Page 58 of My Forbidden Commander

“Noah…”

He kisses me again, hard at first, hungry, and desperate, both of us shaking. Then it softens, turns slow and unbearably tender, his hand coming up to cradle my jaw like I’m something precious that survived a fall he didn’t think I would. I make a small, helpless sound against his mouth, and he answers it with one of his own, low and private, meant for no one but me.

“Colonel, Wilder is⁠—”

Hayes rounds the scrub pine mid-sentence, already talking before he clears the branches, and then he doesn’t finish the sentence.

He freezes, eyes wide, mouth still open on a word that never comes out, staring at the two of us wrapped around each other with absolutely no room left to pretend it’s anything else but what it is.

We jump apart. Too late. Miles too late.

Hayes breathes out, long and slow, like a balloon leaking air. “Fuuuuck.”

29

GABRIEL

Hayes blinks, then grins so widely his face splits in half.

“I knew it!” he whisper-yells. “I called it! I said so, didn’t I, Reyes? I said once the Colonel starts supervising your dental hygiene that⁠—”

“Hayes,” I snap, my blood still ice in my veins. Noah is breathing hard four feet away, looking as pale as I feel.

“Yes, sir?” Hayes asks, oblivious.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “What did you just see, Corporal?”

Hayes tilts his head. “Well, your tongue was in⁠—”

“Tyler,” Noah hisses. “No.”

Hayes looks between us, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land. Then the light finally dawns in those baby blues.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, yeah, no. I didn’t see much, sir. Reyes was in the corner taking a piss, and you were⁠—”

“Hayes,” I interrupt again. “Keep it simple.”

“Yes, sir, I didn’t see anything, sir.”

“Good.” I’m going to have to believe that for the moment, because I am not ready to see our careers flushed down the toilet today. “What were you saying about Wilder, Corporal?”

Hayes points back with a thumb over his shoulder. “He, ah, he’s coming down the path, sir.”

I exchange a glance with Reyes, both of us likely thinking the same thing: if Wilder’s here, where’s Callahan? Then I jog back to the goat trail, the two younger men following.

Wilder comes around the bend at a dead run, chest heaving, rifle in his hands. Blood tracks down the side of his face, dried at the edges, fresh at the source.

“Sergeant.” I catch him by the shoulder before he can barrel past me. “Report.”

He plants his boots, sucks down two full breaths before he can get the words out, and I make myself wait.

“We got split,” he says finally. “Wedge came up between us on descent. Maybe half a dozen, moving fast, cutting the ground between me and Callahan before either of us saw it happen.”

“Where is he now?”

Wilder clenches his jaw. “They took him, sir.”

No one says anything, the mountain quiet.