Page 110 of Risky Passion

“Yes! I’ve got you!” The words burst out of me, my heart hammering as I swept the beam of my flashlight over the hands. Beneath the floorboards, I could just make out two pale faces. Their eyes were open but unfocused, their lips cracked and trembling. Blade’s head jerked toward me just as a wave surged in, crashing over his face and submerging him.

Drowning him.

Oh fuck.

CHAPTER 27

Tory

After Levi liftedoff in the chopper with Jaxson and Onyx, I stood there like a pilot without a plane. I needed a shower, and about ten hours of sleep, minimum. But my brain had other plans. No way was I switching off anytime soon.

But it wasn’t just the adrenaline. It washim.

The way Jaxson had looked at me before they took off, like he didn’t want to go. Like he didn’t want to leave me.

And that made my insides tingle in ways I was not used to.

The last two days had been a mess of chaos, threats, and enough close calls to last a lifetime. Scariest stretch of my life, no question. But Jaxson had been solid through it all. Calm, focused, didn’t flinch when things got ugly. He was the steady to my spiraling. The kind of guy who ran toward the danger while the rest of us were still figuring out where it was coming from.

A proper hero. Not that he would ever call himself that.

I wanted to see more of him. Preferably when there weren’t bullets flying or muddy swamps to crawl through. Maybe we could go for a coffee. Or dinner. Or watch a romantic thriller while we ate popcorn and let my cats crawl all over us. Something normal.

The last guy who asked me out ended the night by trying to impressme with his crypto portfolio and a tattoo of his own initials. I had a talent for attracting the absolute worst.

But Jaxson felt different.

Still dangerous . . . just not in the ‘run for your life’ kind of way.

More like‘lean in and let’s see what happens.’

And that might be even scarier.

“Hey, you okay?” Whisper’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. She stepped up beside me on the front verandah of the old schoolhouse and swept me up with her dark, almost black eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Jeez, thanks,” I muttered, shooting her a dry look as I tried to scrape my fingers through my knotty hair.

She smirked. “Oh, hold up. I see that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“The look that tells me you and Jaxson got a little cozy out there?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“Oh yeah, real cozy,” I said, “in that bloody swamp with armed bastards trying to kill us. Super romantic.”

Her laugh was warm, and before I could protest, she hooked her arm through mine and started guiding me back inside. “Sometimes getting dirty is the best way to get to know someone.”

I chuckled. Whisper would know. She and Cody had spent four days lost in the Daintree Rainforest together. They’d gone in as strangers who barely tolerated each other and come out battered, bruised, and head-over-heels in love.

Our stories weren’t all that different. Maybe there was something about high-stress, life-or-death situations that fast-tracked relationships. Or maybe they just stripped everything down to the ugly truth. No makeup or fancy clothes. No delicious meal to cause a distraction. Just raw and real.

By the time we reached the kitchen, Yasmin was already cleaning up the leftover food. She looked up and smiled. “Hey, luvvy. You want a coffee, shower, or sleep?”

I huffed, leaning against the back of a bar stool as Charlie sniffedmy leg. God knew what scents she was picking up from the mud over me. “All of the above.”

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