Chapter 31
Jack had murmured something low to Justice before heading upstairs, his gait steady, his shoulders squared.
If Tyler hadn’t known the man had undergone major heart surgery just weeks ago, he’d never have guessed it.
Jack McClay carried himself like a man who didn’t yield to pain, circumstance, and certainly not to age or illness.
Tyler watched him until he disappeared from view, waiting silently beside the couch, uncertain of what Justice wanted tonight. He didn’t want to presume anything. Just because she had gone home with him the previous night didn’t mean that would become their rhythm. Not unless she also wanted it.
But the moment she turned to him, the answer was clear in her soft gaze and steady stride.
She walked straight to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek to his chest. He folded his arms around her and held her close, breathing her in.
That quiet moment when words weren’t needed, where the beat of their hearts, and the way her body fit against his said everything, she was becoming something he looked forward to more than he ever expected.
Eventually, she leaned back slightly and tipped her head to look up at him. “Do you want to go back to your place, or did last night taint the memory of our first night together?”
A grin pulled at his lips. He shook his head.
“Being with you, in my house and in my bed, was perfect. Now… the middle-of-the-night sprint to deal with a barn on fire?” He lifted his brows, amused.
“Not high on my romance checklist, but it doesn’t take away a single thing about what I feel with you. ”
Her smile spread slowly, tired but genuine. “I’m glad. I feel the same.”
They locked up the house together, a shared rhythm already forming, then walked out into the cool night. Under the newly installed security lights that came on, she turned to him before they got into his SUV
“I can drive,” she offered. “That way you don’t have to bring me back in the morning.”
He brushed her knuckles with his thumb as he opened the door. “Sweetheart, my job with Lighthouse has already started. I have no reason not to get up with you. Besides, I like mornings better now that they come with coffee and your sleepy smile.”
Her laughter was soft and real, and it carried him all the way home.
Inside, she kicked off her shoes and pulled her sweater tighter around her, the fatigue from the long day showing in the slope of her shoulders.
Tyler, though, had one more thing weighing on his chest, and it wasn’t the fire.
It was Jack’s quiet words from earlier. He needed them out in the open.
“Your dad is worried,” he said gently, stepping in close.
She stiffened, just a little, her brows pulling together.
He realized too late that he should have eased into the subject.
But the words were already spoken. Tyler caught her hands, linking his fingers through hers.
“He knows something’s going on. That there’s danger.
And he hates that he’s stuck on the sidelines.
For a man like Jack, that’s brutal.” He gave a small shrug. “I get it. I’d feel the same way.”
Justice’s expression softened as her thoughts turned inward. “Dad’s always been my protector,” she murmured. “Not in some overbearing way. He didn’t treat me like I was delicate or helpless. It was just… it was him. Always there. Solid. Unshakable.”
She paused, then tilted her head, clearly sifting through old memories.
“He’s not exactly what you’d call alpha,” she said, wrinkling her nose adorably.
“But he’s always had this strength, this quiet intensity.
My mom was tough and strong in a different way.
She worked part-time at the shop, kept the place running when Dad was on a job.
Handled customers, handled chaos. She was grace under pressure.
But if anyone so much as looked sideways at her, my dad would be there in a heartbeat. ”
Her voice turned wistful. “He would’ve gone to war for her, no hesitation. And I think that’s what crushed him the most when she got sick. Cancer… it wasn’t a fight he could win for her. He couldn’t step in and fix it. So I did what I could. Took on more. Tried to be their steady ground.”
She sighed, her thumb sweeping across his hand. “But no matter how much I helped, I knew he still carried that helplessness with him. Like a weight he didn’t know how to set down.”
Her words struck him straight through the heart, so pure and earnest that it left him momentarily breathless. “I understand your dad very well,” Tyler said, his voice low and steady. “Because I feel the same way about you.”
Justice’s smile was a soft reflection of the blossoming emotions between them. She squeezed his hands, grounding them both in the truth of the moment.
Still holding her gaze, he added, “Your dad also mentioned he didn’t want me to feel indebted to you. I didn’t like that I spoke with him first because I wanted these words to come to you directly. You deserve that.”
