Chapter Nine
She found him at midnight, exactly where she knew he'd be.
The armory was cold and quiet, fluorescent lights humming overhead, rows of weapons locked in their cases like sleeping predators. Forge sat at the cleaning station, a rifle disassembled before him, his hands moving through maintenance routines with mechanical precision.
The rifle didn't need cleaning. She could see that from the doorway—the metal gleaming, every component already spotless.
But his hands needed something to do.
"You should be sleeping," he said without looking up.
"So should you."
"I don't sleep much."
"I noticed." She stepped inside, letting the door swing closed behind her. "The pacing. The checking. You've walked past my room four times since I went to bed."
His hands stilled on the barrel. "You heard that."
"I was awake."
Silence. The hum of fluorescents. The distant sound of someone moving through the compound—late-night patrol, maybe, or another insomniac seeking purpose in the dark hours.
Caroline crossed to the cleaning station and settled onto the bench beside him. Close enough to feel his warmth. Far enough to give him space.
"Tell me," she said.
"Tell you what?"
"Whatever's keeping you up. Whatever makes you clean rifles that don't need cleaning at midnight."
For a long moment, she thought he wouldn't answer. His jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the disassembled weapon like it held secrets he couldn't share.
Then his shoulders dropped.
"Specialist Ryan Kowalski," he said quietly. "Twenty-three years old. From some small town in Ohio I'd never heard of. Played guitar, talked about his girlfriend constantly, couldn't grow a beard to save his life."
Caroline didn't speak. Didn't move. Just waited.
"We were in Afghanistan. Standard patrol, nothing unusual. I'd maintained every weapon the night before—checked them twice, three times, made sure everything was perfect." His voice went flat. "Ryan's rifle jammed. First burst, middle of an ambush. He was trying to clear it when the round hit him."
"Forge—"
"I did everything right." The words came out rough, torn.
"Every protocol, every inspection. I'd handled that rifle myself six hours earlier, and it worked perfectly.
But something shifted, something moved, something I couldn't have predicted—and he died holding a weapon that should have saved him. "
His hands had started moving again, reassembling the rifle with unconscious efficiency. Muscle memory doing what his mind couldn't stop.
"That's why you check," she said softly. "Everything, constantly. Because you couldn't control what happened to him, so you control everything you can reach."
"It doesn't work." He slotted the bolt carrier home. "I know that. The randomness doesn't care how carefully you prepare. But the alternative is accepting that nothing I do matters, and I can't—" His voice broke. "I can't live like that."
Caroline reached out and took the rifle from his hands.
He let her. That alone told her something—this man who never let anyone handle his equipment, who trusted no one else to check what he'd checked. He let her take the weapon and set it aside.
"Ryan's death wasn't your fault," she said.
"I know."
"But you don't believe it."
"No."
She thought about the animals she'd lost. The ones she couldn't save despite everything—despite perfect diagnoses and proper treatment and holding on until her arms ached. The way those failures lived in her hands, making her check and recheck every dose, every incision.
"I had a horse once," she said. "Before Bella. When I was in vet school, working at a large animal clinic. Beautiful mare, impacted colic. I diagnosed it perfectly, got her into surgery in time, did everything by the book."
Forge looked at her.
"She died on the table. Anesthesia complication—one in ten thousand chance.
Nothing I could have predicted, nothing I could have controlled.
" Caroline's throat tightened. "I spent the next year triple-checking every anesthesia protocol, every dosage, every possible point of failure.
My supervisors thought I was obsessive. They didn't understand. "
"They couldn't understand."
"No." She met his eyes. "But you do."
The air between them shifted. Charged. Became something that crackled with potential.
"Caroline." Her name came out rough, almost reverent. "I don't—I'm not good at this. The talking, the feelings. I know how to check equipment and plan operations and eliminate threats. I don't know how to—"
She kissed him.
She'd been thinking about it for days—what it would feel like to close the distance he maintained, to break through the vigilance and find the man underneath. In her imagination, it had been gentle. Tentative.
This wasn't that.
This was hunger, pure and overwhelming. His hands came up to grip her waist like he was afraid she'd disappear. Her fingers fisted in his shirt, dragging him closer. The kiss was consuming—all the tension of the past week igniting at once.
"Wait." He pulled back, breathing hard. "You don't have to—"
"I know what I'm doing." She held his gaze.
"I know who you are and what you've done and what you'll do again.
