe a contractor who didn’t want their secrets exhumed. She closed her eyes. Breathed once. Fuck that person.

If they were hiding something, she was going to break it wide open.

Nash came in. God , could the man help making an entrance?

Here the fuck I am. Let’s move. Let’s go. Let’s get this done.

“Let’s get dinner, I’m starving.” He closed her laptop firmly. “Let’s hope whoever fucked with the vending machine doesn’t have access to a restaurant.”

She laughed softly, the sound caught her off guard. “Could you be any more adorable?” She stiffened. Oh, God. Had she actually said that out loud?

She turned in her chair and just stared at him. Those almost black eyes were dancing. He was thrilled by her unthinking outburst, a direct reaction to him.

Suddenly he was close, leaning in, a warped grin appeared, and a touch of wry humor in his voice. “Yeah, I can, but my cuteness is like a weapon. I should holster it for now before someone gets hurt.”

She almost blurted. What kind of hurt? But caught herself at the last minute.

He hesitated, then met her gaze directly, and she experienced a weird sensation in the pit of her stomach. His voice had a peculiar huskiness to it as he continued, the sparkle intensifying. “You know,” his eyes went over her, “too much of a good thing…”

Breathe, Grace…just take a breath. You remember how to breathe…don’t you? Inhale, get life-giving oxygen, then exhale the bad stuff. Right, easy as pie, biological. But he was a storm of biology and anatomy. Put together by a God who loved his creation, a gift.

“I think that cuteness comes with a side of ego. You got a double holster there, hotshot?” She had to do something to dissipate this overload of sensation for a woman who had been so locked up for so long, and he was just too goddamned charming.

Then he stunned her again, and again without even trying. That grin widened into a full smile, transforming his handsome face into something lethal. That smile could ruin a woman. Was this what ruin felt like? Then she wanted his apocalypse. It knocked into her like kinetic energy pulled into a fist and punched her in the heart. She lost her breath again for entirely different reasons. Nashir Rahim turned into an intoxicating rush.

Some of that weaponized smile faded into a twisty grin. “Come on. Food, woman. We’ve earned a good meal.”

It was back in the car to the first place they came to. Italian. Both of them called out stop at the same time. He looked over. “Pasta…no brainer.”

“You’re talking my food love language.”

So, he smiled again, and she wasn’t sure if she was now working at getting him to do that like every second…

He parked, and they went inside and got a table. When they opened the menu, she asked, “What’s your go-to comfort food?”

“Lasagna. My mom…oh man, she made the hell out of that dish. You?”

She looked up from her menu, met his eyes, caught up in the pleasure of that memory about his mom’s cooking as much as he was. She wished she had something like that in her childhood, but she was lucky she got a cake on her birthday. “In college, my friends and I would go for late-night comfort food…chicken alfredo. Oh, my God, I haven’t had it since?—”

A lump formed in her throat.

“Grace…” Nash’s voice rasped out, his features softening. His tone was regretful, like he was at fault for making her remember her past trauma.

“No, Nash. It’s okay. Maybe I didn’t want comfort, maybe I thought I didn’t deserve it.”

“Fuck, Grace.” He reached out, hesitated for a moment, then covered her hand in a tight squeeze. “That drone strike wasn’t your fault. Stop doing that shit to yourself.”

“I will, if you will.”

His shoulders tensed. The smile vanished. Then he closed his eyes, like the words cost him breath. “I don’t know if I can,” he whispered. His jaw clenched as he looked away. “I can’t remember their faces, Grace. Not clearly. Just shadows, voices, shapes that slip when I try to hold on. That hurts so goddamn deep I don’t know what to do with it.” He swallowed, eyes fixed on something far away. “Kento… he was our corpsman. Decorated. Brave as hell. He patched us up under fire, never hesitated. Not because he had our backs because he believed our survival was his responsibility, and he never failed us.” He shook his head. “Riggs… that man could gut you with a look, hard as hell. But when shit got real, when someone broke down or bled too much… he was the one who sat with you. Held pressure. Held space.” Nash’s voice trembled, barely audible now.

“Burner… fuck, Burner was always laughing. Always had a line. So, in love with Rita, you didn’t even have to ask. You could hear it in his voice.”

He breathed out, ragged and thin. “They were mine. My brothers. Now it’s like… the more I try to remember, the more they disappear.”

