Chapter 6: Alexis

The kitchen was quiet in that early morning that felt borrowed.

Soft light spilled through the tall windows, turning the counters pale gold. The compound hadn’t fully woken yet. No clatter. No voices. Just the hum of the appliances and the faint sound of coffee brewing somewhere behind me. I looked around to see who turned on the coffee machine, but I didn’t see anyone.

“Must be on a timer,” I mumbled.

I padded across the floor barefoot, hair twisted into a messy knot that hadn’t survived sleep, wearing one of my tanks and shorts. Nothing fancy. Nothing sexy. Comfortable.

I didn’t expect anyone else to be there, so when I turned and nearly collided with a wall of heat and muscle, my breath caught sharp and stupid in my throat.

Reid Calder.

He stood just inside the doorway, sleeves pushed up, hair still loose like he hadn’t decided whether to control it yet. Morning light cut across his face, catching in those green eyes that didn’t soften just because the sun was out.

He stopped too.

For a second, neither of us moved.

His gaze dragged over me, slow and unguarded, before snapping back to my face like he’d touched something he wasn’t allowed to. I felt it everywhere. The look. The pause. The way the air between us thickened.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. His voice was lower than it had been yesterday. Rougher. Like sleep hadn’t been kind to him either.

“You didn’t,” I lied.

We stood there, too close. The scent of coffee and soap and something uniquely his wrapped around me. I could feel the heat radiating off his body, the awareness humming just beneath my skin.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

Casual. Neutral. Like that wasn’t a loaded question.

I tilted my head slightly. Not on purpose. It just happened.

His jaw flexed.

“Fine,” I said. This small talk is excruciating. “You?”

“Didn’t,” he replied. The honesty hit harder than it should have.

Silence stretched. Not awkward. Electrically charged. Like both of us were standing at the edge of something and pretending not to see the drop.

He cleared his throat and reached for the cupboard behind me.

“Sorry. Just reaching,” he said. Trying to extend himself longer without accidentally touching me, but his arm brushed my side anyway. A fleeting touch, but it wasn’t a jolt of pleasure. It was a spark of static, a shock of pure, infuriating friction that lit a fire in my blood.

I flinched, a barely suppressed recoil.

He froze, his hand hovering, and a slow, triumphant smirk touched his lips. He had seen my reaction, and he seemed to enjoy it.

He didn’t move back. Instead, he lowered his arm slowly, his knuckles dragging down the cupboard door beside my head, the sound a soft, menacing scrape in the charged silence. His gaze dropped from my eyes to my lips, and the air between us became a vacuum, sucking away all reason.

His other hand began to rise, to touch me, but to hover. His fingers stopped inches from my cheek. Close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from them.

I held my breath, my entire body coiled tight with a tension that was equal parts revulsion and a terrifying, magnetic pull.

Then, the back door swung open with a loud bang.

“GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINES!” Evan’s booming voice filled the small space, followed by the clatter of boots and chatter from the rest of the team.

Reid stepped back immediately. Control slamming back into place.

Evan noticed us immediately.

Bare feet. My cheeks, flushed. The way Reid’s shoulders were still tight as if he had just pulled himself back from a ledge.

Evan narrowed his eyes. “Oh,” he said. “Did we just walk in on something?”

“No,” Reid snapped at the exact moment I opened my mouth to say yes.

Evan’s grin went feral.

Marcus laughed. “Fuck! We missed it?”

Luke’s eyes flicked between us once. Raising an eyebrow and smiling.

Jonah said nothing, but was looking at me like he was reading my mind. That was unnerving.

Reid finally cleared his throat. “Briefing in ten.” Then he turned around and left. But not before looking at me for a beat with a stare that said, “to be continued.”

The briefing room felt smaller.

It was the same table. Same screens. Same chairs. But the air was different.

I took the seat beside Evan, my body still buzzing from last night and this morning’s incidents. My nerves were a fucking wreck. My pulse hadn’t slowed since the kitchen. It had just… relocated lower.

Reid stood at the head of the table, perfectly composed.

Of course he was.

His sleeves were now rolled down, his hair pushed back, and he was wearing a baseball hat.

Fuck, this man is beautiful.

The screens behind him lit up, and I shook off the inappropriate things that were running through my head.

The screen showed Lisbon. Routes. Time tables. Entry points. Civilian density.

Reid’s voice was steady as he walked them through our next mission. Controlled and precise. Warehouses. Surveillance. Kovac’s patterns.