I'm not confused. I'm not grateful for being saved.
I want you, Malcolm. The man who checks locks because he can't stop imagining loss.
The man whose hands shake when he touches me because he's terrified of wanting something this much. "
His breath caught at the use of his real name. Something cracked in his expression—the iron control he maintained like a second skin, finally breaking.
"I don't know how to do this gently," he said.
"I didn't ask for gentle."
He stood in one fluid motion, pulling her up with him. His hands cradled her face, tilting her head back, his eyes searching hers for any sign of hesitation.
He found none.
This time when he kissed her, it was different. Deliberate. Thorough. Like he was cataloging every response, memorizing every sound she made. His tongue traced her lower lip and she gasped into his mouth. His hands slid into her hair and she melted against him.
"Armory floor's cold," he murmured against her jaw.
"Don't care."
"There's a cot in the back. For overnight watches."
"Better."
He walked her backward, never breaking contact, his mouth tracing fire down her throat. When her legs hit the edge of the cot, she sat, and he followed her down like gravity made him do it.
His weight pressed her into the thin mattress. His hands mapped her body through her clothes—ribs, hips, the curve of her waist. Every touch was careful despite the intensity, like he was handling something precious.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
"I know." His voice was rough. "I can't stop."
"Why?"
He pulled back enough to look at her. In the dim light of the back room, his face was stripped of every defense. Vulnerable in a way that made her heart ache.
"Because I've wanted this since you stitched your own arm without flinching. Because every time I check a lock or clear a room, I'm thinking about you. Because you're the first thing in years that I've been afraid to lose."
She reached up and traced his jaw. Felt the tension thrumming through him, the control he was barely maintaining.
"Then stop being afraid," she said. "Just for tonight. Let go."
Something shifted behind his eyes. Permission received. Processed. Accepted.
He kissed her again, and this time there was nothing careful about it.
Her shirt disappeared. His followed. The sensation of skin against skin made her gasp—he was all hard muscle and old scars, a map of violence written across his body. She traced each mark with her fingers and felt him shudder.
"Caroline." Her name was a groan against her collarbone. "Tell me what you need."
"You. All of you. Stop holding back."
He stopped holding back.
His hands learned her body with the same attention to detail he brought to weapons maintenance—finding what made her breath catch, what made her arch against him, what made her say his name like a prayer.
Every response was cataloged, repeated, refined.
He built her pleasure like he built defensive positions: methodically, thoroughly, leaving nothing to chance.
When he finally moved over her, into her, they both went still.
"Look at me," he said, voice wrecked.
She opened eyes she didn't remember closing. Found him watching her with an intensity that bordered on reverence.
"I've got you," he said. "I've always got you."
Then he moved, and thought became impossible.
The rhythm built slowly—deliberate strokes that drove her higher with each one. His forehead pressed against hers, sharing breath, sharing everything. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him deeper, and the sound he made was almost wounded.
"Mine," he gasped against her throat. "Tell me you're mine."
"Yours." The word came out broken, shattered by sensation. "Malcolm—yours—"
He came apart at the sound of his name in her mouth. She followed seconds later, pleasure cresting like a wave, dragging them both under.
The aftermath was quiet.
They lay tangled together on the narrow cot, his arm heavy across her waist, her head on his chest. His heart thundered against her ear—steady now, slowing. The tension that lived in his shoulders was gone for the first time since she'd met him.
"You called me Malcolm," he said eventually.
"I did."
"Nobody calls me that."
"Maybe they should." She traced idle patterns on his chest. "Maybe the man who just made me see stars deserves his real name."
A rumble of laughter beneath her ear. "See stars?"
"Don't let it go to your head."
"Too late." His arm tightened around her. "Already there."
Silence settled again, comfortable now. The armory hummed around them, weapons sleeping in their cases, the cold held back by shared body heat.
"I should go back to my room," Caroline said without moving.
"You should stay."
"That's not—"
"Stay." His voice dropped, serious again. "Not for safety. Not because I'm worried about threats. Just because I sleep better when you're close."
She lifted her head to look at him. In the dim light, his face was soft. Open. Younger than she'd ever seen it.
"You don't sleep," she reminded him.
"Maybe I will tonight." His hand came up to brush hair from her face. "With you here. Maybe I finally will."
Caroline settled back against his chest.
She didn't go back to her room.
And for the first time in longer than either of them could remember, they both slept through the night.