“I’m having a rational physiological response to nearly being adjudicated by a death squad.”
“Breathe, Iris.”
My name on his lips hits harder than the g-force of the turn.
It sounds intimate. Possessive. When Mercer used it in the trauma bay, the sound slid over my skin like slime. Coming from this man, wrapped in that gravel-dark baritone, the syllables land like an anchor dropped through deep water.
I force a breath, pulling the scent of the cab into my lungs. Sensory input to ground the rising terror. It smells of him. Not just leather seats and CLP gun oil, but him. A deep musk of male, sweat, and adrenaline. Earthy and raw, the smell of scorched pine and char. Destruction and warmth at once.
The scent floods my lungs, displacing the sterile antiseptic of the hospital that clings to my clothes like a second skin. It’s intoxicating, a visceral overload that shorts out the panic loop in my brain.
I look at him again. Really look.
This man is a walking weapon in a leather jacket. Violence is his first language. He solves problems with bullets and bruises where I would use triage and compassion. He’s the antithesis of the safe, ordered world I live in.
I date oncologists who worry about their 401(k)s.
Men who wear cardigans and drive Volvos with five-star safety ratings to the farmers’ market.
Men who ask permission to hold my hand and unpack their feelings over ethically sourced coffee.
Safe men.
Thoughtful men.
Men who talk about control like an idea to be discussed in therapy.
I’ve always known what I want. I’ve never been confused about that. I’ve explored it, named it, tested the edges in rooms where everything is negotiated and nothing is real.
Pretend control.
Borrowed authority.
This man didn’t ask permission.
The tackle. The shove. The bruising grip. He commandeered my existence in three seconds flat. Pure instinct. Necessity. Truth.
And God help me, watching the corded sinew of his forearm flex as he shifts gears, something in me sparks, bright and electric and unmistakable, in recognition.
My body remembers the weight of him in the garage. The crushing, undeniable reality of his chest against mine. That heat didn’t just shield me. It answered something I’ve carried quietly for years. It reached into the dark honest corner of my brain, the part that doesn’t want softness, discussion, or permission, and lit a firestorm.
I’ve always known this desire lived in me.
I just never believed I’d meet a man who wouldn’t have to pretend.
He eases off the gas, the truck settling into a steady seventy-five.
“We’re clear. They aren’t following. Not yet.”
“Who are you? You’re not the police. Police have protocols. You have efficiency.”
“Not police. US Marshal.”
A muscle works along his jaw.
“Technically. Name’s Vance. Boyd Vance.”
“Technically?”
