Chapter Eighteen
MARLEY
As we leave the gala, the silence in Nitro’s car feels alive.
It pulses between us like a third heartbeat, heavy with everything we’ve said tonight and everything we haven’t.
My burgundy dress clings to me, suddenly too tight, too warm, and I can’t stop replaying the kiss on that balcony.
The way his mouth felt against mine. The way he held me made me feel precious.
Like I mattered.
My fingers twist in my lap, and I catch Nitro glancing at me from the driver’s seat, his jaw tight, one hand on the wheel, and the other resting on the center console close enough to touch but not quite touching.
The Vegas Strip blurs past us in streams of neon and noise, but inside this car, the world has narrowed to just us. To the space between his hand and mine. To the question neither of us is brave enough to ask.
What happens now?
The apartment building appears too quickly. He pulls into the parking lot, kills the engine, and the sudden silence is deafening. For a moment, neither of us moves. We sit here, breathing, existing in this suspended moment where everything could change or stay exactly the same.
“Marley.” His voice is rough, a gravelly sound to it. “I meant what I said out there. About wanting this to be real. About—”
“I know.” I turn to face him, and God, even in the dim light of the parking garage, he’s devastating. All sharp edges and soft eyes, this impossible contradiction of a man who makes me feel safe and terrified all at once.
“So,” he answers, and there’s relief in his voice.
Relief that I’m not running. That I’m willing to stay and give us a shot.
“What do you want, Small Town?” He reaches over, and his fingers find mine, lacing through them with the same easy intimacy we had on the dance floor.
It is as if we had been doing this for years, not weeks, as if my hand had been made to fit in his.
I take a breath.
Then another.
And then I take that leap.
“Do you want to come in?” The question hangs between us, barely above a whisper, and I watch his expression shift. Watch the understanding dawn in those dark eyes. Watch his throat work as he swallows hard.
“Marley.” My name sounds like a prayer. Like a warning. Like everything I’ve ever wanted to hear. “If I come in, I’m not gonna want to leave.”
“Good.” My voice is steadier now, sure. “Because I don’t want you to.”
For a heartbeat, he just looks at me.
Really looks at me.
As if he’s trying to memorize every detail. The red hair that’s probably a disaster after dancing. The curves that Derek spent six years making me hate.
Then, without warning, he climbs out of the car and rounds it to open my door before I can reach for the handle. His hand extends toward me, and when I take it, when his fingers close around mine, that same electric current from the first night I met him sparks between us.
The night he picked me up when I was broken.
The night that changed everything.
We don’t speak as we cross the parking garage, step into the elevator, and ride up to my floor in a silence so charged I can barely breathe. Nitro’s thumb traces circles on the back of my hand, and that slight touch is somehow more intimate than anything we did on the dance floor.
My hands shake as I unlock the door, and I’m hyperaware of him behind me, of the heat radiating off his massive frame, and of the way he’s watching me like a predator on the hunt.
The apartment is dark, just the glow of the city filtering through the windows.
I moved in here just over a week ago, escaping Derek’s cruelty and starting fresh, and somehow Nitro has already become part of this space with me.
His jacket is draped over the sofa from a few days ago.
The coffee mug he used is sitting by the sink.
Little pieces of him are integrating into my life without me even noticing.
I turn to face him, and he’s right there, filling the doorway, this mountain of a man who could break me in half but holds me like I’m made of glass.
“Marley.” He steps inside, the door clicking shut behind him. “We don’t have to—”
I spin without hesitation, rising on my tiptoes, grab the front of his tuxedo jacket, and pull him down to me. I kiss him the way I’ve wanted to since that first night. The way I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. Desperate, hungry, and real.
He makes a sound low in his throat, surprise morphing into something darker, needier. His hands find my waist, span it completely, and then he lifts me, pressing me back against the door, his mouth moving against mine as if he’s starving, and I’m the only thing that can save him.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes against my lips. “Marley, you’re—”
“Don’t you dare say I’m beautiful,” I interrupt, my hands sliding into his hair. “Don’t you dare make this about—”
“You’re fucking stunning,” he growls, and the words hit me like a physical blow. “You’re gorgeous and brilliant and so goddamn brave it terrifies me. And I’m going to spend all night proving it to you.”
