Page 56 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

The war can wait.

14

The Payload

LILY

The metallic clatter of his spare magazine hitting the supply crate echoes through the cavernous logging facility.

The sound is final, heavy with promise. The hum of the portable generator and the rapid keystrokes from the workbench fade into insignificance. The perimeter, the impending siege, the entire war—it all vanishes.

The man standing before me is no longer the detached operator who stormed a Bangkok solarium. The distance he uses as armor is gone, shattered by one explicit request.

His hands find my waist. The heat of his palms bleeds through the oversized T-shirt. The calluses on his fingers map the curve of my hips with a possessive grip. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't need to. The hunger in his eyes communicates a command that bypasses language entirely.

He pulls me flush against his tactical vest. The hard Kevlar plates and the rigid angles of his holsters press into my soft curves. He's a machine built for violence; I'm a dancer built for grace. Yet in the crushing proximity of his hold, the two opposing forces lock into a perfect, inevitable harmony.

He turns, guiding me away from the bright glare of the tactical monitors.

Bronco and Rook don't look up from their weapons. Hammer is asleep against a crate with his arms crossed. Julian and Ivy stay absorbed in the scrolling data. The privacy is an illusion, a fragile bubble constructed entirely by Dax's force of will. He steps into the room, pulling me inside, and kicks the heavy wooden door shut.

The latch clicks into place.

The room is dark, lit only by the faint glow of the security halogens bleeding through the rusted window grate. Rain drums against the corrugated metal roof.

"You don't make an offer like that to a sniper." His voice is gravel, resonating deep in my chest. He backs me toward the bed, his frame crowding my space, consuming the remaining oxygen in the cramped room. "Not unless you're prepared to follow orders."

Orders.

The word ignites a liquid heat in my core. The untouched ballerina they tried to lock away in a glass box never wanted a polite gentleman. The fantasies I buried in the dark of my mind always craved this—a force capable of breaking my control.

"I'm a dancer." I tilt my chin up, meeting his gaze. The tremor in my voice betrays me. "I know how to take direction."

His hands slide up my ribcage, his thumbs grazing the undersides of my breasts. The breath hitches in my throat. The deliberate slowness of his touch is agonizing. He's mapping the territory, establishing dominance over the impending choreography.

"This isn't a stage." He leans down, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch from my ear. The rough stubble on his jaw scrapes my skin. "There's no audience. There's only me, and what I want you to do."

"Tell me." A shudder wracks my frame.

"That's not how this works. The student tells the instructor what she wants." He pulls back. The space between us turns into a void filled with heat and the sound of the rain.

"Dax." The name leaves my lips before I can stop it. "I want you to teach me."

"Teach you, what?" A muscle ticks in his jaw.

"Everything." The word is small and enormous at the same time. I hold his gaze, refusing to look away despite the heat crawling up my neck. "About sex. About pleasing you. About all of it." The confession spills like water through a broken dam—the virgin's manifesto, laid bare on a bed in a war camp. "A few hours ago, I'd never been touched. I don't know what I'm doing. But I want to learn, and I want you to be the one who teaches me."

The confession lands somewhere deep behind his ribs. The shift is subtle—a fraction of softening in the hard line of his mouth, a slight lowering of his guard that another person might miss. But I read bodies for a living. I translate biomechanics the way he translates windage and elevation.

"You're asking the wrong man for gentle." His voice drops another register. "I don't know how to go easy."

"I'm not asking for easy." I step closer, eliminating the distance he tried to create. "I'm asking for honest. Show me what you like. Tell me what to do. I'll follow every direction." A breath. The dancer's discipline steadying what should be terrifying vulnerability. "I've spent my entire life taking instruction. Perfecting technique. Repeating a sequence until the choreographer is satisfied." I press my palm flat against his chest, directly over the hammer of his heart. "Choreograph me."

The sound that escapes his throat is low and ruined, the noise of a man watching his last fortification crumble.

He reaches for the nylon belt securing his tactical rig. The metallic scrape of the buckle echoes in the small room. He shrugs off the Kevlar vest and drops it onto a nearby chair, the thud of the ballistic plates a heavy reminder of the world waiting outside the door.

He unbuttons his tactical pants, his movements deliberate and unhurried.