Her mouth is warm, urgent, tasting of everything I’ve tried to keep from wanting. She presses closer, fingers fisting in my jacket until she’s nearly shaking. I pull her fully against me, and the sensation hits like impact—need, fear, fury, something scorching through every layer of discipline I’ve built over decades.
She pulls back only when breath forces us apart, her forehead still resting against mine. “I need you to come back,” she murmurs, voice ragged. “To me.”
The words slice straight through whatever remains of my restraint.
“I will,” I say, and it is the most honest promise I have ever spoken.
Her eyes close for a fraction of a second, relief and terror mixing in her expression. When she opens them again, there is something vulnerable there. It’s something she tries to hide, and fails.
I touch her cheek, sweeping my thumb along her skin. “Roxy.”
She looks up.
I do not know how to name what sits between us. It isn’t lust; it isn’t convenience. It’s something that makes the ground feel unsteady beneath my feet, something that has me locking down an empire with one hand while holding onto her with the other.
But if I name it out loud, she’ll run from it.
And maybe I will too.
So instead of speaking, I kiss her again—slower this time, deliberate, committing the feel of her to memory. Just in case.
When I pull back, she swallows hard. “Mak…”
I step away before I lose the willpower to leave at all. She follows me to the porch, watching as I descend the steps, the summer air warm enough to feel like a contradiction—the world soft and golden while I prepare for blood.
“Be careful,” she says.
“I always am.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I meet her gaze fully. “I know.”
I turn toward the waiting convoy at the end of the drive. Jesse is sitting on an ATV, and the men are assembled behind him in formation. They look at me the moment I approach.
A leader.
A weapon.
A man who dismantles threats without hesitation.
Beneath all of that, beneath every layer I’ve learned to wear, something new pulses in my chest, steady and frightening. A reason to come home.
When I swing onto the ATV, Roxy is still watching from the porch. Our eyes lock across the distance. I nod once. A silent, final goodbye. She lifts a hand to her mouth as if she’s afraid to let anything else slip free.
“Move out,” I order.
The engines roar to life.
And as the cottage falls behind us and the forest swallows the road ahead, one truth settles in with absolute certainty: This mission is no longer about territory or pride.
It’s about the life waiting for me in that small cottage on the river.
If this syndicate wants a war, if they want to test just how far I’ll go to protect what’s mine, I’ll show them.
Every last inch of wilderness will remember my name before I’m done.
Chapter 29
