15. TUESDAY AFTERNOON — THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA
TUESDAY AFTERNOON — THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA
As we pulled through the heavy iron gates and navigated the gravel road toward Scott’s house, the reality of what we’d just ignited began to set in. You could almost hear the fallout from inside, before we even killed the engine.
Josie and Cadence scrambled out of the backseat, exuberantly chatting about our impromptu morning, while Silas and I followed silently. We walked side by side to the house, the newfound weight our rings held settling against our skin.
When I pushed the front door open, I expected a fight. What I got was an ambush.
The house was in a state of absolute madness.
Every piece of technology that had contact with the outside world was ringing simultaneously.
The landline’s shrill tone echoed from the kitchen, the tablets on the coffee table flashed with incoming notifications, and every cell phone buzzed in cacophony.
Presley, Tate, the Board of Directors… The flood had arrived.
The second my boots hit the foyer rug, a massive shadow lunged from the living room.
Maverick. He didn’t yell or ask questions.
His body moved with the blinding speed of a heavyweight who had completely lost his grip.
Before I could process the movement, his hands fisted the fabric of my hoodie, and I was off my feet.
With the force of a freight train, he drove me back until I hit the drywall so hard the framed photos along it rattled.
Any air that had been in my lungs left in a sharp wheeze.
Maverick had me pinned, his forearms pressing painfully into my collarbones as his face hovered inches from mine, his features contorted.
“What the fuck did you do?!” he roared, the sound vibrating right through my sternum.
“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing for an hour!
Every suit in the UWF is calling because they can’t get a hold of the two of you!
I can’t believe you’d pull a fucking stunt like this!
Posting that shit and then shutting your phones off? !”
I froze. I couldn’t help it. It was an immediate, involuntary reaction. On television, I was the fighter, the monster, the man who thrived on violence. But outside that squared circle in the real world? I wasn’t confrontational. In fact, I hated it.
So, being pinned to a wall by a man I respected, a man who was supposed to be family, triggered a paralyzing shock in my nervous system. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I just stared at Maverick’s eyes as my mind blanked out.
“Get your fucking hands off him!”
The voice ripped through the hallway, drowning out the phones ringing.
Silas didn’t ask Maverick to step back, or bother with trying to reason with the man. He acted with the instantaneous force he normally spent his life trying to suppress. His hand grabbed Maverick by the shoulder and shoved him—hard.
The momentum of a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound athlete shoving him sent the older man stumbling backward, his grip ripping free from my hoodie. I slumped against the wall, gasping for air, sliding down an inch as my legs went weak.
Silas stepped directly between us, throwing his arm out to shield me from his father. His chest heaved, his jaw was set, and his eyes were dark with a rage I’d never seen directed at his own blood.
“You do not touch him!” Silas screamed, getting right in Maverick’s face with barely an inch between them. “I don’t give a fuck how mad you are, you don’t ever put your hands on him!”
“He’s destroying your career!” Maverick shouted back, shoving a finger into Silas’s chest, treating him like a rookie who stepped out of line, rather than his son. “He’s making a mockery of the gold! Of this family!”
“I did it!” Silas shoved Maverick’s hand away, matching his father’s energy blow for blow.
The dynamic was jarring. There was no father-son deference here.
This was two alpha dogs fighting for dominance in the same yard.
“I posted it! I married him! I’m the one who took his fucking name, Mav! Deal with it!”
“Enough!”
Scott’s voice boomed from the kitchen, carrying the authoritative weight of the actual patriarch. He stepped into the hall, wedging himself between his industry-legend brother and his nephew with his hands raised. “Maverick, step back. Now. Silas, lower your voice. Both of you, stop.”
Silas was trembling, his hands balled into fists at his sides. He glared at Maverick for one more blistering second before he turned on his heel.
“I’m out of here,” Silas spat. He didn’t look back as he marched to the front door and yanked it open.
I remained pressed against the drywall, my heart beating at a frantic pace against my ribs. Still stunned, I was unable to force my brain to signal my legs to move. I watched Silas walk out, feeling like the world was spinning off its axis.
Silas was halfway down the porch steps when he realized I wasn’t behind him. He spun around, his chest heaving, his eyes locking onto where I was still standing frozen in the hallway.
