“You’re not,” Eli said almost harshly, clearly dismissing that opinion.“You’re hurt.That’s different.”
Another beat of silence.Then Marsh looked up.“You always talk like that to your clients?”
Eli smirked at him.“Only to the ones I really want to help—and kiss.”
There was a pause.A shift in the air.
Then Marsh reached forward, gripped Eli’s hands and pulled him forward.Eli came willingly, straddling Marsh’s lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Their mouths crashed together—hot, desperate, real.Marsh’s hands found Eli’s nape, holding him still while he tilted his own head to find the perfect angle and devoured the man’s mouth.Eli’s hands gripped Marsh’s shoulders, going pliant beneath Marsh’s hands, groaning the sexist sound Marsh had ever heard.
It wasn’t sweet.
It wasn’t careful.
It was need, raw and sudden, and when they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
Eli grinned.“That was ...yeah.”
Marsh chuckled, dazed.“You’re dangerous.”
Eli kissed his cheek and stood, heading for the back of the room.“I’ll grab us some water.Stay put.”
Marsh watched him go.Watched the sway of his hips and the easy way he moved.
And then it hit him.
Eli had been in his lap.Straddling him.And not once—not once—had Marsh thought about his missing leg.About the weight.The balance.The loss.
It hadn’t mattered.
He’d felt whole.
Just a man, holding a man he wanted like nothing before, just wanting, and being wanted.
Marsh leaned back in the chair, heart pounding.
Maybe he could do this.
Maybe this was what healing looked like.
****
The Colonel leanedback in the leather seat of the private car, the hum of the engine barely audible beneath the insulated interior.The driver said nothing—he’d been well paid for silence and discretion.Outside, the trees of rural Wyoming sped past in a blur of green and gold.A tablet rested on the Colonel’s knee, its screen glowing softly in the dim light.
The profile on display was sparse.Frustratingly so.Redacted documents.Missing medical reports.Interviews that had been sealed or scrubbed.But the name was there, clear and in bold at the top.
Elias Carmino.
Someone had run a search on his boy, and the Colonel, who had an entire tech team scouring all communication channels for anything related to him had picked it up.And followed the thread.Sure, it had been frustratingly hard to follow, with some pretty impressive firewalls holding a few things back, but he got there in the end, and he would get his man in the end as well.Then another chime as more information came in.
The Colonel’s lip curled.So that was where he’d run to.Obsidian Ridge.That little fortress masquerading as a training and tech facility up in the mountains.Clever.Very clever.Oh, he had heard about the facility and knew a lot about Lieutenant Anton Bateman, the head of the ill-fated misfits known as the Pathfinders.That cocky little upstart had embarrassed him on more than one occasion in the past.
He swiped a thumb across the screen, flicking through images—passport photo, license scan, a grainy shot from a Cheyenne gas station two days ago.He paused on the last one.Eli, mid-step, coffee in one hand, head tilted like he’d heard something behind him.
Still looking over his shoulder.Good.He should be.
The Colonel tapped the side of the tablet.“Route recalculated?”he asked the driver.
