Chapter 34
thirty-four
“That was something, huh?” Maggie said later as they walked back to her cabin. “Jax and Nessie.”
“Yeah.” He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “But I’m not surprised. It’s been coming since the day they met.”
She stopped walking and turned to face him. Her breath formed small clouds in the cold air. “Anson, I need to tell you something.”
His stomach knotted. Here it was. The goodbye he’d been dreading. The moment she told him she was going back to Florida, back to her real life, that this—whatever this was—had been nice but temporary.
“You’re leaving.” He barely got the words out.
“No. At least, not yet.” She reached for his hands, tugging them from his pockets.
Her fingers were small and warm against his scarred skin, wrapping around his without hesitation.
Her green eyes held his. “But if I do decide to leave in a week, I don’t want to spend the rest of our time together with this wall between us. ”
He swallowed hard to ease the tightness in his throat. “What do you want, then?”
“You, Anson. Just you. All of you.”
“Maggie...”
She tugged his hand. “Come with me.”
He hesitated for half a heartbeat. Going into that cabin tonight meant stripping away more than clothes. He could either retreat again or choose her.
But if he walked away now, that was it. There wouldn’t be another chance.
He chose her.
Inside, Maggie moved through her cabin, turning on lamps, adjusting the damper on the woodstove, pulling off her coat and boots. He stood back and watched, his pulse kicking up as the warm glow caught in her hair with every movement, bringing out hints of chestnut in the dark strands.
“You’re quiet,” she said, stepping closer.
“Just thinking.” About how the lamplight framed her face. About how much he wanted to touch her. About how terrified he was to try.
“About what?”
“You.” The word escaped before he could filter it.
She smiled, and some of the nerves jittering around in his stomach melted away. She closed the distance between them until her body pressed against his.
“Good,” she whispered, and rose on her toes to brush her lips against his.
The kiss was soft at first, as if she were asking permission. He gave it, cupping the back of her head and threading his fingers through her hair to deepen the kiss. She made a small sound of approval against his mouth, and her tongue slid against his in a way that sent heat spiraling through him.
She pulled back just enough to look at him, her breath warm against his lips, and moved to unbutton his flannel shirt.
Everything in him tensed up. “Maggie—”
“Shh.” She kissed him again, quieting his protest. “Trust me.”
She opened the buttons of his shirt, one by one. He wanted to stop her. Wanted make an excuse about being tired or needing to feed the kittens. Wanted to retreat to the safety of the forge like he’d done every other time.
But he didn’t.
The shirt fell open, and her hands slid beneath the fabric, pushing it off his shoulders. It caught at his wrists, and she stepped back just enough to free him from the garment. He stood before her in just his undershirt, arms hanging uselessly at his sides, heart hammering against his ribs.
She reached for the hem of his undershirt next, and his hand snapped up to catch her wrist. “Don’t.”
“Let me,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “Please.”
He searched her face for any hint of pity or disgust, and found none. Slowly, he released her wrist, his hand falling back to his side.
This was Maggie.
If anyone deserved to see all of him, it was her.
She lifted the undershirt carefully, and he raised his arms to help her, steeling himself for her reaction.
Cold air hit his bare torso, and he resisted the urge to cross his arms over his chest. To hide.
Her gaze traced the landscape of his scars—the puckered burn tissue that covered most of his right side, the neat surgical lines where doctors had put him back together.
She didn’t flinch.
Didn’t look away.
Instead, she took his hand and pulled him toward the bed.
He followed, unable to deny her anything in this moment.
When his legs hit the edge of the mattress, she pushed on his shoulders, guiding him down.
He settled back on the matress and his mouth went dry as she straddled his lap, her knees pressing into the mattress on either side of his hips.
His cock throbbed to hard, instant life, but he was also hyperaware of the ruined flesh she’d exposed, of every weird texture and graft, the way the right side of his chest looked melted in some places and caved in in others.
Maggie bent, her hair falling around his face like a curtain, and kissed the hard ridge of a scar below his clavicle. All the air left his lungs at once.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered.
He obeyed and felt her shift against his growing erection as she reached for something on the bedside table. Fireworks lit off in his blood at the unintentional contact, and he bit back a groan.
“Open,” she said.
