Chapter 11
The compound was silent when Trish found him.
Midnight had come and gone, the party long over, the brothers either asleep or out on patrol. She'd woken from her nap on the couch still wrapped in his jacket, still surrounded by his scent, and known she wouldn't be going back to sleep.
Not until she found him.
The chapel door was cracked open, a sliver of light cutting across the hallway floor. She pushed it wider and stepped inside.
Stockton sat at the long table, beneath the original charter with its five faded signatures. A glass of whiskey sat in front of him, untouched. His hands were flat on the wood, still and steady, but something in his posture said he was anything but calm.
"Couldn't sleep," she said.
"Neither could I."
She crossed the room and sat in the chair beside his—not across from him, but next to him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough to see the tension in his jaw and the shadows under his eyes.
"You covered me," she said. "With your jacket."
"You were cold."
"I was asleep."
"You were still cold."
Something about the simple logic of it made her chest ache. He'd seen her shivering and fixed it. No questions, no expectations. Just care, expressed in leather and warmth.
"Tell me about her," Trish said quietly. "Ellen."
Stockton's hands tightened on the table. For a long moment, she thought he wouldn't answer.
Then he reached for the whiskey and took a slow sip. Set it down. Started talking.
"She was a nurse. ER, at Stroger Hospital. Toughest woman I ever met—she'd work sixteen-hour shifts patching up gangbangers and accident victims, then come home and make me feel like I was the one who needed taking care of." His voice was rough, worn. "We had twenty years. Not long enough."
"It never is."
"No." He stared at the charter on the wall. "The cancer took eight months. She fought it the way she fought everything—stubborn, angry, refusing to give up. I watched her get smaller every day, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."
Trish's throat tightened. She knew that helplessness. The slow unraveling of someone you loved, and the absolute inability to stop it.
"Danny went fast," she said. "Construction accident. Beam came down wrong, and by the time they got him out..." She shook her head. "I got a phone call. That was it. Twenty minutes, and my whole life changed."
"How long ago?"
"Eight years." She looked at her hands. "Sometimes it feels like yesterday. Sometimes it feels like it happened to someone else."
Stockton turned to face her. In the dim light, his eyes were dark, deep—the eyes of a man who'd seen too much and carried all of it.
"I stopped feeling things for a while after Ellen," he said. "Thought that part of me was dead. Easier that way. Safer."
"And now?"
"Now you're sitting in my chapel wearing my jacket, and I'm feeling things I haven't felt in four years."
The words hung in the air between them. Trish felt her heart hammering against her ribs, felt the warmth of him beside her, felt the pull of something she'd been fighting since the night he'd appeared in her laundromat with his fake laundry and his steady eyes.
"I should go," she said. But she didn't move.
"You should." He didn't move either. "But I don't want you to."
She turned to look at him—really look, taking in the gray at his temples and the lines around his eyes and the weight he carried in every breath.
This wasn't a young man's desire, hot and thoughtless.
This was something older. Deeper. The choice of two people who knew what loss cost and were deciding to risk it anyway.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
"Of me?"
"Of this." She gestured between them. "Of feeling something again. Of losing it."
Stockton reached out and took her hand. His palm was rough, calloused from years of work and violence, but his touch was gentle. Almost reverent.
"I can't promise you forever," he said. "I've learned the hard way that forever doesn't exist. But I can promise you right now. This moment. Whatever we make of it."
Trish looked at their joined hands. His, scarred and strong. Hers, worn from years of work. Two people who'd been carrying things alone for too long.
"Thomas," she said.
He went still. "What?"
"That's your name. Your real name." She lifted her eyes to his. "I want to use it. Just between us. Just when it matters."
Something cracked open in his expression. Vulnerability, raw and unguarded—the dangerous man undone by three syllables.
"Nobody's called me that in years," he said roughly.
"Then let me be the one who does."
She reached up and touched his face. His jaw tensed under her palm, the muscle jumping like he was fighting to hold himself still. She traced her thumb along his cheekbone, feeling the roughness of stubble, the warmth of skin.
"Thomas," she said again, softer this time.
He kissed her.
Not gentle. Not hesitant. The kiss of a man who'd been holding back for days, weeks, years—a dam breaking, flooding everything in its path. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them.
