Page 41 of Duty Preserved

“Donovan.” I shifted in my chair and leaned forward slightly.

“Yeah.” His voice dropped.

I didn’t know what I was going to say. His name had come out on its own, and there was nothing behind it except the fact that I wanted him to stay exactly where he was.

He leaned forward. Slowly. Met me halfway across the table. His hand came up, and his fingers touched my jaw.

He kissed me.

His mouth was warm and unhurried, and the slowness of it undid me more than urgency would have. I found the front of his shirt with my hand and held on, twisting my fingers into the fabric like I needed something solid to keep me where I was.

He traced the line of my jaw with his thumb, and I felt it everywhere—in my chest, in the base of my throat, in the place behind my ribs where I’d been carrying the weight of wanting this and pretending I didn’t. He kissed me like he had nowhere else to be, and I kissed him back like I’d been waiting for exactly this without knowing how to ask for it.

Because that was the truth.

Then a hippo grunted somewhere past the tree line, close enough to rattle the canvas, and we broke apart.

The distance between us was only inches, but it was enough. Enough for the air to hit my skin where his hand had been, enough for every thought I’d shut out to come flooding back.

The way this would end, because it would end. I couldn’t keep the attention of a man like this. I wasn’t enough—Gregory had made that clear.

I pulled away farther.

His hand dropped. He let me go immediately, no resistance, no question.

“I, uh…” There was no way I could explain this to him. “I’m sorry. I need to⁠—”

I stood up. The chair scraped back against the packed dirt, and the sound was too loud in the empty tent.

“Sarah. Hey⁠—”

“Good night.”

I walked across the dark compound, past the cabins with their windows black, past the water tank leaning on its crooked stand. I wanted to run, but that would be ridiculous. Especially since last time we’d come near to kissing—right after vomiting all over him—I’d run down the hotel hallway.

Donovan had to think I was an idiot. How could he not?

Chapter 11

Donovan

I’d kissed her.

That was the first thought I had when I awoke. I’d kissed Sarah Calloway in the mess tent in the dead of night, and she’d kissed me back.

And then she walked away.

I hadn’t wanted that moment to end, but she’d broken it so fast I was still catching up when she stood. Her fist had been knotted in the front of my shirt, pulling me in, her mouth open against mine, and then she said good night over her shoulder and was gone. The grip on my shirt told me she’d wanted it every bit as much as I had. Everything after that told me she couldn’t get away fast enough.

I swung my legs off the bunk and sat there in the gray light. Cole had called first light for the site, and first light was already bleeding through the window seams.

I reached for my boots and laced them up. The whole time, she was right there in the back of my head, the warmth of her mouth and the small sound she’d made against mine. I shoved it aside. We had an actual op to execute.

The muster yard was already filling when I crossed the compound. Cole stood at the front, scanning the group as they assembled. Andrew was already moving through the column, checking weapons and kit without being asked. The rangers came in on time. Zayn at the front, the others falling in behind him, full kit, weapons carried correctly. If we’d tried this our first morning here, I’d have had to drag them out of the bunkhouse. Now they beat me to the yard.

“Full team,” Cole said to me as I came alongside him. “I want everyone’s eyes on this. It’s a teaching opportunity as much as anything else. How to read a site, how to move through it, what to look for. The rangers need to see how we process a scene.”

“Agreed.” Finally, some real work.