Page 56 of Brawler
Diminutive, opinionated, mouthy, contrary, sexy as hell and sprawled across him now like she had staked a claim on his body in the middle of the night. She drove him out of his comfort zone, shoved him into places where discipline and control didn’t mean a damn thing. He thought he was adaptable, that he could handle anything a mission threw at him. But she wasn’t anambush or an extraction gone sideways. She was something else entirely, something he couldn’t strategize his way around.
He shifted slightly, careful not to wake her. The fiery fall of her hair slid across his face, catching in his lashes, tickling his lips. He turned his head just enough to breathe, but not enough to escape that pixie trap, her hair a wild curtain that smelled faintly of moss and citrus and sex.
Christ, she was intoxicating. But in a way that made him want more. Always more.
He rubbed a hand over his chest, over the sudden ache lodged there. He knew what it took to dig deep, to do the shit that needed to be done. His parents’ deaths had taught him that. Toby, sixteen and shattered, had taught him that. His whole world had collapsed and narrowed down to one priority. Keep his brother alive, whatever the cost. The ache never eased. It sure as hell wasn’t easing now. His responsibility for his brother was tied up in his grief and need to hold onto the only family member left, a family member who needed him.
“I’m sorry, Toby,” he whispered, the words torn out of him before he could stop them.
“What?”
The soft voice snapped his eyes open. Emily.
She was awake, her face tilted up toward his, green flecked with gold even in the dim cave light, her hair a fiery tangle across his chest. His breath caught. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, hadn’t meant for her to hear. But here she was, pressed against him, wide-eyed and listening.
For a beat, he couldn’t speak. This hideout oasis, this temporary reprieve from men hunting them through the jungle, had gone a long way toward restoring her. Her skin had lost that gray look of exhaustion, her body warm and alive against his.
Her mouth was soft, the curve of her jaw delicate, those goddamned freckles dotting her sweet face like a sensual goad.Now, awake and watching him, she looked more than pretty. She looked beautiful.
He was lost, because all he wanted was to kiss her again, hard, hungry, like he had in the pool, when what he should be doing was remembering he was on an op, not a date.
He was losing perspective, and he knew it. She was a zoologist, a civilian caught in the middle of something she couldn’t comprehend, yet lying here draped all over him she felt inevitable. A woman like Emily could choose anyone she wanted, someone safe, someone steady. If she was smart, she would look away from him, deployment, Toby, Beast, the endless cycle of missions. His life was impossible.
But he wanted her anyway. Wanted her with a hunger that scared him more than a gun to his head.
Her breathing brushed warm against his chest, steady and soft, grounding him even as it unraveled him. His chest grew tighter, but in a different way now, not grief, not duty, but something gentler, dangerous. And he was sliding into it, slow and unstoppable, desire braided with something deeper.
Insane—that’s what it was. There was no other explanation for how a man could feel so exasperated and still get turned on. Something must be broken in his wiring—serotonin, dopamine—but no chemical was more potent than her.
He wanted to kiss her again, to devour her, to feel her hands in his hair and her tongue tangled with his until he forgot they were hiding in a cave with armed men outside. He wanted to lose himself in her when everything about this mission screamed that it wasn’t supposed to be personal.
But it was. God help him, it was.
She blinked up at him, lashes damp with sleep, and his mouth curved before he could stop it.
She sighed. “You kill me by degrees every time you do that,” she murmured.
That was when he saw it, something metallic glinting faintly near the open flap of her pack, nestled beside her battered laptop and a stack of field notebooks. Cold, sharp-edged, out of place among her warm, tangled presence.
He frowned, stretched out an arm, and picked it up. Light in his hand, but the second his eyes locked on it, recognition slammed through him. His stomach dropped.
A fragment.
Not just any fragment. Drone casing.
Heat prickled the back of his neck. He rolled it in his palm, noting the alloy, the scoring along the edge telling him this had been blown off. No mistaking it. He’d seen too many before.
He held it up. “Where did you find this?”
Emily pushed upright, reaching for a T-shirt and pulling it over her head. Crossing her legs, she plucked it gently from his fingers. “On the bank of the river. Not far from where those guys chased me right into you.” Her green eyes lifted, steady. “What is this?”
“It’s a fragment of what we’ve been looking for.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you that, Em. It’s classified.”
She turned it over, frowning. “I’ve been trying to tell you something since we started on this trek, but you weren’t exactly receptive.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a raised hand. “I know, I know. Life and death.”
