Chapter 17
Bethany woke to sunlight and the sound of Trawler breathing.
He was still asleep—a rare thing, she'd learned. The man barely closed his eyes most nights, always half-alert, always listening for threats that might not come. But today, wrapped around her like she was the only anchor keeping him grounded, he slept like the dead.
She studied his face in the morning light. The hard lines softened in sleep, the permanent tension in his jaw finally released. Scars she hadn't noticed before—a thin line across his eyebrow, a puckered mark on his shoulder, the history of violence written across his skin.
He'd killed for her last night. Not just killed—destroyed. Made Ronnie Faulk understand exactly what he'd taken before ending him. And then he'd come home and let her wash the blood from his hands, let her hold him while he fell apart in the quiet way men like him fell apart.
She should be horrified. Some part of her—the Bethany from two months ago—probably was.
But that Bethany didn't exist anymore. That Bethany had burned along with The Rusty Hook, replaced by someone harder, fiercer, more capable of accepting the darkness that came with loving a man like Trawler.
Loving. The word settled into her chest like it belonged there.
His eyes opened, finding hers immediately. No confusion, no transition from sleep to waking—just instant awareness, instant focus.
"Morning," she said softly.
"You're staring."
"You're worth staring at." She traced a finger along the scar on his eyebrow. "Where'd you get this one?"
"Bar fight. Norfolk. About ten years ago."
"Did you win?"
His mouth curved. "I always win."
"Humble too." She shifted closer, pressing her body against the length of his. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
"Liar. You killed a man last night and then slept for twelve hours straight. That's not 'fine,' that's exhausted."
His hand found her hip, fingers spreading possessively. "I'm fine now."
"Better." She kissed the corner of his mouth. "I was worried about you. When you came back, you looked—"
"I know how I looked."
"Destroyed. Like you'd left pieces of yourself in that backyard." She pulled back to meet his eyes. "I don't want you destroying yourself for me. Not even to avenge what I lost."
"Bethany." His voice was rough with something that wasn't quite sleep. "What I did last night—that wasn't destruction. That was justice. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yes." He pulled her closer, rolling so she was beneath him, his weight a comfort rather than a threat. "Destruction is tearing things apart because you can. Justice is making sure the people who hurt what's yours understand the consequences."
"And Faulk understood?"
"By the end." His expression darkened briefly. "He knew your name. He knew what he'd taken. He knew exactly why he was dying."
She should feel satisfied. Should feel vindicated, avenged, the scales of justice finally balanced.
Instead, she just felt tired. Tired and grateful and desperately, impossibly in love with the man hovering above her.
"I'm not mourning it anymore," she heard herself say. "The bar. I woke up this morning, and I wasn't grieving."
"That's good."
"Is it? Six years of my life, and I'm not even sad anymore." She laughed, the sound catching in her throat. "What does that say about me?"
"It says you're looking forward instead of back." He brushed hair from her face. "It says you're strong enough to let go of what's lost and build something new."
"What if I don't know how to build something new?"
"You've been doing it for weeks." His mouth curved again. "That bar downstairs is twice what it was before you got here. Brothers actually want to drink there now. You've turned a corner of a clubhouse into something that feels like home."
She thought about the compound bar—the reorganized bottles, the proper glasses, the drink orders she'd memorized without trying. She'd thrown herself into it as a distraction, a way to stay sane while her world burned.
But it had become more than that, hadn't it?
"The compound needs someone who knows how to run a bar," Trawler continued. "Someone who remembers what people drink, doesn't take their shit, makes them feel welcome even when they're dangerous men who've done dangerous things."
"Are you offering me a job?"
"I'm offering you a place." His dark eyes held hers. "Here. With me. With the club. Not because you need protection anymore, but because you belong."
The words hit her harder than she expected. You belong. She'd spent her whole life trying to belong somewhere—building The Rusty Hook because she needed a place that was hers, fighting to keep it because losing it meant losing herself.
But maybe belonging wasn't about a building. Maybe it was about people.
"I've been thinking," she said slowly. "About what comes next. After Jessup."
"And?"
"I don't want to rebuild The Rusty Hook. Even if I could afford it, even if the insurance came through—that chapter's over. It burned, and I survived, and I'm different now." She pressed her palm against his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "I want to build something new. Here. With you."
His breath caught. She felt it—the hitch in his chest, the sudden stillness.
"You're serious."
