Page 44 of Dangerous Devotion

When the phone buzzed, her spine snapped straight, and AJ grabbed the phone from his lap. He skimmed the text and his shoulders visibly relaxed even as they carried the weight of what they were about to do—infiltrate the military base in order to locate a terrorist’s bomb.

“It’s done. We’re clear to go in,” he told her.

She nodded.

He put the car in gear and entered the roadway from the department store they’d stopped at to pick up a laptop, then just sat parked in front of for the past two hours. Neither of them spoke as they drove the few miles to the base.

At the approach to the gates, her nerves kicked in. She knew enough from working with SEALs that anxiety was really just a body response, and therefore could be controlled.

She measured her breaths until her pulse finally slowed to a more normal rhythm.

Getting inside was easy—Kit added their names to the list of visitors too.

“That woman is a gem,” AJ muttered after they rolled past the guards.

“Yes, she is.”

His mood shifted, and she felt more confident about what she was about to do. After all, it was just a training session, and she was an expert on explosives. She could talk about this stuff all day without missing a beat.

After they parked in the designated place, he cut the engine and turned to her. “Ready?”

Suddenly, she realized that AJ didn’t only reflect his good moods on people. He reflected his bad ones too. Now that he was feeling lighter, she was too.

“Yup.”

“Let’s roll.”

She was relieved that he had trust in her that she knew the plan and didn’t go over it again. Contrary to her initial thoughts on the matter, she was beginning to see that Con’s decision to partner her with AJ was actually a wise one.

At first, she didn’t see how their skills could ever mesh, but she was seeing how they didn’t need to mesh—only complement each other.

As they strode up to the entrance, she darted a glance at him from the corner of her eye. He caught her looking at him and gave her a bad-boy quirk of his lips.

Her breath caught. Was he just masking his worries or was he throwing her a smile to reassure her?

His long legs reached the doors first. Before the guard opened it for them, AJ placed his lips close to her ear. “I’m right here.”

A tingle hit her stomach. She didn’t have time to react before they were in.

Within minutes, they were led to the opposite end of the main building and through another set of doors that spilled onto a training field.

May kicked into professional mode. As she crossed where the training would take place, the breeze whispered over her skin and helped ground her. The afternoon sun slanted over the servicemen standing around waiting for her to begin, casting their long shadows on the pavement.

She had done a training or two in the past, but never one with so much at stake. While she conducted the training, AJ had to sneak off and search for the bomb.

Despite this, her voice didn’t waver as she launched into a brief talk about identifying various explosives and then got right to the part everyone liked—defusing them.

She called out instructions, her voice firm. “Every move matters. Every mistake is a potential weakness in the field.”

A tickle of awareness washed over her. She looked up…right into the eyes of the driver of the truck they’d followed all the way from Virginia. Moore.

Dammit. What bad luck. He was so green, she was surprised to see him in an advanced training.

She wished she could get word to AJ, but he was off on the base somewhere, following that tracker he planted. They could see the position of the bomb on the tracking app but not what surrounded it. It wasn’t planted in the middle of the barracks with hundreds of men, but if nobody knew what was inside…was it safe?

AJ was trying to find that out, which left her on her own to deal with the kid.

She took control and paced along the rear of the group until she stood next to Moore. “Hi there. Didn’t we meet before?”

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