Chapter 8 Nate
Nate
I shouldn’t have done it in front of her.
I know better than to let the switch flip where a civilian can see it. But the second those men said Travis’s name and took a step toward Greta, the world narrowed to a single point: keep her safe. The rest—tables breaking, fists meeting faces—was just math.
Now she’s shaking.
“Forget the cleanup,” I say, guiding her out the back. “We’ll handle it tomorrow.”
She nods, small and jerky, like her body’s still catching up to what just happened.
I take her hand—warm, trembling, brave—and tuck her close as we cross the lot.
Every shadow looks like a man. Every gust of wind sounds like footsteps.
I hate it. I hate that she has to live in a world where that’s true.
“Breathe for me,” I murmur, opening the truck door and settling her inside. “In. Out. That’s it.”
She matches me—one breath, then another. By the time I round the hood and climb in, the worst of the shake is gone. Not all of it. Enough.
The drive is quiet. Frost spiderwebs the corners of the windshield, the wipers whining every few seconds. Greta’s hands are folded tight in her lap. I want to pull over and gather her up and swear the world won’t touch her again. I keep driving. Getting her home is the promise I can make right now.
At the cabin, I scan the tree line out of habit. Clean. I unlock the door, step aside, and let her in first.
As soon as the latch clicks behind us, she exhales like she’s been holding her breath since the diner.
“Come here,” I say, softer than I feel.
She does.
She walks into my arms like she belongs there, forehead to my chest, fingers fisting in my shirt.
I wrap her up and let my chin rest in her hair.
We stand like that while the silence settles back over the room, the fireplace ticking, the dog circling his bed and dropping with a sigh big enough to count as commentary.
“I’m sorry,” I say into her hair. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
She shakes her head against me. “You kept me safe.”
“That doesn’t make the rest pretty.”
“Pretty’s overrated.” She tilts back to look at me. Her eyes are still wide, still glassy, but there’s steel in there too. “He sent men to scare me. You scared them back. I liked your math.”
The corner of my mouth lifts without permission. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says, and the word warms a place in me I thought the cold took a long time ago.
I thumb a curl behind her ear. “You’re still shaking.”
“I’ll stop,” she says, and then she breathes in, breathes out, and it’s true—some of the tremor leaves her. Not all. Enough.
“You want tea? Food?” I ask.
She bites her lip. “I just want you.”
The room shifts. Not loud—just undeniable. Heat rolls through me, clean and bright. Not because I earned anything. Because she offered it. Because she chose it. Because after a night like this, she’s looking straight at me and asking for closeness, not escape.
I cup her face, careful, and search her eyes. “You sure?”
“Yes.” Her voice is steady now. “I don’t want to be afraid in my own skin. Not with you.”
That’s all it takes.
I kiss her like I mean it—which is to say, slow at first, patient, letting her set the pace.
She tastes like diner coffee and peppermint lip balm and the kind of sweetness I don’t deserve and can’t walk away from.
Her hands slide up my chest to my shoulders; her sigh ghosts across my mouth.
When she rises onto her toes and presses closer, asking, I answer.
Heat builds, a low thrum under my ribs that turns greedy the second she opens for me.
Our kiss deepens. I angle us until her back meets the edge of the kitchen island, her hips slotting against mine in a way that makes my grip tighten.
She makes a small, helpless sound—my new favorite thing—and the control I’ve been clinging to frays.
“Tell me to stop,” I murmur against her mouth. It’s not a dare. It’s a safety line. “Anytime.”
She shakes her head, breathless. “Don’t.”
My hands find her waist, then slide up, mapping the lines I’ve only let myself memorize in quick glances. She’s soft under my palms, warm, alive. I lift her onto the island; she gasps, legs falling open to bracket my hips, and the contact blanks my thoughts to white for a second.
“Greta,” I say, because her name is the only prayer I know.
“Nate,” she answers, and somehow the way she says mine is both permission and need.
We take our time and somehow not at all.
Clothes loosen, edges blur. I trail my mouth along her jaw, down the line of her throat; she tips her head to give me more, fingers buried in my hair now, pulling just enough to make me groan.
I slide my hands under the hem of her sweater; she lifts her arms and I peel it away, reverent, grinning when she mutters something about the thermostat and I murmur, “I’ll keep you warm. ”
I do.
