Chapter 16
The rooftop conversation had done something to her. Broken something loose.
Alma climbed down from the garage bay with Tempest behind her, her body humming with energy she couldn't name. Not fear—she'd burned through fear hours ago. Not exhaustion, though she should be exhausted. Something else. Something that felt like electricity under her skin, demanding release.
She'd shot a man tonight. She'd held a door while the world exploded. She'd chosen this life, this man, this chaos.
And now she wanted to feel alive.
Tempest's hand found the small of her back as they walked toward the clubhouse. Guiding, protective. The same hands that had killed Webb Farley six hours ago.
"You're wound tight," he said.
"So are you."
His jaw flexed. "Combat does that."
"Is that what this is? Combat?"
"No." His voice dropped, rough and low. "This is worse."
They made it through the clubhouse door. Made it down the hallway toward the member quarters. Alma was aware of every point where their bodies touched—his hand on her back, her shoulder brushing his arm, the heat radiating off him like a furnace.
She was still shaking. She hadn't stopped shaking since the garage bay.
Tempest's room was small, sparse. A bed, a dresser, a window with blackout curtains. Marine efficiency, nothing wasted. He closed the door behind them and she heard the lock click.
Then he just stood there. Looking at her.
"Alma—"
"Don't." She crossed the room and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him down to her level. "Don't ask if I'm okay. Don't check on me. Don't be careful."
"What do you want?"
"You." The word came out like a demand. "I want you. Hard and fast and real. I want to feel something besides this—" She gestured at herself, at the tremors she couldn't control. "I'm still wired and you're still wired and we just survived something that should have killed us, and I need—"
He kissed her before she could finish.
Not gentle. Not careful. He kissed her like he was still fighting, like the battle hadn't ended, just changed targets. His hands fisted in her hair and pulled her head back, his mouth claiming hers with a desperation that matched the electricity under her skin.
She answered in kind.
Her hands found his shirt and tore at the buttons, not caring when one of them went flying. He was already pulling at her borrowed clothes, stripping away the layers between them with the same efficiency he'd used to take apart the assault force.
"Bed," she gasped against his mouth.
"Not yet." He spun her around and pressed her against the wall, his body a solid weight behind her. His mouth found her neck, her shoulder, teeth scraping skin hard enough to make her gasp. "I need to feel you first."
His hands were everywhere—her hips, her stomach, sliding up to cup her through the thin fabric of her bra. She arched back against him, feeling him hard against her, and the sound he made was somewhere between a groan and a growl.
"You fought today," he said against her ear. "Held that door while my brothers and I handled the breach. Didn't run. Didn't hide. Didn't flinch."
"I told you." She ground back against him, making him suck in a breath. "I protect what's mine."
"Mine." The word came out possessive, absolute. "Say it again."
"Yours." She turned in his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist as he lifted her. "I'm yours. And you're—"
"Yours." He carried her to the bed and dropped her onto it, following her down before she could catch her breath. "Always."
There was nothing careful about what came next.
He stripped her with efficient hands, pausing just long enough to look at her—spread out on his bed, chest heaving, still shaking with adrenaline she couldn't burn off.
Then he shed his own clothes and covered her body with his, and the feel of him—hot skin, hard muscle, the weight of him pressing her into the mattress—made her cry out.
"Look at me." His voice was wrecked. "I need to see you."
She opened her eyes and found his, dark and desperate and burning with something she'd never seen before. Not in the comms room. Not on the rooftop. This was different. Rawer. The man under the Marine, stripped of every defense.
"I see you," she whispered.
He pushed into her and they both stopped breathing.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The connection was too intense, too overwhelming. She felt him everywhere—inside her, around her, his heartbeat hammering against her chest.
Then he started to move.
It wasn't lovemaking. It was combat. He drove into her with the same relentless precision he'd used on the assault force, and she met every thrust with her own.
Her nails raked down his back, marking him the way he'd marked her with his words and his protection and his absolute refusal to let her go.
