“That’s how you started. Building.”
She nodded. “By sixteen, I was hanging out at construction sites, asking questions. By eighteen, I was working with a small crew renovating houses. No one cared that I was a foster kid with no family. They just cared that I could frame a wall faster than guys twice my size.”
He understood that—the refuge of work, of creating something concrete in a world that made no sense. The forge had saved him in the same way.
“Is that why you came here? Really?” He turned to face her fully. “Because of Landry?”
For a long moment, she didn’t answer. The blankets slipped from her shoulders as she leaned forward, her face half in shadow.
“He started showing up places—restaurants, work sites, once at my dentist.” Her voice grew tight. “The police said there was nothing they could do because he hadn’t threatened me. But I felt threatened.”
Anger coiled in his gut, hot and dangerous. “Fucking cops.”
“Then someone broke into my house while I was filming. Nothing taken, but there was a photo left on my nightstand.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “A photo of me sleeping in that very bed. Taken that week.”
The anger ignited into something darker. Something that made his hands clench into fists.
“The police said there was no sign of forced entry. Suggested I’d let someone in and forgotten. Or maybe I’d taken the photo myself for attention.” Her laugh was brittle. “Can you imagine? Taking a photo of yourself sleeping for attention?”
“What did you do?”
“I filed for a restraining order. It kept getting ‘lost’ in the system. I installed cameras. Changed the locks. Started sleeping with a baseball bat. Considered getting a gun, but then I was afraid he’d use it against me.” She closed her eyes. “Then one night I came home and my back door was open. Wide open. No cameras triggered. No alarm. Nothing missing. Just... open. Like a message. ‘I can get to you anytime.’”
“Jesus.” The word came out like a prayer.
“That’s when I knew I had to leave. I couldn’t keep living like that, jumping at every shadow.” She looked at him directly. “And you were the only person who ever really listened when I talkedabout feeling unsafe. In your letters. You never dismissed it or told me I was overreacting. So I came here.”
“To hide.”
“At first. But now...” She hesitated. “Now I don’t want to hide anymore. I want my life back. I want to stop being afraid. I want?—”
Whatever she wanted was lost as he moved without thinking, without planning. One moment, he was sitting in the chair beside her; the next, he was kneeling in front of her, his hands on either side of her face.
“I won’t let him hurt you.” The words burned in his throat. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
She froze, her eyes wide. “Anson?—”
He kissed her.
He didn’t know what he’d expected—awkwardness, maybe, or for her to flinch away from the roughness of his beard, the scars on his hands. Instead, the kiss landed like a hammer blow against his anvil, sparks flying, burning everything else out of his head. Her mouth was soft and urgent, the taste of her wine-dark and sweet, and when she made a small desperate sound in the back of her throat, he lost the last of his composure.
He cupped her face between his palms, brushing the pad of his thumb along the smooth line of her jaw, and kissed her like he was forging something durable out of all their sharp and broken pieces. She balled her fists in his shirt, dragging him closer, erasing the last space between them.
The chair groaned under their weight as he half-knelt between her thighs. Her hands found their way under his flannel, flattening against his lower back, cold fingers digging into the heat of his skin. The sensation made him shudder—fuck, it had been so long since anyone had touched him this way, with hunger and no hesitation, and it took every ounce of control not to devour her right there on the porch.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers, trying to catch his breath.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “Maggie.”
Her eyes were wild and dark in the shadows, pupils blown wide, lips swollen, cheeks pinked from his beard. She tugged him back down, and this time the kiss went deeper—open-mouthed, teeth against teeth. He slid a hand up into her hair, tangling in the dark mess of her bun at the nape of her neck, and held her still as he thoroughly explored her mouth.
She bit his lower lip, hard enough that he tasted copper, and he groaned into her mouth, trembling with the effort to not just drag her onto his lap and fuck her senseless right here, right now. She gripped his shoulders, pulling him tighter, and when he shifted his knee forward for balance, she rocked against it with a gasp muffled by their kiss. She did it again, grinding against the muscle of his thigh on purpose this time, and it short-circuited every protective instinct, every barrier he’d built.
He broke the kiss only to press his mouth to her jaw, her neck, the exposed skin above her collarbone where River’s borrowed hoodie had slid off her shoulder. She trembled under his hands, her breath coming hard and fast. He wanted to tell her she was perfect, wanted to say anything, but words felt stupid and clunky.
He was half on the chair, half on the ground, caging her in with his body, one knee wedged between her legs, one hand fisted in that ridiculous borrowed hoodie. He wanted to rip it off her and replace it with his body.
Maggie arched into him, hips rolling slow and hungry against his thigh. He shuddered, barely hanging on, his cock iron-hard and throbbing against the inside seam of his jeans, every nerve ending tuned to her heat against his leg and the little gasps she made into his mouth.
