“Don’t worry—I hate Monopoly. Takes hours.” Rome edged up to the poker table and started scooping chips into piles. After that, the team divided between tables.
As Archer took a seat opposite Jolie, she felt his boot nudge hers under the table. The small touch might only be an accident, but her body reacted like his rough hands were gliding all over her naked body.
To hide the heat climbing her cheeks, she focused on sorting the play money. As she separated it into tenders, a story slipped out of her.
“After my parents died, I was struggling so hard to keep the bills paid. Sometimes the power got shut off.”
The room was silent, not a card being dealt or a play piece being moved on the game board.
She went on, “So I’d tell my siblings we were pretending to live in 1776 and could only use candlelight. We did everything by candlelight, and at night we’d play Monopoly wrapped in blankets and pretend it was fun.”
Archer stared at her for a long beat. “That’s genius.”
She met his gaze and saw no pity on his face—only that same heat that made the room and the games fade.
For one dangerous second, she forgot anyone else was there.
TEN
Archer lay on his back, staring into the night and counting his own breaths. Sleep wasn’t coming. It rarely did when his mind found a problem to pick apart.
Tonight that problem was Jolie.
Hours before, they’d been bobbing in a black ocean that could swallow a man. The next thing any of them knew, they were sitting down to a homecooked meal—not the slop Younger claimed was food—and enjoying game night.
It was obvious what Jolie was doing. She missed her family and was trying to create some normalcy in a confusing world of uncertain timelines and homesickness for the siblings she’d raised.
He also saw the way her smile seemed to be just a little brighter for him than the other guys. And that the faint flush that crept into her cheeks had nothing to do with her putting all the hotels on Park Place and something to do with the thoughts going through her mind.
Just as he’d inventoried threats during captivity, Archer started listing reasons wanting her was a bad idea.
Bad timing. No guarantee she’d still be here in forty-eight hours.
He’d saved her from freezing to death, not promised to warm her with his own body heat.
And Rome had looked him dead in the eye and warned him there was no future in getting involved with Jolie.
Archer rolled onto his side and glared at the strip of light beneath his door. It wasn’t coming from the hall.
Jolie still had a lamp on in her room. She was awake.
Maybe even lying there thinking the same things he was.
Slowly, he began dismantling every argument he’d made.
As if there was ever a good time for anything. Life didn’t politely warn you before an injury on the job or an unexpected pregnancy. People just dealt with it.
Even the vow he’d taken when he swore into Blackout now felt like fine print everyone ignored. The no-relationships rule made sense for a Blackout team—no distractions, no complications, no leverage.
But rules got bent every day. He’d seen it firsthand with his own sister and Charlie team’s Angelo Ash.
When he’d spent those few days after rescue on Charlie’s base, he’d seen enough to understand the blatant disregard of rules. Every man there had someone woven into his life.
The women on base had infiltrated every aspect Blackout Charlie’s life, from delivering coffee to delivering intel. Those women were trained to shoot, hack systems, patch wounds and break codes.
Their partners fit into the operations so cleanly they looked like another branch of it, one that only made the unit stronger.
That was different, he told himself for the tenth time. Those women belonged in that world.
