We stopped beside the cot.The fire threw moving light across his face, turning the hard lines I’d learned to fear into something almost unfamiliar.His hands came up to frame my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones like he needed to convince himself I was real.He studied me the way he’d been studying the fire for days—intensely, almost painfully, like he was memorizing something he expected to lose.
“Are you sure?”His voice was rough, the words barely there.“We can stop.We probably should stop.”
I felt the truth of that and stepped past it anyway.My fingers curled into the hem of his shirt.I tugged upward and he let me, lifting his arms so the fabric slid over his head.The firelight mapped out scars I hadn’t fully seen before—thin white lines, puckered marks, old damage layered on older damage.Violence written across him in a language I was just starting to understand.
I traced one long scar from his collarbone down his chest, the skin uneven beneath my fingertips.“Who did this?”
“Vincent.”His jaw ticked, eyes going distant for a heartbeat.“Training.I didn’t move fast enough.”
The casual way he said it made my stomach twist, but I leaned in and brushed my mouth over that mark anyway.He sucked in a sharp breath, his whole body shuddering once, like the touch hit somewhere deeper than the skin.This man had been broken into shape long before he’d ever set foot in my house.None of that erased what he’d done, but it made the shape of him make more sense.
His hands slid to the hem of my shirt and stopped, hovering.Waiting.Asking without asking.I nodded, and he peeled it away with careful fingers, like he thought a wrong move might make me change my mind.Cool air hit my skin for a second before his palms followed, rough and callused and unexpectedly gentle as they skimmed up my sides.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, the words sounding like they hurt.“I don’t deserve to look at you, let alone—”
“Probably not,” I said, mouth quirking in something that wasn’t quite a smile.My fingers found his belt, feeling the way his muscles jumped beneath my touch.“But I’m not doing this because you deserve it.I’m doing it because I want to stop shaking, and because right now I want you.”
The rest blurred.Fabric got in the way and then didn’t.Later I wouldn’t remember exactly who reached for what first or how we managed not to fall on the floor.I only knew that one moment there were too many layers between us, and the next his skin was against mine, hot and solid and real in a way nothing else in my life felt anymore.
He eased me down onto the cot, bracing his weight on his forearms so he didn’t crush me on the thin mattress.His face hovered above mine, searching again, looking for any trace of regret.I met his gaze head-on, slid my hands up his back, over old scars and tense muscle, and pulled him closer until there was almost no space left.
“I’m here,” I whispered, my lips brushing his.“I know who you are.I know what you did.And I am still choosing this.Right now.With you.”
Something gave way in him at that, a quiet breaking I could feel more than see.His mouth claimed mine with more certainty, still careful but not quite so held back.Heat built between us slowly, then all at once, a rush of sensation that chased thought out of my head.His hands learned the lines of my body like he was memorizing a map; mine explored his shoulders, his spine, every scar that had turned him into the man above me.
The storm outside faded to a dull roar.The fire narrowed to warmth and moving light at the edge of my awareness.For a while there was only weight and heat and the drag of his breath against my throat, only the way my body reached for his like it had been aching for something to anchor to since the second shot rang out in my hallway.
When he whispered my name—“Mia”—it sounded like confession and apology and plea tangled into one.I answered by saying his, “Gabriel,” against his skin, and for a heartbeat we weren’t anything else.Not killer and survivor.Not weapon and collateral damage.Just two people clinging to each other in the middle of a night that had taken too much already.
Pleasure crept up on me in waves, threaded through grief so tightly I couldn’t pull them apart.Every good feeling had an echo of loss behind it, every hitch of breath layered over the memory of screams and gunshots.Maybe that was why, when everything finally snapped tight inside me, the release felt less like escape and more like something giving way—a knot loosening just enough that I could breathe again.
Gabriel followed me over that edge, a low sound torn from deep in his chest as his forehead pressed against mine.His whole body shook once, hard, before the tension drained out of him all at once, leaving him heavy and human and breathing raggedly against my mouth.
We didn’t separate right away.He shifted us carefully onto our sides, still wrapped around me, and dragged the blankets up with clumsy hands.The cot springs complained, the fire popped, the storm kept battering the walls.Inside our little cocoon of scratchy sheets and shared body heat, none of it mattered for a few long breaths.
I let my head rest on his chest.His heartbeat pounded beneath my ear—too fast at first, then slowly settling into something steadier.His arm tightened around my waist as if expecting me to vanish if he loosened his grip.
Words hovered between us, all the reasons this shouldn’t have happened, all the things we were going to have to untangle if we made it out of this cabin alive.I shoved them away.If I started thinking now, I’d shatter.
His fingers slid into my hair, brushing through it in slow, repetitive strokes.The motion was soothing in a way it had no right to be.My eyes grew heavy despite everything I’d told myself about never letting my guard down around him again.
“Sleep,” he murmured into my hair, his breath warm against my scalp.“I’ve got you.”
Those words should have felt like a threat.They didn’t.They landed somewhere deep and tired inside me that had been screaming since the first gunshot and finally, finally went quiet.I knew who he was.I hadn’t forgotten what he’d done.But right now, wrapped in his arms with the storm raging outside, my body believed him.
My last clear thought before sleep dragged me under was that this didn’t fix anything.It didn’t resurrect my family or erase his sins or magically make us good for each other.It was a moment.One fragile, impossible moment where I wasn’t cold, or terrified, or alone.
I let myself have it.
I didn’t see the way he watched me afterward.Didn’t feel the tension that came back into his body once he was sure I was asleep, or the way his hand kept moving in my hair like he needed the motion to keep his own ghosts at bay.I didn’t hear the soft curse he breathed into the darkness or the apology that followed it, too quiet for anyone but the fire to bear witness.
All I knew was warmth and the steady drum of his heart, the way my fingers had curled unconsciously against his chest.The cabin creaked.The snow climbed higher against the walls.Somewhere beyond this storm, the world still existed and would demand answers eventually.
For now, there was just this stolen pocket of peace in a life that had become nothing but aftermath.And I slept through it, wrapped in the arms of the man who had ruined everything and was, for tonight, the only thing holding me together.
Chapter Nine
Vincent Russo
