Chapter 17
Diane was waiting in the garage.
She sat on the workbench where they'd first talked—really talked—her legs dangling, her father's toolbox open beside her. The compound was quiet, most brothers asleep or on watch, and the garage held the particular stillness of a space designed for work, resting between jobs.
She heard Union's boots on concrete before she saw him.
He appeared in the doorway, his cut still on, his knuckles wrapped in bandages she knew he'd resisted until someone forced him. He stopped when he saw her, something shifting in his expression.
"You should be asleep," he said.
"So should you."
He walked toward her slowly, like approaching something that might startle. But Diane wasn't going anywhere. Not tonight. Not ever.
"Why here?" he asked, stopping in front of her.
"Because garages are where I feel like myself." She reached for his bandaged hands, pulling them into her lap. "And because this is where you first looked at me like I was something worth protecting."
Union exhaled slowly. Some of the tension left his shoulders.
"You remember that?"
"I remember everything." She traced the edge of the bandage with her fingertip. "The way you watched me diagnose your transmission. The way you came back three days later with a bike that didn't need fixing. The way you asked me about the brake lines like you already knew the answer."
"I didn't know anything then." His voice was rough. "Just that you were in trouble, and I couldn't walk away."
"And now?"
"Now I know everything." He lifted her chin with one finger, tilting her face toward his. "I know you work when you're scared. I know you talk to your father's tools when you think no one's listening. I know you'd rather fight than run, and you'd rather rebuild than surrender."
"That's not everything."
"It's enough."
He kissed her.
This wasn't like the first time—tentative, exploring, two people learning each other's rhythms. And it wasn't like the second time—desperate, driven by adrenaline and the need to prove they'd survived.
This was deliberate.
Slow.
Certain.
Union's hands found her waist and lifted her from the workbench, settling her on her feet without breaking the kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him guide her backward, step by step, until her shoulders met the cool metal of a tool chest.
"I'm rebuilding the shop," she said against his mouth.
"I know."
"And I'm not going anywhere."
He pulled back to look at her, and the expression on his face made her breath catch. It was the same look her father used to get when a repair came out perfect—pride and satisfaction and something close to wonder.
"I know that too," he said.
She pulled him back down and kissed him harder.
They moved together through the garage, shedding layers as they went.
His cut landed on a workbench. Her shirt caught on a tool hook and pulled free with a sound like surrender.
By the time they reached the back room—a small space with a cot for brothers pulling overnight shifts—they were half-undressed and breathing hard.
Union laid her down on the narrow mattress and covered her body with his, the weight of him familiar now in a way that made her ache.
"I want to talk about something," he said, his mouth tracing her collarbone.
"Now?"
"Now."
She laughed despite herself. "You have terrible timing."
"I have perfect timing." He lifted his head to meet her eyes. "I want to talk about mornings."
"Mornings."
"The kind that start with honest work instead of checking for sabotage." His hand slid down her side, fingers tracing patterns on her skin. "The kind where you fix engines and I organize supply runs and we meet in the middle for coffee."
"That sounds boring."
"Does it?" He kissed the hollow of her throat. "Because I think it sounds like everything I've been fighting for."
Diane's chest tightened.
She'd spent so long surviving—checking brake lines, watching for Eddie's men, trying to keep her father's legacy alive one terrified day at a time. She'd forgotten what it felt like to imagine a future that wasn't defined by fear.
"I want that," she admitted. "I want mornings."
"Then we'll have them." Union's mouth found hers again. "After Eddie's done. After your shop's rebuilt. We'll have every morning."
She pulled him closer, her legs wrapping around his waist, and let herself believe it.
He undressed her slowly this time.
Every layer, every button, his mouth following his hands like he was committing territory to memory. Not the desperate tearing of the night after the assault—this was deliberate. Intentional. The way he organized everything, except now the thing being organized was her undoing.
His lips traced the bruise on her forearm from the breaker bar. Kissed the calluses on her palms. Found the grease stain at the base of her thumb that never fully washed away, and pressed his mouth to it like it was something sacred.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
"Yeah." He didn't deny it. Didn't hide it. Just looked up at her from where his mouth rested against her stomach, his dark eyes completely open. "You do that to me."
She pulled him up and kissed him, slow and deep, her hands working the buttons of his jeans because he was taking too long and she was done being patient. He helped—kicked free of denim and settled between her thighs, and the press of his skin against hers made them both exhale.
"James."
He shuddered. Every time. Every single time she used his real name, his whole body responded like a current running through him.
