Chapter 65 Harper
Harper
Icouldn’t stop shaking. My fingers curled into Carter’s shirt like they were welded there, my face pressed to the sweat-damp fabric as though I could breathe him back into me. Every beat of his heart thundered against my cheek, proof he was alive, proof I hadn’t lost him to the dark.
He set me down gently, but his arms didn’t loosen. His hands framed my face, thumbs brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were still falling. His eyes searched mine, wild and soft at once, like he was afraid I’d vanish if he blinked.
“You shouldn’t have to wait like that,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“And you shouldn’t have to walk into fire because of me,” I whispered back.
His jaw flexed. “I’d do it a thousand times.”
The words should have scared me. They should have reminded me of the contracts, the danger, the way Graves had smirked like my name was a death sentence.
But instead, heat spread through me, fierce and desperate.
Because beneath his vow was the truth I already knew—he wasn’t just fighting to protect me. He was fighting because he loved me.
I kissed him before I could second-guess it. Hard, trembling, all the fear and relief and hunger tangled together. He groaned low in his chest, pulling me against him like he was starving for the same thing.
The cabin fell away. The world fell away. There was only Carter’s mouth on mine, his hands gripping my waist, the rough scrape of his stubble against my skin.
When we stumbled back toward the bedroom, my pulse was still a frantic drum, but this time it wasn’t from fear. It was from knowing that no matter how dark it got outside these walls, we still had this—this fire, this fragile, desperate love that refused to break.
And as his body covered mine, his whisper rough against my ear, “You’re everything, Harper,” I believed him.
For tonight, the danger could wait.
Because we were alive. And we were together.