Chapter 13
Marley woke to sunlight and the smell of coffee.
She stretched slowly, feeling the delicious ache in muscles she'd forgotten she had. The sheets were soft against her bare skin, tangled around her legs from a night of very little sleeping. Wake's pillow still held the indent of his head, though the bed beside her was empty.
She sat up, holding the sheet to her chest, and found him.
He was standing at the small kitchen counter in nothing but jeans, shirtless, pouring coffee into two mugs.
His back was to her—broad shoulders, lean muscle, the prospect patch missing from skin that was scarred in places she'd traced with her fingers in the dark.
Morning light caught the definition of his arms as he moved, and Marley felt heat pool low in her belly.
"You're staring," he said without turning around.
"You're worth staring at."
He turned then, two mugs in hand, and his eyes swept over her in a way that made the sheet feel entirely inadequate. She watched his gaze track from her face to her bare shoulders to the swell of her breasts where she clutched the fabric, and something dark flickered in his expression.
"Careful," he said, crossing the room to set the mugs on the bedside table. "Keep looking at me like that and you're not getting this coffee."
"Maybe I don't want coffee."
His jaw tightened. "Marley."
"Wake."
She let the sheet drop.
It was brazen. It was bold. It was completely unlike the careful, controlled woman she'd been for twenty-seven years, the one who smiled through chaos and never asked for what she wanted.
But something about this man—about the way he looked at her, touched her, claimed her—made her want to be someone else.
Someone who took what she wanted.
His breath caught. She watched his hands curl into fists at his sides, watched him fight for the control she'd spent all night breaking down. He was beautiful in his restraint, all coiled tension and barely leashed hunger.
"Come back to bed," she said.
"I was going to let you rest."
"I don't want to rest." She shifted onto her knees, letting the sheet fall completely away. "I want you."
He broke.
One second he was standing by the bed, the next he was on her—bearing her down into the mattress, his mouth finding hers with a groan that vibrated through her whole body. She wrapped herself around him, legs around his waist, arms around his neck, pulling him as close as physics would allow.
"You're going to kill me," he said against her throat.
"What a way to go."
He laughed—that rare, real sound she was learning to love—and then his mouth moved lower and she stopped thinking about anything at all.
This was different from last night.
Last night had been urgency and desperation, two people who'd been circling each other for days finally crashing together.
This was slower. Deliberate. He mapped her body like he was memorizing it, finding places that made her gasp and returning to them again and again until she was writhing beneath him.
"Wake—" His name came out broken, pleading.
"I like hearing you say my name." He pressed a kiss to her hip, then lower, and she nearly came off the bed. "Say it again."
"Wake. Please."
"Please what?"
She grabbed his hair and pulled him up to her face, kissing him hard enough to taste copper. "Stop teasing and take me."
Something fierce flared in his eyes. "Yes ma'am."
He shed his jeans in one motion and then he was there, right where she needed him, and when he pushed inside her she arched up with a cry that probably woke half the compound.
She didn't care. Let them hear. Let them all know that this man was hers and she was his and nothing else mattered.
He set a rhythm that was achingly slow at first—long, deep strokes that hit every nerve ending she had. She tried to speed him up, rolling her hips, digging her nails into his back, but he just smiled against her throat and kept that maddening pace.
"Patience," he murmured.
"I don't have any."
"I know." He pulled almost all the way out, held there until she whimpered, then slid home so slowly she felt every inch of him. "That's why I'm teaching you."
"I don't want to learn—I want—"
He did it again. And again. Each stroke a lesson in exactly who was in control.
"You were saying?" He was breathing hard now, sweat beading on his brow, his control fraying at the edges.
"Please." She'd beg if she had to. She was past pride, past thought, past everything but the need coiling tighter and tighter in her core. "Please, Wake, I need—"
"I know what you need."
He stopped teasing.
His hips snapped forward and she cried out, her back bowing off the bed. He set a pace that was relentless, driving into her with a focus and intensity that left no room for thought. She held on—to his shoulders, to the headboard, to anything solid—and let him take her apart.
The climax built like a wave, rising and rising until she was sure she'd drown in it. She said his name, over and over, a litany and a prayer and a claim all at once. And when it finally crested—
"Austin—"
She shattered.
He followed a moment later, her name on his lips, his body shuddering against hers as he buried himself deep and let go. She held him through it, feeling the tremors run through him, feeling the moment his weight went heavy and boneless on top of her.
They lay like that for a long time, tangled together, heartbeats slowly returning to normal.
"Coffee's cold," he said eventually, his voice muffled against her shoulder.
"I don't care."
"Me neither." He lifted his head enough to look at her, and the softness in his expression made her chest ache. "Good morning."
She laughed, feeling light in a way she couldn't remember feeling before. "Good morning yourself."
He rolled off her with a groan, pulling her with him so she ended up sprawled across his chest. His hand traced lazy patterns on her back while the morning sun crept higher through the window.
"I could get used to this," she said quietly.
"Waking up with me?"
"All of it." She propped her chin on his chest, looking up at him. "The compound. The club. You."
Something flickered in his eyes—hope, maybe, or fear. "This life isn't easy."
"Neither is running a bar alone for three years." She pressed a kiss to his sternum. "I'm not looking for easy. I'm looking for real."
"This is real." His arms tightened around her. "Whatever else happens—the Razorbacks, the danger, all of it—this is real. You and me."
"You and me," she repeated.
They lay there in the morning light, skin against skin, until the smell of cold coffee became too offensive to ignore. Wake eventually got up to make a fresh pot, and Marley watched him move around the small kitchen—still shirtless, still beautiful, still hers.
She thought about the bar. About the months of forced service and broken bouncers and violence that had driven her here. About the war that was still raging outside these walls.
But right now, in this cabin, with coffee brewing and morning light streaming in and a man who looked at her like she was everything—
Right now, she was exactly where she belonged.