Trish gasped against his mouth, her hands fisting in his shirt, and he swallowed the sound like it belonged to him. Everything belonged to him. Her breath. Her heartbeat. The soft moan she couldn't quite contain when his teeth grazed her lower lip.
"We should move," he said against her mouth.
"Where?"
"My room." He pulled back just enough to look at her, his eyes dark with want. "Unless you want to stop."
"I don't want to stop."
They rose together, still tangled in each other, unwilling to break contact even for the short walk down the hallway.
His room was at the end of the corridor—sparse, functional, nothing like the warm clutter of her apartment above the laundromat.
But his scent was everywhere, leather and soap and something underneath that was just him.
The door closed behind them. Stockton pressed her against it, his body covering hers, his hands sliding down her sides with a reverence that made her tremble.
"Tell me what you want," he said, his voice rough.
"You." She pulled at his shirt. "Just you."
He stripped the shirt over his head, and she saw the ink she'd only glimpsed before—the original Wolves tattoo faded across his chest, decades of history written on his skin. She pressed her palm flat against it, feeling his heart pound beneath her hand.
"Mine," she said, surprising herself.
His breath caught. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Something shifted in his eyes. The control she'd seen him maintain through violence and chaos, through twenty years of leading and fighting and surviving—it cracked. Splintered. Fell away.
And what was left was a man looking at her like she was the first good thing he'd seen in years.
He kissed her again, softer this time, deeper. His hands found the hem of her shirt and tugged it up, his fingers skating across the bare skin of her stomach. She shivered at the contact—not from cold, never from cold, not with the heat pouring off him.
"Beautiful," he murmured against her throat. "God, you're beautiful."
They moved to the bed, shedding clothes as they went. She'd expected urgency—the same explosive intensity she'd seen in the fight at the safehouse—but this was different. Slow. Deliberate. Every touch savored, every kiss lingered over, like he was memorizing the shape of her.
When he finally settled over her, skin to skin, breath mingling, she felt tears prick her eyes.
"Hey." He cupped her face in his hands. "You okay?"
"I'm okay." She blinked the moisture away. "It's just... it's been a long time since anyone looked at me like this."
"Like what?"
"Like I matter."
His jaw tightened. "You matter. You've always mattered."
He kissed her again, and this time there was nothing gentle about it. He consumed her—hands everywhere, mouth following, claiming every inch of her like he was staking territory. She arched into him, gasping his name—his real name, the one she'd asked permission to use.
"Thomas—"
"Say it again."
"Thomas."
He groaned against her skin, and she felt the vibration all the way to her bones. This was what Claire had meant about these men moving heaven and earth. This was what it felt like to be claimed.
When he finally slid inside her, slow and devastating, she forgot how to breathe. Forgot how to think. There was only him—his weight pressing her into the mattress, his hands locked with hers above her head, his eyes never leaving her face.
"Look at me," he said. "Stay with me."
She couldn't have looked away if she'd tried.
They moved together, finding a rhythm that felt ancient and new at the same time. She felt the tension building, coiling tight in her core, and knew from his ragged breathing that he was right there with her.
"Let go," he said against her ear. "I've got you."
She shattered.
He followed seconds later, his whole body shuddering, her name on his lips like a prayer. They stayed tangled together for a long moment, hearts pounding, breath coming in gasps, neither willing to break the connection.
Finally, Stockton rolled to the side, pulling her with him, tucking her against his chest like she was something precious.
"Stay," he said. "Tonight. Stay with me."
She could have said no. Could have retreated to her own room, kept some distance, protected herself from whatever this was becoming.
But she'd spent eight years sleeping alone. Eight years reaching for someone who wasn't there.
Tonight, someone was.
"I'll stay," she said.
His arms tightened around her. She pressed her face into his chest, breathing in leather and soap and the warm musk of skin, listening to his heart slow from its racing pace.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For trusting me."
"Thank you for being worth trusting."
Silence settled over them, comfortable and warm. Outside, the compound slept. Inside, two people who'd lost too much and found each other anyway lay tangled together, choosing to risk it one more time.
She fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, steady as a promise.
And for the first time in eight years, she didn't dream of being alone.