Page 66 of The ARC Unit: Breach

I looked over my shoulder. “Here where?”

“Side.”

“That’s not a location.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“I’m going to clip it inside the waistband at your right hip.”

There was a fractional pause after he said it and I recognized it for what it was: room to object.

I turned forward again. “Just do it.”

Wolf dropped to one knee in front of me, close enough that the movement forced my attention down to him whether I wanted it there or not. From that angle, his shoulders looked even broader beneath the black shirt, his mask hiding everything except his eyes as he tipped his head back and met mine.

“Hold still.”

Easier said than done.

His hand settled at my hip first, steadying the fabric while the other reached for the transmitter. Then two fingers slipped beneath the edge of my bikini bottoms. Barely but just enough to lift the fabric away from my skin and seat the clip properly, but my body reacted as though he’d put his whole hand there. Every muscle across my stomach pulled tight.

His fingertips were warm against the curve of my hip, rougher than I expected, while the transmitter itself was cold enough to make me inhale sharply. The contrast sent goosebumps racing over my skin and down my thighs even though the room was perfectly comfortable.

His eyes lifted from his hands to my face without moving anything else, and for one horrible second, we stayed exactly like that, him kneeling between the line of my legs with two fingers tucked beneath my bikini and me trying very hard to pretend my breathing had not changed.

“Problem?” he asked.

The word came muffled through the mask, low and irritatingly calm.

“Y-your hands are cold.”

His eyes narrowed.

“They’re not.”

I hated that he was right.

He looked back down and adjusted the clip by a fraction, his knuckles brushing the exposed skin just above my hip bone. The movement was precise enough that I should have been able to treat it like any other piece of mission prep. Wolf wasn’t touching me like a man trying to get a reaction. He was touching me like he had no reaction at all, and my body was just being an absolute fucking traitor about it.

He flattened the wire along my side with the backs of his fingers. His hand passed over bare skin beneath my ribs and stopped just short of the lower edge of the bikini top as I raised my arm for him.

“Higher.”

I lifted my arm higher and immediately felt the bikini top shift with it, exposing the lower curve of my breast to the cooler air. Wolf’s eyes flicked there once. Just once. Then back to the transmitter in his hand. The single glance made me more self-conscious than staring would have.

“Turn.”

I carefully turned my back to him while he held the wire, and the space between us disappeared until the front of his body was nearly against my back. His mask hovered beside my shoulder, close enough that I could hear each slow breath filtering through the fabric, steady and controlled in a way that made me suddenly far too aware of my own.

The smell of him was stronger at this distance. Clean soap first, the same dry woodiness beneath it, then the faint trace of cigarette smoke that seemed permanently worked into his clothes no matter how recently he had showered.

I tried to focus on anything else. Wolf leaned forward and the front of his tactical belt pressed against the back of my hip with enough pressure for me to feel the rigid edge of the buckle and the heavier equipment clipped along it through the thin fabric of the bikini.

My breath caught.

His hand paused against my waist and for half a second, neither of us moved. My attention dropped toward his belt and Wolf’s voice came beside my ear.

“Hold still.”