Chapter 13
Church ended just after midnight.
Dana had waited in the main room, nursing a beer she barely tasted, listening to the muffled rumble of voices through the chapel doors. Planning. Strategizing. Deciding how to end the war she'd started by saying no to a monster.
When the doors finally opened and the brothers filed out, she searched for Forge's face in the crowd. Found him near the back, jaw tight, eyes shadowed with something that looked like controlled fury.
He caught her gaze across the room. Held it for a beat that felt like a lifetime.
Then he walked past her toward the stairs without a word.
Dana set down her beer and followed.
She found him in his room, standing at the window with his back to the door. He'd shed his cut but hadn't changed clothes—still wearing the shirt with Kovac's blood on the cuff, still carrying the weight of everything that had happened today.
He didn't turn when she entered. Didn't acknowledge her presence at all.
"Forge."
"You should get some sleep." His voice was flat. Controlled. The voice of a man holding himself together through sheer force of will. "Tomorrow's going to be another long day."
"I'm not tired."
"Dana—"
"Look at me."
He didn't move. His shoulders were rigid, hands curled into fists at his sides. She could see the tension vibrating through him like a plucked string—the focused energy of someone who'd just survived combat and wasn't yet convinced the danger had passed.
Prison instincts. The ones that never fully turned off.
Dana crossed the room and put her hands on his back.
He flinched like she'd burned him.
"Easy," she murmured, the same word he'd used on her that first night at the safehouse. "It's just me."
"I know it's you." His voice was rough, strained. "That's the problem."
"Why is that a problem?"
He finally turned, and what she saw in his eyes made her breath catch. Not anger—something rawer. Darker. The savage thing he kept leashed, now straining at its chains.
"Because I killed two men today," he said quietly.
"Put bullets in them and watched them die.
And right now, all I can think about is touching you.
All I want is to put my hands on you and make sure you're still here, still mine, still—" He stopped, jaw working.
"I'm not safe right now, Dana. I'm wound too tight.
If you stay, I don't know if I can be gentle. "
Heat pooled low in her belly. Not fear—something else entirely.
"Maybe I don't want gentle."
His eyes flared. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"Yes, I do." She stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him in waves.
"You spent five years never letting your guard down.
Never letting anyone see you vulnerable.
Never letting go of that control." She placed her palm flat against his chest, felt his heart hammering beneath her fingers. "Let go with me."
"Dana—"
"I'm not fragile, Forge. I held the compound today. I fought back. I earned my place." She rose on her toes, brought her mouth close to his ear. "So stop treating me like I'll break and show me who you really are."
Something snapped.
His hands came up and gripped her hips hard enough to bruise, spinning her and pinning her against the wall in one fluid motion. His mouth found hers with bruising intensity—not the careful exploration of their first time, but something desperate and demanding. Claiming.
Dana kissed him back just as fiercely.
She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, yanked it free from his jeans, needed to feel his skin under her hands. He made a sound low in his throat—half growl, half groan—and stripped her shirt over her head in one rough motion.
"Tell me to stop," he rasped against her throat. "Tell me and I will."
"Don't you dare stop."
He didn't.
His hands were everywhere—rough and urgent, mapping her body like he needed to memorize it before someone took her away.
When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on as he carried her to the bed.
He dropped her onto the mattress without ceremony, and she barely had time to catch her breath before he was on top of her, his weight pressing her into the sheets.
"I watched you today," he said, his mouth tracing fire down her collarbone. "Standing in that clubhouse with blood on the compound and a wrench in your hand. You looked like a fucking warrior."
"I was terrified."
"You were magnificent." He stripped away her remaining clothes with economical violence, not quite ripping but close. "My woman. My warrior. Fighting for what's ours."
"Ours," she gasped as his hands found sensitive places, as his mouth followed.
"Damn right, ours." He looked up at her with eyes that burned like molten steel. "This compound. This life. Me. It's all ours now, Dana. You fought for it. You bled for it."
"I didn't bleed—"
"Close enough." His fingers hooked in her underwear and pulled. "You were willing to. That's what counts."
Then his mouth was on her, and she stopped being able to form words at all.
He was relentless. Merciless. None of the patient thoroughness of their first time—this was about possession, about proving something to both of them.
She came apart under his tongue with a cry that probably carried through the walls, and he didn't stop, didn't slow down, just kept pushing until she was trembling and begging and clawing at the sheets.
"Forge—please—I need—"
"I know what you need."
He rose over her, shedding his remaining clothes with rough efficiency. When he pushed inside her, they both groaned—the relief of connection, of being joined, of not being alone anymore.