His mouth crashes back to mine before I can catch my breath, and this time there’s no hesitation in the way he kisses me.
No careful testing of boundaries. His hands frame my face as though he’s trying to memorize the shape of me, thumbs stroking my cheekbones while his tongue slides against mine in a rhythm that makes my knees buckle.
“Nitro…” I gasp against his lips, and he swallows my breath, pulling me tighter against his chest.
“I know,” he murmurs, his voice wrecked. “I know, baby. I’ve got you.”
His hands slide down to my waist, then lower, and suddenly I’m being lifted.
My legs wrap around him instinctively, my heels digging into his lower back as he carries me through the apartment like I weigh nothing.
The world blurs around us, the hallway wall where he pins me for another bruising kiss, the doorframe of the bedroom where he pauses to kick the door wider, the soft light spilling in from the living room that casts shadows across his face.
When he finally sets me down, my feet touch the floor, but my hands don’t leave him. I’m clutching his shirt, his jacket, anything I can reach, terrified that if I let go, this moment will shatter like glass.
“Marley.” He says my name like a prayer, his forehead pressed to mine. “We don’t have to. If you need time—”
“Don’t,” I interrupt, sharper than I mean to be. “Don’t give me time to overthink this. Don’t give me space to remember all the reasons this is complicated. Just…” my breath stutters, “… just be here with me. Please.”
Something changes in him.
Cracks open.
The careful restraint he’s been wearing like armor fractures right down the center.
He lowers one hand to the small of my back when my legs shake, steadying me, holding me like he’s not letting me fall, physically or otherwise.
“Baby…” he murmurs, his voice a deep, rough rumble that sinks straight into my bones.
“You’re shaking.” His thumb presses into my spine, controlled, grounding.
“You think I don’t feel that?” His forehead stays against mine, his breath hot, his jaw tight as if he’s one second from losing it.
“If you want to stop, you tell me now.” His grip tightens, not trapping, but claiming.
“But if this shaking is because you want me…” his mouth grazes my cheek, a whisper-soft tease that sends heat flooding low in my belly, “… then say it. Because the second you do…” Two fingers lift my chin, urging me to look at him, to really look.
“You’re getting all of me. No hesitation.
No restraint. I’ll take every. Single. Tremble from you and make you shake for a whole different reason. ”
My heartbeat punches hard against my ribs.
My voice barely makes it out, wrecked and honest.
“I do want you,” I whisper. My hands fist against his jacket, pulling him impossibly closer. “I want you more than I want to be careful, more than I want to be smart. I’m shaking because I need you. Right-fucking-now!”
His breath shudders out of him, as if those words just tore the last thread of control clean in half.
“Good,” he growls, low and satisfied, his mouth ghosting my lips without touching. “Then I’m all yours, Small Town.”
His fingers find the zipper at the back of my dress, and the sound, that slow, irrevocable slide, echoes in the room like the start of something we can’t take back.
And neither of us wants to.
The burgundy fabric loosens around me, the cool air of the apartment whispering against my heated skin.
I watch his face as he eases the dress off my shoulders, the way his jaw clenches when more of me is revealed.
The dress pools at my feet in a breath of expensive fabric, and I’m standing here in nothing but my black lace underwear and the stupid strappy heels that Sage insisted matched the dress perfectly.
The vulnerability crashes over me.
My arms move on their own, crossing over my stomach, trying to hide the soft curves that Derek spent years making me believe were flaws. My breath comes faster, shallow, and panic instantly creeps up my throat. “The lights…” I start, my voice cracking.
“Stay on.” Nitro’s voice is firm, commanding, and when I look at him, his eyes are blazing. “I want to see you, Marley. All of you.”
“Nitro, I—”
He closes the distance between us, and his hands slide up to cup my face. “Do you trust me?”
The question hangs there, loaded with everything we haven’t said.
Everything we still need to figure out. We have so much to sort through, so many conversations we need to have.
But despite the age gap, despite the fact he’s a biker, despite my many obvious flaws, despite every logical reason, I should run.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Then trust me when I say this.” He leans down, his forehead resting against mine. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Every. Single. Inch. Of. You.”