She took a breath, but it caught halfway. Her fingers curled into fists on the table as she clenched her jaw. “I’m glad I came back, Nash,” she said, voice low, thick. “You were right. We couldn’t leave them behind again.”

But even as the words left her, the memories came rushing in.

Mira’s scream. Danner’s body…just gone.

The blood, the fire, the impossible ringing in her ears as the world came down. After she’d woken up, she’d dragged herself out of the wreckage half-blind, lungs burning, every inch of her body screaming. I should’ve caught it faster. Why didn’t GRAVITY listen?

She looked at him, eyes shining, voice shaking but steady.

“I remember how they died, Nash. I can give testimony to their sacrifices. Their last breaths. Their final acts. I was there. I saw it all.” Her voice caught. “If I let myself, maybe even closure.” She drew a trembling breath. “You didn’t get that.” He looked up, eyes dark and burning. “There can’t be closure without witness,” she whispered. “You’re a man who understands sacrifice better than anyone. But you can’t speak to their last moments. Can’t testify to what they chose. What they felt. If they gave everything to save you.”

She reached for his hand again, her grip firm.

“I know they would have.”

“That’s what tortures you,” she said fiercely. “You’re a survivor without context.” Her throat thickened. “I’m a survivor with it.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “But the guilt’s the same. It doesn’t ease the weight. It only sharpens it.” Tears stung her eyes now, hot and unrelenting. Still, she didn’t look away. “I promise you… if I have to track down the bastard who did this to us from the grave, I’ll haunt the best damn hacker on the planet to make it happen. I will get you the answers you deserve.” She squeezed his hand hard. “Thank you for reminding me why we’re doing this. It’s not about you. Or me. Like you said. It’s about them.”

Nash’s mouth quirked, soft but fierce. “I’m going to make sure you keep breathing, beautiful,” he said, voice low, steady. “You are the best damn hacker on the planet. Together…” His hand tightened over hers. “We’re going to nail this bastard.”

She looked up.

Something passed between them, intangible, electric. Like heat shimmer rising off scorched pavement. In that white-hot beat between their hearts, the promise they’d made twisted into something deeper. A slow, searing current that coiled down her spine and anchored low in her belly.

He looked scorched by it. Like he felt it too. Like she was his heart magnet, and he’d stopped fighting the pull.

The hair on his arms prickled.

Her heart trembled.

Her body leaned toward him before her mind caught up.

This was an intimate danger, him, a bigger threat . In the way he saw her. In the way he made her feel real again. She could taste it, feel it humming under her skin. That wild, razor-edge thrill of adrenaline. She wanted to know everything now. Every scar. Every breath. Every piece he’d never let anyone see.

But something shifted in his eyes.

Without a word, he let go of her hand.

The break felt like recoil. A snapped wire. The ache in her chest was instantaneous, raw, and unexpected. But she understood. What they’d shared had weight. Maybe he needed to breathe again. Maybe she did too. Her gaze dropped to the table, but her mind drifted back to the night before. To her at the door, frozen. Hearing him go. Then come back. The soft sounds of pain bleeding through the connecting wall.

When she turned the knob and it hit her, the door was unlocked… it felt like the first step into her downfall. She’d planned to leave. Then she saw him writhing on the bed, silent, shoulders hunched, enduring.

Her stillness couldn’t save her from this… from him.

She wasn’t even sure what she was doing, invading his privacy, touching him under the pretext of soothing. Secretly caressing his nape, the skin that was softer than she had anticipated, warm against her tingling fingertips. His hair brushed against the back of her hand, and she had to bite her lip to keep from making a sound.

At her touch, he’d calmed, settled, and that reaction delved down into her core like the snowflakes had gathered around him this morning, falling with a hushed silence that touched her. This man… Still and silent . He was a rock, a foundation that was forged with iron will, and an anchor that never faltered. In motion , he was a storm of violent action, a wildfire roaring, a tempest whirling into a dangerous wind.

Before those debilitating and stark words stripped of pretense or mercy, she could have fled, but once he opened that beautiful mouth, giving her nothing but himself in that quiet place between their pain and a hope of healing, he had changed her.

She took a shuddering breath.

