Chapter 11
The compound went quiet after midnight.
Opal lay in her borrowed bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying that smile in her head for the hundredth time. Sleep wasn't coming—her mind was too full of Barrett Colley and the way he'd looked at her like she was something precious, something worth cracking open for.
She gave up at twelve-thirty and pulled on her boots.
The night air was cool, carrying the smell of pine and distant woodsmoke. Most of the buildings were dark, brothers either asleep or out on club business she didn't ask about. But light glowed from the equipment shed at the edge of the compound—warm and yellow against the darkness.
She knew who she'd find before she got there.
Iron stood over one of the machines, his hands moving with the methodical patience she'd come to recognize as his default state. He wasn't working, not really—more like checking, examining, making sure everything was in its place. The way a man did when his mind needed something to occupy itself.
"Couldn't sleep either?"
He didn't startle at her voice, but something shifted in his posture—an awareness that hadn't been there a moment ago.
"Don't sleep much." He didn't look up from the engine. "Never have."
Opal stepped into the shed, letting the door close behind her. The space was smaller than she'd expected, crowded with equipment and tools, the air thick with the smell of oil and metal. Intimate, almost. The kind of place where secrets could be told without echoing.
"Why do you keep your distance?"
The question came out before she could stop it, and Iron went still. His hands stopped moving. His shoulders tensed. For a long moment, he didn't speak.
"Because I don't know how not to."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have." He finally looked up, and the rawness in his eyes stole her breath. "I've been iron my whole life, Opal. Heavy. Cold. Hard to move past. That's what I am—what I've always been. The thing people use when they need force, then put away when the job's done."
"That's not—"
"It is." His voice was rough, scraped raw with something that might have been pain. "I don't know how to be soft. Don't know how to let someone close without crushing them under the weight of what I am. The club needs me solid. Immovable. If I start bending for you—"
She kissed him.
Not gently. Not carefully. She crossed the space between them in three steps and grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him like she'd been thinking about nothing else for days, which she had.
Iron froze for half a heartbeat—then his arms came around her like bands of steel, lifting her against him, and the kiss turned into something that burned.
His mouth was hot and demanding, taking control the moment his shock faded, and Opal gave it to him willingly. She could taste coffee and something darker, something that was just him, and when his tongue swept against hers she made a sound that echoed off the shed walls.
"Opal." Her name was a groan against her lips. "We shouldn't—"
"Why not?"
"Because I won't be able to stop." His hands were on her hips now, gripping hard enough to bruise, and she could feel exactly how much he wanted this pressed against her stomach. "Once I have you, you're mine. That's not negotiable. That's not something I can take back."
"Who asked you to take it back?"
His eyes went dark. Dangerous. The look of a man whose control was hanging by threads.
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"Then show me."
The threads snapped.
Iron's mouth crashed into hers, and then they were moving—stumbling backward until her shoulders hit the wall, his body pinning her there, his hands everywhere.
He yanked her shirt up and over her head, and Opal returned the favor, dragging his cut off his shoulders and tearing at the buttons of his flannel until she could finally touch the skin she'd been dreaming about.
He was massive. Solid muscle and scattered scars, heat radiating from him like a furnace. Opal ran her hands across his chest and felt him shudder, felt the groan that rumbled through his body at her touch.
"Mine." The word was guttural, possessive, spoken against her throat as he kissed his way down her neck. "You understand? After tonight, you're mine."
"Yours," she gasped. "God, Barrett—yours."
His real name made him feral.
He lifted her like she weighed nothing, and Opal wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her to the workbench, sweeping tools aside with one arm and setting her on the edge.
His hands found the button of her jeans and he stripped them off with an efficiency that left her breathless, and then he was kneeling between her legs, looking up at her with eyes that blazed.
"Been wanting to taste you since the moment I saw you swing that hammer."
He didn't give her time to respond.
His mouth found her center and Opal's head fell back, a cry tearing from her throat as pleasure crashed through her like a wave.
He was relentless—tongue and lips and the rough scrape of stubble against her thighs, driving her higher with the same steady patience he gave everything.
