Chapter Nine
Michelle couldn't sleep.
She lay in the guest room bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the compound settle into nighttime quiet. The cookout had ended hours ago. Families had gone home. Brothers had drifted to their own quarters or disappeared on business she didn't ask about.
But her mind wouldn't stop spinning.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Sandman's face—the intensity when he'd watched her cross the yard, the vulnerability when he'd thanked her for seeing him. The way his hand had felt in hers, warm and solid and right.
She'd been telling herself to be careful. To keep her distance. To remember that this was temporary, that she'd go back to her normal life when Harmon was dealt with.
But lying here in the dark, she couldn't remember what normal felt like anymore.
Michelle threw off the covers and pulled on her jeans, not bothering with shoes. The compound was quiet as she padded through the hallways, following some instinct she didn't want to examine too closely.
The back porch was bathed in moonlight.
And Sandman was already there.
He sat on the steps, his injured arm cradled against his chest, staring out at the Carolina pines with an expression she couldn't read. He didn't turn when she opened the door, but his shoulders shifted—acknowledging her presence without looking.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
"Haven't been able to sleep properly in years." His voice was rough. "Tonight's no different."
Michelle settled beside him on the steps, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The night air was warm and thick, heavy with the smell of pine and lingering woodsmoke.
"What keeps you awake?"
Sandman was quiet for a long moment.
"Versions," he said finally. "All the people I've been. Sometimes I lie there trying to remember which one is real."
Michelle's chest ached. "Alex—"
"That's part of it." He turned to look at her, and the moonlight caught the planes of his face—hard edges softened by shadow, dark eyes holding something raw. "You're the first person I've given that name to in... I don't even know how long. Years."
"Why me?"
"Because when I'm with you, I don't want to be anyone else." His voice dropped. "For the first time in my life, pretending feels wrong."
Michelle reached out, her fingers finding his jaw. He leaned into her touch like a man starving for contact.
"The version you're showing me right now," she said softly.
"The one who sits on porches and admits he can't sleep.
The one who laughs with his brothers and hesitates before ordering a beer because he's not sure which him should do it.
" She traced the line of his cheekbone. "That's the one I want to know. "
"He's not very impressive. No languages. No tactical skills. Just a guy trying to figure out who he is."
"He sounds real." Michelle shifted closer. "Real is impressive enough."
Sandman's good hand came up to cover hers, pressing her palm flat against his face.
"I've spent thirteen years being whoever the mission required," he said. "Speaking whatever language kept me alive, wearing whatever identity fit the situation. I was good at it. So good I forgot there was supposed to be someone underneath."
"There is someone underneath."
"You sound certain."
"I am certain." Michelle leaned in, her forehead almost touching his. "I've seen him. In the store, when you decided to help me. In the safehouse, when you gave me your name. Tonight, when you looked at me across the yard like I was the only thing that mattered."
"You are." The words came out rough, broken. "The only thing that matters. I don't understand it—I've known you less than a week—but when I look at you, everything else falls away. All the covers, all the versions, all the bullshit I've buried myself under for years. Just... gone."
Michelle's breath caught.
They were so close now. Close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, smell the clean scent of soap and something underneath that was purely him. His eyes were fixed on hers, dark and intense, waiting.
Always waiting. Letting her set the pace.
"Alex." She said his name deliberately, claiming it. Claiming him. "I'm going to kiss you now."
"Michelle—"
She closed the distance.
The kiss started soft—tentative, questioning. His lips were warm against hers, slightly chapped, perfect. She felt him go still, felt the tremor that ran through his body at the contact.
Then his good hand slid into her hair, and something broke open between them.
He kissed her like a man who'd been drowning and finally found air. Deep, desperate, consuming. His fingers tangled in her hair, tilting her head to get a better angle, and Michelle heard herself make a sound she didn't recognize—something raw and wanting that came from deep in her chest.
"Inside." She gasped the word against his lips. "Your room. Now."
He pulled back just enough to search her face. "Are you sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything." She grabbed his shirt with both hands. "I want this. I want you. Not because of adrenaline or fear or proximity—because I see you, Alex. And I want everything you're willing to give me."
Something fierce blazed through his expression.
He stood, pulling her up with him, and led her through the compound with an urgency that made her heart race. Past dark hallways and closed doors, past the faint sounds of others sleeping, to a room at the end of the corridor that she somehow knew was his.
The door closed behind them.
And then his hands were on her—both of them, injured arm be damned—pulling her against him with a need that stole her breath.
"Tell me to stop." His voice was ragged, his lips moving against her throat. "Tell me to stop and I will."
"Don't stop." She arched into him, feeling the hard length of his body pressed against hers. "Don't you dare stop."