She’d invaded his privacy again to find the pills she was sure a man who was six months out of recovery would carry for emergencies. Got water while he silently endured the pain. When she massaged his temples, she wanted to be ice in the worst way. When that gorgeous jaw relaxed, she relaxed.

Tenderness filled her, and she reeled from it. Isolation had taken everything she was, everything that made her a woman, a human being, someone who cut off connection to survive, and she had been wrong. This was powerful and potent, and Nash was a force of nature.

There was history in him. Not the kind you read about. The kind that survived by memory, whispered through generations. He was a descendant of poets and warriors. Of men who protected caravans with curved blades and sacred vows. Of cities lost to sand, and stories too dangerous to write down. A face like that didn’t come from nowhere. It came from bloodlines , the kind forged under burning suns, shaped by honor, and carried forward by men who didn’t just fight… they endured.

Former Navy SEAL.

Special operator.

Warrior.

Different bones. Different ghosts. A body built for war, endurance, and survival, a body made to love, to touch, to devour, to hold.

But it wasn’t just power. It was control.

There was restraint in him.

A gentleness, tucked behind the battlefield.

She swallowed hard at that.

God, he was overwhelming. She hadn’t just been blowing smoke, and with that shiver came fear, it rushed through her with debilitating force, trying to consume her. It whispered, you’re not safe, Grace. He’s not your protection. He’s your destruction. This man will wreck you. Run. But she pushed it back. Let him wreck her. She was sick of being numb.

They sat in shared silence until the food came, and she enjoyed the hell out of her pasta.

“So, about the gaslight with the cooking logs. What does that mean for us?” Nash asked, still watching her carefully.

Grace blinked, as if surfacing from somewhere deeper. Her body was still humming from the moment they’d just shared, but the analytical part of her brain, sharp, relentless, was already locking back into place.

“It means someone’s actively trying to misdirect us,” she said. “They’re scared we’ll figure out what they don’t want us to see.”

She reached for her laptop, fingers moving with calm precision. “This isn’t just a locked door. It’s a warning. Whoever set it expects us to get frustrated, to walk away.” She paused, just long enough to meet his gaze. “We’re not walking.” Then she leaned back, her voice cool and measured now, almost clinical, but Nash smiled. “This is turning into a cat and mouse situation,” she murmured. “I intend to be the cat. Not the kind that chases. The kind that waits right at the mouth of the hole.” She folded her arms, tone dropping to a purr. “I’ll be still. I’ll be patient. When that whiskered little bastard shows his twitching face—” She smiled, slow and razor-edged. “I’ll pounce.”

Nash let out a low whistle. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

“You already did,” she said, not missing a beat. “But I’m letting it go. For now.”

No reaction. Not even a twitch. God, she loved his cool-as-hell attitude. Like he was made of ice and storm, pure, composed, lethal force.

Fucking gorgeous SEAL.

Nash tilted his head, eyes narrowing just a touch, like he was reassessing her, cataloging her weapons. “You ever think about trying out for BUD/S?”

Grace blinked. “Excuse me?”

He grinned, that lazy, dangerous curve that should’ve come with a warning label. “I’m serious. You’ve got the patience of a sniper and the killer instinct of a demolition charge.”

She snorted. “Please. I'd cyber the bell before day one’s over. Rewrite the protocols. Maybe hack the instructors and make them ring out.” She leaned in slightly, eyes gleaming, voice like velvet over steel. “I wouldn’t survive BUD/S.”

Nash’s brow lifted, intrigued.

“I’d be their Hell Week on wheels. ”

He nodded solemnly. “I’d pay to see that.” He shook his head, then. “But then the whole command structure collapses and suddenly the DoD is asking why SEAL Team Harlan is running black ops with code and caffeine. So...scratch that.” That earned him her low chuckle. “You should still write that mouse hole method into doctrine. Make it official canon. Grace Harlan’s Law: Wait. Watch. Wreck.”

She gave him a sly smile. “You want my autograph now or after I catch our twitchy little bastard?”

He leaned closer. “I’ll take it when he’s in cuffs.”

After dinner, they walked back to the room. Nash seemed careful, subdued, almost brooding, and along with the cuteness and that devastating smile, his attractiveness just kept adding up in the sexy column.

“Good night, Grace. Thank you…for dinner.”

