Chapter 9
Four days in the compound, and Colleen was climbing the walls.
Not from fear. Not from boredom, exactly.
From wanting.
Anchor was everywhere. At breakfast, passing her coffee with fingers that brushed hers a beat too long.
In the hallways, stepping aside to let her pass while his eyes tracked her like she might disappear.
At night, the thin wall between their rooms doing nothing to muffle the sounds of him moving, breathing, existing just feet away.
She hadn't touched him since the safehouse kiss.
She was going to lose her mind.
"You're glaring at that sketchbook like it insulted your mother."
Colleen looked up to find Megan Byrne—Gallows's old lady, according to the compound gossip network—watching from the doorway of the common room with an amused expression.
"Creative block," Colleen said.
"Uh-huh." Megan crossed to the battered couch and dropped down beside her. Pretty, with the kind of polished edges that said salon owner before anyone mentioned it. "Nothing to do with the enforcer who can't stop staring at you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Honey, the whole compound knows what I'm talking about. Anchor's been wound tighter than a drum since you got here." Megan grinned. "It's kind of adorable, actually. Watching a man that steady fall apart over a woman."
Heat crept up Colleen's neck. "We're not—it's complicated."
"It's always complicated. Then it isn't." Megan shrugged. "These men don't do subtle. When they want something, they take it. The fact that he hasn't already dragged you to his room means he's trying to be a gentleman."
"Anchor? A gentleman?"
"Shocking, I know." Megan leaned closer, conspiratorial. "Word of advice? Don't make him wait too long. Patience only stretches so far, even for the steady ones."
She was gone before Colleen could respond, leaving behind the faint scent of expensive shampoo and unsolicited wisdom.
Colleen stared at her sketchbook.
The page wasn't blank—it was covered in half-finished designs she'd been working on since her equipment arrived. Flash art for the brothers who'd been dropping hints about wanting ink. Custom pieces for the old ladies who'd welcomed her into their strange, violent sisterhood.
And underneath all of it, hidden in the margins: him.
The Delaware River, rendered in flowing lines.
Dock cranes reaching toward an industrial sky.
Waves that looked like the patience he wore like armor.
The waterfront that had built him and broken his father and somehow led him to her shop three years ago, asking for a memorial piece that said everything about grief and nothing about hope.
She'd been designing his tattoo without realizing it.
Damn.
"You're still in here."
Colleen's head snapped up.
Anchor stood in the doorway, filling the frame the way he filled every space he entered. Four days of proximity and she still wasn't used to the size of him—six-two of dense muscle, dock-scarred hands, eyes that watched her like she was the only thing in the room worth seeing.
"Where else would I be?"
"I figured you'd be going stir-crazy by now." He moved into the room, all controlled grace. "You're not the type to sit still."
"I'm not sitting still. I'm working." She held up the sketchbook like evidence. "Someone has to keep this compound in decent ink."
His mouth curved. "I heard. Gunner won't shut up about the design you showed him."
"He wants something patriotic. Eagles and flags. Very on-brand."
"And the others?"
"Pounder wants something that explodes. Obviously." She flipped through pages. "Gallows asked for a rope design. Subtle. Kate wants matching pieces with Turnpike—some kind of road map thing I'm still figuring out."
Anchor settled onto the couch beside her. Close. Too close. His thigh pressed against hers, warm through denim.
"You've been busy."
"I don't do idle well."
"I noticed." His hand found her knee, casual and claiming. "The brothers are impressed. Word's spreading that we've got a real artist in the compound."
"I'm not your artist."
"No?" His thumb traced circles on her knee, sending sparks up her thigh. "Then whose are you?"
She should have had a comeback. Something sharp, something that put distance between them.
Instead, she just stared at him, caught in the gravity of his attention.
"That's what I thought," he murmured.
"Anchor—"
"Show me what you're working on."
The command threw her off-balance. She blinked, then looked down at the sketchbook still open in her lap.
