Epilogue
T he coast road shimmered in the heat, low-country air heavy with salt and cicadas. We’d driven for nearly an hour, Atticus’s hand resting on my thigh the whole way, his thumb stroking absent circles into my skin like he was writing his name there.
We didn’t talk much. He never filled silence unless it needed it, and with him, silence didn’t feel empty. It felt charged, waiting.
The cottage appeared like something drawn onto the horizon just for us.
Weathered clapboard, shutters the color of old moss, a porch that leaned toward the water like it had something to confess.
And off to the left, rising behind the line of pines, was a lighthouse—white tower, black cap, its slow turning beam sweeping across the inlet like a pulse.
He parked. Killed the engine. Looked at me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Somewhere no one can touch us.”
It wasn’t the words. It was the way he said them—like a man who had finally buried his past noise deep enough that it couldn’t reach this shore.
I blinked at the house, at the wild marsh beyond. “But … we already have a house in Charleston,” I said, hearing my own voice tilt into disbelief. “Your place. My place. The city.”
His eyes stayed on me, soft in a way that still startled me. “Yes,” he said. “And that’s home. That’s life. That’s where we build days and show up for your brother and run your shop and live like people. But I wanted to give you this, too. A place away. A place no one knows but us.”
“You bought this?”
“For you.” His mouth tilted, almost shy.
“For us. For when you need a door that only opens to your key. For when you want the sound of water instead of traffic. For when you don’t want to whisper.
” His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, a slow circle.
“You can yell as loud as you want here. Moan as loud as you want. No carriage driver. No city leaning in to listen.”
Heat rushed through me, not just from the promise but from the memory—the carriage in Charleston, his mouth between my thighs while hooves clopped on cobblestones and strangers laughed on sidewalks. The exquisite wrongness of it, the way it had felt like a dare.
He leaned closer, voice lowering. “Here, Lady, you don’t have to hide. Not a sound. Not a thought. Not a piece of yourself.”
I swallowed, staring at the cottage, at the porch that sloped like it had been waiting for us to climb its steps. The fantasy of it pressed against my ribs. He had thought of everything. Privacy. Safety. Space to be loud, to be messy, to be us.
“Show me,” I whispered.
He got out and circled to my door, opened it, and held out his hand. When I put mine in his, the weight of the past fell off my shoulders like a coat. This wasn’t escape. It was arrival.
Inside, the cottage smelled of sun-warmed wood and salt. Whitewashed walls. Windows that caught the river light and threw it across the floor. A fireplace for winter. A wide, screened porch for nights like this.
Atticus set my bag down and turned to me. “Ours,” he said quietly. “When you want to disappear. When you want to be found.”
My chest ached. “It’s perfect.”
“No,” he said. “It’s private. You’re perfect.”
And then he took my face in his hands and kissed me—slow, claiming, the kind of kiss that didn’t just stake ground but built a house on it.
In the bedroom, candles dotted the dresser and the wide sill by the window, their flames bending in the breeze from a cracked pane. A bottle of wine waited on the table, already sweating.
I turned, ready to tease him about romance not being his brand, but he pressed me against the wall before I got the chance. His mouth crashed into mine, hunger sharp and claiming.
“Mine,” he growled against my lips.
“Yours,” I whispered, already breathless.
His hands slid under my dress, callused palms rough against the inside of my thighs.
He lifted me, carried me across the room like I weighed nothing, and laid me on the bed.
The quilt smelled of sun and clean laundry, homely things, but they turned foreign with him standing over me like a predator deciding where to bite first.
He stripped my dress over my head, tossed it aside. His gaze burned down my body. “Look at you,” he rasped. “You’re every answer I ever needed.”
He didn’t give me time to reply. His mouth was on my neck, down my chest, teeth scraping, tongue soothing. He licked one nipple until I gasped, then bit it lightly, smirking when I arched into his mouth.
“Atticus—”
He slid lower, kissing down my stomach, pausing at the band of my panties. He hooked them with his teeth, dragged them down slow, eyes on me the whole time. When he finally spread me with his thumbs and put his mouth where I ached, I cried out, head slamming back against the pillow.
He licked me like he had all night, like my pleasure was something he could mine forever. His tongue circled, stroked, then plunged. His growl vibrated into me when I fisted his hair and pulled.
“Come for me, Lady.” His voice was a command, low and rough.
I broke, hips shoving against his mouth, thighs trembling as heat tore through me. He didn’t let up. He lapped me through it, coaxing another shudder before finally rising, his face slick with me.
He kissed me, hard, letting me taste myself on his tongue. “I’ll never get enough,” he said. “Of any part of you.”
Then he shoved his pants down, freed himself, and pressed the thick head of his cock against my entrance.
“You ready to take me?”
“Yes,” I gasped. “Always.”
He thrust in slow, stretching me, filling me until I cried out again. He bottomed out with a groan that shook his chest, forehead pressed to mine.
“Fuck, Simone. You feel like the life I almost lost.”
He started moving, long, deep strokes that made me claw his back. Every thrust stole my breath, gave it back, stole it again. He set a rhythm—patient, relentless—the kind that made me want to sob and scream and beg all at once.
“You terrify me,” I whispered.
His eyes blazed. “Good. Because I’ll terrify you every night, until the day you die wearing my ring.”
His pace quickened, the sound of skin slapping skin echoing off the walls. Sweat dripped from his temple onto my throat. My nails raked down his back and he hissed, slammed harder.
“Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours.”
“Again.”
“I’m yours, Atticus.”
His hand slid between us, thumb finding my clit, pressing until sparks detonated behind my eyes. I came around him, screaming his name, my whole body clenching. He groaned deep, drove into me a few more times, then spilled inside with a raw sound, burying his face against my chest.
We collapsed together, tangled in sweat and breath. His weight on me didn’t crush; it grounded.
Minutes—or maybe years—passed before he shifted, reached to the nightstand.
I thought he was grabbing water. Instead, he came back with a ring. Simple gold, warm from his palm. Inside, etched so small I had to squint, was a tiny cleaver laid on its side—set down, not raised. Not a weapon anymore. A tool, retired. A promise that he’d put the blade away for us.
My breath caught.
He held it out. “Marry me.”
Not a question. A vow disguised as a demand.
“Atticus—”
“Don’t argue. Don’t overthink. You’re mine. You’ve been mine since the night you asked for danger and I walked into your life. Let me put my promise on your finger the way you’ve carved yours into my chest.”
Tears blurred my vision. I laughed, shaky and real. “That’s not a proposal. That’s?—”
“A claim,” he interrupted, eyes fierce. “The only one that matters. Say yes, Simone.”
I slid the ring on. It fit like it had been waiting. I kissed him, tasting salt and want and home.
“Yes,” I whispered against his lips.
He exhaled like a man unclenching from a lifetime of battle. He pulled me back under him, already hard again, and thrust deep before I could catch my breath.
“You’ll never take it off,” he growled.
“Never,” I promised.
And as he fucked me into the mattress, as the lighthouse beam outside swept its silent circle across the water, I knew this wasn’t the end of danger. It was the start of something truer.
Mine.
His.
Forever.