Chapter 4
JACE
He had been alone for so long; finding Winter on his doorstep gave him hope that he wouldn’t have to be alone anymore.
Hearing her say that she wanted to go back to Huntsville didn’t surprise him.
Maybe it should have, but it didn’t. Huntsville was her home, and he knew that she’d want to go back to the Royal Harlots.
But he worried that once he got her back home, he wouldn’t be able to stay with her.
With the Dead Rabbits looking for him, he might not be able to ever go back home to Huntsville, AL, or the Royal Bastards, and that thought scared the hell out of him.
The last thing he wanted to do was pick up where they had left off and then have to leave her again.
It would not just break his heart—it would destroy him.
“Jace,” she whispered, framing his face with her hands.
His breath hitched when she said his name like that—soft and sure, as though having the power to break him open. “You have no idea how hard I’ve been trying not to touch you,” he said, his voice shaking with restraint.
“Then stop trying,” she simply said. As though it was that easy, but it wasn’t. He had spent days now overthinking about all the reasons why he shouldn’t touch her, and now, Winter was asking him to toss all those reasons out the window.
The words barely left her mouth before he crushed his lips to hers.
It took one heartbeat before his hands were in her hair, his mouth deepening the kiss to claim her with a kind of hunger that came from months of remembering their night together and dreaming that it could turn into so much more.
Winter didn’t hesitate. She met him with the same heat, the same desperate need.
Every regret and every unspoken word poured into the kiss until neither of them could breathe.
He broke away just long enough to press his forehead to hers. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you dare.”
The fire cracked behind them, and the world outside ceased to exist. The storm, the danger, and the fear—none of those things mattered anymore. There was only the sound of their breaths tangling together and the slow, unsteady rhythm of trust being rebuilt one touch at a time.
When he finally drew her into his arms, it wasn’t just want that he was giving into—it was surrender. It was a promise that whatever came next, they were done running from it. The cabin seemed to hold its breath around them, and for the first time in a long time, neither of them felt alone.
Jace’s hand slid along her jaw, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek as if he were memorizing her face.
Winter’s breath trembled against his skin, her pulse a rapid flutter he could feel through his fingertips.
He didn’t speak, not at first. Words would have broken the fragile space between them—the one that had shifted from fear to something fierce and certain.
When he kissed her again, it wasn’t careful.
It was a claiming kiss, the kind that came after too long of pretending he didn’t still feel her under his skin.
The kind that said he’d found his way home and didn’t plan to leave again.
The firelight caught in her hair, gilding her in gold.
He brushed a strand behind her ear, his hand lingering at the nape of her neck.
She leaned into the touch, and the quiet sound she made undid him completely.
His breath was ragged when he whispered her name. “Winter.”
“Jace,” she whimpered, her voice soft and unsteady, but full of trust that he probably didn’t deserve from her.
He lifted her easily, her fingers clutching at his shirt as he carried her toward the bedroom.
The cabin walls creaked around them, the storm outside raging harder, but none of it touched the heat that pulsed between them.
The world narrowed to the sound of the fire, the slide of breath against skin, the quiet surrender of two people who had lost too much to keep pretending.
“Be sure, honey,” he whispered as he gently laid her across the bed that they had been sharing.
“Because if we do this, I won’t be able to walk away from you again.
I can’t promise that I’ll be able to stay with you and the baby in Huntsville if the Dead Rabbits keep sniffing around Savage Heat.
” Jace worried that Winter wasn’t going to understand what he was trying to tell her until she smiled up at him and nodded.
“Where you go, I go,” she simply stated. Yeah, she got his meaning.
“Even if that means that we can’t stay in Huntsville,” he stipulated. “Are you sure that you can be good with that?” he asked.
She quickly nodded her agreement. “As long as we can be with you, Jace, I’m good with it.
” He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky, but he wasn’t about to question her further.
