4. Tyler
Tyler
The oak counter groans against her spine.
I slam my hands down on the polished wood on either side of her hips, caging her in.
The air in the Vinyl Vault is thick with the stench of the Syndicate enforcer’s cheap cologne fading into the warm dust and old paper scent of the shop.
Fleetwood Mac drops on the turntable behind the register.
The needle hits the groove with a sharp crackle.
The bassline starts. Slow. Thumping. Matching the erratic hammering in my chest.
She stares up at me. Defiant. Angry. Trembling with the residual shame of handing over that envelope of cash.
Her knuckles are stark white where she grips the edge of the counter.
She’s trying to hold onto her independence, trying to maintain the armor she’s worn for four years carrying this business alone.
"Don't ever pay them again," I tell her. My voice is a low rasp. It doesn't sound like Tom from Portland. It sounds like the lethal operative I am.
She lifts her chin. The sassy, fiercely independent woman refuses to back down. "I have to. It's the only way to keep the doors open. You think you can just grunt orders at me in my own shop? Who are you to tell me—"
"I said never again, Wendy."
She shoves a hand against my chest. It does nothing. I’m a stone wall. I’m the physical manifestation of the Ignition burning through my blood, locking onto her.
"Who are you?" she demands. The question is a raw, jagged thing.
Her chest heaves with every rapid breath.
"You're not Tom. You're not my cousin. You stand like a soldier.
You look at that enforcer like you're calculating the pressure it would take to snap his neck.
You've been sleeping in my back room for five days and you act like you own the block. Who the hell are you?"
The cover fractures. The eight months of breathing through a fake name, a fake history, a fabricated life.
The endless phantom paper trails Daniel Gunnar dumped on a table at the compound.
The Albuquerque stint. The long-haul trucker route.
I’ve worn so many faces I don't even know what my own reflection looks like without a role attached to it. I’m the club's ghost. I’m the man who doesn't exist.
But looking down at her, the static in my brain goes quiet. The performance burns away. I don't want to be a ghost anymore. I want to be a violent reality for anyone who steps foot in this shop.
"My name is Tyler."
Saying it out loud in this room is a brand. It destroys the lie. It strips the operative down to the man. I hand her the only true thing I possess.
She blinks. Her breath hitches. The fight drains out of her shoulders, replaced by something much more dangerous. "Tyler," she whispers.
I watch her mouth shape the two syllables.
Tyler. In Crimson Hollow, that name’s been dead for eight months.
Nobody’s said it to my face since the Chapel handed me my last cover envelope.
Hearing it out loud, in her voice, in her shop, against the hum of the Fleetwood Mac drop, breaks something in me that‘s been locked since I left Pine Valley.
My hand drops to her throat. Not pressing—just resting against the racing beat of her pulse. Anchoring myself to the only place in this town that knows my name.
Hearing my actual name in her mouth shatters my restraint.
The Ignition flares, a violent, gasoline-soaked inferno roaring through my veins.
It’s a territorial madness. I step into her space.
My thighs crowd hers against the counter.
The denim of my jeans drags against the worn denim of hers, those high-waisted vintage jeans hugging her hips.
She gasps. The sound is a high, sweet note soaring over the Fleetwood Mac bassline.
She’s mine.
That’s the only truth left in Crimson Hollow.
The Syndicate doesn't run this block anymore.
I do. This shop is my perimeter. This woman is my reason for breathing.
I want to consume her. I want to strip her bare, throw her down on this oak counter, and bury myself so deep inside her she forgets every second she spent surviving without me.
But not yet. Her pride needs to break first. The tension needs to break her pride first. She needs to surrender the weight she's carrying. She needs to unravel.
"Tyler," she says again, testing the syllables, tasting the truth.
"Don't say it again unless you want me to tear those clothes off you right here," I warn her.
She arches an eyebrow. That fierce, sassy spark flares right back up, cutting through the air. "Is that a threat, Portland?"
"It's a promise."
The hand at her throat slides up. The other leaves the counter. I grip her jaw. My thumbs drag over her cheekbones, mapping the soft, flushed skin. She shivers. The stubborn set of her mouth parts.
I crush my mouth down on hers.
There’s no hesitation. No gentle coaxing.
