Page 26 of Charged By the Razorbacks

Hard. Not careful. Not measured. Relief and frustration and something deeper that hit her before she could block it.

Her breath caught for half a second, then she kissed him back. Just as hard.

Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, meeting him with equal force, refusing to be overwhelmed, refusing to give an inch.

Jarek swore behind them. “Seriously? Now?”

Neither of them stopped, just let the kiss build between them. Aleksy broke the kiss just enough to breathe, his forehead brushing hers as he looked at her.

And the way he looked at her—steady and certain. Like she mattered.

It hit harder than the kiss.

Her lips curved anyway, her breath still uneven as she steadied herself.

“Yeah,” she said, voice rougher than she liked. “That was very serious, and it needed to be now.”

Jarek didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he shifted Naomi carefully, passing her into Aleksy’s hold with a precision that didn’t match the rough edge in his eyes. He made sure she was secure—safe—before his focus snapped back to Tamsin.

Then he stepped in.

His hand came up, sliding into her hair, anchoring her where she stood as he pulled her into him and kissed her.

Harder than Aleksy had. All heat and intent and something that felt a hell of a lot like a challenge.

Tamsin’s breath caught, her hands bracing against his chest on instinct—but she didn’t push him away. Didn’t break it. If anything, she met him, matching the force of it, giving as good as she got because anything less would’ve been a lie.

Jarek broke the kiss first, his forehead brushing hers for half a second, his breath uneven but his grin already edging back in.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Now, you’re done.”

Behind her, Aleksy shifted—steady and controlled—Naomi secure in his arms as if nothing had happened—except his gaze hadn’t moved from her.

Jarek stepped back, just enough to create space, though his attention didn’t leave her.

“Right, let’s get out of here,” he said, voice dry again, grounding the moment before it could spiral any further. “We’ve still got a building to clear.”

Tamsin stepped back, dragging herself out of the moment, forcing control back into her limbs, into her breathing, into her thoughts—but the heat didn’t fade.

It stayed.

Just under her skin.

And as she turned back into the fight, blade steady in her grip, she knew one thing for certain—nothing about this was simple anymore.

Chapter Five

They didn’t stop after the kiss.

There was no space for it, no room to stand in what had just shifted between them, because the building still breathed danger around them, thick and wrong, and until it was cleared, nothing else mattered.

Victor had made the call before they’d even reached the site—split the team, cut the lines, contain the movement. The Gorillas had peeled off to lock down transport routes before Chimera could relocate assets, while the Tigers stayed on comms, feeding live intel as it came in. The rest of the unit had been redirected to secondary targets lighting up across the grid.

Which left this—fast, quiet, surgical.

Jarek rolled his shoulders once as he moved forward, forcing his focus back into place, locking everything down into instinct and control. The corridor ahead stretched long and narrow, shadows pooling in the corners where the overhead lighting flickered just enough to be unreliable.