Chapter 19
Wyatt
I don’t remember the drive.
Not the roads, not the storm. Not Tank yelling out the window at an FBI blockade to move their city asses.
Not Tex promising to “debrief later, sweetheart.”
None of it sticks.
I remember only this: Sadie alive and warm beside me. Breathing.
Everything else is static.
We reach my cabin, and before the truck even stops, she’s unbuckling.
I’m out of my door, around the front, and yanking hers open just as she launches into me.
Her body slams into my chest, legs wrapping around my hips, arms around my neck, clinging as if she can’t get close enough. She’s trembling.
I don’t know if it’s cold, adrenaline, or the crash after terror, but I know exactly how to stop the shaking.
I grab her ass, lift her higher, and kiss her like I need oxygen from her mouth.
Because I do.
The door almost doesn’t open because I’m too busy kissing her, too busy letting her devour me back. But then it slams behind us, hard enough to shake the frame, and we’re alone.
No Clarissa. No guns. No fear.
Just us.
And the dam breaks.
I back her against the door, my palms braced beside her head, breath shaking out of me in uneven bursts.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
Sadie pulls me down by the collar, kissing me again—desperate, messy, perfect.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry, Wyatt, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t apologize,” I growl against her throat. “You survived. That’s all that matters.”
Her thighs tighten around my hips. She’s warm and alive and here, and that knowledge hits me so hard I almost drop.
“Wyatt,” she breathes, pupils blown wide.
I hold her still with my body, chest pressed to hers, our breaths crashing together. “Tell me you’re here. Tell me you’re real.”
She nods fast. “I’m here. I’m real. I’m yours.”
“Good,” I rasp, because I can’t survive losing her.
She arches into me, rubbing along my cock through my jeans, and I groan, low and violent.
“Bedroom,” I groan against her mouth.
“No,” she gasps. “Right here.”
“Your arm—”
“Is fine. Need you, Wyatt. Now.”
I drag her coat off, then mine, then her shirt, dropping everything to the floor like I’ll burn if I don’t get skin.
She fumbles with my belt, hands shaking, cursing softly when the buckle resists.
“Slow down,” I murmur, even as my pulse slams against my throat.
“I can’t.” Her voice cracks. “I need you. Wyatt, I need—”
“I know.” I kiss her again, slow and deep. Anchoring. “I’m right here, Dove. I’ve got you.”
Her breath hitches. “Don’t stop touching me.”
“I’m not stopping anything.” My mouth trails down her jaw, her neck, tasting her—salt, cold air, fear fading into need. “Never again.”
I slide my hands up her thighs, grip her, and lift her higher so she can feel how hard I am through my jeans.
Her gasp is pure and wrecked. “Wyatt, please!”
I lower her just enough to get leverage, my hands shaking as I peel her leggings down.
She’s panting, back pressed to the door, blue eyes wide and wild.
I slide two fingers between her legs.
She’s soaked.
“Fuck,” I choke. “Sadie—”
“Wyatt, don’t tease. Please.”
I kiss her fiercely and line myself up, gripping her hips as I push inside her in one deep, unstoppable thrust.
She cries out.
I bite back a curse.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathe against her mouth. “You feel… fuck!”
She shudders, arms crushing around my neck.
“I thought… I thought I’d never…”
“Don’t.” I thrust again, harder. “Don’t think about that. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Our bodies slam together desperately, the door rattling behind her. She’s so tight around me that I can barely think. Every thrust feels like redemption and punishment and pure fucking heaven.
Her nails rake down my back. “Wyatt! I’m… I’m…”
“Hold on.” My forehead presses against hers. “I want to feel you come around me, baby. I want—God, I want—”
I slide my hand between us, circling her clit in tight, steady strokes.
Sadie jerks and mewls, pressing her throbbing sex against my hand. “Oh! Wyatt!”
She breaks first.
Her pussy clamps around me, trembling, crying out my name like a prayer she wasn’t sure she’d ever get to say again.
