Chapter 11 Beyond Fragile
ELEVEN
Beyond Fragile
EVIE
For a long moment, he doesn't move.
I can feel him beneath me—hard again already, his body responding even as his mind resists. His hands are on my hips, but they're not gripping. They're hovering. Hesitant.
"You're sure." His voice is rough. Strained.
"I'm not made of glass." I roll my hips, meeting his resistance with a deliberate challenge. "Daniel spent three years trying to convince me I’d shatter if the wind blew too hard. I’m done being fragile for the sake of a man’s conscience.
I want all of you. Not the version you think I can handle. All of it."
Something shifts in his expression. The gentleman disappears. What's left is darker. Hungrier. The predator I glimpsed during the firefight, the one who moves through violence like water through a riverbed.
"You asked for this." His hands tighten on my hips—not hesitant anymore. Claiming. "Remember that."
"I'll remember."
He moves.
One second I'm on top of him; the next I'm on my back, the cold rock biting into my shoulders, his weight pressing me down. He's not gentle now. Not careful. His mouth finds mine in a kiss that's more teeth than tongue, his hands pinning my wrists above my head.
"This what you wanted?" His voice is a growl against my throat.
"It's what I'm taking," I rasp back. This isn't him doing something to me; it's us, together, in the raw reality of the rock and the dark. I am not a victim of this intensity. I am the woman who climbed two hundred feet of vertical granite to get here, and I am more than strong enough for this.
"Tell me if it's too much."
"It won't be."
"Tell me anyway."
Then he's inside me, and there's nothing slow about it this time. No careful building, no measured thrusts. He takes me like he needs me to survive—hard and fast and relentless, like he's trying to crawl inside my skin.
And I love it.
I love the weight of him, the strength of him, the way he's finally stopped holding back.
I love the sounds he makes—low grunts and harsh breaths, and my name torn from his throat like a curse.
I love that he's letting me see this part of him, the part he keeps locked away, the rough edges he thinks he needs to hide.
"More," I gasp. "Jon—more—"
He gives me more.
He gives me everything.
When I shatter this time, it's violent—a scream ripped from my throat that echoes off the canyon walls. He follows seconds later, his whole body shuddering, my name on his lips like a prayer.
We collapse together.
For a long moment, there's nothing but harsh breathing and racing hearts and the distant sound of wind through the canyon.
"Fuck." His voice is wrecked. "Evie. I—"
"Don't apologize." I'm still trembling, aftershocks rolling through me. "Don't you dare apologize for being too rough.”
"I wasn't going to." He lifts his head, meets my eyes. Even in the darkness, I can see the intensity there. The rawness. "I was going to say thank you."
"For what?"
"For letting me—" He stops. Swallows. "For trusting me enough to let me be that."
"That's who you are."
"Part of who I am." He brushes the hair from my face, his touch gentle now—a contrast to what we just did. "Not the whole picture."
"I know." I pull him down, press my lips to his. "I like all the parts. The gentle ones and the rough ones. The jokes and the silence. All of it."
He's quiet for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is different. Softer.
"I've never—" He stops. Tries again. "No one's ever asked for that before. For the rough parts."
"Their loss."
He laughs—surprised, genuine. "You're something else, you know that?"
"So I've been told." I curl into him, let his warmth chase away the cold. "Usually not as a compliment."
"It's a compliment." He pulls me closer. "Trust me. It's a compliment."
The light has shifted while we weren't paying attention. What was purple is now black, the stars wheeling overhead in patterns I couldn't see from the city. We've been on this ledge for hours. Lost track of time entirely.
"You know that’s never what I’d thought I'd check off my bucket list.” His voice is lazy, satisfied. "Fucking a gorgeous woman on the side of a cliff."
I laugh. "That was on your bucket list?"
"It is now. Retroactively." He grins against my hair. "If I'd known how amazing it would be, I'd have put it at the top."
"Charmer."
"I try."
His fingers trace absent patterns on my shoulder. Slow. Thoughtful. Like he's working up to something.
"You said you don't do casual," I murmur. "Earlier. When we were talking about what this means."
"I did."
