Page 52 of Boomer
The mission didn’t vanish, but something else pressed in. Somethingquieter. The way she didn’t flinch this time. The way she let him hold her there, weightless in water, tethered not by gear or training but bytrust.
He released her slowly. She stayed close. Then they turned, kicking away from the hull together, silent again, the port receding as the mission shifted from covert to kinetic. The next time they breached would be steel and concrete.
They broke the surface together, saltwater streaming down their gear as they clung to the edge of the dock. Boomer pulled off his mask, breath steady, ears tuning to the distant hum of the harbor and the faint thrum of adrenaline still vibrating in his bones.
Taylor tugged her mask loose, pushed her wet hair back with one gloved hand, and shot him a look sideways, half wry, half breathless.
“Jacques Cousteau,” she said, deadpan. “You gonna start narrating our next op in French?”
Boomer huffed a laugh, water running down his cheek. “Only if you promise to keep swimming toward juvenile sharks like you’ve got a death wish.”
She smiled, small, crooked, full of spark. “Didn’t know I was being shadowed by the Shark Whisperer.”
He leaned in just slightly, eyes dark and glinting. “Just trying to keep the wildlife from mistaking you for bait, sugar.”
She bumped her shoulder against his, not hard. But the contact lingered as they climbed the ladder into the shadowed edge of the dock. Boomer glanced once at Taylor. She was dripping salt and shadow, her wetsuit slick against her frame, her eyes already scanning the warehouse in the near distance.
She didn’t look back at him. But she didn’t need to. She knew he was there. He wanted to remain here for many more moments with her. For the first time, he let himself think about her softly spoken words inviting him to her family lunch, into the breach with her, into the minefield that was her mother, and that woman held the detonator. He intended to get it away from her, show Taylor that no one had power over her but herself.
She would be free to make her own choices, and suddenly, achingly, he wanted to be one of those choices.
They hitthe shore fast and low, boots sinking into the sludge-slick gravel behind the warehouse. The loading zone was dark, lit only by a weak security light. Tall chain-link fencing boxed them in on three sides. Crates, rusted barrels, a sagging forklift, the forgotten skeletons of a legitimate business long gone to rot.
Boomer moved to cover, scanned, swept.
Nothing yet.
But the air waswrong. Still, dense, and chemical-sour. Like the building was exhaling poison.
He glanced at Taylor. She was already working the zipper on her wetsuit, peeling it down to her hips with the kind of practiced efficiency that said she’d done this a hundred times before and never once thought twice about who might be watching.
Buthewatched and couldn't look away. The way her fingers moved. The way her hair clung to the side of her neck. The way she drew breath like it mattered.
The low light hit her skin like silver. Her compression shirt clung to her frame, soaked through, outlining the quiet strength in her arms, the lean muscle beneath the curve of her ribs. Yet, even then, even stripped down to black fabric and tension, there was somethingdelicateabout her. So…feminine…elemental. Sweet fire wrapped in discipline. A woman who’d let him hold her grief, and now walked beside him like it never happened, except it had, and it lived under her skin now, just like it lived under his.
He turned away before she could catch him looking.
But that image, Taylor, sharp and stripped down to her own truth, lodged deep in his chest. Stayed with a heavy weight on him, stirring something low in his gut. Hunger. Heat. All twisted up with the kind oflongingthat wasn’t going away.
Like some deep, ancient part of him recognized her as something rare. Something worth shielding. Not because she needed it, but because hewantedto be the man who did.
He rolled his own wetsuit down to his hips, working fast. His chest steamed in the night air, adrenaline tangling in his veins.
Boomer tried to focus on gear, safety checks, the ticking clock in his head.
Tried. It washer, and every damn second he spent near her was becoming harder to survive with his heart intact.
Her voice came, smooth as silk over gravel. “Carter…you can look all you want,mein Hübscher.It’s not like I haven’t already cataloged every single muscle of your back, your chest…and those abs.” She gave a soft, appreciative hum. “Pure masculine perfection.”
Boomer choked on a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
Mein Hübscher.
He knew what the phrase meant,my handsome one, but had never heard it with that low warmth in her voice, like the words had been shaped just for him. His name in her mouth already wrecked him, so personal. Possessive. Hers.
His blood had already started to hum with the force of everything he was trying to hold back. He cleared his throat, tried for neutral, and failed. “Red, you are a piece of work.”
She grinned without apology. “Yeah, well…wait until you see me in action, Boom Boom.”
