Chapter 11
Paige stood outside Channel's door at midnight, arguing with herself.
This was a terrible idea. He was complicated and damaged and hiding behind walls she might never fully breach. They were in the middle of a war with a smuggling operation that wanted her dead. The timing was wrong, the circumstances were wrong, everything about this was wrong.
She knocked anyway.
The door opened, and Channel stood there in low-slung jeans and nothing else, chest bare, hair mussed from sleep. His eyes went from confused to alert to something darker in the space of a heartbeat.
"Paige." Her name came out rough, surprised. "What—"
She stepped into him and kissed him before he could finish the question.
For a moment he went still—shock, maybe, or the calculating mind trying to figure out what was happening. Then his hands came up to grip her hips, hauling her against him, and the kiss turned molten.
Paige kicked the door shut behind her without breaking contact. His mouth was hot and demanding, tasting like whiskey and want, and she fisted her hands in his hair to pull him closer. Deeper. More.
"Paige." He pulled back just enough to speak, his breath ragged against her lips. "Are you sure—"
"I've been sure since you dropped the tourist act in my parlor." She nipped at his lower lip, satisfaction curling through her when he groaned. "But you keep doing this dance. The charm, the careful distance. I got tired of waiting for you to make a move."
"I was trying to be a gentleman."
"I don't want a gentleman." She pulled back to meet his eyes, letting him see everything—the want, the certainty, the challenge. "I want you. The real you. No charm, no performance. Just this."
Something snapped behind his eyes. The careful control he wore like armor cracked and fell away, and what was left was raw and hungry and entirely focused on her.
"You want real?" His voice dropped to a growl that vibrated through her bones. "I'll give you real."
He lifted her like she weighed nothing, hands gripping her thighs as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Three steps to the bed and then she was on her back, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his mouth claiming hers with a ferocity that stole her breath.
This wasn't the careful seduction she'd half-expected.
This was need—stripped bare, unpolished, two people crashing together like waves against rock.
His hands found the hem of her shirt and stripped it over her head, then his mouth was on her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breast above her bra.
"God, you're beautiful." The words came out reverent, almost awed. "Been thinking about this since the first night. Driving myself crazy."
"Then stop thinking."
She reached for the button of his jeans, and he caught her wrist—gently, but with enough force to make her pulse jump.
"Not yet." His eyes were dark, intent. "I've been wanting this too long to rush."
He undressed her slowly after that, peeling away layers with a focus that made her feel like the center of the universe. Every inch of skin he revealed, he touched. Tasted. Memorized with lips and tongue and the scrape of teeth that made her arch off the bed.
He was reading her, she realized. The same way he read situations and people and threats—cataloging every gasp, every shiver, learning exactly what made her fall apart. And unlike his charm, this attention was entirely genuine.
"Channel—" His name broke on a moan as his mouth found a spot that made stars explode behind her eyes.
"Everett." The correction was soft, almost vulnerable. "When we're like this, call me Everett."
The intimacy of it hit her harder than the physical sensation. His real name. The one he kept hidden behind the road name and the charm and all the walls he'd built.
"Everett," she breathed, and felt him shudder against her.
After that, there were no more words.
He took her apart piece by piece, with hands and mouth and a thoroughness that bordered on worship. Every time she tried to rush, to take control, he gentled her—patient and relentless and so focused on her pleasure that she lost track of where she ended and he began.
When he finally slid inside her, they both went still.
The connection was overwhelming—physical and something more, a locking into place that felt like inevitability. Paige gripped his shoulders and held his gaze, refusing to let him hide even now.
"See me," she demanded. "All of me. Don't close your eyes."
"I see you." His voice cracked. "God, Paige. I see you."
He moved, and she moved with him, finding a rhythm that built like a storm. His hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise—possessive, claiming—and she welcomed it. Wanted the marks. Wanted evidence that this was real.
"Mine," he growled against her throat, the word vibrating through her skin. "You're mine."
"Then prove it."
He did.
The world narrowed to sensation—his body driving into hers, his mouth stealing her breath, the coiling tension building low in her belly until it was almost unbearable.
When she finally shattered, it was with his name on her lips—his real name, the one that mattered—and he followed her over the edge moments later, his whole body shaking with release.
They collapsed together, sweat-slicked and gasping, tangled in sheets that had been destroyed somewhere along the way.
Afterward, Paige lay with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slowly return to normal. His fingers traced lazy patterns on her spine, absent and intimate, and the silence between them was comfortable in a way that felt earned.
"I wasn't expecting that," he admitted finally.
"The sex?"
"You." His chest rumbled with quiet laughter. "Showing up at my door. Taking what you wanted. Most women wait for me to make the move."
"Most women don't know you're hiding behind the charm.
" Paige propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at him.
In the dim light, with his defenses completely stripped away, he looked younger.
Softer. Real in a way that made her chest ache.
"I figured if I waited for you to stop performing long enough to actually ask, we'd both die of old age. "
"Fair point." He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture almost unbearably tender. "For the record? I wanted to. Every night since you came to the compound. But I kept telling myself you deserved better than a man who's not sure who he is without the mask."
"And now?"
"Now I'm thinking maybe who I am without the mask is the person you actually want." Wonder crept into his voice, fragile and uncertain. "That's... new."
Paige leaned down and kissed him—soft this time, a promise instead of a demand.
"I'm not interested in the charm, Everett.
Never was. The smooth talk, the easy smile, the version of you that works the room—that's fine for everyone else.
But when we're alone, I want this." She pressed her palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart kick beneath her hand. "The real thing. Whatever that is."
He was quiet for a long moment, something working behind his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was rough.
"You're the first person who's ever looked past the act and stayed."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean everyone else either believes the performance or gets frustrated when they realize it's a performance and walks away." He covered her hand with his, pressing it harder against his chest. "You saw through it from day one, and you're still here. Still wanting what's underneath."
"Is that so strange?"
"It's fucking terrifying." The admission came out raw, unguarded. "Because I don't know what's underneath, not entirely. And if you dig deep enough and find out there's nothing worth keeping—"
Paige silenced him with another kiss, longer this time, pouring everything she felt into the contact.
"I've seen war zones," she said when they broke apart.
"I've seen men at their worst and their best, sometimes in the same moment.
I've seen you beat a man to death in my rose garden and hold me like I was precious the same night.
" She met his eyes, willing him to believe her.
"Whatever's underneath your masks, I'm not afraid of it. And I'm not leaving."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because most people don't know what real looks like." She settled back against his chest, feeling his arm wrap around her like a shield. "But I do. And you're the realest thing I've found in a very long time."
He didn't respond with words. Instead, he pulled her closer, buried his face in her hair, and held on like she was the only solid thing in a world that kept shifting beneath his feet.
It was enough.
For both of them, it was more than enough.