Chapter 18 - Dove
Wolf pulls off onto a gravel shoulder where the trees fall away, and the sky opens wide. The bike slows, coasting to a halt beneath a stretch of moonlight that spills across a rocky overlook.
I slide off his back, remove the helmet, and plant my boots on the ground, breath fogging in the crisp air.
The view is staggering.
Below us, Sitka glimmers like a constellation curled against the dark curve of the bay. Golden specks of porch lights, streetlamps, and late-night diners flicker against the black velvet ocean. Beyond that, the islands slouch under a shroud of mist.
The harbor, tattoo parlor, mechanic shop—my world is a cluster of lights, shrunken to the size of a snow globe. It’s too much and not enough all at once. Beauty edged with mystery.
Like Wolf.
I hear the click of the kickstand and feel his presence behind me. He doesn’t say anything, giving me the moment, letting me soak it in, letting it scrape something soft and vulnerable inside me I didn’t know was still there.
Then his arms wrap around my waist.
He pulls me gently, insistently, until I’m lifted and straddling him on the bike, facing him, our breath tangling in the cold.
“I don’t approve of his gifts.” His gravel-deep voice nips across my skin, leaving pleasurable goosebumps.
“The skates. The clothes. That wasn’t generosity.
It was invasion.” His hands settle on my hips, hot even through denim.
“I’m not mad at you, darling. I’m mad at him for thinking he can buy his way into your thoughts.
Into your life. That’s not how this works. Not with you. Not with me.”
I swallow hard.
“I have more money than I’ll ever need. More than I want.” He works his jaw. “I don’t give a fuck about any of it, except what it can do for you. I want to feed you. Clothe you. Protect you. Not because I think you need a savior. I want the chance to court you like you deserve. To earn you.”
“I didn’t come to Sitka to start another relationship.”
His brow creases, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“I’m wreckage. You don’t want what I am. I’m the aftermath, not the beginning. And you…” I lift my hand and press it against his chest, right over the place where his heartbeat fights beneath the scars. “You don’t trust me to see you without a shirt.”
He closes his eyes, pained. My words hurt.
When they open again, they’re soft. Liquid blue. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“I don’t carry many scars you can see. The few I do?” A wind rushes through the cliffside trees, and I shiver. “I put them there myself.”
“Self-harm?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“Self-preservation. Stupidity. Maybe both.”
The silence returns. Loud. Dense. Mutual. Two crippled creatures sitting in the dark, unable to name what broke them. But knowing.
Knowing.
He stares at me for a long, breathless heartbeat. Our eye contact stretches between seconds, waiting for the world to tilt.
Then he moves.
One hand threads into my hair, gripping tight enough to anchor. The other sweeps around my waist, dragging me flush against him with a strength that speaks of ownership, not apology.
His mouth claims mine.
There’s nothing soft about it. No hesitant question. No careful easing in. It’s a full-bodied answer to everything I just said, denied, and refused to admit I want.
He kisses like a storm breaking loose. Like I’m his. Like he’s never tasted a real meal. Until me.
His lips are rough and sure, parting mine, his hot tongue sliding deep, branding his name on the inside of my mouth. I clutch his jacket, fingernails digging into leather, thighs tightening around his hips as heat floods my chest and pools lower.
He growls into me, a wild animal sound, and shifts beneath me so I feel the full, hard length of his need press up between us. There’s no hiding it. He doesn’t try. He wants me to feel it. Wants me to understand exactly what I do to him.
When he pulls back, his forehead stays against mine.
“Understand something,” he rasps, voice guttural and breath hot. “I don’t share. Not space. Not the past. And not you.”
My heart hammers against his chest.
“Jag puts his name on boxes. I’ll put mine on your heart.” His lips brush mine again, softer this time, but no less territorial. No less potent. “Leave your scars all over me, Heartcleaver. Just don’t leave me.”
He kisses me again, slow and deep and final. A promise sealed with heat and fury.
