Page 18 of Brawler
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Her throat went dry. The image slammed into her, armed men bursting from the trees, catching her alone. The chase. The panic. Her skin crawled with the memory of their voices at herback, too close. He was right. If he hadn’t stepped out of the shadows when he had, she would already be gone.
“Oh God.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. She was running from something unknown.
Tex’s voice was even, deliberate. “We have protocols. You are a mission risk. We’re deployed covertly in a high-stakes operation. A lone, endangered civilian in this jungle is a liability we cannot ignore. Leaving you behind means you could compromise our mission by being captured or used against us.”
“Or they just kill you,” Brawler said flatly.
Unease rippled through her. Those men had seen her. She wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. Red hair in a jungle. She might as well have been carrying a flare gun. They would be looking.Hunting.
“Ethically, we can’t ignore you,” Twister added, his voice softer but no less firm. “But ethics aside…not one of us will sleep well knowing you’re still out here, exposed. We’re hardwired to protect civilians. Even if you refuse, we can’t just shrug it off and move on.”
Emily’s chest squeezed. Their words wrapped around her like a net, logic, threat, and duty tangled together, and she hated how much of it made sense.
Brawler sighed, and it wasn’t patience so much as inevitability. “Listen, Shortcake.” His tone was rough but steady, final. “You’re coming with us. We will protect you.”
Her eyes burned. A wave of helpless fury rose, clashing with the ache in her chest. “What about my research?” she demanded, voice sharp with defiance and something more fragile underneath. “It’s my life. I can’t just…just abandon it.”
The cicadas shrilled louder in the silence that followed, the jungle pressing close as if it wanted to hear the answer, too.
Her words landed sharp, cutting across the humid press of the jungle.What about my research?
Brawler stared at her, pulse thudding in his jaw. She was delicate from her head to her toes—red hair, startling green eyes flecked with gold.
He shifted his shoulders. Research. Out here, with men hunting her, weapons loose, the mission teetering on a knife’s edge, and she was worried about cats and cameras? It should have been laughable. It should have been dismissed in two words,not happening.
But he couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t even move for a second, because he felt pressure rolling off her like heat shimmer. It wasn’t just stubbornness. It was deeply ingrained, vital to her. Something inside her was knotted so tight to that work that pulling her away from it would break her in a way no bullet could.
He hated that he knew it. Hated that his body registered it before his mind did, the flare of her nostrils, the quicksilver flash of defiance in her eyes, the way her hands balled like she was bracing for him to rip something from her. A low current threaded through his skin. The charge crept up the back of his neck. He dragged in a breath, grounding on the familiar weight of Beast’s flank against his leg, fingers twitching toward fur and steadiness.
Leaving her behind? Inconceivable. The thought didn’t compute, not in protocol, not in instinct. Civilian. Vulnerable. Seen by hostiles. Red hair like a beacon in the jungle. His brain rejected the scenario before it finished forming. Unacceptable. Impossible.
He stepped forward, voice rougher than he meant. “You think any of this matters if you’re dead?”
She flinched but didn’t fold. Fire sparked in her eyes, and his chest tightened in a way that rattled him. He wasn’t supposed to feel it like this, not this sharp, not this fast.
Tex cut in, voice low, deliberate. “Look, Emily. We’re patrolling through jaguar territory anyway. You can collect data as we move. But you stay with us. Always. No wandering. No exceptions.”
Her chin lifted, searching their faces, gauging the wall of resolve. He could see it, the tiny exhale of relief under the irritation. A compromise.
Brawler’s hands curled at his sides, the need to set the rules himself scraping under his skin. He didn’t like that Tex had voiced it before he did. He didn’t like that Emily looked almost grateful.
She wasn’t grateful tohim.
That shouldn’t have mattered. Civilians went in one box: protect, extract, release. Clean. Contained. No complications. He could handle fear, even anger. But her glance at Tex, relief softening her stubborn mouth, dug like a blade. It wasn’thimshe trusted, and somehow, that landed in a place he didn’t have defenses for.
He told himself it was just the interference of her emotions bleeding into his system, another input he couldn’t filter. But that was a lie. The truth was simpler, more dangerous. He wanted her to look athimthat way.
His reactions to women were supposed to be controllable. Like breath. Like aim. Regulated. Always on his terms. Complications didn’t just land on him. They bled into Toby’s life, too. He’d learned the hard way that most women didn’t want to deal with a SEAL’s schedule, or the quiet intensity of his brother, or the way his world was carved into duty and family with no space left over. So, he kept it simple. Fast, clean, detached. No ties, no fallout. It worked.
Until now…her.
She shorted every circuit he had. The spark between them didn’t slide into any category he knew. It pressed into him withthe same inevitability as gravity, bending every thought, every reaction toward her.
Why couldn’t he just keep her in the civilian box? His body had already decided she wasn’t just a civilian. She was heat and inferno and temptation in a five-foot-three package, and no matter how many times he ordered himself to stand down, the pull didn’t ease. It just kept tightening.
He had no idea how to stop it either. She was out of his wheelhouse. He knew how to do women who didn’t ask anything of him except his dick. They wanted the uniform, the story, the quick ride. Easy to slot, easy to leave. Gratitude wasn’t part of the deal. But Emily wasn’t a froghog. She was standing there, with dirt on her cheek and an untamed spark in her eyes,