"Harder," she demanded.
He gave her harder.
Her back arched off the bed as he shifted angles, hitting something inside her that made stars explode behind her eyes. She heard herself making sounds she didn't recognize—desperate, broken, matching the rhythm he was setting.
"That's it." His voice was gravel, barely human. "Let go. Let me feel you."
She shattered.
The release tore through her like the gunfire had torn through the compound—violent, overwhelming, impossible to control.
She screamed his name—not Tempest, but Wes, the name she'd earned in the comms room—and felt him follow her over the edge, his whole body shuddering as he buried himself deep and let go.
The aftermath was silence.
They lay tangled together, breathing hard, sweat cooling on skin that was still vibrating with aftershocks. Alma could feel his heart pounding against her chest, matching the rhythm of her own.
Then the adrenaline crashed.
It hit her all at once—the exhaustion, the fear she'd been holding back, the full weight of what she'd done and what she'd survived. She'd shot a man. She'd held a door while people died. She'd made a choice that couldn't be unmade.
And now, in the silence, she started to shake for real.
"Hey." Tempest's voice changed. Softer. Worried. "Hey, I've got you."
He rolled onto his side and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her trembling body like he could shield her from the breakdown that was coming.
"It's okay," he murmured into her hair. "You're safe. I've got you."
"I'm not—" Her voice cracked. "I'm not falling apart because of you. This isn't—"
"I know what this is." He held her tighter. "It's the crash. The adrenaline running out. The bill coming due for everything your body's been carrying since three in the morning."
She buried her face in his chest and let the tremors run through her. Not crying—not quite—but closer than she'd been in years. He held her through it, one hand stroking her back, his heartbeat steady under her ear.
"First time I saw real combat," he said quietly, "I threw up afterward. Held it together through the whole engagement, perfect discipline, didn't miss a beat. Then we got back to base and I spent twenty minutes puking behind a truck."
A laugh escaped her—wet, broken, but real. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"It's supposed to tell you that this is normal.
The shaking. The crash. The part where your body reminds you that it wasn't designed for what you just put it through.
" He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You held that door for hours, Alma.
You shot a man who was trying to hurt your animals.
You survived an assault that could have killed us all.
Your body's allowed to fall apart a little. "
She pressed closer to him, feeling the warmth seep into her bones. The shaking was starting to slow. The ragged edges were starting to smooth.
"I'm not sorry," she whispered. "For any of it. The shooting. The staying. The choosing you."
"I know."
"I'd do it again. All of it."
"I know that too." He tilted her face up, making her meet his eyes. "That's why you're mine."
She studied him in the darkness. The exhaustion carved into his face. The weight he was carrying—for her, for the club, for every choice he'd made since walking back through the compound gates.
"I love you." The words came out before she could think about them. "I don't know when it happened. Somewhere between the safehouse and the stairwell and the rooftop. But I love you, Wes. And I'm not going anywhere."
His breath caught. For a moment, he looked younger than she'd ever seen him—stunned, vulnerable, like a man who'd stopped believing anyone would say those words to him.
"I love you too." His voice was rough. "Been loving you since the first time you stood in your clinic and told me your problems weren't my business."
"They're your business now."
"They're everything now." He pulled her close again, wrapping around her like he could keep out the world. "I'm not leaving again. Not the club. Not you. Not any of it. I spent five years learning what it cost to walk away, and I'm done paying that price."
She settled against his chest, her ear over his heart. The rhythm was steady. Strong. The same beat that had kept her anchored through everything.
"Is that a promise?"
"That's a fact." His arms tightened around her. "You're mine, Alma Ruiz. And I protect what's mine."
They lay in the darkness, the compound quiet around them, the aftermath of violence settling into something like peace. His heartbeat under her ear was the steadiest frequency she'd ever monitored.
And for the first time in her life, Alma didn't need to earn anything.
She just needed to stay.