I kiss him back because I don’t want to pretend I don’t want him.
Because I’m terrified of losing him.
Not to another girl.
Not to my own destruction.
But to Jag.
Jag doesn’t need blades or bullets. He uses charm and seduction, hacking people the way he hacks systems, slipping past firewalls, cloaking himself in manufactured sincerity, and swapping passwords for intimacy.
And Wolf feels too much. He hides it under sarcasm and eccentric clothes, but I see how he takes people into himself. Lets them nest in his ribs. Lets their pain echo in his bones.
That’s why I’m afraid.
If Jag worms his way in deep enough, he’ll rot everything good in Wolf from the inside out. I know that rot. I lived it, and I don’t think Wolf understands how fast it spreads.
So I kiss him like I can root him here, like my mouth on his might be enough to keep him from drifting toward the insidious trap that is Jag Rath.
Pressing closer, I loop my arms around Wolf as if I can shield him from the poison I escaped. Maybe I can plant something real in his chest before Jag gets the chance to strip it hollow.
I kiss him with a warning on my lips. A plea.
He’ll devour you, Wolf.
And I don’t know if I’ll survive watching it happen.
I pull away. Reluctantly. My lips sting. My lungs burn. My pulse hasn’t slowed since I climbed onto the bike.
“We should get back,” I whisper.
He nods once, jaw flexing. He doesn’t want to let go either, but he does. Slowly.
When I strap my helmet back on, he kicks the bike into gear, and we roar away from the cliff’s edge, down the winding road.
Sitka rises ahead, sleepy and gold-lit, the harbor blinking in the distance.
But something’s off.
I feel it before I see it.
A car. Nondescript. Pale gray or maybe white. Hard to tell in the dark. It lingers at the edge of the tree line, lights off but engine on.
I swear I saw that same vehicle in town earlier, just a shadow behind another car.
But now it’s here, pulling onto the road behind us.
It doesn’t get close. Doesn’t flash lights or rev the engine. It doesn’t turn off, either. Just hovers. Creeping. Following.
Jag?
Maybe. Maybe not. But my shoulder blades tighten, and a chill needles across my scalp. I’ve felt this before. The prelude to something awful.
We hit a straightaway, slicing between blocks. I know this town now, the way the shadows move when something’s not right. And that car? It’s not right.
I lift my visor and lean forward, mouth to Wolf’s ear.
“We’re being followed.”
His body stiffens.
“Gray sedan,” I shout. “Saw it earlier.”
He reaches back, smacks my visor closed, and grips my arms around his waist. “Don’t let go.”
The engine snarls, and we’re off, the sudden jolt of speed whipping me backward. He weaves through the quiet town, taking sharp turns, cutting through alleys, blasting past glowing diner windows and shuttered storefronts.
The car follows. Always a few seconds behind. Never too close.
But too present.
“Shit.” My arms clench around him. I don’t know if I’m holding on or bracing for impact.
He darts left, tires spinning on wet pavement, and I realize where he’s headed.
Monty’s garage.
He kills the lights a block early, coasting the rest of the way in shadows. At the last second, he ducks into an alley, loops behind a construction site, and zips around the back of the property. The rear garage door looms ahead.
At the gate, he punches in the code.
Gravel sprays as we skid inside. The door rolls shut behind us, swallowing us whole.
Silence. For a breath. For two. I strip off the helmet and drag a hand through my damp hair, panting.
We made it.
But my gut twists with that old, familiar instinct. The one that never lies.
Someone out there knows where to look.
If it’s Jag, we wouldn’t have seen him. He wouldn’t follow.
He’d already be inside.
If it’s not Jag, who the hell is watching me now?
How much time do we have before they stop watching and start hunting?
Wolf removes his phone and shoots off a text. Minutes later, Carl and Jasper show up to escort us home.
The island is dark when we arrive, quiet but for the soft lap of waves against the dock.
