Chapter Thirteen
Tess's hands were steady on the dock cleat.
That was the strangest part—after everything, after the gunfire and the screaming and the bodies floating in the harbor water, her hands didn't shake.
She looped the line with the same precision she'd used a thousand times before, secured the bay runner to its slip, and stood up to survey a compound that looked like a war zone.
Blood on the dock. Shell casings glinting in the security lights. Brothers moving in the shadows, carrying things she didn't want to look at too closely.
Her hands stayed steady through all of it.
Then Chesapeake touched her shoulder.
Everything cracked.
The sob came up from somewhere deep—a sound she didn't recognize, animal and broken.
Her knees buckled. Her vision blurred. The adrenaline that had kept her sharp and focused and alive for the past hour drained out of her like someone had pulled a plug, leaving nothing but the raw terror she hadn't let herself feel while she was running that blockade.
She could have died.
She'd steered a boat into the middle of a firefight and cut off the retreat of men with automatic weapons and she could have died .
Chesapeake caught her before she hit the dock.
"I've got you." His voice was rough, wrecked. His arms closed around her like steel bands. "I've got you, Tess."
She buried her face in his chest and tried to breathe. He smelled like gunpowder and sweat and the metallic tang of blood—his or someone else's, she couldn't tell. Didn't care. He was alive and solid and holding her like he'd never let go.
"The boat," she gasped against his shirt. "Get me to the boat."
He didn't ask questions. Didn't hesitate. Just swept her up and carried her across the dock to the cabin cruiser—the one she'd fixed, the one that had gotten him to Vega in time—and down the narrow stairs into the darkness below deck.
The cabin was small. A bunk, a table, storage bins bolted to the walls. The hatch above stayed open, letting in the harbor sounds and the distant shouts of brothers still cleaning up the carnage.
None of it mattered.
The moment her feet touched the deck, Tess grabbed the front of Chesapeake's shirt and pulled.
He came willingly, stumbling into her, his hands finding her hips as his mouth crashed down on hers.
This wasn't the dock three nights ago—slow, tender, two people learning each other for the first time.
This was survival. This was proof of life.
This was everything the battle had left behind finding the only outlet that made sense.
She kissed him like she was drowning, and he kissed her back like he was the only thing keeping her afloat.
"You could have died," he growled against her mouth, the words coming out harsh, accusatory. "Running that blockade—you could have—"
"But I didn't." She bit his lower lip, hard enough to make him hiss. "I'm right here."
"Tess—"
" Tyler. " She used his real name like a weapon, like a claim, and felt him shudder against her. "I'm right here. Prove it."
Something snapped.
He spun her around and pressed her against the cabin wall, one hand tangled in her hair, the other working at the buttons of her shirt with desperate fingers. She arched into him, her own hands tearing at his cut, his belt, anything that stood between her skin and his.
The boat rocked beneath them. The hull creaked with waves stirred up by the earlier chaos. Through the open hatch, she could hear the lap of water and the distant rumble of engines and none of it mattered because his mouth was on her throat and his hands were everywhere and she was alive .
"Mine," he breathed against her pulse point, the word vibrating through her like a tuning fork. "You're mine, do you understand? No more running into firefights without me—"
"Make me."
He growled—an actual growl, low and animal—and lifted her off her feet.
Her back hit the bunk and he followed her down, his weight pinning her in place while his mouth traced a burning path from her jaw to her collarbone to the swell of her chest. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled, demanding more, demanding everything, and he gave it without hesitation.
This was nothing like before.
Their first time had been a slow claiming—two people choosing each other in the moonlight, building something deliberate and real.
This was the opposite. This was the desperate need to feel alive after brushing so close to death.
This was survival instinct translating into hands and mouths and bodies moving together with an urgency that left no room for gentleness.
She dug her nails into his shoulders and urged him on. He responded with teeth and grip and a relentless intensity that made her cry out into the dark cabin.
The boat rocked harder.
Through the open hatch, she could hear harbor water sloshing against the hull in rhythm with their movements. The bay, holding them together the way it had held them both their whole lives. The sound grounded her, anchored her, made the whole impossible night feel real.
"I thought I'd lost you," he rasped, and his voice cracked on the words. "When Vega's boat came for yours—when I saw him try to ram you—"
"You didn't lose me." She pulled his face up to hers, kissed him hard and fierce. "I'm not that easy to kill."
"I know." His forehead dropped against hers, and for a moment they both just breathed—ragged, desperate, alive. "That's what terrifies me."
She rolled them, taking advantage of his momentary vulnerability to pin him beneath her on the narrow bunk. His eyes widened in surprise, then darkened with heat as she settled over him.
"You don't get to be terrified," she said, her hands braced on his chest. "Not of me. I'm not some fragile thing you need to protect."
"No." His hands found her hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "You're a force of nature. That doesn't mean I won't tear apart anyone who tries to hurt you."
"Good." She leaned down, her mouth hovering over his. "Then we understand each other."
She set the pace this time. Fast and fierce and demanding, taking what she needed while he gave her everything. The boat swayed beneath them, the water a constant presence, and she let the rhythm carry them both until there was nothing left but heat and need and the desperate relief of being alive.
When she broke, she didn't shatter—she exploded, the release tearing through her like a wave she'd been fighting since the first gunshot woke her.
He followed moments later, her name torn from his throat like a prayer, his hands gripping her like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
The aftermath was different too.
Last time, they'd talked. Shared secrets in the moonlight, traced patterns on each other's skin, let the vulnerability settle around them like a blanket.
This time, there was no room for words.
Tess collapsed onto his chest, her whole body trembling with exhaustion and spent adrenaline.
His arms came around her immediately, pulling her close, holding on tight.
The boat continued its gentle rocking, the harbor water lapping against the hull in a rhythm that had felt like home since she was old enough to remember.
"Stay," he murmured into her hair.
"Wasn't planning on leaving."
"I mean—" He paused, his hand tracing slow circles on her back. "After this. After Serrano. Stay."
Tess lifted her head to look at him. In the faint light filtering through the hatch, his face was shadowed, unreadable. But his eyes weren't. His eyes were open in a way she'd never seen before—vulnerable, hopeful, afraid of the answer.
"I have a boat in Essex," she said quietly. "A business. A life."
"I know."
"And you have a club. Brothers. A territory to protect."
"I know that too."
She laid her head back down on his chest and listened to his heartbeat slow.
The bay had made them both. Shaped them, scarred them, broken them and rebuilt them into the people they'd become. It had brought them together in ways neither of them could have predicted—through violence and threat and the desperate need to survive.
Now it was giving them something else. Something neither of them had expected to find.
A reason to stay.
"Ask me again," she said against his skin. "When Serrano's dead and my boat's back in the water. Ask me then."
His arms tightened around her.
"I will."
The boat rocked gently beneath them, the harbor quiet now, the sounds of cleanup fading into the night. Tess closed her eyes and let the motion carry her—the same motion she'd felt every night since she was a child, sleeping on her father's boat while the water held them safe.
They fell asleep tangled together on the narrow bunk, his heartbeat steady under her ear, the hull creaking softly in the current.
The boat held them the way the water had held them both their entire lives.