The river design stared back at her. His design. The one she'd been building in margins and corners, telling herself it was just practice.
"It's not finished," she said.
"Show me anyway."
Colleen hesitated. This felt like exposure—more intimate than the kiss in the safehouse, more vulnerable than fighting beside him while bullets flew. Art was where she put everything she couldn't say. Showing him this was showing him her.
But he was watching her with those steady eyes, patient and hungry all at once.
She turned the page.
The river unfurled across the paper. Delaware water rendered in flowing lines, carrying cargo ships and history and the ghosts of three generations of dockworkers. Cranes reached toward an industrial sky. Waves crashed against pilings that had weathered decades of storms.
And threading through it all, subtle but unmistakable: an anchor chain. Rising from the water, wrapping around a dock hook, disappearing off the edge of the page like it was still searching for its mooring.
Anchor stared at the design.
His jaw worked. His breath caught.
When he looked at her, something had cracked open in his expression—something raw and wondering and almost afraid.
"You made this," he said. "For me."
"I—" She swallowed. "I didn't plan to. It just happened. You talk about the waterfront like it's home and prison all at once, and I kept thinking about what that would look like. What you would look like, if I could put all of it on your skin."
"Colleen."
"It's probably too much. Too personal. You don't have to—"
"Put it on me."
She froze. "What?"
"This." He touched the page, reverent. "Put it on me. Wherever you want. However you want." His eyes found hers, burning. "I want to wear your art for the rest of my life."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
"Anchor, that's—you haven't even seen the final version. It's not finished. I need to—"
"I don't care." He cupped her face in his hands, rough palms against her cheeks. "You see me. You see all of it—the river, the work, the weight I carry. And you turned it into something beautiful."
"It's just a design."
"It's everything." He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing unsteady. "No one's ever—" He stopped. Swallowed. "No one's ever looked at the ugly parts and found art in them."
She was going to cry. She could feel the tears building, hot and unwelcome.
"You're not ugly," she whispered. "Nothing about you is ugly."
"You don't know—"
"I know enough." She gripped his wrists, holding him there. "I know you send money to your mother every month. I know you protect people who can't protect themselves. I know you strangled a man for painting threats on my window."
"That's not—"
"That's you." She pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. "The good and the brutal and everything between. I see all of it, Anchor. And I'm still here."
Something shifted in his expression.
Want. Need. The cracking edge of surrender.
"Colleen." Her name on his lips sounded like prayer. "I'm trying to be patient. Trying to give you space, let you adjust, not push too hard too fast—"
"Maybe I don't want space."
His breath caught.
"Maybe," she continued, heart racing, "I'm tired of sleeping on the other side of a wall when you're right there. Maybe I want—"
The common room door banged open.
"Church in ten!" Gunner's voice echoed through the space. "Patriot wants everyone—" He stopped, taking in their position. Anchor's hands on her face. Her grip on his wrists. The charged air between them.
A slow grin spread across his face.
"Well, well. About damn time."
"Gunner." Anchor's voice held warning.
"What? I'm just saying what everyone's thinking." Gunner backed toward the door, hands raised. "Church. Ten minutes. Try to be dressed."
He vanished, cackling.
Colleen dropped her head against Anchor's chest, laughing despite herself.
"I'm going to kill him."
"Get in line." Anchor's arms came around her, pulling her close. "Later. After church. We're finishing this conversation."
"Promise?"
"Guarantee."
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head—possessive, tender—and pulled away.
But his eyes stayed on her as he moved toward the door. Hot. Hungry. Full of everything they hadn't said yet.
"Bring the sketchbook," he said. "I want Patriot to see what Sons protection bought us."
Then he was gone, and Colleen was left alone with her racing heart and a design that had cracked open something neither of them could take back.
She looked down at the river on the page.
His river. His story. Made beautiful because she'd seen him—really seen him—and wanted to carry that vision under his skin forever.
When had her client become something more?
Right now, she thought. Right this second.
And she wasn't afraid anymore.