Chapter Thirteen
Penny couldn't stop shaking.
Not from fear—that had burned off hours ago. This was something else. Adrenaline with nowhere to go, crackling under her skin like electricity looking for ground.
She walked through the compound in the aftermath, checking on the animals because that's what she did.
That's who she was. The chaos was still being sorted—brothers hauling bodies, medics patching wounds, Still barking orders from the lodge porch—but the dogs needed someone to tell them it was okay.
Professor was hiding under the cabin bed. She coaxed him out with soft words and steady hands.
Ginger had worked herself into a frenzy, pacing and whining. Penny sat with her until the border collie's breathing slowed.
Waffle wouldn't let go of her ankle. She stopped trying to make him.
The compound dogs were spooked too—she found three of them huddled behind the pavilion, trembling. She gathered them up, checked for injuries, handed them off to relieved owners.
The whole time, her hands shook. Her heart raced. Every nerve in her body screamed for something she couldn't name.
She'd heard the gunfire. Felt the cabin shake when something exploded near the gate. Stood in the dark with a fire extinguisher raised over her head, ready to brain anyone who came through that door.
She'd been ready to kill.
The realization hit her like a punch. Not just ready—willing. If one of Kirby's men had broken through, she would have swung that extinguisher with everything she had. Would have kept swinging until he stopped moving.
She wasn't the same woman who'd found Biscuit's body two weeks ago. That woman had cried. Had called the police. Had believed the system would protect her.
This woman knew better.
She found Eddy's cabin dark except for a single lamp.
The door was unlocked. She let herself in without knocking.
He sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing his mud-caked jeans, River's head in his lap. The shepherd's eyes tracked Penny as she entered, but he didn't move. Neither did Eddy.
She'd never seen him like this.
The stillness was there—it was always there—but underneath it, something was breaking. She could see it in the line of his shoulders. The way his hands moved through River's fur, over and over, like he was trying to ground himself through touch.
The current she'd sensed from the beginning wasn't hidden anymore. It was right there, churning beneath the surface, threatening to pull him under.
She crossed the room and sat beside him.
"How many?" she asked quietly.
"Twelve confirmed. Maybe more in the water." His voice was flat. Empty. "Welch talked before he died. Gave us Kirby's location. His schedule."
"That's good."
"Is it?" He finally looked at her, and she saw something in his eyes she hadn't seen before. Not calm. Not control. Something rawer. "I held him underwater and watched him drown. Counted the seconds. Waited for the bubbles to stop."
"He would have killed us."
"I know." His jaw tightened. "That's not the part that bothers me."
She waited.
"The part that bothers me is that I didn't feel anything. Just... purpose. Like he was a problem that needed solving." His hand stilled on River's head. "What kind of man does that make me?"
Penny reached out and turned his face toward her. Forced him to meet her eyes.
"The kind of man who protects what's his," she said. "The kind who does what needs to be done. The kind I trust with my life."
"You shouldn't."
"Too late."
Something cracked in his expression. The careful control he'd maintained through the battle, through the aftermath, through the endless hours of cleanup—it splintered, and she watched the current surge to the surface.
"Penny—"
She kissed him.
This wasn't like before.
Chapter eleven had been soft. Tender. A slow unraveling of two people who'd been circling each other for days.
This was a collision.
Eddy surged up from the bed, his hands fisting in her hair, his mouth claiming hers with a desperation that bordered on violence. She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer, needing the contact, needing proof that they were both alive.
River slipped off the bed and retreated to his corner with a resigned sigh.
"I watched you walk into that cabin," Eddy growled against her mouth. "Watched you lock the door and disappear while fourteen men came to kill everything I—"
She bit his lip. Hard enough to sting.
"I didn't die," she said. "I'm right here. Focus."
Something dark and hungry flared in his eyes.
He spun her around and pressed her against the wall, his body pinning hers, his hands working at her clothes with an urgency that made her pulse spike. She clawed at his shirt, yanking it over his head, needing to feel skin.
"Mine," he said, mouth moving down her throat. "You're mine."
"Prove it."
He made a sound—low, dangerous, almost a growl—and lifted her off her feet.
Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her back hit the wall hard enough to knock a picture loose. She didn't care. Didn't care about anything except the heat of him, the strength of him, the absolute certainty in his grip.
"I could have lost you tonight." His voice was ragged, wrecked. "Could have come back and found—"
"But you didn't." She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. "I'm here. I'm alive. Now stop talking and show me."