She grabbed his hair and held on, her hips rocking against his face, the pressure building until she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, could only feel.
"Barrett—I'm going to—"
"Give it to me." His voice was gravel and smoke. "Let me feel you break apart."
She shattered.
The orgasm ripped through her with an intensity that whited out her vision, wave after wave of pleasure that left her shaking and gasping. Iron didn't stop, working her through every tremor until she was pulling at his shoulders, dragging him up.
"Inside me," she panted. "Now. Please—"
He was on his feet before she finished speaking, his jeans shoved down just enough to free himself. Opal looked down and her breath caught—God, he was big, thick and hard and absolutely certain about what he wanted.
What he wanted was her.
"Last chance," he said, positioning himself at her entrance, the head of him pressing against her slick heat. "Once I'm inside you—"
"I'm yours." She grabbed his hips and pulled. "I know. I want it. I want you."
He drove into her in one long stroke.
Opal cried out, her body stretching to accommodate him, the burn of it mixing with pleasure so intense she couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
Iron held still for a moment—letting her adjust, his muscles trembling with the effort of restraint—and then she rolled her hips and his control vanished.
He moved like a man possessed, each thrust deep and claiming, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave marks. Opal wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself drown in it—the power of him, the heat, the absolute certainty that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
"Mine," he growled against her ear. "Say it again."
"Yours."
"Again."
"Yours—God, Barrett, I'm yours—"
He changed his angle and hit something inside her that made stars explode behind her eyes. Opal heard herself cry out, felt her body tightening around him, the second orgasm building faster than the first.
"That's it." His voice was ragged now, his rhythm faltering. "Come for me. Let me feel it."
She broke apart with his name on her lips, and he followed a heartbeat later—burying himself deep and groaning against her neck as he pulsed inside her, filling her, claiming her in the most primal way possible.
They stayed locked together for a long moment, breathing hard, hearts pounding against each other. Opal's legs trembled around his waist. Her hands shook where they gripped his shoulders. She felt wrung out, hollowed, rebuilt into something new.
"Opal." His voice was soft now, stripped of the gravel. Just her name, spoken like a prayer.
"I'm here."
"I know." He pulled back just enough to look at her, and the vulnerability in his eyes nearly undid her. "I've never... it's not usually like that."
"Like what?"
"Like it matters." His throat worked. "Like I'd burn down the world if you asked me to."
Opal reached up and cupped his face, feeling the stubble beneath her palms, the heat of his skin, the steadiness of his breath.
"Solid," she said quietly.
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"You said you're heavy. Cold. Hard to move past." She took his hand from her hip and turned it over, tracing the calluses that mapped his palm—calluses just like hers, earned through years of work that mattered. "But you're not cold, Barrett. You're solid. There's a difference."
"What difference?"
"Cold pushes people away." She pressed her lips to his palm, felt him shudder. "Solid gives them something to hold onto."
Iron stared at her, and something shifted in his expression—something that looked like hope, fragile and unfamiliar on his harsh face.
"You're going to ruin me," he said quietly.
"Maybe." She smiled, feeling bold and sated and more alive than she'd been in years. "But I've spent my whole life working with iron. I know what it does under the right pressure."
"What does it do?"
Opal traced the calluses on his hands, following the lines and ridges with gentle fingers, marveling at the strength there and the tenderness he'd shown her.
"It gets warm," she said. "And when it gets warm enough, it can be shaped into anything."
His forehead dropped to hers. His breath mingled with hers. And when he spoke, his voice was rough with something that might have been the beginning of love.
"Stay with me tonight."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I don't mean in the compound." His arms tightened around her. "I mean in my bed. Next to me. Where I can feel you breathing."
"Yes." The word came easily, like it had been waiting for him to ask. "Yes, Barrett. Whatever you need."
He dressed her with the same careful attention he'd used to undress her, handling her like something precious, like something he couldn't bear to break. Then he took her hand and led her through the sleeping compound to his quarters, and Opal followed without hesitation.
She'd told him solid wasn't the same as cold.
Now she was going to prove it.