"Look at me," he commanded, the same words as their first time but different now. Rougher. More desperate.
Dana opened her eyes and found his gaze burning into hers.
"This is who I am," he said, his voice ragged as he began to move. "This is what prison made me. Rough and broken and too fucking intense. I've been holding back because I didn't want to scare you, but I can't—tonight I can't—"
"Then don't." She wrapped her legs around him, pulled him deeper. "I'm not scared of you. I'm not scared of what you are."
Something cracked open in his expression—relief, or maybe release. Permission to finally stop pretending.
He stopped holding back.
What followed was nothing like their first time.
This was raw and desperate, both of them chasing something they couldn't quite name.
His hands gripped her hips hard enough to leave marks.
His mouth left bruises on her throat, her shoulder, the curve of her breast. He drove into her with a rhythm that built and built until she was crying out with every thrust.
And Dana matched him. Scratch for scratch, demand for demand.
She bit his shoulder when the pleasure crested.
Raked her nails down his back when he hit a spot that made her see stars.
Gave as good as she got because she understood now—he needed to know she could take him.
All of him. The violence and the tenderness, the steel and the warmth.
"Yours," she gasped against his ear. "I'm yours, Forge. All of me."
He made a sound that was almost pain—like she'd reached inside him and touched something wounded. His rhythm stuttered, became erratic, and then he was driving deep and holding there as he shattered, her name torn from his throat like a prayer.
She followed him over the edge, and for a long moment, there was nothing but sensation and heat and the glorious release of letting go.
Afterward, they lay tangled in sheets that had been destroyed for the second time that day.
Forge's arm was locked around her like a vise, his body curved around hers in a way that felt equal parts protective and possessive. His breathing was still ragged, his heart still pounding against her back.
"I hurt you," he said quietly.
Dana looked down at her hips, at the finger-shaped bruises already forming on her skin. "You didn't."
"I left marks."
"Good." She twisted in his arms, turning to face him. His expression was uncertain—the first time she'd ever seen him look anything less than completely controlled. "I wanted your marks. I wanted proof that this was real."
"It's real."
"I know. But tonight I needed to feel it." She traced the edge of his jaw, the tension still lingering there. "You've been holding back since we started this. Treating me like I might break. Tonight, you finally let me see the real you."
"The real me is rough," he said. "Intense. Too much."
"The real you is exactly enough." She pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. "I don't want the careful version, Forge. I don't want you constantly monitoring yourself, making sure you don't scare me. I want you. All of you. Even the parts you think are too broken to share."
He was quiet for a long moment. His arm tightened around her, pulling her closer.
"Five years," he said finally. "I spent five years never letting my guard down. Never trusting anyone enough to—" He stopped, swallowed. "In that place, vulnerability got you killed. You learned to lock everything away, to never let anyone see the real you because they'd use it against you."
"You're not in that place anymore."
"I know. But the instincts don't turn off." His hand came up to cup her face, thumb brushing her cheekbone. "Except with you. With you, they go quiet. With you, I can actually breathe."
Dana's heart ached with the weight of that admission. He was trusting her with something precious—something he hadn't given anyone since before the bars.
"Then breathe," she whispered. "Let yourself be safe. I've got you."
Something shifted in his expression. The last of the tension bled out of his shoulders. The rigid control he'd maintained for five years finally, truly released.
He kissed her forehead, soft and reverent. "Stay."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I mean stay. Here. With me. Not just until Ray is handled—after. Stay and build something with me."
Dana's breath caught. It was the first time either of them had talked about what came next. The first time they'd acknowledged that there might be an after.
"Is that what you want?"
"It's all I want." His arm tightened around her. "You're the only thing I want that isn't about the club or the war or surviving until tomorrow. You're mine, Dana. And I'm yours. If you'll have me."
She answered him with a kiss—soft at first, then deepening into something that promised forever.
"I'll have you," she said against his lips. "Rough edges and all."
His smile was small and real and devastating. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we hunt Grimes."
"Romantic."
"I'll be romantic after Ray's dead."
She laughed, and the sound of it seemed to surprise them both—genuine amusement in the middle of a war zone. But that was what they were building, wasn't it? Moments of joy stolen between battles. Light in the darkness.
Dana settled against his chest, letting his heartbeat lull her toward sleep. His arm stayed locked around her, holding her close, refusing to let go even in rest.
She understood now what this meant. He'd spent five years trusting no one, letting no one close, surviving by keeping the world at arm's length. And now he was holding her like losing her would destroy him.
She was the first person he'd trusted to see him vulnerable since he went inside.
And she would spend the rest of her life making sure that trust wasn't misplaced.