"Why?" I shift so I can see his face. In the starlight, his expression is guarded. Careful. "A man who looks like you, does what you do—I'd think casual would be easy. Safer."
"It would be." His jaw works. “But it’s not.”
"What changed?"
He's quiet for long enough that I think he's not going to answer. Then he exhales—slow, controlled, like he's letting something go.
"When I was twenty-three," he says eventually, "I married a woman I'd known for six weeks.
..Carmen. She told me she was pregnant, and I wanted to do the right thing.
Sent her every penny I made while I was deployed.
Came home early to surprise her." His jaw tightens.
"She was living with another man. Never pregnant. I was just a steady paycheck."
"Jon—"
"I'm not telling you that for sympathy." His eyes find mine.
"I'm telling you why I don't do casual. Haven't done anything at all since Carmen.
Haven't let anyone in. It was easier to keep the walls up, keep the jokes going, keep everyone at a safe distance.
" His thumb traces my cheekbone. "You're the first person in a long time who's made me want to take them down. "
The words settle into me. Find the places that have been empty for so long.
"I'm scared," I admit. "The last time I let someone in, I lost myself completely. I'm scared of doing that again."
"I'm not asking you to lose yourself." His voice is fierce. Certain. "I like who you are. The fierce one and the soft one and the wild one who climbs cliffs without ropes. I don't want you to be less of anything."
"You barely know me."
"I know enough." He kisses me—soft, sweet, a promise more than a demand. "And I want to know more. If you'll let me."
If I let him. Like it's my decision. Like, I have the power here.
Daniel never asked. Daniel just took.
"Okay," I whisper. "Yes."
His smile breaks across his face. Warm. Real. The kind of smile I don't think he shows many people.
"Now." He shifts, pulling me closer. "We should probably get dressed before the cold becomes actually dangerous."
"Probably."
Neither of us moves.
"The thing is," he says after a moment, "it's pitch black out there. And that last eighty feet has some technical sections."
"It does."
"Climbing technical rock in the dark seems like a bad idea."
"It's a terrible idea." I'm already settling more firmly against him. "We could fall."
"We could definitely fall." His arms tighten around me. "So really, the responsible thing to do is wait for daylight."
"Very responsible."
"I'm a responsible guy."
I laugh into his chest. "You're a guy who just fucked me three times on a cliff ledge."
"Responsibly." He presses a kiss to my hair. "I did it very responsibly."
We get dressed anyway—the cold is too biting to ignore, and hypothermia would be an embarrassing way to die after surviving everything else. But we stay tangled together, sharing body heat, my back against his chest and his arms wrapped around me like he's trying to absorb me into his skin.
The stars are impossibly bright. Without city lights to compete with, the Milky Way stretches across the sky like spilled milk, dense clusters of light I've never seen from Sacramento.
The canyon below is silent now—no voices, no engines, nothing but the whisper of wind through pine trees far below.
"I used to come here to watch meteor showers," I murmur. "August, usually. The Perseids."
"By yourself?"
"Always by myself." I trace patterns on the back of his hand. "That was the point. No one to perform for. No one to manage. Just me and the stars and the rock."
"Sounds lonely."
"Sometimes. Mostly it felt like freedom." I pause. "This is better, though."
His arms tighten. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
We don't talk much after that. Don't need to. The silence is comfortable—the kind that comes after you've said the important things and don't need to fill the space with noise. Eventually, his breathing evens out, deepens. Asleep.
I stay awake a while longer, watching the stars wheel overhead, feeling his heartbeat against my back. Processing everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours. The cabin. The chase. The climb. Him.
Three times? I rest my head in my hand and can’t help the foolish grin filling my face. My first one-nighter ever, with a man sent to save me. A man who I know nothing about.
Maybe that was the point. Not knowing gave me the freedom to be my authentic self. Like when I first started climbing, taking something purely for myself.
This wasn't supposed to happen. None of it was supposed to happen. I was supposed to be a witness in protective custody, not a woman tangled up with a man who kills people for a living and makes her feel more alive than she's felt in years.
But here I am, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I close my eyes and let sleep take me.