15. Savannah
SAVANNAH
Idon’t see him until it’s too late.
My boots scuff against the cabin’s splintered porch as I turn, and there he is—blocking the steps, knuckles braced against the doorframe. The porch light cuts shadows across his face, emphasizing the clench of his jaw, the animal tightness in his shoulders. I force myself not to retreat.
"You’ve been avoiding me." Gideon’s voice is gravel and whiskey, scraped raw.
I exhale through my nose. "You noticed."
His grip on the doorframe tightens. "Cut the shit." He steps forward, crowding me back against the wall. The humid night air sticks between us, thick with tension. "You don’t get to kiss me like that and then vanish like a fucking ghost."
I tilt my head, deliberate. "And you don’t get to shove into my space every time you don’t like what I’m doing."
His lips curl. "Tell me you didn’t mean it."
"Or what?" I challenge.
Something in his expression fractures. "Or nothing. Just admit you’re scared."
That stings. I push off the wall, forcing him to give ground. "You want honesty? Fine. You don’t know how to want anything that doesn’t come with bruises."
He flinches. His hands twitch toward me—to strike, to grab, I’m not sure. Then his eyes darken.
The next second, we’re inside, the door slamming behind us.
His fingers close around my wrist like steel. I twist, using his own momentum to hurl him backward—he hits the wall hard enough to send a hunting knife clattering to the floor.
We don’t talk. We never do.
It’s fists and teeth and the scrape of boots on wood.
A brutal back-and-forth that sends us crashing into furniture, the collision of bodies too loud in the cramped space.
His breath is hot against my cheek when he catches me in a grapple, my knee jamming against his ribs.
He grunts but doesn’t let go, hauling me against him like pain means nothing.
Then suddenly, we’re at the counter, his chest flush against my spine, his arm a bar across my throat. Not choking. Just holding. Both of us panting. The silence between us is worse than the violence.
"You make me feel things," I bite out before I can stop myself. "That’s the problem."
His grip slackens. His breath hitches against the nape of my neck. "I really don’t know how to do this." His voice cracks, rough as shattered glass. "Never wanted to before."
My ribs constrict. A confession isn’t a weapon in his hands—it’s surrender. The realization pierces me like a hollow-point: this man would burn the world down before admitting weakness. Yet here he is, exposed.
I turn in his arms before I can think better of it. His scars glint silver under the dim light when I trace his knuckles—FEAR across one hand, GOD across the other.
His free hand fists in my shirt like an anchor. "Tell me I'm not alone in this."
I don’t answer.
I kiss him instead.
This isn’t like before—no fury, no teeth. Just Gideon’s shuddering exhale against my mouth, his grip tightening like I’m worth holding onto. His fingers skim my spine like he’s mapping something fragile. I don’t realize I’m shaking until he presses his forehead to mine.
His mouth is fire and patience, his hands rough and reverent all at once. I gasp when he lifts me onto the counter, fingers sliding beneath my waistband. The fabric tears—he doesn’t care, just drops to his knees between my thighs. His breath ghosts over me, and I tug his hair hard enough to hurt.
“Gideon—” His name fractures when his tongue drags slow over me.
He growls against my skin, hands gripping my hips to keep me from rocking forward.
I curse in Spanish, thighs trembling as he takes his time, worshipping my sopping wet heat with lips and teeth until I’m arching off the counter, gasping.
He lifts me effortlessly, his strength terrifying and intoxicating in equal measure. My legs wrap instinctively around his waist as he carries me to the bed, his muscles flexing beneath my touch. When he drops me onto the mattress, the springs groan in protest—like they know what's coming.
With one brutal yank, he frees himself from his jeans, the fabric tearing at the seams. His cock springs free, thick and flushed, already leaking for me. I wrap my fingers around him before he can stop me, relishing the way his entire body tenses at my touch.
"Fuck," he snarls through gritted teeth, his forearm veins standing out like ropes as he grips the headboard. The wood creaks ominously under his grasp. His hips jerk involuntarily into my fist, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
When he finally moves over me, it's with predatory grace. His weight pins me perfectly—enough to feel owned, not enough to crush. Our rhythm starts frantic, all desperate thrusts and bitten-off curses. His forehead presses to mine, our breath mingling in the scant space between us.
It's too close. Too much. The intimacy burns worse than any blade ever could.
"Look at me," he demands, his voice rough with need. His pale eyes burn into mine, holding me captive more effectively than his hands ever could. There's something terrifying in his gaze—something like devotion, something like surrender.
I don't dare blink.
Fabric tears under-containing my fingers—sheets, Gideon’s shirt, I don’t know—as his hips snap into mine, each brutal thrust dragging a broken noise from my throat.
"Gideon—" His name isn’t a word now, just syllables shattered between gasps. He palms my breast through thin cotton, pinching my nipple and eliciting a searing hot pleasure that arches my back.Then, before I can even catch my breath from the last brutal thrust, Gideon’s massive hands are on me—one gripping my hipbone hard enough to leave fingerprints, the other fisting in my hair.
He flips me with terrifying ease, my stomach dropping like I’ve been thrown from a height.
