Chapter 37
Harper lay with her head on his chest.
Hail hammered against the window, and outside, the night was vast and black and belonged to someone else. Here, her world had contracted to this bed and the steady percussion of his heart under her ear.
The embers of the wood-burning stove glowed low behind the iron grate, throwing amber shadows across the ceiling that danced like something alive.
The room smelled of woodsmoke, warm skin, and Pav.
A scent she'd first caught on his jacket days ago—smoke and earth, now mixed with sweat, sex, and the faint soapy trace of clean sheets.
His fingers moved through her hair. Long, slow passes from her temple to the ends, unhurried, as if her hair were something he’d been wanting to touch properly and was finally allowing himself the indulgence.
Each pass sent tingles cascading down her neck, across her scalp, pooling at the base of her spine.
His hand paused mid-stroke. A fraction of a second—his breathing changing by a degree. Listening. The operator scanning for a sound that didn’t belong to the stove or the settling of the house.
Then his fingers resumed. Whatever he’d heard—or hadn’t heard—was gone.
She pressed her smile into his chest. Even now, he was alert. And somehow, that was the most comforting thing about him. That even in the quietest moments of his life, some part of him still stood watch.
Over her.
“Hey,” she whispered.
His chest lifted beneath her cheek. A breath that might have been a laugh. “Hey.”
“I’m a mess.”
He gathered her hair to one side, his knuckles grazing her neck. “Yes.”
“You’re supposed to disagree.”
He looked down at her. His face was relaxed, the tension in his jaw eased to something she’d never witnessed—not an almost-smile or the ghost of one. As if his muscles had forgotten their default position and found a new one.
“I like mess.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She dropped her forehead against his collarbone and laughed. He pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, tucking it around her, his hand smoothing the wool along her arm.
The room dimmed as the last flame guttered, the light reduced to coal-glow—deep orange and edge-blurring, turning everything to warm stone.
His pulse was regular beneath her ear. Except there was a difference now. This was what his heartbeat sounded like when he wasn’t fighting anything.
“We didn’t get to the border in time.”
A low grunt vibrated through his chest.
“Fox will be losing his mind.”
“He’ll wait.” His thumb traced along her shoulder. “He’ll be pissed. But he’ll wait.”
“He won’t like it. He’ll be worried.”
He drew her closer by a degree that was barely perceptible and entirely deliberate.
“He knows I’ll take care of you.” He said it simply. Not as a promise. As a fact.
She snuggled closer. “How did he even find you?”
“He broke into my house.”
She raised her head, making eye contact. “He broke into your house?”
“Hmm.” Almost amused. “Brought excellent coffee, though. Luckily, he could still drink it even with a split lip.”
“You hit my uncle?”
“Yes.”
“Hard?”
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. His expression was deadpan, and the corners of his mouth were doing absolutely nothing. But he was enjoying this.
Laughter erupted out of her—loud and undignified. She covered her mouth with her hands. “Good God.”
“He had it coming.” Pav arched an eyebrow.
“Thom is a sweetie—”
“A two-twenty-pound sweetie with a kill count.”
She wiped her eyes. “God. And Zak?”
“Zak ate my jerky.”
“Did you hit him too?”
“Zak’s faster than Fox.”
“That’s not a no.”
A log tumbled in the stove. She smiled against his chest and let it go. His hand moved from her hair to the back of her neck. His palm was warm against her skin, his thumb resting in the hollow behind her ear.
“He sent me to find you,” Pav said. Quiet. The humor gone from his voice, replaced by something more careful.
She was motionless against him. “And you did.”
“Yes.” He exhaled. “Harper. What is this?”
The question sounded curious coming from him. As if he’d rather face a rifle than uncertainty.
She shifted, propping her chin on her hand, studying his face. The dim light made his eyes dark and deep. “I don’t know.” The most honest thing was not knowing and saying so, and she owed him that.
“We don’t need to decide now.” She placed her hand over his heart. “Do we?”
He covered her hand with his and held it there. “No.”
She let the word be enough, even though part of her wanted more—wanted the declaration, the certainty that this man and the warmth between them would exist beyond tonight.
But she knew him well enough now. No meant the future was possible even if he couldn’t see its shape yet.
Soft light played across his body—the ridged map of muscle and scar, the places that hadn’t healed clean.
She gently skimmed the pale scar tissue on his forearm. Thin, straight, surgical. “This one?”
“Knife. Afghanistan. Tore the flexor tendon.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “Took three months of rehab to get full grip strength back.”
Another marked his left side, just above the hip. Twisted. Older.
“This?”
“Shrapnel. Bad contract. Worse planning.”
“Yours?”
“No.” The answer was dry enough to be funny, except his mouth didn’t move.
Her fingers softened over the scar. “Of course not.”
Her gaze drifted to the scar on his shoulder—the one she’d first seen when they stripped by the river. The mess of puckered tissue, the surgical lines, the evidence of something that skilled hands had repaired in a proper facility.
“And this?”
His jaw shifted, the change subtle. “That one’s not for tonight.”
She accepted it with a nod that cost her nothing because she understood—he was giving her access at his pace, story by story, scar by scar.
She bent and kissed the shoulder scar. Pressed her lips against the damaged tissue, the ridges and valleys raised against her mouth.
He stilled beneath her—completely—before he dragged in a ragged breath.
Harper took his hand and brought it to her mouth. She kissed his knuckles—the scarred, abraded knuckles that had punched her cousin and held her safe in freezing rivers and dark spaces. She kissed the inside of his wrist, Alexei’s watch inches away.
“Whenever you want to tell me,” she said against his skin. “I’ll be here.”
He didn’t answer in words. He turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers. His grip was firm, warm, and unhurried, and it said everything his mouth wouldn’t—yes, and not yet, and I’m trying.
She settled back against him with his hand in hers and listened to the stove, the hail and his breathing.
A sound from outside. Distant. An engine, maybe, or the wind shifting in a way that didn’t quite match the pattern of the storm. Both of them went still in shared vigilance, their nervous systems calibrated to the same frequency.
Three seconds. Four.
His muscles tensed against her skin. The tenderness was still there, but underneath it, the reminder—they weren’t safe. This warmth was borrowed from a world that would demand it back.
The sound faded and dissolved into the wind. Nothing. She breathed him in and chose not to think about tomorrow.
His breathing slowed. The long, even rhythm of a body finally surrendering to rest. His fingers still loosely threaded through her hair, losing the argument with sleep.
She pressed the words into his skin. “I’m glad it was you.” Barely voiced. Almost asleep, the filter between her thoughts and mouth thinned to nothing.
Silence. Long enough that she thought he’d drifted off.
Then a rumble in his chest beneath her ear. “You shouldn’t be.”
His good arm tightened by a fraction as if letting go wasn’t an option he trusted himself with. “Men like me don’t last.”
She didn’t argue.
He could say whatever he wanted.
She wasn’t going anywhere.