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His head thudded back. His hand went to his forehead, his other arm wrapping instinctively around her waist as he let out a groan and swore in three languages.

“ ?Mierda! Caralho! Putang ina ?—”

Then, with his eyes squeezed shut, he muttered, “What the fuck kind of blonde missile are you, lady?”

She froze, mortified, breathless, and somehow more aware of every contact point between their bodies than she’d ever been in her entire life.

Still not opening his eyes, he added in a hoarse voice, “There better be someone chasing you. If there is, I’m your man. I’ve got the kind of body that can break your fall and fuck someone up in the same breath.”

Her breath hitched.

Then he groaned again and mumbled, “If not…next time? Just ask if I wanna have a drink. Although…I do enjoy a good tackle. I’m easy.”

She started to laugh.

A small hiccup at first. Then a breathless snort. Then full-on, shaking, undignified laughter that made her ribs hurt.

Oh God, she was losing it.

Of course he was charming, even flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him. Of course he still managed to be hot, witty, and absurdly lovable while she lay there, a human disaster, on top of what felt like a living V-shaped sculpture. The alphabet never looked this good.

Her forehead was throbbing.

Her entire body was throbbing, especially the part currently fused to the deep groove of his hips.

Get off him. Move. Abort. Retreat!

She started to scramble backward, intending to roll off, slap him again maybe, just for effect, then run for her goddamn life while he was still dazed.

Except she missed her window.

SEALs didn’t stay down long.

He opened his eyes. Blinked. Focused. His jaw dropped. “Ev…Everly?” His voice cracked on her name like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, like it had escaped on instinct.

Her cheeks flushed so hard she felt her bones blush.

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do a single rational thing except lie there, tangled on top of him, gasping laughter, shame, and something that felt suspiciously like longing.

“ Hola ,” she croaked. “I didn’t expect to run into you.”

She was still laughing, sprawled on top of him like a woman who’d lost a bet with gravity, maybe God, and definitely her common sense.

With zero warning, Zorro flipped her . One fluid motion, swift and controlled, turning her body as if it weighed nothing.

He rolled them until he was on top for a split second, long enough to make her brain flash every sin known to womankind, then sat up and gathered her into his arms like she was the most natural thing in the world.

Oh no . No no no?—

Lifting her clean off the floor in a power move that could have broken the laws of physics, she held on.

Her bag slid off her shoulder, her limbs flailed slightly, her brain short-circuited, and still he kept going .

His arms were like iron bands around her back and thighs, his breath steady, warm, tickling her temple.

“Room number?” he asked.

Casual. Deadpan. Like this was a normal thing people did in hotels. Pick each other up off the floor and demand coordinates like it was part of a field op.

Her brain had three oxygenated cells left and all of them were arguing. The part of her with a medical degree was panicking. The part of her with a pulse was melting . The part that had dreamed about his mouth? That one was already halfway to room 408 .

“Uh…four-oh…eight,” she mumbled, blinking up at him like a concussed ferret.

He nodded once. “Perfect.” He started walking.

No hesitation. No fumbling. Just turned, muscle coiling around her as he carried her down the hall like she was some kind of royal chaos-wrapped burrito.

She was pressed against his chest, her heartbeat synced to his, her nose tucked against his neck where he smelled like soap and man and skin that had been kissed by some divine sunlight.

She didn’t know whether to cry or combust.

When they reached her door, he shifted her like she was nothing, one arm tightening as the other pulled her keycard from the side of her conference bag, which he’d miraculously snagged from the floor without dropping her. Of course he had.

The lock clicked green.

He slipped his arms around her waist and started to lower her.

But he didn’t just set her down. Oh no.

He let her slide .

Her body grazed his all the way down—slow, full contact, her chest against his ribs, her stomach skimming those infuriating abs, her thighs brushing the edge of that vee, and she tried, really tried, not to whimper.

Her feet hit the carpet. Too fast. Too soft. She stumbled. Naturally. Zorro’s hand caught her elbow. Her curse hit the air before she could swallow it. “Shit.”

He grinned. That grin. Molasses and heat and a thousand bad decisions.

Right then, right there, something broke loose inside her.

What if I kissed him for real? What if he kissed me back?