She stood, frozen as he disappeared behind his door, that low rumble of a voice still curling in her ear. Wait. That was it? He was retreating? Had she said something wrong?

Disappointment caught her off guard. Normally, the idea of being alone was a relief, retreating to the comfort of her own private space where nothing could touch her, nothing could pull too hard. But now? Now she didn’t want the night to end.

She didn’t want to stop talking to him.

He had a way of teasing things out of her that no one else could reach. The man was an enigma, dangerous, funny, gentle when she didn’t expect it, and she wanted to unravel him. From the way he was so damn cute to the way he had survived when the people she loved didn’t.

She stepped into her room, but it felt just a shade emptier than before.

She needed solitude. That was the truth. She needed it to recharge, to reorient, to make sure she had what she needed to face the world each day.

But him? How did he do that? How did he project presence like that, just standing there, shadowed and bruised, energy banked low like coals under ash, and still manage to command the entire room?

She exhaled slowly, pressing her back to the wall. She wondered, not idly, not innocently, what he’d be like in bed. Would he hold that power tight… or let it go? Would he whisper? Growl? Say nothing at all? Would he brace his body like he did in the gym, shoulders locked, core engaged, or would that restraint break? Would he worship her, slow and reverent? Or pin her down with all that force and finally, finally, unleash?

Her skin prickled. Talk about drowning.

She blinked hard, shoved the thought back where it came from, but it left something behind. A pulse. Low. Unrelenting.

Dangerous.

She was pent up and unsettled, her breath still not back to baseline. That low rumble of a goodbye kept echoing in her chest like a subharmonic she couldn’t tune out.

What was it about him that intrigued her?

Obviously, he was a whole human being, layered, experienced, scarred , but if she broke down the individual parts, would she find an answer?

Maybe understanding him piece by piece would ease whatever this was that was pressing beneath her skin. She had to know more. Everything.

Shrugging out of her coat, she swung her laptop off her shoulder, dropped onto the bed, and settled cross-legged like she was prepping for a digital stakeout. The moment the screen came to life, she typed the only question that mattered: What Makes a Navy SEAL?

The search page bloomed to life, and with it everything that made up him.

Grace stared at the screen and devoured the information. Okay, she was looking this up for…research. All right, she wasn’t exactly in tune with her body. She really found relationships worse than a puzzle that couldn’t be solved. Men normally were confusing and annoying most of the time, but Nash wasn’t on either count.

She clicked the first link. BUD/S. Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. Six months of evolution forged in surf, sand, and pain. Another click. Drown-proofing.Hands and feet bound. Thrown into water. Expected not just to survive, but to adapt. Swim like that. Thrive like that. Another. Hell Week: Five days of sleep deprivation. Hypothermia. Psychological stress designed to fracture even the most iron-willed. She read firsthand accounts. Men hallucinating from exhaustion. Crawling through freezing mud. Eyes so swollen they couldn’t open them, voices hoarse from screaming, not in pain, but in encouragement .

They sang to each other under the surf. They didn’t fight alone, and if they broke, there was someone there to have their backs. Her throat tightened.

Another article.

The brotherhood. Bonded in blood and fire. Instructors said the man beside you would carry you when you couldn't move. That no SEAL ever completed BUD/S alone.

She took a breath. He’d done this. All of this was just a preliminary into one of the most elite forces in history. She sat back, breath shallow, heart pounding. The training hadn’t made him, he’d risen to the challenge with grit, courage, and that elusive mental toughness.

Wow, his mind was more fascinating than anything she’d ever encountered, more than code, more than systems, more than military. How did that work? In tandem with his heart?

Then, when he lost it? Oh, God. Stripped from him in a discharge report that probably read like cold paperwork, “medical disqualification,” when it was really the severing of something essential.

That hit her like fresh shrapnel.Losing his teammates had to have gutted him. But losing the work ? The identity? The brotherhood? The service.

That had to be a second death. She blinked, hand trembling slightly on the trackpad. The algorithm had caught on. Suggested searches stacked up like temptation.

Navy SEAL physical training

Tactical endurance testing

Anatomy of elite warriors

SEAL body structure: What it takes

She clicked again. This wasn’t just research. This was understanding, and she craved that until it was an ache. The swimming. The ice plunges. The breath control. The distance dives. The heavy rucks. The controlled free-falls. Jumping out of planes, scaling rock faces, submerging in freezing oceans with thirty pounds of gear strapped to his chest.