I followed it all. But my attention kept shifting to him. The way his jaw tightened when Evan leaned closer to whisper something in my ear. How he didn’t look at me at all, which somehow made it worse.

Then something caught my attention. Something didn’t line up.

My head tilted subconsciously.

“Um - if I may interject,” I said quietly.

Not timid. Not apologetic.

“You’ve tried this strategy before, correct?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “And?”

“And every time,” I continued, eyes scrolling through the archived mission failures that were going through beside the map. “Kovac shuts it all down before you can make actual progress.”

Marcus leaned back. “He’s got the warehouses rigged on a suicide switch. Every time we get close, he blows them up.”

I nodded.

“As you said, he conducts business through social events,” I said. “So why not go undercover?”

Marcus snorted. “Because none of us exactly scream high society.”

“I can,” I said.

Silence.

Every man in the room went still.

Reid’s reaction was instant. “Out of the fucking question.”

Too fast. Too loud.

“We do not send people into undercover missions we can’t extract them from,” he continued, jaw tight. “That is not a fucking option. I am not gambling with your life.”

I didn’t miss the way Marcus and Evan exchanged looks. I also didn’t miss his emphasis on your.

“You’ve already been gambling,” I said calmly. “You just prefer the odds when it’s the buildings blowing up instead of people watching. And you’ve lost that best every single time.”

I stood as he did, the space between us disappearing.

“You don’t understand what Kovac does to people who get close,” he said.

“I understand exactly what men like him do,” I replied. “How they think. How they operate. That’s why I’m suggesting it.”

“No, Harper.”

I stepped closer, closing the distance between us until we were nearly toe-to-toe. The same electric charge from the night before and this morning crackled between us, but now it was laced with pure, unadulterated fury.

“It’s your only chance, Commander,” I said quietly. “That’s what I was brought here to do.”

I didn’t look away when I said his name.

“Director Sato?”

The room exhaled when I took a step back.

Sato sided with me. Carefully. Without stripping Reid of control.

And Reid accepted it. Barely.

When the room cleared, my pulse was still racing.

The way his restraint felt like a hand around my throat, even when he never touched me.

Reid Calder wasn’t just a problem. He was the kind of problem you didn’t walk away from once you stepped too close. And I had already stepped in.

I didn’t follow Evan to the kitchen, nor did I go back to my room.

If I stayed still, I would start thinking. If I started thinking, I would spiral - and I had already done enough of that for one morning.

The gym was quiet. Early-hour quiet. No music. No chatter. Just the soft hum of fluorescent lights and the muted clink of metal settling into place. Everyone was still at breakfast.

Good.

I dropped my tablet on a bench and wrapped my hands. Slow and methodical. Each pass of fabric grounding me back into my body. Back into something I could control.

Weights don’t lie. They don’t look at you like they know exactly where to touch and then choose not to.

I started with the bar.

Warm-up reps. Controlled pulls. Muscles waking, heat blooming under my skin. My breath evened out, swat breaking along my spine as I added plates.

This is where my head goes quiet.

I was mid-set when I felt it. A presence. The kind that shifts the air without asking permission.

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to. I knew who it was.

Reid stood behind me. Not too close but not too far.

Close enough that my skin knew before my brain caught up.

My pulse jumped, traitorous and immediate.

I finished the rep anyway. Set the bar back into place and straighten slowly.

He still hadn’t said a word. Of course, he hadn’t.

His arms crossed, jaw tight, watching me like he was assessing a threat instead of a woman dead-lifting more than half the men in the compound.

Barefoot. Tank top. Hair pulled back with a backwards baseball cap.

Holy shit, he looks like a fucking god!

I could feel his attention drag down my spine like heat.

“Take a picture,” I said, not turning, “it’ll last longer.”

Silence.

Then, footsteps. Deliberate. Careful.

“What did you dream about last night?” he said. His voice was trying to remain neutral. Like he was asking about the weather, not the thing that dragged me out of sleep, shaking so hard I almost reached for a gun.

I swallowed once, slowly.

The barbell was still in front of me. The plates were still loaded. My hands were still chalked. The room smelled of metal, sweat, and control.

I turned to him, keeping my face blank.

“How romantic,” I said. “Most men ask for your number first before they start asking about your dreams. Way ahead of the curve there, Commander.”

His jaw flexed.

