"I never thought I'd have this," he said quietly. "After Daniels died, I convinced myself that part of me was broken. That I'd had my chance and wasted it."
"And now?"
"Now I'm thinking maybe I was wrong." He lifted his head, met my eyes. "Maybe it wasn't the only chance. Maybe this—you—maybe it was worth waiting for."
My heart clenched. "Axel..."
"I'm not good at this." His jaw tightened. "Words, feelings, all of it. But I need you to know—what you did for me today, what you gave me?—"
"What did I give you?"
"Permission." He said the word like it was sacred. "Permission to want this. To be this. To stop punishing myself for something that was never wrong in the first place."
I pulled him down into a kiss. Soft, lingering, full of everything I wasn't ready to say out loud. "You never needed permission," I whispered against his mouth. "But I'm glad I could help you see that."
He tucked his face into my neck, and I felt him smile against my skin.
"Stay," he murmured. "Not just tonight. Not just until the Devil's Dust thing is over. Just... stay."
"I already said yes."
"I know. But I'm asking again." He pressed a kiss to my pulse point. "Stay with me, Kai. Build something with me."
I thought about the vote later today. The family I was being offered. The life I'd never imagined but suddenly couldn't live without. "Yes," I said. "For as long as you'll have me."
His arms tightened around me. Outside, the clubhouse was waking up—footsteps, voices, the smell of coffee drifting under the door.
Inside, encased in Axel’s muscular arms and possibility, I let myself believe in something I'd stopped hoping for a long time ago.
A future. A home.
A family.
8
FULL THROTTLE
Morning light turned Axel's room golden. I lay on my side, watching him sleep. The hard lines of his face had softened overnight, and for once, he looked peaceful. No furrowed brow, no clenched jaw, no nightmares twitching behind his eyelids. Just a man at rest, one arm thrown across my waist like he was afraid I'd disappear.
I traced the scar on his shoulder—the puckered circle of an old bullet wound. He had so many stories written on his skin. Someday, I wanted to know them all.
His eyes opened slowly, grey finding mine. For a moment, he just looked at me—soft, unguarded, so different from the soldier who'd reached for a weapon when I found him bleeding in that parking lot a week ago.
"Hey," he murmured.
"Hey yourself."
"You're still here."
"Where else would I be?"
His hand found my hip, thumb stroking over the bone. "I half expected to wake up alone. Thought maybe I'd dreamed the whole thing."
"Does this feel like a dream?" I shifted closer, pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth.
"No." His arms tightened, pulling me flush against him. "Dreams were never this good."
We lay tangled together, trading lazy kisses, hands wandering with no urgency. The desperate hunger of last night had mellowed into something warmer—not less intense, just different. Like the difference between a wildfire and a hearth.