She found a video interview with a former SEAL, and the interviewer wanted to know what made them unique. I’d have to say the water element. SEAL Teams were formed from water, their home base, and they mastered it. Look, it’s a hostile environment, the temperatures, the bone-crushing pressure. The ocean will kill you if you turn your back on it. If the enemy is pursuing you, go to the water. No normal person is brave enough or stupid enough to follow.

So that meant they needed some strong bodies to navigate that environment. She read about core tension, hip loading, pelvic stability, and how that famous taper from shoulder to waist wasn’t for show. It was function. Built to withstand impact. To generate force. To carry others .

Grace was many things. Detached, rational, compartmentalized. But she was also a seeker, and she’d found something that unraveled her. She bet he was magnificent in water.

She wasn’t ogling. She wasn’t fantasizing. She was studying him. From his mindset to his muscle groups. From his pain to his perseverance.

She scrolled to a detailed anatomical diagram of elite combat athletes.

Her breath caught.

The male form when worked down to low body fat so that every muscle was stark and delineated was testament to strength, discipline , not the kind built in gyms, but real-world muscle from the back to the biceps, to the…oh hello…what were these V-shaped indentations on the sides of a man’s body? Adonis Belt, the inguinal ligament, highlighted and labeled, perfectly formed where tension met symmetry.

Her gaze drifted lower on the diagram.

She swallowed. Okay. Maybe a little ogling.

But the structure mattered. With this man, it all mattered.

The man on the other side of that door was a machine of survival.A system honed for precision, control… and violence. She wanted to understand it.

The unlocked door wasn’t just symbolic now.

It was an invitation to everything she'd just read about. To curiosity, to touch, to connection. To him.

She reached to close the laptop. Her hand hesitated. That scent?

Jasmine. She looked over. He was awake. The door that separated her from some live, hands-on understanding. She rose off the bed and walked to the door. She tried the handle, and once again it was unlocked. Did she dare?

She’d meant to knock. She always knocked. But the scent of her favorite tea and the faint shuffle of movement inside tugged at her feet. The boundary had already blurred.

Unlocked didn’t mean welcome. But it didn’t mean stay out either.

It meant trust and trust was terrifying.

But she thought about everything she’d read about SEALs. They might be amazing and have mental resilience, but at the end of the day, they were sensitive, complicated men. Nash wasn’t any different. He’d proven his depth of emotion during dinner. Her heart squeezed at the memory of his face.

She didn’t go into rooms uninvited. Not metaphorically. Not literally.

It was a choice. A quiet one. A dangerous one.

For once in her life, she was tired of being safe.

She turned the handle and stepped inside. Oxygen became an elusive memory.

He was brewing tea all right on a small portable water dispenser provided by the hotel. He didn’t acknowledge her, but being a SEAL, situational awareness was ingrained, and he probably had already noted that she was awake the moment she touched the handle to the door, and the moment she opened it. That gave her a little courage that he wanted her in his space, and her heart did a little tumble. He was sharing his space with her as if that was just a given for him.

She wanted to be here more than she even realized.

That potent energy that had radiated off him during dinner and in the hall was still banked. It hummed around him like a low-level generator.

He was barefoot, and her gaze traveled over well-defined calves and up his long, strong legs. From mid-thigh to the base of his spine, he was covered with a towel, but there was no mistaking that he had an ass that was just as rock hard as the rest of him. Oh, damn, towel ? She’d barely registered that he had just gotten out of the shower.

His back, the dim light delineating heavy muscles kissed with shadows, shimmering with moisture, was like a work of art. He was…monumental. No, not just big. Engineered. Everything on him had a purpose, form driven by function. His back alone looked like something da Vinci might’ve diagrammed without having to embellish much. Thirteen percent body fat was what was required to sculpt that kind of a physique.

Precision muscle groups. Symmetry. Power and strength no one would dare mess with. Broad shoulders that could carry a man out of a firefight, or break one in half, or brace a woman when she wanted to get so much closer.

She shouldn’t be looking. But she was cataloging, not ogling. That made it better, right?

God. His hands. They looked so large next to the small mug. She thought about how it would feel to have his heated palm and long fingers stroking across her bare, sensitive flesh, and shivered.

