Chapter 4 Savannah
FOUR
Savannah
My full name on Sawyer’s lips sends warmth through me. No one calls me Savannah except close friends and family, but it sounds right from him.
"Turn coming up," he says, and I realize I've been staring at his profile in the darkness.
We leave paved roads for dirt roads and climb into the mountains. The trail gets progressively worse until we're crawling over rocks that scrape the undercarriage.
The headlights catch glimpses of a drop-off to our right—hundreds of feet down to tree tops that look like black teeth in the darkness. My hands grip the door handle white-knuckled, and Sawyer notices.
"I won't let us go over," he says quietly.
"How can you be sure?"
"Because you're in the car, and I've decided nothing bad happens to you on my watch."
The certainty in his voice makes something in my chest loosen. This man, who doesn't know me beyond a file and a firefight, has decided I'm worth protecting.
After three days of being hunted by someone who claimed to love me, Sawyer's straightforward commitment feels like oxygen after drowning.
Finally, he stops at what looks like an impassible cliff face.
"We walk from here."
"How far?" I grab my messenger bag with the laptop, and he pulls a large pack from the back.
"Three miles, mostly vertical." He hands me a headlamp. "There's a fire watch tower that's been abandoned for twenty years. I've been maintaining it as a bolt-hole. No one knows it exists except me."
"Why tell me?"
He looks at me in the darkness, face half-shadowed. "Because you need to know you're safe. And because if something happens to me, you need to be able to get yourself out."
The practicality of it—planning for his potential death—makes my chest tight. "Nothing's going to happen to you."
"Everyone thinks that until it does." He starts up the trail. "Stay close. Some of these drops are fatal if you slip."
The climb is brutal. I'm in good shape from aikido and running, but this is different—scrambling over rocks, pulling yourself up near-vertical sections, every muscle screaming.
The first section is deceptive—a steep trail that seems manageable until you realize it goes on forever, switchbacking up a slope that grows progressively steeper.
My calves burn after ten minutes.
My thighs are screaming after twenty.
Sawyer stays just ahead, occasionally reaching back to help me over obstacles, his hand warm and solid in mine.
"Break," he says at a small ledge, maybe a thousand feet up.
I collapse against a rock, gulping water from the bottle he hands me. Below us, the world falls away into darkness. Above, stars crowd the sky in a way they never do in the city. It's beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.
"You doing okay?" He's not even breathing hard, the bastard.
"Peachy." I wheeze. "Love climbing mountains in the middle of the night while being hunted by terrorists."
"Could be worse."
"How?"
"Could be raining."
I laugh despite everything, and his mouth quirks in what might be a smile.
"Tyler used to say that. Every mission that went sideways, he'd find something that could be worse. 'At least we're not in a swamp.' 'At least no one's shooting rockets at us.' 'At least the food's better than MREs.'"
"Sounds like a good partner."
"The best." The smile fades. "Until I got him killed."
"You didn't—"
"I hesitated." He cuts me off. "Three seconds of hesitation, trying to find a better angle to cut him free, and the fuel tank blew. Three seconds between him living and dying."
I want to say something comforting, but I understand the weight of those seconds. The moment of Nathan's betrayal, when I froze for just a heartbeat before rolling away from the needle—if I'd hesitated one second longer, I'd be dead.
"Come on," he says, standing. "We're exposed here."
Like before, he climbs just ahead, occasionally reaching back to help me over obstacles, his hand warm and solid in mine.
Then we hit the actual climbing section.
"Oh, hell no." I stare at the rock face rising into darkness, the fixed rope line that looks like dental floss against granite. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't." He turns to face me, and in the headlamp's glow, I can see patience in his eyes. "I'll be right behind you. Every step. You won't fall."
"I can't—" My voice cracks. "I'm terrified of heights. Always have been. I can't climb that."
He steps closer, close enough that I can smell the cedar and gunpowder, the clean sweat from our climb. "Look at me, not the cliff."
I focus on his face—the steady gray eyes, the stubble darkening his jaw, the absolute confidence in his expression.
“You fought off trained killers with kitchen knives and chemistry.” His voice is low, threaded with quiet awe.
“You survived three days on the run with the FBI hunting you. You jumped between buildings on a motorcycle an hour ago. This—” he nods toward the jagged rock face ahead “—this is just granite. One hand, one foot, one move at a time.”
“That’s different—and technically, you jumped the gap. I just clung on for dear life.”
His mouth curves, the memory sparking between us like flint catching flame. “That kiss made it worth it.”
Heat crawls up my neck. I try to focus on the cliff instead of the way he looks at me—as if that moment’s still playing behind his eyes. The breathless shock of it. The taste of adrenaline and rain and want.
He doesn’t tease. Doesn’t smirk. Just studies me, thumb brushing over the carabiner in his hand. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he says quietly.
The confession hangs there, raw and unguarded, heavier than the pack between us. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The air smells of stone and storm, thick enough to choke on.
Then he clips the first line into place, voice rougher now.
“Let’s get through this climb,” he murmurs. "I'm going to attach you to a safety line. Even if you slip, you won't fall far. And I'll be right behind you, close enough to catch you."
My hands shake as he checks the harness around my waist and thighs, professional but careful. This close, I can smell him again—that cedar scent mixed with clean sweat and something uniquely him. Something about his solid presence makes my panic recede slightly.