I take her mouth like I’m taking enemy territory.
My tongue sweeps inside, tasting stale coffee and raw need.
She makes a muffled sound, a desperate little moan that vibrates against my lips, and kisses me back with the same violent energy.
Her hands come up, tangling in my hair, gripping my scalp.
Her nails dig in. Good. Let her fight. Let her pull.
She can take all her anger, all her shame about the enforcer, and pour it into me.
I’m built to take it. I’m built to carry her.
I back her against the edge of the oak counter. The wood digs into her lower back. I press my body flush against hers. My cock is a thick, aching length of iron, straining against the zipper of my jeans. I trap one of her legs between mine. I grind my hips forward.
The harsh friction of denim rubbing against the seam of her jeans rips a loud gasp from her throat.
I drag my mouth from hers and bite the soft skin at the corner of her jaw.
Hard enough to mark. Hard enough that the Syndicate scout watching the shop from the bus stop across the street will see the bruise tomorrow morning and know somebody else has been here.
Somebody who doesn't share. Her fingers fist in the back of my hair.
I drag my open mouth down the line of her throat. The salt of her skin floods my tongue. I bite again at the hollow above her collarbone. Suck the skin red. Let the bruise bloom.
She moans my name out loud. The actual name. The real one. I shudder against her so hard the counter rocks on its base.
"Fuck," I groan against her throat.
I drag my lips up from the bruise, tracing the line of her throat.
My teeth scrape over her pulse point. It jumps frantically against my tongue.
She smells like warm vanilla, old vinyl sleeves, and rising arousal.
The scent is an intoxicating drug. It wipes out everything else in the universe.
Mac handed me the keys to a battered Honda Civic eight months ago and told me not to get attached to the car.
Too fucking late. Forget the car—I’m attached to the goddamn record shop.
I’m irrevocably anchored to the woman breathing heavy against my chest.
My hands move down her sides, gripping her waist. I lift her slightly, just enough to adjust her angle against the counter, keeping her feet on the floor but tilting her hips upward. I settle into the notch of her thighs.
I roll my hips. Slow. Deliberate. The thick seam of my jeans grinds over her center.
She cries out. Her head falls back, exposing the long, elegant line of her throat. Her hands drop from my hair to grip my shoulders, her fingers squeezing the rigid muscle.
"Tyler," she whimpers.
"I told you not to say it."
I bite the sensitive skin where her neck meets her shoulder.
My hands slide under the hem of her vintage band t-shirt.
Her skin is scorching hot. My rough palms drag up her ribs, mapping the delicate cage of bone.
She isn't wearing a bra. The realization makes the blood roar louder in my ears. I cup her bare breasts. They’re soft, spilling perfectly into my hands.
My thumbs find her nipples. They’re already hard, tight peaks of flesh begging for friction.
I roll them between my thumbs and forefingers, applying ruthless, pinching pressure.
She thrashes against the counter. Her hips jerk upward, desperately chasing the friction of my thigh.
"Please," she gasps.
"Say it. Out loud."
"More. I need..." She trails off into a fractured moan as I scrape my thumbnail over the tight nub of her nipple.
"Finish the sentence, Wendy."
"You. Just you."
I drag her shirt up further, bunching the fabric around her collarbones.
I bury my face in her chest. I open my mouth over her right breast, taking the hard peak between my teeth.
I suck hard. The wet, obscene sound of my mouth pulling on her flesh fills the shop, louder than the Fleetwood Mac record spinning behind us.
She arches violently against the wood. Her nails carve half-moons into my shoulders through my shirt.
I pull on her soft flesh, drawing it deep into my mouth, laving the tight nipple with my tongue before biting down gently.
I move my mouth to her left breast. I bite the soft underside.
Suck another red bloom into her skin, a twin to the bruise at her collarbone.
By the time I lift my head, the curve of her chest is mapped with marks.
She’s shaking. Her fingers are tangled tight in the back of my shirt.
The thin cotton of her band shirt is shoved up under her arms. Her bare chest is flushed red and rising in ragged jerks against my mouth.
I drag my open mouth down the soft slope of her stomach. The taste of her skin changes—warmer here, faintly salty, soft. I bite the soft skin above the waistband of her vintage jeans. She makes a fractured sound.