Page 14

She disappeared into the bathroom with a barely muttered word and the sound of the water came on a few seconds later, a gentle hiss that echoed through the quiet room. He kept his overactive mind neutral, working at avoiding what soft skin looked like, felt like under that spray.

Zorro stood for a second, unsure what to do with his hands.

His brain was still catching up, trying to process how he’d gone from blonde missile collision to invited guest in less than ten minutes.

Plant it , he told himself, wait . Yet the patience he had tried to instill was wearing so damn thin.

Men like him didn’t stand around when there was an objective.

They assaulted. Damn, Joker had trained their tactical asses so hard yesterday, then briefed them hard.

He’d been up since before dawn, wrangling his excited family onto a first-class flight, then made it in time to take a C130 with his team.

So he moved to the armchair near the balcony doors, muscles still humming from the adrenaline crash, and sat.

Just for a minute.

Just to rest his eyes.

The warmth that ghosted across his jaw felt like a memory.

But the second time it came, it was unmistakably real .

Zorro stirred, blinked, and opened his eyes to Everly Quinn. Leaning over him. Her hair loose in wild, sun-touched waves, falling around her shoulders like liquid gold. Her eyes, half-lidded, luminous, unreadable, burned into his like she already knew the answer to a question she hadn’t asked yet.

Before he could speak, before his brain caught up to the rush of waking and need and her , she leaned in.

She brushed her mouth over his and he looked up at her, into the depths of a blue as deep as the sky. “That all you got, chica ? I promise you I can take more.”

In combat, “tunneling,” focusing on one thing and losing track of everything else that was going on around you, was a good way to get killed. Apparently, the same rule applied here, because he’d just taken a round right in the goddamned heart.

All he could do was look at her. She was so beautiful.

She’d knocked him senseless the first time he’d seen her, and he’d never really recovered—the summer shade of her hair, the slope of her nose, the shape of her face, the clear, vast aching blue of her eyes.

Her mouth. Fuck, what she could do to him with her mouth.

Then proved it. She didn’t kiss him; she gave him a full-body caress that started with his mouth, a slide of heat and heaven that just kept expanding and expanding.

Her hand cupped his jaw, and he realized when she’d been stitching him up on that gurney, she had touched him not like a doctor, but like this.

Like she couldn’t get enough of his skin.

“Why does everything you do…make me so crazy?” she whispered, pressing her mouth to his briefly, pulling back, changing the angle of her head, fucking making him ache even more.

He went so hard, it was almost painful. “Just walking” Soft kiss.

“…breathing.” Her tongue teased. Longer, stronger press with a soft, unraveling groan.

His chest heaved, his hips shifted. “…being….” She bit his bottom lip, her tongue sweeping over him.

“…just….” She slipped her hand between the opening in his linen shirt, her full palm sweeping over the swell of his pectoral, making him gasp when her fingertips circled his nipple, playing with the hard tip as his breathing went ragged with waves of hunger. “…you.

Her words cut down to the core of him where something painful lived, breathed, and tortured him relentlessly. Emotions flooded, jumbled and tangled.

“I—” he started, but he had no words to describe the need that coiled as tight as his dick, and he gave up.

Você n?o precisa aceitar, querida, eu vou entregar tudo para você.

For some reason the words “You don’t have to take, sweetheart, I’ll give it all to you” came out in Portuguese.

The heat between them ignited fast. He stood, lifting her with him in one motion, hands on her hips, pressing her body to his as his mouth claimed hers again.

Their bodies moved like they had done this countless times, like they’d done this before in some fevered dream neither of them wanted to wake from.

There was nothing to say, not right now, not when all he wanted, all he needed was to touch her, to slide his tongue in her mouth and taste her, to fill himself up with her.

Their lips met, hers parted, and a hundred emotions flooded through him.

He’d expected the pleasure, electrifying pleasure, but he also got relief, soul deep.

This was home, being with Everly, their bodies touching.

She came up on tiptoe, her mouth on his, her arms going around his neck, and he slid his hand down her back.

She kissed him like she wanted to devour him . Like she was starving and he was the only thing on earth worth tasting.

Zorro let out a breath, then a groan as her mouth opened against his, her tongue brushing his, her fingers sliding into his hair with a quiet desperation that nearly undid him, the impact in the hall just kept colliding.

His body ached for her in a way he’d never felt before.

Not the sharp, impulsive hunger that came with lust, but something deeper.

A raw, bone-deep yearning. He didn’t just want her skin beneath his hands.

He needed the press of her palm back against his chest to remind him he was still breathing.

Needed the shape of her mouth on his to remind him he was solid, present, wanted.

“Zorro,” she whispered, like he was the answer to all her prayers.

It hadn’t been a dream.

She had kissed him.

Now…she was doing it again. Awake. Intentional. Hungry.

He turned, pressing her gently against the wall. Her body arched into him, hands everywhere, his chest, his shoulders, his face like she couldn’t get enough, and God help him, he didn’t want to stop.

Except…he had to.

This wasn’t just heat. It was armor cracking . It was desperation disguising itself as desire. It was a kiss that tasted like conflict.

He pulled back.

Only an inch.

His hands still cupped her face, his breath ragged. He kissed her again, once, soft, slow, and reverent.