He carried her to the bed.
The tenderness came later.
For now, there was only fire.
Eddy stripped her with rough efficiency, and she returned the favor, tearing at his remaining clothes until there was nothing between them. He came down over her, all hard muscle and barely leashed intensity, and she arched up to meet him.
"Corbyn," she breathed, and watched his control shatter.
He surged into her with a groan that sounded like it was torn from somewhere deep. She cried out—not in pain, but in the overwhelming rush of sensation—and wrapped herself around him like she could absorb him into her body.
This wasn't making love. This was claiming. Branding. Two people who'd stared death in the face and needed to prove they'd survived.
He moved with a ferocity that stole her breath. She matched him stroke for stroke, nails raking down his back, teeth sinking into his shoulder when the pleasure built too high to contain. He hissed and drove harder, and she felt herself climbing toward something explosive.
"Look at me," he demanded.
She opened her eyes.
He was watching her with that intensity again—but it wasn't the calm, focused attention she'd come to know. This was the current unleashed. The thing he kept hidden, finally breaking free.
"You wanted to see underneath," he said roughly. "This is it. This is what lives under the surface."
"I know."
"Are you afraid?"
She pulled him down and kissed him, fierce and demanding. "Does it feel like I'm afraid?"
He made that sound again—the growl that wasn't quite human—and his rhythm turned punishing. She took it all. Wanted it all. Met his ferocity with her own until they were both racing toward the edge.
"Yours," she gasped. "I'm yours, I'm—"
The orgasm hit her like a wave. She shattered around him, crying out his name—his real name—while her body convulsed with pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. He followed seconds later, burying himself deep, a hoarse shout muffled against her throat.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then he collapsed beside her, breathing hard, one arm thrown across her stomach like he couldn't bear to let go.
The aftermath was quiet.
Penny lay in the tangled sheets, staring at the ceiling, waiting for her heartbeat to slow. Beside her, Eddy's breathing had evened out, but she could tell he wasn't asleep. His hand traced absent patterns on her hip, gentle now where it had been demanding minutes before.
"You should be running," he said finally.
She turned her head to look at him. "What?"
"From me. From this." He was staring at the ceiling too, jaw tight. "You just saw what I become when the surface breaks. Most women would be terrified."
"I'm not most women."
"I know." He rolled onto his side, facing her. "That's what scares me."
She reached out and touched his face. Traced the line of his jaw, the stubble that had scratched her skin in all the right places, the tension that never quite left him even now.
"You keep talking about the current," she said slowly. "The thing underneath. Like it's something dangerous. Something you have to hide."
"It is dangerous."
"Maybe." She shifted closer, until their bodies were aligned, skin to skin. "But I've been managing chaos my whole life. Reading people for danger. Figuring out who's safe and who's going to hurt me."
He was very still, listening.
"I saw you drown a man tonight. I know you've killed before and you'll kill again. I know there's something in you that turns lethal when people threaten what you love." She held his gaze. "And I'm still here. In your bed. Choosing this."
"Why?"
"Because the current isn't all you are." She pressed her hand flat against his chest, feeling his heart beat beneath her palm.
"There's also this. The man who brought me a plate because he noticed I hadn't eaten.
Who held my hand on the porch while I cried about my mother.
Who told me his real name because he wanted me to know who he was underneath. "
His throat moved when he swallowed.
"I saw what's underneath tonight," she said softly. "All of it. The violence and the vulnerability and everything in between."
"And?"
She leaned in and kissed him. Slowly this time. Gently. The tenderness they hadn't had time for before.
When she pulled back, she was smiling.
"I'm not afraid of the water," she said. "I know how to swim."
Something shifted in his expression. The tension in his jaw released. The darkness in his eyes softened into something warmer.
"Come here," he said roughly.
He pulled her against him, tucking her head under his chin, wrapping his arms around her like he was trying to absorb her into himself. She went willingly, pressing close, breathing in the smell of lake water and sweat and him.
River padded over and settled at the foot of the bed with a heavy sigh.
"He approves," Penny murmured against Eddy's chest.
"He's got good taste." His arms tightened. "So do I."
She smiled into his skin.
Outside, the compound was still cleaning up from the battle. Brothers were still patrolling, still counting the dead, still preparing for whatever came next.
But in this cabin, in this bed, with this man wrapped around her like water around stone—
Penny felt something she hadn't felt in years.
Home.
Not the building. Not the place.
Him.