Chapter Thirteen
The ride back to the compound was a blur of streetlights and engine noise.
Tess's arms were wrapped around Lakeshore's waist, her face pressed against his back, breathing in leather and smoke and the sharp metallic scent of violence.
Her clothes reeked of ash and harbor water—she'd gotten soaked helping evacuate a family whose houseboat had been too close to the flames—and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Adrenaline. That's all it was. The crash that came after hours of running on fear and fury, when your body finally realized the danger had passed and demanded payment for everything it had given.
She needed to shower. Sleep. Eat something that wasn't anxiety.
She needed him.
The compound gates swung open, and Lakeshore didn't stop at the main lot. He took them around back, past the garage, to the entrance closest to the stairs. Like he knew. Like he was running on the same desperate frequency she was.
His door barely closed before he had her against it.
"Tess." Her name came out ragged, wrecked. His hands were in her hair, on her face, running down her arms like he was checking for damage. "You scared the hell out of me."
"I'm fine—"
"You were supposed to stay clear."
"I did stay clear. I evacuated civilians, I didn't—"
He kissed her.
Not gentle. Not careful. This was teeth and tongue and three hours of terror finally finding an outlet. Tess grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and kissed him back just as hard, just as desperate, because she'd spent the night watching flames and listening to gunfire and wondering if he was coming back.
Now he was here. Alive. Whole.
And the adrenaline had nowhere to go but into this.
"Your clothes smell like smoke," he said against her mouth.
"Your hands are covered in blood."
"Not mine."
"I know."
She should care about that. Some distant part of her brain registered that she was kissing a man who'd killed someone tonight—killed someone for her, for her shop, for territory he'd claimed as theirs.
But that part of her brain was very far away, drowned out by the roar of alive alive alive that pounded through her veins.
His hands found the hem of her shirt, and this time they didn't shake.
They tore.
The fabric ripped up the back, ruined anyway from smoke and water and the kind of night that destroyed things. Tess laughed—sharp, wild—and returned the favor, yanking his shirt over his head with more force than finesse.
"Destroying my wardrobe," he growled.
"Bill me."
She ran her hands up his chest, over the scars she'd kissed three nights ago, feeling his muscles tense under her palms. He was wound tight—combat energy still coiled in his body, looking for somewhere to go.
She knew the feeling. Had been fighting it since she'd watched the first flames rise over the fuel dock.
"Stop thinking," she said. "I can feel you thinking."
"I almost lost you tonight."
"You didn't."
"Tess—"
She bit his shoulder. Hard enough to mark, hard enough to make him hiss and grab her hips with bruising force.
"I'm right here," she said against his skin. "I'm alive. You're alive. Stop thinking about what almost happened and feel what's happening now."
Something snapped behind his eyes.
He lifted her like she weighed nothing—one hand under her thighs, the other pressed flat against the door—and she wrapped her legs around his waist because holding on was the only thing she knew how to do.
His mouth found her throat, biting and sucking and leaving marks she'd wear tomorrow, and Tess dug her nails into his shoulders and let him.
Let him claim her. Let him prove to himself that she was real, that she was here, that the night hadn't taken her the way the lake had taken so many others.
"Mine." He said it against her pulse, fierce and possessive. "Say it."
"Yours."
"Again."
"Yours, Tyler. I'm yours."
The sound of his real name cracked something open in both of them.
He carried her to the bed—their bed now, she'd stopped thinking of it as borrowed—and came down on top of her with a weight that should have felt threatening and instead felt like exactly where she needed to be.
His hands were everywhere, rough and desperate, mapping territory he already knew but needed to reclaim.
Tess arched into him, demanding more. She wasn't fragile. Wasn't breakable. She'd spent the night evacuating strangers from a burning harbor, and she could handle whatever he needed to give her.
"Don't be careful," she said. "Not tonight."
His control shattered.
This wasn't the slow burn of their first time, the tender exploration of two people learning each other's depths. This was fire and flood, the crash of storm waves against a breakwall, two bodies colliding with the force of everything they'd been holding back.
He pinned her wrists above her head and kissed her like he was trying to consume her.
She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer, demanding everything he had.
They moved together in a rhythm that felt like combat, like survival, like the only thing that mattered was this moment and this heat and the desperate proof that they'd both made it through.
"Look at me," he demanded.
She did. His eyes were wild in the darkness—silver-gray and hungry, stripped of every wall he'd ever built.
"This is what you chose," he said, voice raw. "This life. This violence. Me."
"I know what I chose."
"No going back."
"I don't want to go back."
