Chapter 13
Trish's hands were shaking.
She didn't realize it until she tried to unzip her jacket and couldn't make her fingers work. The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins, making everything sharper and louder and too much.
Stockton closed the door behind them and saw her struggling. In two steps he was there, his hands closing over hers, stilling the tremors.
"Hey." His voice was low. Rough. "Look at me."
She looked.
His face was hard in the dim light, tension carved into every line. Blood still darkened his knuckles. His eyes burned with something that wasn't quite rage and wasn't quite relief—something caught between the two, trapped and thrashing.
"You're okay," he said. "You're here. You're safe."
"I know." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I'm not falling apart."
"I didn't say you were."
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled the zipper down himself, peeling the jacket off her shoulders, tossing it somewhere behind him. His hands came up to cup her face, tilting her head back, forcing her to meet his eyes.
"You walked into a crime scene tonight," he said. "Held a terrified woman together while my world bled into yours. And when I found you, you weren't hiding—you were working."
"Someone had to—"
"Stop." His thumb pressed against her lips. "I'm not angry. I'm—" He broke off, his jaw working. "I watched you tonight. Watched you become part of this. And all I could think was—"
"What?"
"Mine." The word came out like gravel. Like a war cry. "All I could think was mine."
The adrenaline that had been crashing through her veins found a new direction. Heat flooded her body, burning away the fear, the shakiness, the aftermath of a night that could have gone so much worse.
She grabbed his cut and pulled him down to her.
The kiss was nothing like their first time. That had been slow, tentative—two people testing uncertain ground. This was fire. Desperation. The survival instinct screaming that they were alive and needed to prove it.
Stockton groaned against her mouth and lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist automatically. Two steps and her back hit the wall, his body pinning her there, his hands gripping her thighs hard enough to bruise.
"Tell me to stop," he said against her throat. "If you need gentle tonight, tell me now."
"I don't need gentle." She fisted her hands in his hair and yanked his head back. "I need you."
Something broke in him.
He kissed her like he was trying to consume her—teeth and tongue and the raw hunger of a man who'd spent the night killing to protect what was his. She matched him stroke for stroke, bite for bite, her nails raking down his back hard enough to leave marks.
The cut hit the floor. His shirt followed. She pulled at her own clothes with frantic hands, needing skin, needing contact, needing proof that they were both still breathing.
"Wait—" He caught her wrists, pinned them above her head with one hand. His eyes were black in the darkness, his chest heaving. "If we do this, it's not going to be slow."
"Good."
"I might hurt you."
"You won't." She arched against him, felt him hard against her hip, and watched his control crack a little further. "Thomas. Please."
His name. The weapon she'd learned could undo him completely.
He released her wrists and stripped her remaining clothes with an efficiency that should have felt clinical but didn't. Every brush of his fingers left fire in its wake.
Every inch of skin he bared got claimed by his mouth, his teeth, his hands—marking her, branding her, making sure she'd feel him tomorrow.
She didn't just let him. She fought back.
When he tried to pin her again, she twisted free. When he lifted her toward the bed, she pulled him down with her, rolling until she was on top, her thighs bracketing his hips.
"My turn," she said.
His eyes flared. "Trish—"
"Shut up."
She kissed him silent, her hands flat on his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath her palms. The faded Wolves tattoo spread across his skin like a map of everything he'd given to this life.
She traced it with her fingers, then her tongue, tasting salt and leather and the metallic edge of violence that clung to him.
He shuddered beneath her. His hands came up to grip her hips, fingers digging in, trying to control the pace.
She didn't let him.
"You're not in charge right now," she said against his skin. "You spent all night being in charge. Killing people. Making decisions. Let go."
"I can't—"
"You can." She shifted, positioned, and took him inside her in one smooth motion.
They both stopped breathing.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Just the feeling of connection, of fullness, of two bodies joined in the aftermath of chaos. Then Trish started to move, and everything else fell away.
This wasn't lovemaking. This was combat by other means.
She rode him hard, chasing the release that had been building since she'd walked into that dry cleaner and realized she wasn't afraid anymore. Stockton met her thrust for thrust, his hands bruising her hips, his eyes never leaving her face.
"Mine," he growled.
"Yours," she agreed.
"Say it again."
"Yours."
He surged up, flipping them, driving into her with a force that pushed the breath from her lungs. She wrapped her legs around him and held on, her nails scoring his back, her voice breaking on sounds that weren't quite words.
The world narrowed to this—to skin and sweat and the desperate rhythm of two people who'd survived something together and needed to prove it with their bodies.
"Thomas—" She was close. So close. The tension coiling in her core, ready to snap. "I need—"
"I know what you need."
He shifted his angle, found the spot that made her see stars, and drove into it relentlessly. She shattered with his name on her lips—his real name, the one that belonged to moments like this.
He followed seconds later, his whole body shaking, a sound torn from his throat that was half groan and half sob. Then he collapsed against her, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his breath hot against her neck.
They lay there, tangled and wrecked, neither able to move.
The adrenaline was finally draining. In its place came exhaustion—deep, bone-tired exhaustion that had nothing to do with the sex and everything to do with the night that had preceded it.
"I killed two men tonight," Stockton said quietly.
"I know."
"Doesn't that—" He lifted his head, searching her face. "Doesn't that bother you?"
Trish considered the question. A week ago, it would have. A week ago, she'd been a laundromat owner who called the cops when things went wrong and trusted the system to handle the rest.
Now she knew better.
"They were trying to destroy everything I built," she said. "They were trying to destroy everything you built. They hurt people. Scared people. Made an entire neighborhood afraid to walk outside after dark." She touched his face, tracing the line of his jaw. "So no. It doesn't bother me."
"It should."
"Maybe. But it doesn't." She pulled him down for a kiss—soft now, gentle, all the tenderness they'd skipped earlier. "You protected your people. You protected me. That's who you are."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, tucking her against his side like she belonged there.
"I thought I was done with this," he said to the ceiling. "After Ellen. I thought I'd never feel anything again. Didn't want to."
"What changed?"
"You walked into my laundromat with fake dirty clothes and too many questions."
She laughed despite herself. "That was you walking into my laundromat."
"Same thing." He pressed a kiss to her hair. "Everything that's mine is yours now. That's how this works."
The words settled over her like a blanket. Everything that's mine is yours.
She thought about the compound. The brothers. The old ladies who'd welcomed her like family. The room she'd been given on Stockton's floor, the laundry station she'd claimed, the place she'd carved for herself in a world she'd never expected to enter.
"And everything that's mine is yours," she said quietly.
"The laundromat?"
"The laundromat. The neighborhood. The lights staying on." She traced patterns on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her fingers. "All of it."
"We're going to get it back for you."
"I know."
"Warren's down to his last crew. His accountant's dead. His muscle's dead. He's running out of options."
"Good." She closed her eyes, letting exhaustion finally claim her. "Then finish it. So we can go home."
"Home." He repeated the word like he was testing it. "I haven't called anywhere home in a long time."
"Me neither."
"Maybe..." He trailed off. Started again. "Maybe we build one. Together. When this is done."
She didn't answer. But she smiled against his chest, feeling the rhythm of his breathing slow as sleep started to pull at them both.
The compound was quiet around them. The war was still out there, waiting. Warren was still alive, still planning, still dangerous.
But tonight, they'd won. Tonight, they were alive.
And tomorrow, they'd keep fighting.
She fell asleep with her head on his chest, and the rhythm of his breathing sounded like the first safe thing she'd heard in months.