“Let’s slow this down a bit, carino ,” he murmured, voice deep, eyes locked to hers. “I’m here all week.”

He’d been through jungle firefights, two-a-day BOPE training rotations, and whatever unholy chaos his teammates cooked up when they got bored in a new city, but nothing, nothing , prepared him for the moment Dr. Everly Quinn walked toward his family wrapped in white linen like some kind of celestial threat.

He caught her out of the corner of his eye first. Head high. Shoulders stiff. That telltale Everly armor locked into place, but her hips swayed beneath the gauzy cover-up like she didn’t know they were writing scripture with every step.

His mom spotted her instantly and smiled. Zorro stood, intercepting her as she reached the edge of the table. She hesitated, awkward, cautious. But, God, her eyes still burned with that kiss . That lightning bolt she’d dropped into his chest an hour ago.

So he teased her.

Gently. Freely. Like a man who knew exactly how to handle complicated things wrapped in beauty and brilliance.

She met his family. Politely. Fidgeted. Reached for her wrap like it might save her from judgment. But then?—

His mother started bragging. About the Navy Cross. About the baby. About the mother he saved in the Philippines. Of course…she brought baby pictures.

Everly blinked and tried to absorb it all, somewhere between dazzled and horrified.

Then came the inevitable.

“What brings you to the conference, carino ?” his mother asked gently.

Everly nodded once. “I’m the keynote,” she said.

There was a pause.

She swallowed. “There’s…a tribute. To my late husband.”

Her voice dropped half an octave. The brightness in her expression vanished, replaced by the cool steel of old grief.

Zorro’s stomach clenched. Shit.

He’d forgotten. Or maybe just pushed it too far down to remember. Of course she was here for that . The pain she wore around her like a second skin wasn’t about him. It was him adjacent . Proximity trauma. Uniform-shaped guilt. Maybe it still was about his team.

His father was watching him now. Quiet, thoughtful.

“ Mijo …” he murmured.

Then Bear, always too perceptive, too precise, said, “Talk to the woman, Z. She needs comfort.”

Zorro flashed a crooked grin and dragged a hand through his hair. “Jesus. Can everyone stop channeling Dr. Phil? I’m not some amateur who needs life coaching to deal with a woman in mourning.” He flicked a glance toward Everly, who had just stood and walked to the pool’s edge. “Let me work.”

He peeled off his shirt, all muscle and movement, and tossed it back toward the table. Bear caught it midair and slung it over the back of his chair without comment.

If Buck had been here, he’d have drawled something like “cocky son of a bitch.”

But Zorro didn’t care. His dick was throbbing, and his chest was tight, but that wasn’t the focus. It wasn’t just about the want anymore. It was about her in his arms, in his space, where she could breathe again.

He wasn’t wasting the moment.

Without warning, he walked straight up behind her, scooped her into his arms, and dove .

Her scream cut off as they submerged, her body clamping down on him like instinct. Her skin was soft. So fucking soft. He’d only dreamed of touching her like this, but now he had two arms full of furious, flailing sunshine.

She came up gasping and slapped at him with halfhearted outrage.

“You…you idiot ! What the hell? Was this payback for my train wreck in the hallway?”

He slicked his hair back, moving closer, trailing wet fingers down her shoulder as he leaned in near her neck, close enough to feel her shiver.

“Nope,” he said softly. “It’s contrast therapy.”

“What the hell is that ?”

“Took your mind off your husband, didn’t it?”

She froze.

Then turned. Swam to the edge.

Fuck.

Zorro cursed under his breath and followed. “Hey,” he said, voice low, when he reached her. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I was trying to give you space. Breathing room. Not drown you.”

She turned, still breathing hard, eyes wild, hair wet and curling.

“In case it’s not clear to you, Everly, I fucking like you, dammit. Not in the brotherly way either. So yeah, I get it. You’ve got some shit to deal with. Who doesn’t?”

She stared at him. Blinked. “How could I be so blind about you and your team?” she whispered.

“Grief does that,” he said softly. “I can take it, Everly. Whatever you need to throw at me. Just don’t lie to me about how you feel.”

She looked down. Shook her head. “I can’t seem to let it go. I’m sorry if that hurts, but it’s the truth.”

“We got along pretty well considering your bedside manner was worse than shrapnel.”

She laughed, a real one this time. Bubbly, unguarded. “Are you always this fucking charming?”

He slipped in closer, a few inches from her face. The water lapped at his chest. Her fingers floated in the space between them.

“I’d have to check my charm meter for the last couple days,” he murmured. “But yeah. Twenty-five percent nice guy, fifty percent badass, and twenty-five percent and climbing for the charm.”

She sighed, eyes soft. “Math in motion,” she whispered. Then reached up. Touched his jaw. Her fingers slid along the stubble like it soothed her. “You’re killing me by degrees,” she whispered.

Zorro leaned in, lips just brushing hers. “Feeling’s mutual, corazón .”

She smiled. Then dunked him.

He came up sputtering just in time to hear Gator holler from the deep end, “Dr. Sunshine, one! Z, a big fat zero !”

Zorro swam toward her, grinning like a man who had already won.

She was laughing again.

He knew this was how it started.

Not the kiss. Not the sex.

The healing .