She’s gorgeous in my hands—curves and confidence, strength and softness—and when I mouth along the curve of her shoulder and feel her shiver, something tender and dangerous kicks hard in my chest. I want to be careful.
I want to be ruinous. I choose both: steady hands, hungry mouth, a pace that says I’m here even while it says I want.
“Bed,” she breathes against my ear.
“Yeah,” I say, voice rough, and lift her like she weighs nothing.
I carry her across the room, and set her down on the edge of the bed. She pulls me with her, laughing a little, the sound breathless and brave, and the laugh kills me more than anything.
We slow again, because I want to remember all of it.
Every inch. Every sound. The way her hands learn me back, finding the scar on my shoulder, the tired muscles at the base of my spine, the places that make me forget my own name.
I ask twice more if she’s sure, not because I doubt her, but because I like hearing her say yes.
She gives me more than yes—she gives me please and don’t stop and my name the way a woman says it when she’s not going anywhere.
“I,... uh…” she stutters, and I stop.
I gaze into her eyes. “What is it?” My heart is pounding in my ears.
“I’m scared.”
My heart stalls. “What do you mean?” I say, carefully.
Her cheeks tinge pink. “The last time I was with someone, he hurt me.”
My chest cracks wide open at her admission. “I’m the type of man who lives for missions. I have a mission and then I execute it. And tonight… that mission is to make you feel good. To cherish you. To worship at the fucking ground you walk on, Greta.”
She sucks in a breath, but I keep going…
“I’ve had a thing for you for quite some time. I’ve just never in my life felt I deserved anything this special.”
She cups my face. “It’s me who doesn’t deserve you.”
I kiss her lips quickly, and gaze into her eyes. “No, I definitely don’t deserve you, but I’m going to try to tonight.”
When we finally come together, it’s not frantic; it’s inevitable.
I move with her, pumping inside her, slow and deep, watching her face, letting the rhythm find us, letting the night peel away everything that doesn’t matter.
She wraps her legs around me and I see stars.
I brace my forearm by her head and lace our fingers with my free hand, pinning her only where she wants it, and the way she looks up at me—open, fierce, unafraid—undoes me in a way fists never will.
“Eyes on me,” she whispers.
“Always,” I promise, and mean it.
Heat climbs, coiling tight. She arches under me, nails biting just enough, mouth parted on a sound that hits me like a match to dry brush.
I murmur things I don’t say to anyone—soft, filthy, honest—and watch them land in her eyes.
When she breaks, it’s with a shiver that travels through both of us.
I follow, cursing into her neck, holding on like the world might tilt if I let go.
We breathe. The room comes back—the fire tick, the slow hush of wind on the eaves. I shift and roll, taking her with me so she ends up sprawled across my chest. I pull the blanket up and tuck it around her shoulders because I said I’d keep her warm and I don’t break promises.
For a while, we say nothing. Her fingers trace idle patterns over my sternum, and my palm fits at the small of her back like it was made for that spot. Her breathing evens out, the last of the adrenaline melting into something softer.
“Hey,” I say finally, when I can trust my voice. “You okay?”
She lifts her head. The fire paints gold along the curve of her cheek. “Yeah,” she says, and then she smiles in that small, real way that wrecks me. “Better than okay.”
“Good.” I angle up to kiss her once more—gentle, grateful. “I’m still sorry you had to see me work like that.”
She shakes her head. “Stop apologizing. You protected me. You didn’t scare me. He scares me.” Her mouth curves, wicked and sweet. “You… distract me.”
I huff a laugh, pull her tighter. “I can live with that.”
She nestles down again, ear over my heart, and I feel the moment her body finally lets go, the last of the tremor draining away. Before she drifts, she says, small and serious, “Thank you—for tonight. For all of it.”
“You don’t thank me for breathing,” I say, and slide my hand through her hair until she falls asleep in the safest place I can make—right here, on me, with the door locked and the gun close and the kind of contentment I didn’t think I’d get in this life.
I lie awake a while longer, watching the room, listening to the winter, cataloging the join between her hand and my chest like proof I didn’t dream it.
I think about the man who sent those three idiots and the way his name curdled the air in her diner.
I think about Micah and Hale running patterns through night streets.
I think about what I’ll do when Travis steps out of the dark and finally learns what it feels like to be hunted.
I don’t smile.
But I don’t feel cold anymore, either.