"Too tight?" He adjusts a strap, fingers brushing my hip.
"No, it's fine." My voice comes out breathy, and not from fear.
He clips me to the safety line, then positions himself behind me. "Climb. I'll guide your feet if you need it."
I reach for the first hold and immediately make the mistake of looking down. The ground drops into a black, endless nothing, and vertigo punches through me. My stomach lurches. My fingers slip. I press myself flat against the rock, breath tearing too fast from my lungs.
“Hey.” He’s suddenly there, heat and strength at my back, not trapping—shielding. His body brackets mine, his breath brushing my ear, steady and deliberate. “Feel me breathing? Match it. In… out… in… out.”
His chest rises against my spine, slow and controlled, each inhale rolling through me like an anchor dropping. I latch onto that rhythm, forcing my lungs to follow. The panic loosens its claws, inch by inch.
But the awareness of him?
That only gets sharper.
His hips press into mine with every breath. His arms cage around me, solid and sure, heat bleeding through my clothes like a wildfire. I can’t tell where he ends, and I begin.
“Good girl.”
The words hit harder than the vertigo. Low. Rough. A little too intimate. A little too knowing.
Something inside me flips—tight, hot, startling.
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh hell no.
Because the way he says that—like I’ve already pleased him, like he wants more—does something to me I’m not prepared for. My thighs tighten. My pulse drops straight to my core. And suddenly the climb isn’t just about survival.
Suddenly, I want to earn that praise again.
Make him say it.
Hear what other things that voice might do to me when we’re not clinging to a cliff.
His hand comes up beside mine, guiding, steady. “Right hand up to that hold at two o’clock.”
I reach for it, not because the rock feels safe—but because he does.
Because if I move, if I keep going, if I stay in this moment with him pressed against me, whispering in my ear…
Maybe when we reach wherever the hell we’re heading—
He’ll tell me I’m a good girl again, and I can explore more than that kiss.
Maybe deeper.
Closer.
Hotter.
Maybe I can see what he sounds like when he says good girl in a place where he doesn’t have to hold anything back.
I move when he tells me to, trusting him to guide my feet when I can't see. His body follows mine up the cliff, never more than inches away. When I fumble for a hold, his hand covers mine, guiding it to the right spot. When my foot slips, his thigh is there, supporting me until I find purchase.
"You're doing good, Savannah. Almost there."
His voice becomes my anchor. The way he says my name—like it belongs in his mouth, like he's tasting it—makes heat curl low in my belly despite the terror.
This is insane.
I'm clinging to a cliff face in the dark, and all I can think about is how his breath feels against my neck, how his body fits against mine like we were designed for this.
"Last push," he murmurs. "Ten more feet."
Those ten feet feel like a hundred. My arms shake with exhaustion, my legs are rubber, but his voice keeps me moving.
"That's it. You're amazing. So strong. Keep going."
When we finally haul ourselves over the last ledge, my knees hit solid ground. I’m shaking—adrenaline, exhaustion, the tail end of fear—but the second my palms meet dirt, relief crashes through me so hard my eyes sting.
“You did it.” He drops to a crouch beside me, one big hand rubbing slow circles between my shoulder blades, grounding me. “You climbed that whole thing.”
“Only because you were there.”
His thumb sweeps once down my spine, deliberate. “No. I just reminded you how strong you are.”
I look up at him. Wind-tossed hair. Sweat at his temples. Eyes lit with pride he doesn’t bother to hide. A man who’s only known me for two hours—but somehow sees straight through the walls I lived behind for three years.
Before my nerves can catch up, I grab a fistful of his shirt and yank him toward me.
The kiss hits like a flare igniting—hotter, deeper, molten.
No hesitation this time.
No shock.
Just want.
Strong enough to steal the breath from both of us.
He growls—low and feral, the kind of sound that vibrates straight through my bones—and then his mouth crashes into mine. Not gentle.
Not careful.
Hungry.
His fingers fist in my hair, tugging just hard enough to rip a breathless gasp from my throat. The other hand clamps at my lower back, dragging me flush against him, holding me in place while he devours me like he’s been starving for this from the moment I first touched him.
Heat floods every nerve. I rise into him instinctively, opening for him, chasing every brush of his tongue, every scrape of his teeth.
I’m not shy, not hesitant—I take what I want, take him, because this man pulled me through fire and fear and somehow lit something deeper inside me in the process.
He answers that hunger with more—deeper, harder—his mouth claiming mine like he’s mapping me, memorizing me.
His teeth catch my lower lip, a deliberate bite that sends a sharp, hot shock spiraling down my spine. He kisses me like he’d devour the whole moment—devour me—if we weren’t on borrowed time.
When we finally tear apart for air, our breaths crash between us—ragged, uneven—like we just hauled ourselves through flames and came out burning.
“We should—” he starts, voice rough enough to scrape.
“Get to the tower,” I breathe, lips still brushing his. I let my fingers trail down his chest, a promise more than a touch. “But later…”
The look he gives me says he’s already imagining exactly what later means.
"Later," he agrees, and helps me to my feet.
The fire watch tower looms out of the darkness, a wooden structure on stilts that looks like it'll collapse in a strong wind.
But when we climb the ladder—me first, him below to catch me if I fall—the inside is clean and well-maintained.
Solar battery bank, water filtration system, shelf of MREs, basic medical supplies.
A single sleeping bag, rolled in the corner.