The mattress swallows my gasp as he presses me facedown, his knee nudging my thighs wider apart with a rough, possessive shove.
His growl vibrates through my spine when I instinctively arch against him—half protest, half plea—and then he’s dragging my hips back, positioning me exactly how he wants.
The headboard rattles as he braces himself over me, spreading my legs wider with his own, his thick thighs bracketing mine.
Every inch of him feels like a brand, his heat searing through the thin barrier of my clothes.
I barely have time to register the shift before he’s driving into me again, deeper this time, impossibly deeper, the angle making me see stars.
The sheets twist in my clenched fists as he pins me completely, his weight a delicious, suffocating anchor.
His breath scorches the nape of my neck, ragged and uneven, and I know—without seeing—that his knuckles are white where they grip me, that his pale eyes have gone nearly silver with hunger.
There’s no escaping this. No escaping him. And God help me, I don’t want to.
A ragged sob tears from my throat when his calloused fingers find my clit, circling with ruthless precision as his cock stretches me impossibly full.
The dual sensations—the rough drag of his fingertips against oversensitive flesh, the thick, unrelenting pressure inside me—threaten to unravel me completely.
My nails dig into the corded muscle of his thigh behind me, breaking skin, and the answering growl against my neck vibrates through my bones.
He rewards the violence with his own—raking his blunt nails down my shoulder hard enough to leave raised, stinging welts.
The sharp pain only heightens the pleasure coiling tighter in my gut, white-hot sparks bursting behind my eyelids when he adjusts his angle slightly, hitting that devastating spot deep inside me with brutal accuracy.
My voice fractures into a broken stream of Spanish curses and his name—Gideon, Gideon—half-plea, half-prayer, syllables tangling helplessly as my body arches tighter against his.
The FEAR tattooed across his knuckles flashes in my blurred vision when his grip tightens in my hair, and I know, with terrifying clarity, that he'll remember every word I'm gasping now, every shattered sound, cataloging them like ammunition for later.
They come together, a frantic combination of erratic thrusting, moaning, and hot cum that he manages to spill both in and on her. They collapse in a tangle of limbs on the sweaty bed, breathing like they'd just run a marathon. (Savannah's POV)
His climax hits me like a freight train—his entire body locking up behind me, every scarred muscle going rigid as stone.
A raw, guttural groan tears from his chest, vibrating through my spine where his teeth are still buried in my shoulder.
Then comes the scalding rush of him inside me, thick and relentless, pulsing deep where I'm stretched impossibly tight around him.
The sensation obliterates me. My back arches violently as my own climax crashes over me, my muscles clamping down around him in rhythmic spasms that draw another shattered curse from his lips.
The pleasure is brutal—white-hot lightning fracturing through every nerve, leaving me gasping and trembling.
I sink my teeth into the meat of his palm to stifle my scream, the metallic tang of blood mixing with gunpowder residue and the salt of his sweat on my tongue.
His free hand fists in the sheets beside my head, the ink-dark letters of his knuckle tattoos—FEAR GOD—standing out starkly against his whitened grip.
The bite mark I leave blooms red across his calloused skin, another scar to add to his collection, another violent claim neither of us will acknowledge come morning.
We collapse into the wreckage of sheets, both of us trembling like we’ve been hollowed out and left to dry in the desert sun.
Gideon’s breathing is ragged against my spine, each exhale shuddering through me like aftershocks.
His fingers stay tangled in my hair, grip alternating between punishing and possessive—like he can’t decide whether to shove me away or drag me closer.
Sweat glues my stolen shirt to my back, the fabric clinging uncomfortably where his cum slicks between my thighs, warm and sticky as drying blood.
The silence is worse than the violence that preceded it.
No fists, no teeth, no growled threats to cling to.
Just the too-fast thud of his pulse where his chest presses against my shoulder blades, the heavy exhale he drags in through clenched teeth like he’s surfacing from drowning.
I can feel the tension coiled in him still, the way his muscles twitch against my skin—half-ready to throw me off, half-ready to roll me beneath him again.
I lean back. Just slightly. Just enough for the curve of my spine to slot against the hard plane of his stomach. A surrender. A provocation. A question neither of us knows how to ask out loud.
His arm tightens around my waist like a steel band, knuckles pressing bruisingly into my hipbone—FEAR GOD stamped dark against my skin. A warning. A claim. An answer.
The deep thud of Gideon’s heartbeat beneath my ear feels foreign—too steady, too alive pressed against my own. His arm lies heavy over my waist, calloused fingers splayed across my ribs like he’s counting each breath I take. Still asleep. Unarmed. Vulnerable.
I should move.
But his exhale ruffles my hair—slow, even, anchoring—and for once, the silence doesn’t prickle with threat. The scent of sweat and gunmetal clings to his skin, familiar as my own scars.
My fingers twitch toward the knife under the pillow on instinct.
His grip tightens—sleep-rough, possessive—and I freeze. But he doesn’t wake. Only pulls me closer like I’m something worth keeping.
Dawn bleeds through the curtains. His pulse ticks against my lips.
And finally—against every screaming instinct—I close my eyes.
Sleep comes faster than surrender ever has.