Chapter 12
Marley closed the compound bar at midnight and stood in the dark for a long moment, listening to the silence.
The cookout had wound down hours ago. Brothers had drifted to their cabins with their women, kids had been carried to bed half-asleep, and the fire pit had burned down to embers. The whole compound was quiet now—the kind of quiet that felt like permission.
She knew what she was going to do before she locked the door.
Wake's cabin was fifty yards away. She'd walked past it a dozen times in the last week, always aware of the light in his window, always wondering what he was doing inside. Working, probably. He was always working.
Tonight she didn't want to wonder anymore.
Her boots crunched on gravel as she crossed the compound. The lake glittered black under a half-moon, and somewhere in the distance an owl called out, lonely and low. Marley's heart pounded harder with every step, but she didn't slow down.
She'd been pouring his drinks for days. Watching him work. Learning the shape of his silences and the rare warmth of his smiles. She'd felt his eyes on her across crowded rooms and pretended not to notice.
She was done pretending.
The light in his window was still on. She raised her hand and knocked before she could talk herself out of it.
Footsteps. The door swung open.
Wake stood in the doorway, surprise flickering across his face before he controlled it.
He was wearing jeans and nothing else, his chest bare, his hands streaked with fresh grease.
Behind him, she could see engine parts spread across a workbench—the boat motor, she realized. He'd been working on it again.
"Marley." Her name in his mouth, low and careful. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine." She stepped forward, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. "Can I come in?"
He didn't move. His eyes searched her face, looking for something—fear, uncertainty, a reason to send her away. She met his gaze without flinching.
"You sure about this?" he asked.
"I've been sure for days."
Something shifted in his expression. The careful control cracking, just a little, just enough to show her the hunger underneath.
He stepped back and let her in.
The cabin was small and sparse, exactly what she'd expected. A bed against one wall, a workbench against the other, clothes folded neatly on a shelf. It smelled like motor oil and lake water and him—that warm, male scent she'd been breathing in every time he sat at her bar.
The door closed behind her. The lock clicked.
"Marley—"
She turned and kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. She'd been waiting too long for gentle.
She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down to her, pressing her mouth to his with all the want she'd been swallowing for days.
He made a sound against her lips—surprise, need, something raw and desperate—and then his hands were on her waist, pulling her closer, and gentle was the last thing on either of their minds.
He kissed like he worked. Focused. Thorough. Completely present in what he was doing. His mouth moved against hers like he was learning her, memorizing her, like she was a problem he intended to solve with his tongue and teeth and the rough drag of his stubble against her skin.
Marley's back hit the wall. She gasped and he swallowed the sound, one hand sliding up to cup her jaw while the other pressed flat against the small of her back, holding her exactly where he wanted her.
Possessive, she thought dimly. He touches like he owns me.
She should have hated it. She'd spent her whole life fighting men who thought they could own her.
But Wake's hands weren't taking. They were claiming. And somehow that was completely different.
"Tell me to stop," he said against her mouth, his voice wrecked. "Tell me this isn't what you want and I'll stop."
"Don't you dare."
He pulled back just enough to look at her. His eyes were dark, pupils blown, the careful control she'd always seen in him completely gone. In its place was something raw and wanting—a need that matched her own.
"I've been trying not to do this," he said. "Since the first night at the bar. You looked at me and I knew—" He broke off, jaw tightening. "You were under my protection. I wasn't supposed to want you like this."
"And now?"
"Now I can't think about anything else."
Marley reached up and touched his face. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone, the tension in his temple that said he was holding himself back by a thread.
"Then stop thinking," she said.
The thread snapped.
He kissed her again, harder this time, his hands sliding under her shirt and up her spine like he needed to touch every inch of her at once.
Marley arched into him and felt his groan vibrate through her chest. She pulled at his belt, fumbling with the buckle, and he grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head.
"Slow down," he said, breathing hard. "I want to do this right."
"I don't want right. I want you."
Something fierce flashed in his eyes. He released her wrists and lifted her like she weighed nothing, carrying her the three steps to his bed and laying her down with a care that made her chest ache.
Then he was over her, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his mouth trailing down her throat.