And I’m fucking gone.
I bury myself in her, groaning into her throat, coming so hard the world blurs.
We stay like that—trembling, clinging, breathing each other’s air.
Her face is buried in my neck. My arms are locked around her like my body doesn’t trust reality yet.
“Wyatt?” she finally whispers, voice small and wrecked.
“Yeah, Dove?”
“I don’t ever want to be without you.”
My chest aches.
Not with the pain I used to carry. This is different. This is the kind that comes from having something to lose and choosing it anyway.
“You won’t be,” I promise. “Not for the rest of my life.”
She nods against me, soft and shaking.
I kiss the top of her head and say roughly, “Next time, sweetheart? We’re using the bed.”
Her broken laugh vibrates against my skin.
Her legs loosen from around my waist, but I don’t set her down right away.
Not until her breathing evens.
Not until the last of the fear leaves her muscles.
Not until I believe she’s really here.
I pace the same strip of floor while Sadie showers. My whole body feels wired wrong—too tight, too empty, too full of all the ways this day could’ve gone differently.
She’s home.
She’s alive.
She’s behind a thin wall and a locked door, and I still keep checking over my shoulder like Clarissa might step out of the shadows.
The shower cuts off.
Footsteps. A pause. The soft rasp of a towel on skin.
My chest eases a fraction.
I don’t move. She asked me not to hover, and I’m trying—God knows I’m trying—but every instinct in me is pacing like a caged animal.
When she finally appears, hair damp, one of my shirts hanging off her shoulder, she looks smaller than she did at the cabin door that first night. Exhausted. Pale. But here.
Our eyes meet, and something in my lungs unlocks.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Tired,” she says softly. “My nerves still feel… buzzy.”
I nod and hold out a hand.
She takes it.
We don’t talk while I guide her to the couch. She sits, curling her legs under her like she’s trying to make herself small, then immediately leans into my side. I wrap an arm around her shoulders, grounding her, grounding myself.
For a long time, we just breathe.
The storm presses against the windows. Maisie curls at our feet, chin resting over Sadie’s toes like she’s volunteering for guard duty.
Sadie exhales slowly. “Is Shay okay?”
“She’s fine,” I tell her. “Shaken. Henry won’t let her out of his sight. FBI’s got her statement.”
“And Clarissa?”
My jaw ticks. “Under lock and key. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Sadie swallows audibly.
I wait. I know there’s more. She’s holding herself too carefully, like she’s balancing a weight she hasn’t put down yet.
“What else?” I ask gently.
She hesitates. “I keep replaying it. The barn. The cabin. Her face. The way she looked at me like she already owned whatever future she thought I had left.”
I pull her closer. “She doesn’t own anything now.”
Sadie presses her cheek into my shirt. “I thought I’d be braver when it happened. I thought that if I ever faced her again, I’d say the right thing, or stand the right way, or not feel like the ground was disappearing.”
“You stood,” I say simply. “You fought. Kept breathing even when it hurt. You were so fucking strong, Dove.”
She closes her eyes. “Wyatt… I almost killed her.”
The words scrape out of her like they hurt.
My hand stills on her shoulder. “You didn’t.”
“But I wanted to,” she whispers. “Just for a second. I saw the gun in my hand, and all I could think was that she didn’t deserve to walk away after what she did. To my dad. To Harry’s cover. To me. To… everyone.”
“You’re human,” I murmur.
Sadie shakes her head. “I don’t want hatred to live in me. I’ve had enough fear taking up space there. I don’t want her to own anything in me anymore.”
I tilt her chin so she’s looking up at me. “She doesn’t. She never will again.”
Her breath trembles out. She looks so damn young and so damn strong at the same time it squeezes something deep in my chest.
“I’m scared of sleeping,” she admits. “Every time I blink, I see her hand reaching for me.”
“That’s normal,” I say, brushing a thumb along her cheek. “Your body needs time to understand it’s over.”