That’s my default setting: sarcasm, humor, and pushing people away. A well-developed shield so clean, you couldn’t even tell how deep the cracks are underneath.

Reid didn’t smile. He didn’t even blink. He was just staring at me, but not because I was trying to be funny or mean. I couldn’t really put my finger on it. The way he looks at me… It’s different.

“I heard you,” he said quietly.

My throat immediately went dry. I fucking knew it.

The hallway. His breath against my neck.

I turned back around and pretended to choose which equipment to use next, kicking myself for not controlling my subconscious better - as if that’s even humanly possible.

“Congratulations,” I said, trying to control my voice.

I can see that he was still staring at me when I lifted my head to look at the mirror.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?

“That,” his gaze dropped to my hands. My traitorous thumb that I have realized too late that I’ve been rubbing against my palm again.

I stopped immediately.

I hated that he noticed. I hated it even more that he cared enough to look.

“What do you want, Calder?” I asked, trying to keep my tone as light and as bright as possible. “A debrief? A confession? A bedtime story?”

His mouth tightened, and he stepped closer.

“I heard you telling someone to stop,” he said. “And then you started choking on air.”

My stomach rolled, hot and sharp because he wasn’t wrong. And because nobody should know that about me yet. Especially not him.

“People have nightmares, Calder,” I said.

“Not like that,” he replied. I detected a tone. Concern maybe?

God. He’s unbearable.

I didn’t realize how close he was to me until he grabbed my shoulder to turn around.

“Was it someone touching you?”

My breath started to quicken.

His touch was a current of pure electricity, searing a path down my arms that made my entire body tremble with want. His fingers lingered at my wrists, thumbs pressing into the frantic pulse there, a possessive claim that made my breath hitch.

Then, in one fluid, dominating motion, he seized both my hands. My arms were lifted, stretched taut above my head until my wrists were crushed against the cold, unforgiving glass of the mirrors.

The sudden chill was a shock against my burning skin. He leaned in, the hard heat of his chest a stark contrast to the mirror behind me, his body caging me completely. I was trapped, his prisoner, utterly at his mercy with nothing but the desperate ache between my legs to guide me.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

His hands were still around mine, firm enough to anchor me, careful enough not to hurt. As if he were holding something fragile, he didn’t trust himself to deserve.

“Tell me,” he said.

His voice was controlled, but his eyes weren’t. His eyes looked like the last thread on a leash.

“Tell you what, exactly?” I breathed. “That I still have nightmares about the abuse I endured when I was younger? Or how helpless I felt that I swore I’d never be that helpless again?”

The second the words left my mouth, something in Reid shifted. Not surprise, but recognition. As if he had already known something ugly lived under my skin, and hearing it out loud just made it real enough.

His grip loosened, not because he was letting go, but because he was choosing gentleness with what looked like actual pain.

His fingers slid into my hair, and my breath caught because the touch wasn’t hungry. It was reverent. And I realized that he had been holding himself back, and this was the closest he had allowed himself to come to worship without sinning.

He leaned his forehead to mine, closed his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice sounded as wrecked as mine.

“When I heard you,” he whispered. “Last night.”

My heart dropped.

He didn’t say it as a complaint, but as a confession, like it haunted him.

“I stood there,” he continues, his voice breaking, “and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to make it stop.”

My throat tightened.

Reid Calder was not a man who admitted helplessness, but now, here he is. Telling me all this.

“I’ve been in rooms full of screaming men,” he said. “I have had blood on my hands. Watched people die, and I never flinched.”

His fingers tightened in my hair, just slightly. Not painful. Possessive. Honest.

“But hearing you… " His breath shook once against my mouth. “I didn’t know what to do.”

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t

His forehead stayed against mine, like he needed contact to keep from losing it completely.

“I can’t stand the thought of someone touching you like that,” he said softly. “Of someone making you feel small. Making you feel trapped.”

His voice dipped lower. Darker.

“And I cannot stand the thought that it happened, and nobody paid for it.”

My eyes burned.

“Reid,” I whispered, because I didn’t know what else to do with the feeling swelling in my chest. The impossible tenderness of him. The terrifying sincerity.

He exhaled like it was a war.

“Tell me who did it,” he said, and his voice was pleading now. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just absolutely ruined. “Please.”

I shook my head. “I’ve let it go,” I whispered, even though my body trembled like it didn’t believe me.

His eyes opened.

God.

