Chapter 20 First Kiss Claiming
Chapter twenty
First Kiss Claiming
Zane
Five weeks of foreplay exploded the moment we touched.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Story of my fucking life when it comes to her.
The warehouse district emergency turned into a bloodbath. Three cars, two motorcycles, one truck, and enough carnage to qualify as a mass casualty event. I arrived ten minutes after her—not because I was following, but because Ghost got the call about Iron Talons members being involved.
She's there in the middle of absolute chaos, triaging with the efficiency of someone who's done this too many times. Covered in blood that's not hers, shouting orders at EMTs who clearly respect her enough to listen, completely in her element in the worst possible way.
Two hours of this. Two hours of her racing between bodies, making split-second decisions about who might live and who's already gone.
I watch her lose the kid—eighteen, maybe nineteen, wearing prospect patches.
She works on him for twenty minutes, compressions perfect, counting steadily, but his chest stays still.
When she finally calls it, checks her phone for the time, something in her shoulders breaks just a little.
Another ghost to carry. She closes his eyes gently, like he matters, then moves to the next victim without pause.
By the time the scene clears, she's exhausted in that bone-deep way that comes from wrestling death and losing.
She's sitting in her Mobile Mercy Unit, back doors open, head in her hands.
Blood stains her scrub sleeves, exhaustion in every line of her body.
Everyone else is gone—transported, fled, or beyond help.
"You did everything you could," I say, approaching carefully.
She looks up. "You followed me."
"My brothers were here."
"Your brothers are always where the blood is."
"So are you."
"I clean it up. You cause it."
"Not today."
"No," she agrees. "Not today."
I step closer. She doesn't move away. "Can I—"
"Get in the van."
Not a question. Not a request. An order. I follow it.
The moment the doors close, the air changes. Becomes charged, electric, thick with everything we're not saying and everything we're about to do.
Medical supplies everywhere—gauze, instruments, things I don't want to know the purpose of.
The smell of antiseptic and blood and underneath it, her—that sweet something I first noticed in the freezer, stronger now, mixed with sweat and adrenaline and exhaustion from two hours of trying to hold people's bodies together.
And under all that, something deliberate—cedar and amber, cologne he definitely put on for our disaster of a date.
"We shouldn't do this," she says, but she's already moving closer, her exhausted body overriding whatever medical ethics and family loyalty her brain is screaming about.
"We're past shouldn't."
"Past shouldn't, closing in on catastrophic."
"Our sweet spot."
She laughs, sharp and slightly hysterical. "You think you know me."
"I know you save people you should let die. Know you come to my voice. Know you're Miguel Cruz's sister and you're here anyway."
"We're enemies.”
Her breath stutters as I step closer, the space between us charged and dangerous.
“You’re the Iron Talons’president.”
His lips curve, not quite a smile. “Yes.”
“You hurt people.”
He tilts his head, eyes glinting. “Yes.”
“You’ve probably hurt people I’ve saved.”
I take another slow step, close enough for her to feel my heat. “Probably.”
She swallows hard, her pulse thrumming. “We’re enemies.”
"We're everything," I nearly whisper.
That does it. Breaks whatever last wall she was maintaining.
She launches herself at me, and I catch her, and then we're kissing like the world's ending—which it might be, once Miguel finds out. Her hands are in my hair, mine are spanning her waist, and Christ, she tastes like terrible coffee and mint and something sweet, something that's just her.
I lift her easily—she weighs nothing, this woman who carries so much—and pin her against the medical cabinet. Supplies crash to the floor. Neither of us cares.
"Zane," she gasps against my mouth, and my name from her lips is better than any drug.
"Say it again."
"Zane."
I kiss her harder, deeper, five weeks of want condensed into this moment. Her legs wrap around my waist, and fuck, she fits against me perfectly, like we were designed for this specific destruction.
"I knew you'd be like this," she says, pulling back just enough to breathe. "Overwhelming."
"You haven't seen overwhelming yet."
"Promises, promises."
I kiss her neck, find that spot where her pulse hammers, and she makes a sound that's going to haunt my dreams. "Mine," I growl against her skin, needing to mark her, claim her, make this real.
"Not yet," she gasps, but her hands are under my shirt, nails dragging down my back in a way that's definitely leaving marks.
"When?"
"When we won't get killed for it."
"So never?"
"Probably never."
We're kissing again, desperate, claiming, like we can somehow make this sustainable through sheer force of want. Her hands find the bruises from the freezer incident—still purple-yellow on my ribs where I pressed against frozen metal—and she pulls back.
"Who did this?"
"The freezer. Saving you."
She traces them gently, and the tenderness after the desperation almost breaks me.
"I should look at these."
"You should."
"Medically."
"Sure."
"I'm serious."
"So am I. Look at whatever you want."
She does. Runs her hands over my chest, checking ribs, cataloging damage, being a nurse while also being the woman who's about to destroy my entire life. The duality of her—angel and disaster, healer and weapon—makes me insane.
My phone buzzes. Emergency. Ghost needs me. Now.
"I have to go," I say, not moving.
"Me too," she says, also not moving.
"This is—"
"Unsustainable,” she deadpans.
"I was going to say perfect."
"It's both."
One more kiss. Softer this time. A promise instead of a claim.
"When?" I ask.
"I don't know."
"I'll wait."
"It could be forever."
"I'll wait forever."
She untangles herself from me, straightens her scrubs, tries to fix her hair. She looks wrecked. Beautiful. Mine, even if she won't admit it. "Torch is going to report this."
"Let him."
"Miguel will—"
I cut her off. "I'll handle Miguel."
She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "No one handles Miguel."
"Then I'll die trying."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
I open the van door, step out into reality where we're enemies, where her brother would kill me for touching her, where my club would start a war over what we just did.
"Be safe," she calls after me.
"Never am," I respond, the truth for once.
I walk away, her taste still on my lips, her marks on my back, her "not yet" echoing in my head like a promise and a threat.
Tommy's waiting by my bike. "Ghost is pissed. Where were you?"
"Handling something."
He looks at me—really looks. Takes in my wrecked hair, the scratch marks probably visible on my neck, the general air of a man who just made the best worst decision of his life.
"Tell me it wasn't the Cruz girl."
I don't answer.
"Fuck, Z. You know what this means?"
"I know."
"This is war."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe. Definitely. Miguel Cruz will—"
"Miguel Cruz will have to get in line," I say, starting my bike. "I'm not giving her up."
"She's not yours to not give up."
I think about her legs around my waist, her "not yet" that sounded like "inevitably," the way she said my name like a prayer and a curse.
"She will be."
Tommy stares at me like I've lost my mind. Which, fair. I have. I lost it the moment she texted back, five weeks ago, starting this countdown to catastrophe.
"This ends badly, brother."
"Everything good does."
I drive away, knowing Tommy's right. Knowing this is unsustainable. Knowing Miguel's going to find out, Ghost is going to find out, everyone's going to find out.
Not caring.
She tastes like salvation and disaster.
She said "not yet" instead of "never."
That's enough. For now.