She barely stirred. Just murmured my name, curling her hand into my shirt like she needed proof I was there.
“I’ve got you,” I said against her hair. “I’ve got you.”
I looked at Travis. “I’m taking her to my place. Don’t expect to see us for a few days.”
Travis just nodded and got the door for me.
The drive from his compound to my house took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of dark mountain roads, my headlights cutting through the night, Mia asleep with her head against the window. I kept glancing over. Confirming she was breathing. Confirming we were both really okay and safe.
My house wasn’t much. A small ranch-style place I’d bought when I first moved to Garnet Bend. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that could charitably be called functional. The kind of house a man bought when he didn’t expect to share it with anyone.
But it was mine. Private. Safe.
I carried her inside, navigated the dark hallway by memory, and laid her on my bed. I barely got my boots off before I collapsed beside her.
We were both wrecked. Days of terror for her, weeks of playing a monster for me. She curled into me instinctively, even in sleep, and I pulled her close. I was out within seconds.
She woke sometime in the middle of the night.
I felt her stir, her breathing shifting from slow and steady to sharp with fear. Disoriented.
“Coop?” Her hands found my face in the dark, then my chest, fingers pressing against fabric like she was checking for wounds. “Coop?”
“I’m here.”
Her hands kept moving. My jaw, my shoulders, the solid bulk of me. Not gentle exploration—desperate confirmation. Like she needed to map every inch to believe I was real.
“You’re alive.” The words cracked. “I saw you fighting Oliver, and I thought— When Beckett drove away, I thought?—”
“I made it out.” I caught her hands, pressed them flat against my chest so she could feel my heartbeat. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I left you.” Her voice broke on the words. “We drove away and left you there with him, and I didn’t know if you were…if he’d?—”
“Hey.” I pulled her closer, cradling her face in my hands. “You did exactly what I needed you to do. What Itoldyou to do. You survived. That’s all that matters.”
“It’s not all that matters.” Her fingers curled into my shirt, fisting the fabric. “You matter. God, Coop, I thought I’d lost you again. I thought?—”
I kissed her to stop the spiral. Meant it to be gentle. Reassuring.
It wasn’t.
The moment our mouths met, something ignited. All the fear and adrenaline and desperate relief combusted into heat.Her hands were in my hair, pulling me closer, and I rolled her beneath me, settling between her thighs like I belonged there.
“Need you,” she gasped against my mouth. “Need to feel you.”
I understood. This wasn’t about pleasure—not yet. This was about proof. About feeling each other’s heartbeats and knowing we’d survived.
I stripped off her borrowed shirt, and she yanked at mine until I pulled back long enough to tear it over my head. Then, skin against skin, we both exhaled like we’d been holding our breath for days.
Hell, maybe we had.
Her hands roamed my chest, my shoulders, down my sides. When her fingers found the fresh wounds from the hunt—still tender—she made a sound low in her throat.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. None of this is fine.” But she was pulling me back down, her mouth finding mine again, her hips lifting to meet me. “I need— Coop, please?—”
