Page 87 of Zorro

She hadn’t dared wear anything this beautiful in a long time. Not since before Rob. Not since before she’d traded red dresses for trauma charts and grief. It was easier to be invisible. Safe.

But something inside her shifted now. Soft. Unspoken.

She would show up and she’d shine. Even if it scared the hell out of her.

Her palm pressed to her sternum, trying to keep her damn heart inside her body. Her breath shook. Zorro’s shirt clung to her skin. Warm, rumpled. His scent, a darker heat that made her stomach flutter like it had something to confess.

The slow drag of his fingers tracing the bare curve of her spine. The whisper of his mouth at her ear, all gravel and need. The way his body had moved over hers, muscle to muscle, breath to breath, like he’d been built to ruin her softly.

She swallowed hard. A low ache bloomed in her pelvis, hot and unwanted.

It wasn’t fair. A man shouldn’t be allowed to kiss like that. To leave impressions not just on skin, but inside. She could still feel his weight. The way his hand had spread over her ribcage like a vow. How he’d held her like she was both battlefield and sanctuary.

God.

She pushed off the door and crossed the room, needing movement, distance, anything to break the spell. But even her steps felt different, looser, slower, like her body hadn’t quite remembered it wasn’t still tangled with his.

Zorro. Mateo. Fuckhead. Asshole. Indecent. Charmer. Fool. Whatever name she gave him, it tasted like trouble.

She dragged a hand through her hair and muttered, “Get it together. woman.” But her voice was hoarse. She looked at the clock, and urgency filled her. Get moving and stop courting more trouble.

In the shower enclosure, the water was warm, cascading down her back as steam curled around her shoulders. Everly pressed her palms flat to the tile, letting it wash over her like absolution, and then she felt it.

Him.

A shift in the atmosphere. That subtle, unmistakable hum that only one man carried when he stepped into a room. She didn’t even turn.

“You just let yourself in?” she asked, voice husky with steam and memory.

Behind her, the shower door opened.

“I knocked,” Zorro said, his tone all velvet mischief. “Very politely. Are you sorry you gave me your spare keycard?”

He stepped in, water immediately gliding over the thick muscle of his chest, catching in the indent of his abs. His hair was damp with sweat, jaw shadowed, skin flushed from the run. He reached for the soap with a casual reverence, like it might tell him secrets if he handled it just right.

Everly blinked. “You smell like the gym floor at an elite tactical academy.”

He grinned. “Thank you for noticing. I brought all of that to share.”

God help her, she wanted it. Wanted him. This version of him, sweet and exhausted from exertion, loose from teasing his brothers, hard in every right way. She couldn’t stop staring.

Zorro slipped under the spray, groaning deep in his throat. “Best part of the day. Next to your body. Possibly the fact that the entire team now associates my shirt with your legs.”

“Oh my God,” she muttered, covering her face.

He was quiet for a beat. Then, “But since we’re on the subject of revealing garments…we need to talk about your relationship with my UDT shorts.”

She cracked one eye open. “How could I forget the little khaki ones?”

“The very same,” he said solemnly. “You looked at them like they bit you.”

“They did. In the eyes.”

“They’re iconic.”

“Minuscule inseam that toes the line of inappropriate.”

“Shows off all my work from leg day, babe.”

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