"Again," he said.
"James." She cradled his face in her hands. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
He pushed into her with a gentleness that almost broke her—because this man did nothing gently. He fought hard and argued hard and loved hard, and the fact that he was moving inside her like she was something precious, something that could shatter, told her more than words ever could.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him closer, eliminating the last space between them. "Don't be careful," she said against his ear. "Not with me."
"I'm not being careful." His voice was strained, his arms trembling where they braced beside her head. "I'm being thorough."
She laughed, and the movement shifted him inside her, and the laugh turned into a moan that made his hips snap forward involuntarily. The gentleness cracked. He groaned against her throat and found a deeper angle, and Diane arched off the mattress and dug her nails into his back.
"There," she gasped. "Right there."
He gave her exactly what she asked for. Slow, deep strokes that built something that wasn't just heat but home. She moved with him, their rhythm unhurried, deliberate—two people who knew each other's bodies now and were using that knowledge to take each other apart piece by piece.
His forehead dropped to hers. His breath came in ragged pulls. She could feel his control fraying—not snapping the way it had the first time, but unraveling slowly, thread by thread, and she wanted to be the one holding the last thread when it gave.
"I love you," he said.
The words landed in her chest like a key turning.
"I love you." She held his face, held his gaze, held him inside her body and refused to let him look away. "I love you, James."
His rhythm faltered. His eyes went glassy. She watched the last thread snap—watched the man who held grudges like heirlooms let go of everything except her.
He drove deep and stayed, his body pressed flush against hers, and Diane felt the orgasm crest inside her—not crashing this time but rolling, enormous and slow, a wave that started where they were joined and spread through her whole body.
She came with his name on her lips and his forehead against hers and tears on her cheeks that she didn't try to hide, and she felt him follow—his hips jerking, his breath stopping, a shudder running through him from shoulders to spine like something old and heavy finally letting go.
He collapsed against her. She held him. His face was buried in her neck and his breathing was ragged and she could feel his heart slamming against her chest, and neither of them moved for a long time.
Afterward, they lay tangled together on the narrow cot, the garage quiet around them.
"Tell me about the shop," Union said. His hand traced lazy patterns on her bare shoulder. "The rebuilt version."
"Three bays. Same as before." Diane stared at the ceiling, imagining. "New lifts. Better lighting. Maybe an alignment rack if I can afford it."
"You can afford it."
"You don't know what alignment racks cost."
"I know the Wolves will help. Brotherhood doesn't let its own struggle." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "What else?"
"A bigger waiting area. The old one was a closet." She smiled despite herself. "Decent coffee. Not the swill my father used to make."
"Anything else?"
"My father's sign." Her voice caught. "I want to restore it. Not replace it—restore it. Get the original lettering, the exact colors he used. Make it look like 1978 again."
"We'll find someone who can do that."
"You keep saying 'we.'"
"Because that's what this is." Union propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at her. "You and me. Whatever comes next, we face it together."
Diane reached up to touch his face. The stubble was rough against her palm, the lines around his eyes deeper than they'd been two weeks ago. Fighting a war aged a person.
"My father would have liked you," she said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"You're stubborn. Direct. You don't waste words." She traced the line of his jaw. "He valued those things. Said too many people talked when they should have been working."
"Smart man."
"The smartest." She pulled him down for a kiss. "He would have approved of you. Of this."
Union settled beside her, one arm wrapped around her waist, his scarred hand resting on her hip. The same position they'd been in the first morning she'd woken up in his bed.
Claiming, even in sleep.
"I should let you rest," he murmured. "Tomorrow's going to be busy."
"The planning for Eddie?"
"Alpha's calling church first thing. We'll map out the final assault."
"And then?"
"And then we end this." He kissed her forehead. "Once and for all."
Diane closed her eyes, exhaustion finally catching up with her. The cot was too narrow, the garage too cold, the future too uncertain.
But Union's arm was around her, and his breathing was evening out, and for the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to feel truly safe.
She drifted toward sleep, her mind full of mornings and coffee and rebuilt shops with her father's name in original lettering.
Union's hand tightened on her hip, even as his breathing deepened.
Holding on.
Even unconscious, he was holding on.
She covered his hand with her own, feeling the calluses on his knuckles—the rough evidence of a lifetime of honest work and necessary violence.
They matched her own.
Different work. Same hands.
Diane fell asleep with that thought warming her chest, her fingers laced through Union's, their matching calluses pressed together like a promise.