When he opened his eyes, she was holding a small bottle of gold body paint. She squeezed some onto her fingertips and spread it across his chest. “Kintsugi.”
His breath caught in his lungs. “Maggie—”
“Shh.” She dabbed more gold onto her fingers and traced it over his lips. “You fixed Ghost’s mug. Now let me do this for you.”
“I don’t—I can’t—” The words tangled in his throat.
“You aren’t broken, Anson.” Her voice was steady, her eyes never leaving his. “You were transformed by fire. Like your metal.” She lifted her gold-tipped finger, holding it just above his heart. “Let me show you how beautiful that transformation is.”
The wall he’d spent years building around his shame—it wasn’t going to fall on its own. He had to let her rip it down. He nodded once, a jerky dip of his chin that felt like the bravest thing he’d done since leaving prison.
Her smile bloomed, and she leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips, smearing the paint. “Thank you,” she whispered against his mouth.
He didn’t know why she was thanking him when she was the one offering this gift—this chance to see himself through her eyes.
She spread the gold with reverence. The first stroke followed the seam of an old graft, her thumb smoothing the metallic shimmer across the ridged topography of his chest. She didn’t avoid the places that puckered or dipped, didn’t hesitate as she mapped the territory of his ruin.
She took her time, and God, it was torture—the soft drag of her touch, a tickle followed by a lingering heat as the paint dried on his skin.
He couldn’t look away. His own chest, transformed, shining in the lamplight. He’d always hated his body like this.
Until now.
Until her.
She sat up, her weight again shifting maddeningly against his cock, and reached for more paint before moving to the next scar. He flinched as she pressed her palm flat over a patchwork of skin where the nerves had never quite come back.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, not stopping.
“Not... bad,” he rasped. The way she was inadvertently rocking against his cock hurt more than his scars at the moment.
“Good.” She traced the edge of the burn, then dipped lower, circling his left nipple, watching his face as her thumb flicked over it. He groaned, and she smiled, a flash of teeth that was all challenge.
She painted a line down his sternum, detouring to outline the faded, angry slice of a shrapnel wound. He couldn’t stop watching.
Her lips parted, and her breath came faster as she touched him. She moved lower, working the gold in slow, deliberate arcs along the whorls of his abdomen, and each touch sent a pulse straight to his cock.
“Maggie…”
She paused at his waistband, fingers curling beneath the button of his jeans. Her painted thumb left a gold print on the pale skin above the fly. “Can I?”
All he could do was nod, voice gone to gravel.
She undid his jeans, then pushed them down over his hips along with his boxers. His cock sprang free, and she wrapped her hand around his length. The gold left a comet tail up the shaft as she stroked him once, twice, and his hips bucked.
“Fuck,” he managed, “I’m not going to last—”
“I don’t want you to.” She tightened her grip on his shaft and started a measured rhythm, her gold-tipped fingers luminous even in the low light.
The sight was obscene, holy. He tried to keep his eyes on hers, but every pass of her hand threatened to split him wide open.
She was so focused, so calm, not looking away even as his body seized and he groaned, hips rocking up to meet her.
He lost himself in the sensation, in the heat and ache and the brutal sweetness of her gaze.
When he came, it was with a violence he hadn’t known he still possessed, his vision going white for a second as his body locked and shuddered.
It painted her hand, his stomach, all of it shot through with gold.
She slowed her strokes, coaxing out every aftershock. When he finally collapsed back, boneless against the mattress, she sat astride him and wiped her hand on the sheet with a laugh that was wild and relieved and gloriously unguarded.
“You,” she said, breathless, “are a work of art.”
He’d spent so long protecting himself from wanting too much, from hoping too hard, but her words stripped away the last barrier—the careful distance he’d maintained between himself and everything he wanted. His chest went tight, then opened, and it felt like taking his first real breath in years.
He sat up and reached for her. This time, it was easy. Natural.
“My turn,” he murmured against her mouth.
He tugged at the hem of her sweater, and she raised her arms, letting him pull it over her head. Her bra followed, and then he was cupping her breasts, thumbs brushing over her nipples until they hardened into tight peaks. Gold transferred from his hands to her skin, marking her as his.
“Beautiful,” he breathed, bending to take one nipple into his mouth.