Chapter Nineteen #2
"Church." Legion's voice cut through, but he was smiling. "It's done. She's claimed. She's family." He raised his beer. "To Forge and Caroline."
"To Forge and Caroline."
The formality cracked. Brothers surged forward—handshakes for Forge, careful hugs for Caroline, the rough affection of men who expressed love through physical impact.
Ghost nodded once, which Caroline had learned was the equivalent of a standing ovation.
Trooper squeezed her shoulder. Cargo said something about keeping the clinic stocked that sounded suspiciously like a promise.
Natalie, Hannah, and Jessica appeared from wherever they'd been waiting—or listening—and descended with the coordinated efficiency Caroline had come to expect.
"Welcome to the family," Hannah said, pulling her into a hug.
"You're stuck with us now," Natalie added.
"I'll add you to the group chat," Jessica said, already reaching for her phone.
The celebration spilled out of the chapel and into the compound yard, joining the remnants of the barbecue that had apparently never fully ended.
Someone turned up the music. Someone else produced a cake that looked like it had been decorated by a man whose primary skills involved explosives rather than frosting.
Caroline stood in the middle of it all, wearing leather that said Property of Forge, and felt the last wall she'd built around herself come down.
Then his hand found the small of her back.
"Come with me," Forge said, low enough that only she could hear.
She went.
Their room was quiet after the noise of the celebration. He closed the door behind them—locked it, checked the handle, checked the frame. Twice, not three times. Progress.
When he turned to face her, the formality of the chapel was gone. The controlled voice, the measured words—all of it replaced by something raw and hungry and barely contained.
"Say it again," he said.
"I'm yours."
He crossed the room in two steps and kissed her like the ceremony had been foreplay. His hands slid under the cut, against her skin, pulling her body flush with his. She grabbed his shoulders and held on.
"Again," he said against her mouth.
"Yours, Malcolm."
A sound tore from his chest—guttural, possessive, the response that only his real name could unlock. He lifted her without effort, her legs wrapping around him, his mouth leaving hers to trace fire down her throat.
He laid her on the bed with care that contradicted the intensity in his eyes.
The cut stayed on as he undressed her beneath it—his hands working with the deliberate attention she knew so well, but unhurried now.
No adrenaline driving them. No threat waiting outside.
Just time, stretching endless ahead of them.
"We don't have to rush," she whispered.
"I know." He pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat. "I want to remember every second of this."
He took his time.
Every piece of clothing removed like he was unwrapping something sacred. Every inch of skin beneath the leather kissed, tasted, claimed. She arched into him and he caught her, held her, mapped her body with the thoroughness of a man who'd spent his life making sure nothing was overlooked.
When she pulled his shirt over his head, she traced the scars she'd memorized. The shrapnel wound below his ribs. The starburst on his shoulder. The forge burns on his forearms. Every mark a story of survival, every story part of the man currently making her forget how to breathe.
"Mine," she said, pressing her lips to the scar over his heart.
"Yours." His voice broke on the word.
He moved over her, into her, and the sound they both made filled the quiet room. Not urgent. Not desperate. Deep. The kind of joining that happens when two people have stopped running and decided to stay.
The rhythm was slow. Devastating in its patience.
He held her gaze the entire time—those dark, burning eyes that had watched her stitch wounds and bury horses and walk through war without flinching.
Now they watched her come undone beneath him, cataloging every response, every tremor, every time she said his name.
"Malcolm—"
"I'm here." His forehead against hers. His body moving with hers like breathing. "Always here."
The pleasure built in waves—not the sharp crash of their earlier encounters but something tidal. Immense. Pulling them both toward something that felt less like an ending and more like a beginning.
She fell first. The wave cresting, pulling her under, her body arching against his while his name tore from her lips. He followed her over seconds later, his groan buried in her neck, his arms tightening around her like he was afraid the current would pull them apart.
It wouldn't. Nothing would. Not anymore.
The room settled. Breathing slowed. His weight pressed her into the mattress, warm and heavy and exactly right.
"The cut stays on," he murmured against her shoulder.
She laughed. "I'm not sleeping in leather."
"Five more minutes."
"You're ridiculous."
"I'm yours." He lifted his head, and his smile was the one she'd spent weeks searching for. Open. Warm. Real. "Same thing."
She pulled his face down and kissed him—soft, slow, the kind of kiss that had nowhere to be and nothing to prove.
Then she shrugged out of the cut, draped it over the headboard where they could both see it, and settled against his chest. His arm wrapped around her. His hand found her hip. His breathing steadied into the slow, deep rhythm of a man preparing—for once—to actually sleep.
"Malcolm?" she whispered.
"Hmm."
"You only checked the lock twice tonight."
A pause. Then his arm tightened.
"Didn't need the third time." His lips brushed her hair. "Everything worth protecting is already inside."
Caroline closed her eyes, pressed against the heartbeat of a man who'd finally stopped checking because he'd finally found something that would hold.
The leather hung above them, catching the last of the light.
Property of Forge.
She slept.