She nibbled at her lower lip, her beautiful eyes unwavering, wide open to him, to whatever came next.
Tyler gathered his thoughts, but the truth poured out with surprising ease.
“I told him about that first hug you gave me, standing in the hospital when I felt like I had nothing tethering me. That hug wasn’t just comfort, but it changed something inside me.
It clicked something into place that I didn’t even know was missing.
” He squeezed her fingers gently. “I’m not here because of obligation, Justice.
I’m here because of you. I’m falling for you.
And you deserved to hear that from me first.”
The smile that broke across her face could have lit up every shadowed part of his soul.
And then she giggled in a sweet, irrepressible sound that had him grinning before he even knew why. “Every time you say something like that,” she said, a playful gleam in her eyes, “it makes me want to jump you.”
He barked out a laugh, the tightness in his chest giving way to something lighter, happier. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for.”
Still holding her hand, he laced their fingers tighter and led her toward the stairs.
They didn’t rush. There was no frenzy, only a shared sense of certainty, a pull between them stronger than gravity.
Step by step, they made their way to his bedroom, the quiet night wrapping around them like a cocoon.
At the threshold, she tugged on his hand, halting him. He turned, giving her his full attention, sensing that whatever she wanted to say was important.
She lifted her chin slightly, her voice soft but sure. “I want to be just as honest with you. I felt something the first time we hugged, too. It might’ve started because I was scared and overwhelmed... but it didn’t fade. Every single time we touch, it gets stronger.”
Tyler’s chest tightened, her words sinking deep into places he hadn’t even realized were still raw.
“And it’s only fair that you know,” she continued, her thumb brushing against his knuckles, “I’m falling for you, too.
I love how you care about what my dad feels.
I love that you ran headfirst into danger without thinking twice about yourself.
So whatever’s coming after us…” Her voice wavered slightly, but she tightened her grip on his hands. “We’ll face it. Together.”
He lowered his head, brushing a kiss across her lips, savoring the softness, the sweetness of it. When he pulled back, their foreheads touched, and he whispered against her skin, “Together… perfect.”
He felt her smile against his throat as she tucked her head close, the small, breathy laugh she gave going straight to his heart… and lower. Tyler held her there for a moment, breathing her in. His hands cupped her face, and he trembled just slightly from everything building inside him.
There was no rush. No desperation. Only the aching need to show her all the things he hadn’t yet found the words to say.
In the quiet of the room, with moonlight bleeding through the blinds and brushing her skin, she looked almost otherworldly.
Her hair shimmered like spun silk, and her skin held the soft glow of ivory.
When she looked up at him, it was as though he could chase away the shadows, and he knew he’d found home.
He touched her face again, reverently, his thumbs grazing her cheeks as he leaned in.
Their lips met in a slow kiss, deeper this time, his mouth molding to hers with the ease of someone who’d been waiting a lifetime to find this exact shape.
Her lips parted for him, and he took his time, his tongue gliding gently against hers as the kiss deepened.
Everything about her… her smile, her strength, her giving spirit, the quiet intelligence behind her eyes felt like home. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve a woman like her, but he vowed, right then and there, to spend every day proving he was worthy of her love.
With his arms wrapped around her, he lifted her and carried her the few steps to the bed, laying her down with care. This was something deeper than lust.
This wasn’t about wild abandon. Tonight was a slow worship.
As he kissed her, suckled her, and traced the silken skin of her body with lips and tongue and gentle hands, Tyler memorized every reaction.
The way her breath caught. The way her fingers clutched at him, guiding him.
The quiet sounds she made that he already knew he’d hear in his dreams.
When they were ready, his fingers linked with hers. He pressed inside her with slow, sure strokes, their bodies finding a rhythm that belonged only to them.
Their sighs turned to moans. Whispers melted into promises. And when their release finally overtook them, it was with each other’s names on their lips, cried out into the night.
Tyler held her afterward, skin against skin, heart against heart, and knew with bone-deep certainty that this was what he’d been waiting for. She was who he’d been waiting for.
And he wasn’t letting go.