Chapter 155
[ 496 words ]
Chapter 155:
Caroline gasped. The physical contact sent a jolt of electricity straight up her arm. She twisted her wrist, struggling violently.
“Let go,” Caroline hissed, looking around the empty street. “Someone from the hospital could drive by.”
Jarrod didn’t loosen his grip. He squeezed her fingers tighter.
He pulled their locked hands up and shoved them deep into the warm pocket of his military trousers.
He leaned down. His warm breath brushed against the shell of her ear.
“You are legally Mrs. Romero,” Jarrod whispered, his voice dark and incredibly dangerous. “You do not need to hide in the shadows like a thief anymore.”
Caroline’s heart skipped a violent beat. Her lungs seized.
Her deeply ingrained combat instincts flared. Her mind instantly calculated the exact angle needed to twist her forearm, snap his wrist, and break his grip.
Dі𝘴𝖼o𝘃е𝗋 n𝖾𝗐 ѕt𝗈𝘳𝗂e𝗌 𝗼n 𝗴𝗮𝘭𝗇𝘰𝗏𝖾𝘭s.𝘤𝘰𝗺
But right before her muscles fired, she felt the thick, hard calluses on his palm. She felt the overwhelming, burning heat radiating from his leg through the thin fabric of his pocket.
Her mind screamed at her to break his wrist, to fight, to run. But the heat from his hand was a physical anchor in the chaos. For the first time since leaving the hospital, a tiny, treacherous part of her felt… safe. The thought was so horrifying it paralyzed her.
Caroline stopped pulling. Her fingers went limp inside his pocket. She let him hold her hand.
Jarrod felt the fight leave her muscles. He looked straight ahead at the dark street.
The hard, ruthless line of his mouth slowly curved upward. It was a tiny, almost invisible smile, but it was entirely real.
They kept walking through the Washington night. The silence was no longer suffocating. The physical heat binding their hands together inside his pocket was slowly, methodically melting the last of her mental armor.
They walked for four blocks. The quiet, tree-lined avenue stretched out endlessly under the amber streetlights. Their hands remained tightly locked inside the warm pocket of Jarrod’s trousers.
Caroline’s pace began to drag. Her breathing, which had been steady and calm, was now coming in short, tight pulls.
She had changed into casual clothes for the dinner, but the flat leather shoes she wore were designed for looking presentable in a dining room, not for hiking across the concrete pavement of the capital.
A sharp, burning friction flared against the back of her right heel.
She gritted her teeth. She knew exactly what it was. The stiff leather was digging into her skin, and a blister had already formed and popped.
As a former field agent, Caroline had marched for miles through brutal terrain with bleeding feet. She could easily shut off the pain receptors in her brain and keep walking without a single complaint.
But her cover was Caroline Thompson, an ordinary, fragile civilian nurse.
To maintain the illusion, she deliberately let her right knee buckle a fraction of an inch. She sucked in a sharp, tiny breath of air through her teeth.
Jarrod’s hearing had been honed in active warzones. He caught the microscopic sound instantly.
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