“Just love me, Jace.” He wanted to tell her that he already loved her—probably had since the one night that he finally gave in to his desires for her and made her his.
It was the night that they had created their son, and he’d take nothing back from that night.
Jace wasted no time stripping Winter out of his sweats that she borrowed from him.
And when he stood to look her over, he nearly swallowed his damn tongue.
She was beautiful with her belly swollen with his baby.
God, she was the sexiest fucking woman on the planet.
His inner caveman wanted to thump his chest and shout that she belonged to him, but they would get to that soon enough.
He stripped out of his clothes, and Winter held her arms out to him, an invitation that he wouldn’t refuse. “I’ve waited so long for you, honey,” he whispered, covering her with his body. “I’m worried that we’ll hurt the baby, though.”
“We won’t,” she wiggled to her side, and he did the same, pulling her into his body. “This might not work either,” she said, frowning down at her body. “I might just be too big for sex.”
He wasn’t willing to accept defeat. “Stay put,” he said, gently kissing her lips as he stood from the bed.
He quickly got back onto the bed behind her body and tugged her close.
She moaned as he palmed her breasts with his hands, and when she pushed her ass back against his cock, he knew that he had figured out a way for them to work around her belly.
“This is okay, then?” he asked. She moaned and wiggled her ass against his cock, and he couldn’t help his chuckle.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.” He snaked his hand under her belly and found her soaking wet for him.
He ran his fingers through her drenched folds, and she moaned his name.
Jace knew that she wasn’t going to last long, not with the way that she was riding his fingers, and that worked for him because he wanted inside of her more than he wanted his next breath.
“Jace,” she shouted again. He lined his cock up with her wet opening and slid in from behind her. It was his turn to moan as she rode him, finding her release on his fingers.
“So fucking good,” he whispered into her ear from behind as he started pumping in and out of her body.
“You feel so fucking good, baby,” he breathed.
“You do too, Jace,” she whimpered. He wrapped his big hands over her breasts, plucking her taut nipples, loving the little gasps and sighs that she gave him.
And when she came for him a second time, Jace couldn’t hold back his release any longer.
He pumped into her body a few more times, and when he came deep inside of her, he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her sated body and whisper the word that he’d been dying to say to her.
“Mine.”
Jace woke before the sun. It was an old habit of his from years of training.
But this time, it wasn’t instinct that kept him still — it was the weight of Winter against his chest, warm and soft.
Her breathing was slow and even, telling him that she was still sleeping and he didn’t want to wake her.
She had been up most of the night, tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable while the baby seemed to play soccer inside of her.
Winter’s hair brushed his chin, and her hand rested over his, where it curved protectively around her stomach.
The fire had burned down to embers in the front room, and the cabin was quiet.
It was the kind of quiet that usually made his nerves hum, but for once, it didn’t.
Not right away. For the first time in what felt like years, the silence didn’t mean danger.
It meant peace, and that was something new for him. He’d forgotten what that felt like.
Jace let himself breathe her in — the scent of soap and smoke from the fire mixed with the faint sweetness of her skin.
It touched something deep inside him, something that he wasn’t used to wanting this much.
He didn’t want to move or think, but thinking was all he seemed to do since Winter showed up on his doorstep.
Every minute they stayed at the cabin, the odds of their being safe there got worse.
The Dead Rabbits weren’t the type to give up, and Bolt’s call last night had said enough: they were circling Savage Hell, sniffing for ghosts—namely, him.
If one of them followed the wrong trail or found someone who still believed Jace was breathing, it would all come down on them fast. He couldn’t let that happen. Not to her or their kid.
Winter stirred then, her voice soft. “You’re awake,” she said.
He looked down at her, managing a half-smile. “So are you,” he teased.
She smiled faintly, sleepy-eyed and beautiful in a way that punched the air right out of him. For a second, he almost forgot where they were or how much danger they were in. He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “You, okay?”
“I am now,” she murmured, snuggling against his body. “Are you?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I am,” he admitted.