She nods, but her shoulders still curl in, tight with leftover adrenaline.
I cup the back of her head and bring her forehead to mine. “Dove… you don’t have to be anything right now. Not brave. Not calm. Not okay. You survived something that would break most people. You get to fall apart a little.”
She lets out a shuddering breath. “Don’t let me go tonight.”
“You won’t get rid of me.”
Her lips twitch. “Good.”
She shifts, pressing closer, not in a needy way, but like she’s stitching herself back into my side.
After a few minutes, she says quietly, “It wasn’t your fault.”
My whole body goes still.
She lifts her head, eyes steady. “You keep thinking it was. I saw it on your face at the cabin. I can feel it in you right now.”
I try to look away.
She catches my jaw gently. “Wyatt. Look at me.”
Reluctantly, I do.
Her voice softens. “You didn’t fail me. I left the cabin. I made choices. I tried to help Shay. This wasn’t your fault.”
My throat tightens. “I was supposed to protect you.”
“You did,” she says with a quiet conviction that lodges under the ribs. “You found me. You got to me in time. And I’m here, alive, because you refused to stop until you did.”
I swallow hard. She’s the only person on this earth who can pull the truth out of me without force.
“I couldn’t lose you,” I admit. “I… Sadie, I can’t even think about—”
“You didn’t.” She leans her temple to mine. “I’m right here.”
We sit like that, breathing each other in, until the tension in my spine unwinds a fraction.
“Do you want tea?” I ask. Her favorite ritual when she’s overwhelmed.
She nods. “Chamomile. Two sugars.”
I slip from the couch, reluctant to let go of her warmth but knowing she’ll still be here when I turn back.
In the kitchen, I move quietly. Familiar motions. Steady ones. My hands stop shaking as I fill the kettle.
By the time I return, she’s pulled the blanket around her shoulders. Her eyes are half-lidded, exhaustion finally catching her.
I hand her the mug. She holds it in both hands like she’s warming her whole body with it.
“It smells good,” she murmurs.
“You look tired.”
“I feel… everything,” she says honestly. “But also… safer now that you’re not ten feet away from me.”
That admission hits straight through me. Not because it makes her seem fragile, but because she trusts me enough to say it out loud.
I sit beside her again, pulling her under my arm. She fits there like she always does because she was built for that space.
After a quiet minute, I ask, “Do you want to talk about what she said? About your dad?”
Sadie shakes her head immediately. “Not tonight. I will. Just… not yet.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” I tell her. “Not before.”
A tear tracks down her cheek before she wipes it quickly. “Wyatt… can we just sleep? Not talk anymore. Not think anymore. Just… sleep.”
“Yeah,” I whisper into her hair. “We can do that. We’ll rest. We’ll heal. You’ll sleep for a week, and I’ll stand guard at the door if I have to.”
Her eyes soften. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“In a heartbeat.”
Her smile is small and tired, but so fucking precious.
I scoop her up gently. She wraps her arms around my neck like muscle memory as I carry her to the bedroom.
She crawls under the blankets and holds out a hand for me like she’s afraid I might disappear between the door and the mattress.
I get in beside her immediately. She curls into me. Arm across my stomach. Leg thrown over mine. Face tucked under my jaw. I stroke her back until her trembling quiets.
“Wyatt?” she whispers, almost asleep.
“Yeah, Dove?”
“Thank you for finding me.”
My throat burns. “Always.”
“And for staying,” she adds softly.
I kiss her forehead. “Always that, too.”
Her breathing slows, syncing with mine, softer and softer until the storm outside becomes the only sound.
I stay awake long after she drifts into sleep.
Not because I’m afraid she’ll disappear.
But because I want to memorize the weight of her in my arms, the rise and fall of her breath, the miracle of having the woman I love safe in my bed instead of disappearing into the blizzard with a gun to her spine.
When sleep finally pulls at me, I let it.
She’s here.
We’re both still breathing.
And tomorrow, we’ll start whatever comes next.
Together.