Page 28 of Controlled Burn
"You didn't have to risk your name to clear mine," she said.
"You risked yours first."
"I don't regret it," he said, meaning it.
"But you look like you do."
He exhaled slow, jaw tight. "I don't."
She took one step forward—just one.
The room shrank. The air thickened. The scent of heat and perfume wrapped around him.
She raised a brow. "You wouldn't be staring like that if I was in your bunkroom."
His pulse kicked.
"You wouldn't dare walk into my bunkroom after lights out."
She smirked. "Try me."
"I dare you."
Silence. Thick. Heavy. Charged.
"Say the word," she murmured. "Tell me to go."
He stared at her mouth. That impossible mouth that had haunted every sleep-deprived night for weeks. And he said nothing.
Her lips tilted into a grin. Crooked. Smug. Devastating.
She turned and walked out, hips swaying, braid swinging like a countdown clock. Boom. Boom. Boom.
That Night – Talia
The hall outside the officers' bunkroom was quiet. Too quiet. Just the low hum of the vending machine and the sound of her pulse hammering behind her ears.
Red emergency light bled beneath the closed door. The kind of glow that felt like warning and invitation all at once.
She stood barefoot on the cold linoleum, heart slamming against her ribs like a fist trying to break out.
This was reckless. Suicidal. A career killer.
Anyone could wake up. Walk by. See her disappear into the officers' wing. What if a call dropped right now? What if dispatch sent tones through the dorms and she was caught climbing off her superior's lap?
She turned the handle and slipped inside.
The room was dark—save for that blood-tinged nightlight—and quiet enough to hear her own breathing. Maddox lay shirtless on the lower bunk, arm under his pillow, mouth slightly parted, chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of sleep.
God, he looked younger like this. Softer. Human.
Her thighs clenched.
The air was thick with the scent of him—warm skin, faded deodorant, something woodsy and unmistakably male. It crawled into her lungs and bloomed.
She stepped closer. The mattress groaned under her weight. Every creak sounded deafening.
She crawled onto the mattress like a secret, straddling his hips without a sound.