Not because he was vulnerable. Not because she was grieving. But because she wanted to , because she could .

Her three brain cells tried to stage a rebellion.

They whispered that she was seconds from meltdown.

A full, no-holds-barred, lost-her-fucking-mind freefall.

That if she kissed him now, he would take even more of her as effortlessly as he had already absorbed pieces of her since the moment she’d met him.

But then Zorro’s voice cut in, low and warm. “I’m headed to the pool. My family’s down there.”

She blinked. Family ? Wasn’t he more than enough?

He smiled again, slower this time. “Want to join us? I’d love for you to meet them. They’ve heard all about you.”

She stared. “What? You told them how we fight all the time? About my terrible bedside manner. What a shrew I am?”

He leaned in. One palm hit the wall beside her head, then the other. Arms caging her in like a personal bicep fortress, muscles flexed, scent curling around her like comfort and danger made a baby.

“No, Everly,” he murmured. “I told them all about this amazing doc in Niamey. The one who stitched us up with a sassy bedside manner and scared half my team into drinking their water like good little boys.”

She wanted to crawl into a hole . A dark, quiet, sanity-saving hole.

Instead, she stood there, barely upright, her body still recovering from vertical foreplay, her heart punching her ribs, her brain begging for oxygen to save her from herself.

How was she supposed to hold on to her sanity, her estrogen, and her heart with just two hands around this man?

She was trembling slightly, every cell in her body warring with what she thought she knew was true and what she was pretending was true.

Zorro’s arms were still braced around her, the heat of him cupping around her ribcage like a living gauntlet. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, eyes darting everywhere except his mouth, which only made her think about his mouth.

What that mouth had done to her, and what it might do again.

She blinked rapidly. He could almost see her scrambling for a reason, an out, any flimsy excuse to shut the door on this moment.

But nothing came.

No brilliant deflection. No sarcasm. No retreat.

Just her voice, breathless and betraying everything she swore she didn’t feel.

She swallowed. “I…I should shower first.” Her brain was screaming at her mouth now to shut up , but it was too late.

He stepped back slightly, eyes dark and gleaming. “I don’t know. You smell pretty good to me.” Zorro’s grin crooked at the corners, half-smirk, half are you kidding me right now. But before he could tease her?—

She swallowed. Her lips parted. “Do you…want to wait for me inside?”

His pulse hit the throttle so fast he felt it in his fingertips.

Had he just won the fucking lottery?

No, screw that.

He’d just been personally handed the keys to heaven by the woman who’d spent all their deployment in Niger verbally sniping at him.

Now? Now she’d just tackled him in a hallway, laid on top of him like she belonged there, and invited him into her hotel room with a look in her eyes that was two sips shy of take me now .

Zorro’s entire body flexed with uncontained energy.

“Fuck, yeah,” he said, voice low and thick. “I’d wait a lifetime for you.” The words came out like a growl of permission and promise.

Her breath caught.

Her eyes flicked to his, then away, then back again, like even she couldn’t believe what she’d just said. Maybe she couldn’t. But he didn’t care. Not now. Not when every cell in his body had just roared awake like it had been waiting for this exact moment since Niamey.

He watched her fumble the keycard again, because of course she did, and he didn’t move to help. Not because he was being smug. But because watching her hands shake slightly as she unlocked the door did things to him.

Things he was trying real hard not to do in the hallway .

The lock clicked green.

She opened the door. Her eyes met his.

That nervous, brilliant, insane woman who’d stitched up his team and kissed him in a haze of need now stood in front of him, skin still humming with the aftermath of full-body contact.

“Come in,” she said, barely audible.

He stepped over the threshold, every nerve keyed up, every inch of restraint on standby. He was going to sit on that couch like a goddamned gentleman.

Or try to.

Unless she changed her mind…

He had just been invited to wait inside Everly Quinn’s sanctuary, and if he played this right this time…

she wouldn’t run. That was so important to him.

Watching her bolt out of that hospital, then take comfort in Bear’s warm stoic presence had hurt in a place he’d never allowed to surface.

The woman was in his bones, his muscles, and in his head.

She was wrapped around his aching dick and heart.

Two places a man had no damn control over when it came to someone so right for him, he couldn’t breathe

The door clicked shut behind him with a soft snick.