We don’t speak. Not when we enter the guest house. Not when we climb the stairs. Not when my boots hit the landing outside my room.
I pause at the door, hand on the knob, heart thudding.
Wolf presses in behind me. Close.
Heat rolls off him. I can practically taste the tension crackling between us. His breath brushes my nape, and I shiver.
Slowly, his mouth finds the curve of my neck, soft at first, then open and hot, teeth grazing skin.
I let out a gasp, surprised. Eager.
His hands migrate to my hips, then under the hem of my shirt, rough palms skimming over bare skin.
I lean back into him, eyes fluttering shut, lips parting.
I want this.
I want him.
The hardness of his arousal presses against me, undeniable, desperate. My fingers curl around the doorknob, trying to ground myself as heat blooms low in my belly.
His hands roam higher, over my ribs, my sides, his mouth trailing fire up to the shell of my ear.
“Let me in,” he murmurs.
He means more than the room, and I want that. God, I want him. I want and want and will take anything this beautiful man will give me. But—
Jag.
The tattoo. The manipulation. The seduction.
The way Wolf said, He already tried.
“Wolf.” My body goes stiff in his arms.
He doesn’t stop kissing me. Doesn’t sense the change yet.
“Wolf,” I repeat, firmer this time.
His lips pause against my jaw.
I draw in a breath I don’t want to take. “When Jag tried to seduce you, did you feel anything?”
He doesn’t move.
“Did you get hard for him the way you are for me right now?”
The silence is too loud. His body, so eager a second ago, is frozen behind me.
“Don’t lie to me.” I turn slowly, stepping out of his grasp until we’re face to face, inches apart. “Don’t insult me like that.”
“I won’t.” He swallows hard, jaw ticking, eyes flicking away, then back to me. Torn. “I didn’t want… He got in my head. Knew exactly how to… Push. What to say. What to do. I didn’t mean to react. It was instinct. Confusion. Not desire. I don’t want him.”
I stare at him, heart aching. Not because I didn’t expect it.
But because I did.
Because Jag always finds the cracks.
And because Wolf is Wolf. Sexually inexperienced. Possibly raped by a psychopath. He thinks he’s straight, but if he hasn’t unpacked his trauma, how does he know for sure?
Maybe I’m wrong. After Gavin, I can’t trust my gaydar. But Wolf’s sexuality feels deeper, wider, more vivid and complicated than boring old straight.
Where does that leave him and me and Jag?
Jag has single-handedly manipulated and stolen every man who’s shown interest in me. One by one, he slides in and fucks them. Sometimes, he ends them.
Now there’s Wolf. A man I like. One I like far too much.
I know this pattern. I can trace it blindfolded. I’ll be shoved to the side, discarded like trash, and forgotten by tomorrow.
It doesn’t matter how different this feels with Wolf. Jag always wins.
How many times do I have to be replaced before I stop being such a goddamn pushover? When will I learn?
Now.
Not tomorrow.
Not after I’ve picked myself off the floor again.
I want everything Jag Rath touches to stop bleeding. I want the stains he left on me to finally stop spreading. I’m done standing on the sidelines of my own damn life, swallowing it down when I should be screaming.
I want this pattern to end. Now. With Wolf.
So I pull on my big girl pants and draw my line.
“You can’t have it both ways.” My entire body clenches against the hurt. “You can’t chase me and entertain him.”
He stares at me for an aching moment, each breath dragging his chest higher, stretching the fabric tight over the sharp, sculpted map of his body as if every muscle was hewn to test my restraint.
Finally, he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Goodnight.” I turn, open the door, and step inside.
When it closes behind me, I slump against the wood, fists balled at my sides, eyes stinging.
I’ve been here before.
On the edge of something that could’ve been beautiful, but never had a chance.
I don’t know what scares me more.
Knowing he’ll eventually let Jag in.
Or that the weakest parts of me still want to let Jag in, too.