He made a sound like something breaking free, and then there were no more words. Just breath and heat and the relentless drive toward something that felt like drowning and rescue all at once.
Tess let herself fall.
The crash came later.
One moment she was flying, suspended in that perfect space where nothing existed but sensation and the man above her. The next, everything released at once—the adrenaline, the fear, the desperate need—and she was shaking in his arms while he held her through the aftershocks.
"I've got you," he murmured against her hair. "I've got you."
She believed him.
They lay tangled together in the wreckage of sheets and clothes, her head on his chest, his arm wrapped around her like he was afraid she'd disappear if he let go. The room smelled like smoke and sweat and something that was uniquely theirs, and Tess had never felt more anchored in her life.
"That was..." She trailed off, not sure how to finish.
"Yeah."
"Different."
"Different good or different bad?"
She lifted her head to look at him. In the gray light filtering through the east window, he looked exhausted. Wrecked. Beautiful.
"Different necessary," she said. "I think we both needed to burn something off."
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile, but close. "Combat does that. Puts everything into sharp focus. You either fall apart or you find something to hold onto."
"And you held onto me."
"You made it easy."
She settled back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow from thunder to something steadier. The compound was quiet around them—brothers recovering from the night's battle, the world outside their door pausing to catch its breath.
"Gregor's going to come for us," she said quietly. "For real this time."
"I know."
"He's lost two lieutenants. His operation is falling apart. He's going to be desperate."
"I know."
She propped herself up on one elbow. "So what do we do?"
Lakeshore's eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. The softness from moments ago was fading, replaced by the cold calculation of a man planning his next move.
"We take the fight to him. Before he can regroup, before he can bring in reinforcements. We find where he's operating from and we end this."
"The club has a plan?"
"Alpha's working on it. Scout's been tracking Gregor's movements for the past week." He paused. "Your charter captain contact—the one who knows the boat schedules. Would he talk to us?"
"Captain Reeves? Probably. He's been watching Gregor's boats run past his slip for years. Never liked it, but never had anyone to tell." She frowned. "You want to use him for intel?"
"I want to know where Gregor stages his crossings. The primary dock, the one he uses when he's running cargo himself. That's where we hit him."
It was strange, lying in bed with a man who'd just made her see stars, discussing the logistics of taking down a smuggling operation. Strange and somehow perfect. This was their life now—violence and tenderness woven together, one never far from the other.
"I'll call him tomorrow," she said. "Set up a meeting."
"You don't have to be involved in this part."
"Yes, I do." She met his eyes, letting him see the steel underneath the softness. "This started with my shop. My boats. My father's legacy. I'm not sitting on the sidelines while you finish it."
He studied her for a long moment. Whatever he saw in her face made something shift in his expression—pride, maybe. Recognition.
"Okay."
"Okay? Just like that?"
"You've earned it." He pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Just promise me you'll be careful. I can't lose you, Tess. Not now. Not after everything."
"Same goes for you."
They lay in silence for a while, the weight of what was coming settling over them like a blanket. Gregor Petrovic was still out there, still dangerous, still planning his next move. But for now—for this moment—they had each other.
Tess felt her eyes growing heavy. The crash was catching up with her, all the adrenaline and fear and desperate passion draining away and leaving exhaustion in its wake.
"Sleep," Lakeshore said. "I'll keep watch."
"You need sleep too."
"I'll sleep when it's over."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that running on empty would only make him vulnerable, that the faces in his head needed rest as much as his body did.
But her eyes were already closing, and his chest was warm beneath her cheek, and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat was pulling her under.
She slept.
Sometime in the dark hours before dawn, she woke.
The room was quiet, the compound silent, the world holding its breath between one day and the next. Lakeshore was still awake—she could feel the tension in his body, the alertness in the way he held her.
She tilted her head and found him staring at the ceiling.
"Hey."
"Hey." His voice was rough. Distant.
"Where'd you go?"
"Nowhere. Just thinking."
She recognized that look—the one that meant the faces were crowding in, the ghosts demanding their due. The night's violence had given them fresh ammunition, new fuel for the fire that never quite went out.
Tess didn't ask what he was thinking about. Didn't try to pull him back with words or questions or the kind of comfort that required him to explain things he couldn't articulate.
Instead, she pulled his arm tighter around her.
Held on.
And eventually, she felt some of the tension ease from his body, the darkness retreating just enough to let him breathe.
She fell back asleep like that, anchored against his chest, trusting him to keep watch while she recovered from a night of fire and flood.
They'd face whatever came next together.
But for now, this was enough.