Page 29 of Boomer
She could barely hear the question over the blood rushing in her ears.
“Not exactly,” she managed. “Are you?”
His smile was small. Tight.
“Took longer than I wanted.”
She looked around the hold, two unconscious smugglers, several bins of what looked like fentanyl precursors, and the absence of the breached door.
Then she realized he wasn’t talking about the mission. “Felt fast to me,” she said.
Their eyes locked again, and it wasn’t adrenaline making her hands shake.
It was him.
“Boomer?” Ice asked through the comm.
“I thought the talking was supposed to come first,” he said, his voice hoarse, depressing his comm, but his gaze never left hers. “Copy, boss.”
“I’d say that was a form of communication.” Damn she wanted more, harder contact, hours and hours to explore that mouth, that taste.
His look was dumbstruck.
“I need you up here for another locked door.”
“Are you saying that talking is overrated?”
“Right now, I’m a little preoccupied with a man who wields sparks and brute force.” His words came back to her.See, darlin’, you just need the right tools.
“Boomer?”
“So you're coming up with me?”
“Hell, yes,” she whispered, “I’m coming.”
“Goddammit, Boomer!”
“Keep your tactical shorts on, boss. We’re on our way.”
She grinned at Ice’s response. It was too damn true. “Don’t get cute with me.”
“Come on, boss. Be happy. We bagged two live ones and a shitload of precursors.” The time for play peeled away, replaced by something hotter, deeper, an intensity that didn’t flirt, but consumed. Something like fear gripped Taylor by the throat, and she breathed around it, not sure where this was taking her or what would happen after. Yet eager for the continuation of this mission they were on, and what might come next.
The op ended in tension, not triumph, two suspects detained, but neither cracked. Taylor ran the interrogation herself, fluent in three of their shared languages and versed in the cultural soft spots, but both men sat mute, their loyalty stitched tight and ugly behind hollow eyes.
It was past midnight by the time she surfaced, her plan to keep at it. She was only getting started. The team had already debriefed and vanished to their bunks, Boomer included. She wasn’t sure if he’d showered or crashed face-first, but she’d seen the tight set of his jaw before he disappeared down the hallway. He hadn’t looked at her, and she knew why. They did have a job to do and these…overwhelming feelings were complicated in this situation. But didn’t mean she was going to back down. Boomer was in her blood, and she wanted him imprinted on the rest of her. Lust? Not exactly…maybe…but more than sexual, yet she couldn’t wait to get her hands on that body, but it was more ofa mental lust to know him. She shivered hard, paused, and put her hand on the wall. To know him. To know and understand what she glimpsed behind those green eyes. Pain, the deep, devastating type…like what she felt about Emil. About her need to protect Ansel, the fights with her parents getting worse. She took a breath.
It was a good thing he was sleeping. It was damn hard to think around that man and not give him every speck of focus and attention she had.
The hunger hit her like a wall of need so deep, she had to breathe around it. For a solitary woman, for a woman who'd spent her adult life keeping herself disciplined to avoid, to not want alpha men, the kind she worked with. It had been all about proving herself, keeping herself pure for the job she ached to do.
Control…she had it once, now it was unraveling. There was fear, but then again, that kiss melted her all over again, there was Boomer. She’d already taken her leap when she answered that text. But when he hadn’t shown up, she got scared all over again because it hurt more than anything. So, she could have just told him she changed her mind. Then he blew her out of the water with that confession, and how she had hurt him. That made her ache.
So, she needed quiet. Who wouldn’t when Boomer was in the picture? Something to do with her hands. Something to anchor her spinning thoughts before they spiraled. Something that reminded her she was still her.
She found what she needed in the small compound kitchen. Apples, flour, butter. A half-decent spice rack someone’s wife had probably mailed over in a morale box. She peeled in silence, fingers sure, wrists moving in rhythm as cinnamon filled the room. The sound of a knife against the board, the scent of baked fruit and caramelizing sugar all soothed her. Recalibrated her. Her mind cataloged every step, every movement. Unlike people,recipes made sense. They didn’t lie. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look at you like you’d stripped them bare without permission.
“You made…streuselkuchen?” His voice was still rough with sleep. Or maybe something else. Shivers cascaded over her.