The look in them nearly made me shatter. It was not anger. Not violence. But devotion. The kind that didn’t ask permission. The kind that didn’t care if it was allowed.

“I haven’t,” he whispered.

My breath hitched.

“I don’t think I can,” he admitted, and that was the most honest thing I had ever heard from a man like him. “Not when it’s you.”

Tears slipped free from my eyes.

His thumb brushed them away, and then he placed his thumb to his lips.

“Don’t go on the mission,” he said suddenly, and the desperation in his voice turned my stomach over. “Alexis…”

My name sounded wrong in his mouth like that.

“We can do this without you going undercover,” he whispered. “I’ll find another way. I’ll rip Lisbon apart brick by brick if I have to.”

I almost laughed.

He leaned closer, his mouth hovering over mine, not touching. He wasn’t going to cross that line. But god, I can feel that he wanted to. I could feel it in every inch of his restraint. His breathing was uneven, like he was fighting himself.

“I can’t…” he started, and his voice cracked. “I can’t watch you walk into a room where a man like Kovac gets to look at you and think you’re his.”

His jaw clenched. His eyes flashed, lethal and desperate.

“And if he fucking touches you,” he whispered, “I will fucking kill him.”

I sucked in a breath like my lungs forgot how to work.

Reid’s forehead pressed harder against mine, like he was trying to keep his sanity intact.

“Let me keep you safe,” he murmured, the words almost breaking him. “Just let me - "

Footsteps.

“Hey, Calder! You in here?”

Marcus.

Reid went still like someone snapped a leash tight around his throat.

His hand dropped from my hair instantly, and I immediately felt the absence of it.

His body backed away, not because he didn’t want me, but because he did. And apparently wanting me was something he only allowed himself when nobody could see it.

I turned fast, wiping my cheeks with my sleeve, forcing air into my lungs like it wasn’t shaking apart from the inside.

Marcus and Luke stepped into the gym.

Luke saw me first. His face changed immediately. That gentle, competent concern felt like a warm blanket.

“Alexis,” he said, already walking toward me. He tipped my chin up, his eyes scanning my face. “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”

“Oh, no,” I said too quickly. “No. I think I’m allergic to something in here.”

I forced a laugh. It sounded normal enough.

“Commander Calder asked me the same thing.”

Luke’s eyes shifted to Reid.

Reid nodded.

“I see,” Luke said smoothly, accepting the lie. For now. “I’ll have the vents checked. We probably could increase the filtration just in case.”

Relief hit me so hard.

“Thanks, Luke,” I whispered.

Marcus looked between us, suspicious as hell, then grinned like a shark.

“Glad it’s just allergies and not Calder making you cry,” he said. “I’d be more than happy to kick his ass for you.” And punched Reid in the arm.

I faked a laugh, brighter this time, easier. “Calder? Make me cry?” I scoffed. “Please.”

And that’s when I looked at Reid. He finally met my eyes, just for a second, and the man who had been pressed to my forehead seconds ago was gone. Replaced by Commander Calder.

Cold. Blank. Untouchable.

“No offense, Commander,” I added, because suddenly I needed distance more than I needed air.

His response came out flat. Professional. Controlled. “None taken.”

The Reid who gets close when no one is watching… and the Reid who turns into stone the second someone enters the room…

They didn’t match. They couldn’t both be real. And both personas are giving me whiplash.

My chest tightened with something sharp and humiliating.

I wasn’t some secret he got to indulge in private and deny in public.

I wasn’t a weakness he could pretend didn’t exist the moment the lights were on.

Luke stepped back, satisfied I wasn’t bleeding.

Marcus clapped Reid on the shoulder, as if nothing happened. As if there wasn’t a whole other conversation still burning in the air between us.

“Come on,” Marcus said. “We have a mission to plan for.”

Reid didn’t answer. He just nodded once, already moving like his body knew exactly where to go when his emotions got too inconvenient.

As they started to walk out, Marcus called back to me.

“Hey, Harper,” he said, grinning like he was about to tell me a secret. “Evan’s been looking for you.”

I noticed Reid’s fist tighten.

“Thanks, I’ll go find him,” I called back.

I stayed planted for half a second longer than I wanted to. My hands were steady now. My breathing, even. But my head was spinning.

The worst part wasn’t that he cared, it was that he cared enough to fall apart with me alone… and then had the nerve to act like I meant nothing the second he had witnesses.

And I didn’t know which version of him was the lie.

Or which one would hurt me more.