Time speeds up. She’s leaning over the bar, “Make no mistake,” she says, smiling. “I can go from funny to filthy in the smack of an ass.”
The memory shifts. Her in my hotel room, skin glowing under lamplight, eyes soft but fierce. Her jeans sliding from her hips, slow and sure. Her breasts—perfect, high, the nipples peaked from the cool air, or maybe from my stare.
The long, smooth expanse of her stomach rising with every breath like she was bracing for me. And those electric blue eyes—lit with something wild. She looked at me like I wasn’t broken, and me thinking—that’s it.That’s the moment when the monster inside me went quiet.
In the bakery with Joel that first night. The fluorescent lights above buzzing to life. I whip around, crowbar raised, muscles snapping tight.
And her voice, "What the fuck?"
She stands barefoot in the doorway, wearing nothing but a scrap of black panties and a tiny cropped tank top that clings to the curves of her bare stomach, her thighs gleaming under the harsh light.
Her hair is messy from sleep, her mouth parted, her eyes wide and burning.
All I want—all I can think about—is hauling her against the nearest wall, yanking those panties aside, and sinking into her again, filling her until she is gasping my name. I want her to know my name.
Then months later, her in a short skirt bent over her desk, waiting for me, the sweet, soft taste of her cunt. The way she moans my name when she comes, like I’m a god.
I see her laughing in my hoodie, feet on my dashboard, her hair whipping wildly from the open window. Sleeping with her hand curled under her chin.
Looking up at me with fire in her eyes, saying, “I love you.”
And then—her now. Covered in blood. Crying. Fighting like hell to keep me alive.
God, she’s always been fighting for me. Even when I wasn’t worth it. Even now. The light pulses above me. My grip slips from hers, but the last thing I see is her face.
There are hands all over me. Lo blurs and I can’t feel my chest anymore. And I remember the vow I made to her. To burn the fucking world down for her. To kill for her. Bleed for her. Die for her. And if I claw my way back from this—Then the next vow I make won’t be made in blood.
It’ll be in front of her. On my knees. Ring in my hand.
Epilogue
MARLOWE
Ten Months Later
We touch down in Turks and Caicos just after noon. The air is hot and heavy and perfect. Neve’s already stripped down to her bikini, and Bridger’s too busy staring at her that he’s walked straight into my back twice before we climbed into the rental van.
The entire island smells like salt and sunscreen and lotion-slicked bodies, and somehow it’s still not as intoxicating as the man whose hand is wrapped around mine.
I glance down at it again—my hand—like I’ve done a hundred times since we landed. Since we stepped off the plane into paradise. Since he slid that ring onto my finger with a sexy smile and a look in his eyes like I was the only thing holding his world together.
The diamond flashes in the sunlight, big and bold, a promise made by a man who once vowed to burn anyone who’d ever hurt me.
I don’t need the ring or any big fancy wedding he keeps trying to plan. I just need him. His hands. His voice. That quiet, steadyrage he carries—for me, never at me. The way he looks at me like I’m his reason for breathing. I’d marry him in a burning building with the walls crumbling down around us and still say yes without blinking. Because he’s not my happy ending. He’s the whole damn story. And I almost lost him before the story even got the chance to begin.
Damian technically died that day.
His heart stopped as he held my hand, his grip went slack, his eyes didn’t blink. I felt the moment it happened. Like someone had reached inside me and snuffed out a star. I screamed so loud and so long they had to sedate me. But then they brought him back. Theybrought him back. Seventeen seconds without oxygen—seventeen seconds where my heart stopped with his. But they brought him back. And I swore I’d never waste another second of the time we were given.
Now, months later, he still wakes up gasping some nights, drenched in sweat, hand fisting the sheets like he’s falling. And I press my palm to his chest, over the place where the bullet nearly took him, and remind him—he's here. He’s home. He’s mine. We’re safe.
Bridger and Cody are okay too. We all are. Somehow. And no one ever questioned what happened at the abandoned school.
That night, while I waited for word from the surgeons, still wearing Damian’s blood on my clothes, the place went up in flames. I never found out who did it. But when Neve sat down beside me, quiet and calm, and offered me a steaming cup of coffee in the waiting room, she smelled suspiciously like fire. I didn’t ask. I’m just glad she’s my friend.
We bought a house when he got out of the hospital. It has a pale blue front door that Damian says matches my eyes and enough room for Delilah to visit if the doctors ever clear her. It’s close to her memory care facility, so we can see her withoutdriving too far. So we can remind her that love doesn’t die just because the mind forgets.
The bakery? Rebuilt. Better. Bigger. Insurance covered more than I thought, and the new location gets more foot traffic. There’s even an outdoor patio with fairy lights and mismatched chairs and a chalkboard menu that makes people smile.