He lifted her—how, with an injured shoulder, she didn't know—and carried her to the bed. Laid her down like she was something precious. Then stood over her, his chest heaving, his eyes burning.
"I need you to understand something." His voice shook. "This isn't... I don't do this. Take women to bed, let them see me. Any version of me."
"I know."
"If we do this, you're mine." The possessiveness in his voice sent heat pooling low in her belly. "I don't share. I don't do casual. You give yourself to me tonight, and I'm going to spend every day after making sure you never regret it."
"Promise?"
He came down over her, bracing himself on his good arm, his body a wall of heat and strength.
"Promise."
Then his mouth found hers again, and there were no more words.
His hands were shaking.
Michelle felt it as he traced the hem of her shirt, as he slowly—reverently—pulled it over her head. This man who'd killed without hesitation, who'd taken a bullet and kept fighting, was trembling at the prospect of touching her.
"Alex." She caught his hand, pressed it flat against her heart. "I've got you."
Something cracked in his expression. Vulnerability, naked and terrifying, flooding through the cracks in his armor.
"I haven't felt like myself in years," he whispered. "Any version. Just... empty. Going through the motions of being human without actually being present."
"And now?"
"Now..." His hand slid up, fingers tracing her collarbone, her shoulder, the curve of her neck. "Now I feel everything. Too much. Like someone turned the volume up and I don't know how to handle it."
Michelle pulled him down to her, wrapping her arms around his neck, letting him feel the solid reality of her body against his.
"Then let me help you handle it."
She showed him.
Slowly, carefully, she mapped his body with her hands—the hard planes of his chest, the ridges of muscle across his stomach, the scattered scars she didn't ask about. Every touch was deliberate. Claiming. Saying this is mine now without words.
He responded in kind, his mouth tracing paths down her throat, across her collarbone, lower. His hands found sensitive places that made her gasp, made her arch into him, made her whisper his name like a prayer.
Alex. Alex. Alex.
When he finally settled between her thighs, she pulled his face to hers and held his gaze.
"I see you," she whispered. "Right here. Right now. I see you."
He pushed into her slowly, watching her face the entire time, and the sound he made—low, broken, almost reverent—sent heat flooding through her whole body.
She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him deeper, and his control cracked.
She felt it happen—felt his grip shift from careful to desperate, felt his breath shatter against her throat, felt the tremor in his arms turn into something that matched the rhythm building between them.
"Say it again." His voice was wrecked. "Tell me you see me."
"I see you." She rolled her hips up to meet him and his whole body shuddered. "I see you, Alex."
He buried his face against her neck and moved harder, deeper, his good hand fisting in the sheets beside her head while she matched him stroke for stroke.
The pressure built in waves—each one higher, tighter, pulling sounds from her throat she couldn't control.
His mouth found the place below her ear and she gasped his name and he answered by driving into her with everything he had.
"Mine." The word ground out against her skin. "Tell me you're mine."
"Yours." She dug her nails into his back and felt him shudder. "Yours, Alex. I'm yours."
His rhythm broke. Turned desperate. His hand found her hip and angled her up and the shift sent a bolt of white heat through her core that made her cry out. She clung to him—legs locked, hands fisted in his hair—and felt herself climbing past the point of return.
"Let go." His voice was raw. "I've got you. Let go."
She shattered around him—a full-body tremor that started deep and rolled through her in waves, pulling his name from her lips in a sound that was half-sob and half-prayer.
He felt it—felt her tighten and break—and his hips stuttered and he followed her over with a groan that vibrated through both of them, his whole body going rigid against hers before collapsing.
They lay tangled together in the darkness.
Breathing. Being. His weight pressing her into the mattress in a way that should have been suffocating but felt instead like shelter.
"That was..." He trailed off, seemingly unable to find words.
"Yeah." Michelle pressed a kiss to his chest. "It was."
Silence stretched between them—comfortable, weighted with meaning neither was ready to articulate.
"I haven't felt like myself in years," he said finally, echoing his earlier confession. "But just now... that felt like becoming someone new."
Michelle lifted her head to look at him. His eyes were soft in the darkness, more open than she'd ever seen them.
"Maybe that's what this is," she said. "Not finding who you used to be. Building who you're becoming."
His hand found her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone in a gesture that was becoming familiar. Beloved.
"Will you help me?" The vulnerability in his voice stole her breath. "Be there while I figure it out?"
Michelle leaned up and kissed him—soft, certain, a promise sealed with touch instead of words.
"I'm not going anywhere, Alex."
His arms tightened around her.
Outside, the Carolina night wrapped the compound in darkness and silence. But inside this room, in this bed, something new was taking shape.
Something that felt like the beginning of everything.