"When am I not serious? I mean, I joke constantly, but underneath all the talking, I'm always serious." She smiled up at him. "I want to run your bar. Make it something worth drinking at. Give the brothers a place to unwind that doesn't feel like an afterthought."
"That's—" He stopped, swallowed. "You'd stay. Permanently."
"Wasn't that already the plan? You said I was stuck with you. You promised you weren't walking away." She raised an eyebrow. "Unless that was all pillow talk and you're actually planning to dump me once Jessup's dead—"
He kissed her before she could finish the sentence.
This kiss was different from the others. Not desperate like after the compound assault, not tentative like their first night. This was deliberate—knowing, certain, the kiss of a man who'd made a decision and was sealing it with his mouth.
She melted into it, hands sliding up his chest to tangle in his hair. He responded by deepening the kiss, one hand fisting in her shirt while the other slid beneath to find bare skin.
"I need to tell you something," she gasped when they came up for air.
"Can it wait?"
"No. Yes. Maybe." She laughed, breathless. "I'm bad at timing, okay? And I'm going to say this now because if I don't, I'll chicken out and then spend the next three hours kicking myself—"
"Bethany."
"I love you."
The words hung between them, three syllables that changed everything.
Trawler went still. His dark eyes searched her face, looking for—she didn't know what. Doubt, maybe. The possibility that she was joking, or exaggerating, or saying what she thought he wanted to hear.
"I love you," she said again, because she'd never been afraid of talking.
"I know it's fast. I know it's crazy. I know we've only known each other a few weeks and most of that time has involved people trying to kill us.
But I love you anyway. I love your silence and your scars and the way you look at me like I'm the most important thing in any room.
I love that you killed for me and then let me wash your hands.
I love that you're terrible at words but every single one you say means something. "
She was rambling now, the torrent of emotion spilling out in her usual deluge of words. She couldn't stop herself—didn't want to stop herself.
"I love that you make me feel safe. I love that you make me feel brave. I love that when I'm with you, I don't have to pretend to be anything other than exactly who I am." Her voice cracked. "I love you, Trawler. All of you. The mountain and the man underneath."
He still hadn't said anything. Her heart was pounding, her cheeks were flushed, and the silence was stretching into something that felt dangerously like rejection—
He moved.
One moment she was lying beneath him, vulnerable and exposed; the next she was wrapped in his arms, crushed against his chest, his face buried in her hair. His whole body was shaking—she could feel it, the tremors running through all that muscle and strength.
"Trawler?"
His response wasn't words. It was the way he held her tighter, the way his breath came out ragged against her temple, the way his hands spread across her back like he was trying to memorize her shape.
Then he was kissing her again, and this time there was nothing careful about it. This was claiming. Possession. A declaration made in touch and taste and the desperate press of his body against hers.
He made love to her like the words he couldn't say.
Slow, at first. Deliberate. Every touch a statement, every kiss a promise. She'd thought she knew his body by now—had mapped it with hands and mouth over the past week—but this was different. This was worship.
He explored her like she was sacred ground.
Found places she didn't know were sensitive, drew sounds from her throat that she didn't know she could make.
And when she tried to rush him, tried to pull him where she needed him, he resisted.
Pinned her hands above her head and continued his methodical devotion until she was shaking beneath him.
"Please," she gasped.
He gave her what she asked for.
After—sweaty and tangled and utterly undone—she lay with her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.
"I meant it," she murmured. "Every word."
His hand traced up her spine, settled at the nape of her neck. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough as gravel.
"I know."
"You don't have to say it back. I know you're not good with words—"
"Bethany."
She lifted her head to look at him. His dark eyes were soft—that softness she'd fought so hard to find, that she'd thought was impossible when she first met the stone-faced mountain in her bar.
"You talk enough for both of us," he said. "Remember?"
"I remember."
"Then trust me to say the rest." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "Every time I look at you. Every time I touch you. Every time I put myself between you and danger."
Her eyes stung. "Trawler..."
"I'm not good at words," he repeated. "But I'm good at this. At showing. At doing." He pulled her up, pressed his forehead to hers. "Everything I have, everything I am—it's yours. It's been yours since you grabbed that shotgun. And it'll be yours until I stop breathing."
"That's—" She laughed through sudden tears. "That's actually really romantic. For a guy who doesn't talk."
"I have my moments."
She kissed him, soft and sweet, tasting salt from her own tears.
"I love you," she whispered against his mouth.
His answer was pulling her closer, holding her like she was the most precious thing in his world.
Actions, she realized, could be louder than any words.
And his were deafening.