He turned around, and the view just got better, and she cataloged some more of those muscles that helped him to do his job effectively. She took in the dark muss of his hair, the chiseled cut of his jaw and beautiful mouth, and suddenly she went a little crazy. Kiss him.

What? No. She didn’t do that kind of thing. But the strong column of his throat beckoned her as she stepped closer, noting his collarbone, the broad expanse of his chest, the flat, dark disks of his nipples sending a shiver down her spine, then those sculpted contours of his washboard abs, and she zeroed in on that Adonis Belt, like a giant arrow pointing downward to naughty land.

She read his body language, frustrated, restrained, held in check. Why?

“Is everything okay, Grace?” Oh, he was worried about her, and when she didn’t answer right away, he asked, “Couldn’t sleep?” He tilted his head. “Figuring out mouse hole theory, planning drills? Sharpening your claws?”

She shook her head. “Can you stop overwhelming me with your cuteness, again?”

He swallowed, and the light went out of those dark pools. God, his lashes were so thick as they closed, leaving black-sooted half-moons below his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I was just kidding.”

He looked away, his chest heaving a little. “So, no developments?”

“No…um…I was doing research.”

“On?”

“Well, you…ah, men…Navy SEALs, actually.”

“After you exhausted the internet, you came to the source?”

“Aren’t you perceptive?”

She stepped closer, and he looked like he was bracing for another impact. Grace gestured to those intriguing indentations on either side of his body. “Do you know what this is called?” she asked gently.

His mouth kicked up as he looked down, his voice half-amused. “Pretty sure it’s my stomach.”

“Yeah, that's a good layman’s term, but it’s also called an Adonis Belt for obvious reasons,” she said softly.

He frowned, looking at her with such intensity she trembled.

“My what now?”

“Technically, the inguinal ligament. But when it’s defined like this, it’s… well, it’s kind of iconic.”

“Are you calling my abs famous?”

“I’m calling them structurally significant. May I?” Before he could fully give her permission, she traced it lightly. He sucked in a hard breath, his body going rigid.“This supports your pelvic structure, distributes load across the hip flexors, stabilizes?—”

“Grace.” His voice came out like hushed gravel.

She was lost in how his skin was like velvet over steel, the firmness of the ligament, and her breath hitched. “…and it’s beautiful.” She traced to the top of the terry. “It goes all the way down, curving around your?—"

“ Grace ,” he muttered, this time his voice strangled. He grabbed her wrist, just held it, and her gaze went back to his face. Heat arched between them, and she watched him struggle to keep his reaction to her in check.

His gaze, so dark and intense, narrowed at her, as if he were trying to figure out exactly what she was up to. “Are you trying to seduce me, hebbiti ?” He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, letting her go.

Startled at his question and the tenderness and heat of his mouth, although she shouldn’t be, Nash was direct all the time, she blurted, “I don’t know.” Her voice compressed in a wash of shame. The words slipped out before she could stop them. “Am I doing a bad job?” She wanted to take them back immediately, not because they weren’t true, but because she’d never asked that question before. Never needed someone to want her back this much.

This wasn’t about what peg went into what slot. If it were, she wouldn’t feel like her heart had just stepped out onto a ledge. She wouldn’t be waiting, aching , for something more than friction. Pleasure was fleeting, a moment of ecstasy, requiring no effort, but connection was so much more than body parts. It hummed not for the moment, but for an eternity. She wanted him to see her, and she wanted to be seen, frightening her to the marrow. Being seen meant letting someone in, past the armor, past the algorithms, past the carefully curated silence.

She was a woman who survived by staying just out of reach. Now she was breaking that rule, pushing past her own borders, trying to get close. What would it mean if he turned away?

If she risked intimacy… and it proved her worst fear? That maybe she wasn’t enough.

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He just looked at her. Like she was more than code. More than firewalls and systems and scar tissue.

Her heart jumped, her mind humming with something dangerously close to hope. That intangible, unquantifiable emotion that…depended on… him . What would he need from her? Presence whispered low and in shadow like that was a sin. Could Nash be the one-in-a-million who didn’t flinch at the mess beneath her surface? Who didn’t see lack at all?

She might have run, should’ve, by her old rules, but for that look. Nash rewrote her code in a language without words. Like she was his answer, and it scared the hell out of him.