“Callum! Come on!”
My name snapping from his lips broke the spell. I pushed off the wall, keeping my head down and avoiding Maverick’s eyes entirely as I hurried out the door, letting it slam shut behind us.
We didn’t speak on the short walk back to our house. The air between us crackled with electricity, the adrenaline from the altercation still humming in my veins. My chest ached where Maverick had pinned me, but my emotional ache was worse. I felt exposed.
The second we stepped through our front door, Silas turned the deadbolt with a sharp click, locking the world out.
I expected him to pace. I expected him to scream or throw something, further fueling the rage he’d just unleashed on his dad.
But as soon as the door was locked, he turned to me, and the fire in his eyes completely vanished.
The anger melted into a consuming desperation, softening his features. He closed the distance between us in a single stride, framing my face with his hands. His thumbs gently stroked my cheekbones as his eyes scanned every inch of my expression.
“Are you okay?” he shakily whispered. “Did he hurt you? I swear to God, I’ll go back down there and—”
“I’m fine, Si.” I breathed, closing my eyes and leaning into the warmth of his palms. “I’m okay. He just…caught me off guard.”
Silas let out a ragged sigh, stepping closer until our chests touched. Sliding his hands down to my collar, he gently adjusted the bunched fabric of my hoodie.
“You froze.”
I let out a dry laugh and dropped my forehead against his shoulder.
“It’s embarrassing, honestly. In the ring, I can take a chair shot to the head without blinking.
But out of there, when people come at me like that…
It’s like my brain just shorts out. Turns out, I don’t like fighting when there isn't a bell.”
Silas’s arms wrapped securely around my waist to pull me tight against his body. He pressed a slow, fiercely protective kiss to the crown of my head. “You don’t ever have to be embarrassed about that.”
He was stepping fully into the role of my anchor, which was a necessary reversal. For years, I’ve been the one to pull him out of a panic attack and shield him from the noise. But right now, Silas was my shield.
“You don’t have to defend yourself physically. You hear me? Not against my family, the office, or anyone else."
He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye with a steady gaze. “I’ll fight for us, for you. Anyone who tries to touch you, I’ll tear them apart. You’re my husband. My job is to protect you.”
A single tear slipped down my cheek, and Silas caught it with his thumb as my hands found his waist. “It’s still our day.”
His pupils blew so wide, his eyes looked entirely black in the dim light of the house as ragged breaths pulled the fabric of his shirt tight across his chest. He didn’t say another word.
He just stepped into my space, hooked his fingers into the hem of my faded Philly hoodie, and hauled me toward the couch.
He moved with a frantic energy, pushing me down onto the cushions.
Each movement was urgent and possessive, stripping away his composure until there was nothing left but the raw man underneath.
He didn’t wait for me to get my heavy boots off.
He climbed directly on top of me with his knees bracketing my hips in a straddle.
The friction of our bodies pressing together was euphoric, sending a jolt of heat straight to my groin.
With shaking hands, he grabbed the hem of his own T-shirt, pulling it over his head and blindly tossing it to the floor. The late afternoon light caught a faint sheen of sweat forming on his golden skin, highlighting the coiled muscles of his abdomen.
“I love you,” he whispered. His voice was wrecked but beautiful as he leaned down to kiss me.
It wasn't like the soft, sweet, reverent kiss we’d shared at the courthouse just hours before. It was desperate, hungry. There were teeth and tongues and a bruising pressure that tasted of home and adrenaline.
“You’re mine. My husband, no one else’s. Never anyone else’s.”
I groaned into his mouth, a deep, guttural sound that ripped from the deepest cavities of my throat. My hands slid up his bare back, heat radiating from him as my fingertips traced the familiar ridges of his spine. Beyond this room, this couch, the world ceased to exist.
He tugged my pajama pants and boxers off urgently, and my cock, which had already hardened at a painfully rapid rate, sprang free. My hands gripped the waistband of his sweats and yanked them down his muscular thighs to release him, his thick dick weeping with pre-cum.
Silas moved right back into my lap, straddling me again with more messy kisses.
We devoured each other, biting and marking the other as if trying to be each other’s air.
I reached around his waist, my hands finding the firm swell of his ass, and slid my hand between his cheeks, teasing his hole with the pads of my fingers.