Marley gasped and grabbed his shoulders, feeling muscle flex under her palms. He was solid everywhere—not the gym-built bulk of men who worked out for show, but the dense strength of someone who used his body for real work.
He found the sensitive spot below her ear and she shuddered. "Wake—"
"Austin."
She blinked. "What?"
He lifted his head, his eyes finding hers in the dim light. "My real name. Austin." His hand cupped her face, thumb brushing across her cheekbone. "I want to hear you say it."
Something cracked open in her chest. He was giving her something no one else had. His real name. The man under the road name and the prospect patch and the persona he wore like armor.
"Austin," she whispered.
His eyes closed like the sound of it hurt him. Then he kissed her again, slow and deep, and Marley stopped thinking about anything at all.
He took his time. That was what surprised her most—this man who hustled through every task, who worked himself raw to prove his worth, who never stopped moving—he was steady now. Unhurried. His hands explored her like they had all night, like there was nowhere else he needed to be.
She'd spent her life watching men perform. Behind a bar, you saw everything—the puffed-up posturing, the desperate need to impress, the carefully crafted masks they wore to seem like something they weren't.
Wake wasn't performing.
Every touch was real. Every kiss landed like it mattered.
When he pulled her shirt over her head and looked at her, the hunger in his eyes wasn't an act.
When his hands shook slightly as they skimmed down her ribs, the tremor wasn't nerves—it was restraint.
A dangerous man holding himself in check because he didn't want to take more than she was giving.
"You're shaking," she said softly.
"I know." He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing hard. "You do that to me."
"I do?"
"Marley." Her name came out rough, desperate. "I killed a man for you. I'd kill a hundred more. But this—" His hand spread across her stomach, warm and possessive. "This is the thing that scares me."
She understood. The violence was easy. The violence was what he knew. But this—the vulnerability, the wanting, the risk of letting someone in—this was the hard thing.
"I'm scared too," she admitted.
His eyes met hers. Dark and steady and completely open.
"Then we'll be scared together."
He kissed her again, and this time she stopped tracking the individual moments—the slide of skin against skin, the catch of breath, the soft sounds that filled the cabin like music.
It all blurred together into sensation and heat and the overwhelming feeling of being wanted.
Truly wanted. Not as a conquest or a prize or a warm body, but as her.
Marley. The woman who'd stood in a doorway with a bottle and a gun and refused to back down.
When they finally came together, she gasped his name—his real name—and felt him shudder in response.
He moved like he did everything else, focused and thorough, watching her face like her reactions were the only thing that mattered.
She matched his rhythm and felt the tension building, coiling tighter with every breath.
"Mine," he said against her throat. "You're mine."
"Yours," she answered, and meant it.
The release hit her like a wave, pulling her under, and she heard him groan her name as he followed. For a long moment there was nothing but the two of them, tangled together in his narrow bed, breathing each other's air.
Then he rolled to his side and pulled her against his chest, and Marley let herself be held.
They lay there in the quiet, heartbeats slowing. She traced the scars on his hands—the prop marks, the burn lines, the map of a life spent working. He stroked her hair and said nothing, and somehow that was better than any words could have been.
"I don't do this," she said eventually, her voice muffled against his chest. "Show up at men's doors in the middle of the night."
"I know."
"I'm not—I wasn't looking for someone to save me."
"I know that too." His arms tightened around her. "You saved yourself. You were doing it before I showed up. I just—" He paused, choosing his words. "I wanted to be the one standing next to you while you did it."
Something warm bloomed in her chest. Not the heat of want—something softer. Something that felt terrifyingly like trust.
"Austin," she said again, just to feel the shape of it in her mouth.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be complicated."
"It's already complicated."
"Yeah." She could hear the smile in his voice. "It is."
She closed her eyes. The cabin smelled like motor oil and lake water and the warm skin of the man holding her. Through the thin walls, she could hear the lake lapping at the dock and the distant sound of cicadas settling in for the night.
For the first time in weeks, her mind was quiet.
No planning. No worrying. No running through escape routes or cataloging threats or lying awake listening for boots on stairs. Just this. Just him. Just the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek.
Marley fell asleep in a cabin that smelled like motor oil and lake water, and she slept through the night for the first time since the Razorbacks walked into her bar.