Page 15 of My Forbidden Commander

We start with jumping jacks and arm circles, and Wolfe walks the circle like an inspector at a factory, quiet, hands loose at his sides. He stops behind Petrillo during push-ups.

“Hips are sagging. You’re doing half the work and getting all the back pain.”

Petrillo fixes it. Wolfe moves on. He plants a boot next to Spencer’s hand during mountain climbers.

“Hands under your shoulders, not out front.”

Spencer adjusts with a grunt.

Delgado gets his flutter kicks corrected with one word: “Lower.”

And Hayes gets a full ten seconds of silent observation during his burpees, which is somehow worse than any correction, because Hayes starts burpeeing like his mother’s honor depends on it.

Then squats. Bodyweight, slow count, and I know my form is good. My form is good. I’ve been squatting since basic and nobody has ever⁠—

“Reyes.”

He’s behind me. When did he get behind me?

“Weight’s in your toes. You’ll blow a knee on a ruck march like that.”

“Sir, my weight is⁠—”

He doesn’t let me finish my objection.

“Down. Hold it there.”

I sink to the bottom of the squat and hold, my thighs already burning, and then hands close over my hips.

Every thought I have ever had leaves my skull at once.

“Back,” he says, his voice low, and pulls.

I shift my hips backward, putting my weight in my heels, and my ass bumps flush against his front.

We both go absolutely still.

One second. Maybe a second and a half. His hands are still on my hips, big and warm through damp fabric, and I’m pressed against him at the bottom of a squat with my pulse going off like war drums. The fog is thick, and everyone else is huffing through their own reps with their eyes on the gravel, and nobody sees it. Nobody sees his fingers tighten—just once, just a fraction—before they let go.

“Heels,” he says, and his voice comes out lower than the correction requires. “Like that.”

He steps back. I stand up out of the squat and risk one glance over my shoulder. Wolfe’s gray eyes, darker than the cloudy sky, lock on me for one long beat before he turns and walks the circle again, another routine inspection.

I do the rest of my squats staring at a supply pallet like it owes me money. My heels are perfect. My heart rate is a war crime.

“Wire run,” Wolfe calls. “Single file until the gate road, then open it up. Go.”

The perimeter loop is four kilometers of mud, gravel, and misery, and I spend the first two of them running directly behind the worst decision of my life.

He runs at the front, of course. Machine stride, shoulders rolling, the gray shirt going dark down his spine, and those black shorts doing things that should require a security clearance. I try looking at the mountains. The mountains are fine. I try looking at the wire. The wire is wire. I try looking at Hayes, who is making a sound like a leaking air mattress, and that works for about forty meters before my eyes drift forward again like a compass needle finding north.

He has a body built for the war. With every stride, the muscle in the back of his thighs bunches and releases, and I can still feel his hands printed on my hips, and I’m running four klicks in wet fog getting progressively harder, which is a tactical situation with no good outcomes.

“You okay?” Delgado pulls level with me. “You’re breathing weird.”

“Pace is weird.”

His eyebrows come up. “Pace is the same pace as always.”