"You're not alone anymore." I squeezed his hand, willing him to believe it, to feel it the way I did. "You have us. The pack. Me." I paused, gathering my courage. "You have me, Harper. For as long as you want me." I promised, my voice fierce despite its softness.
Something shifted in his expression—something cracking open, revealing the raw vulnerability beneath all that stoic silence. He came around the bar without letting go of my hand, standing in front of me where I sat on the stool, so close I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
"There was someone before." He said, his voice rough, his free hand coming up to cup my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone. "Claire. She was a beta. We were together three years. Engaged for one… we were talking about bonding." He paused, his jaw working like the words were being dragged out of him against his will.
"What happened?" I asked softly, leaning into his touch, feeling the slight tremor in his fingers, the cost of this confession.
"I wasn't enough." He laughed, but there was no humor in it, just old bitterness and older hurt. "Too quiet. Too intense. Too content to stay here making whiskey instead of selling the place and moving to the city, getting a real job, being a real person." His dark eyes met mine, full of something that looked almost like fear. "She left three weeks before the wedding. Said she couldn't spend her life waiting for me to become someone I was never going to be." He finished, his voice hollow.
Anger flared in my chest, hot and fierce, on his behalf. "She was a fool." I said flatly, reaching up to cover his hand where it rested against my face, pressing his palm more firmly against my cheek. "You're not too quiet. You're not too intense. You'reexactly what you should be." I rose from the stool, standing toe to toe with him, tilting my chin up defiantly. "The right person doesn't want to change you. The right person sees you and thinks, 'Yes. This. Exactly this.'" I pressed my free hand against his chest, feeling his heart pounding beneath my palm. "I see you, Harper Fontenot. I'm not going anywhere." I declared, putting every ounce of certainty I had into the words.
"Artemis." Her name came out broken, shattered by emotion he clearly didn't know how to contain, his massive hands framing my face like I was something precious, something fragile, something worth protecting.
"I mean it." I rose on my toes, bringing my lips close to his, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath. "You don't have to be more for me. You just have to be you." I whispered against his mouth.
He kissed me.
Not the careful, controlled kisses we'd shared before—this was something else entirely. This was a dam breaking, a wall crumbling, years of loneliness and longing pouring into the press of his lips against mine. He kissed me like I was air and he was drowning, like I was water and he was dying of thirst, like I was everything he'd ever wanted and never let himself have.
I kissed him back just as desperately, my hands fisting in his flannel, pulling him closer, closer, never close enough. He made a sound against my mouth—something low and raw and hungry—and then his hands were on my waist, lifting me like I weighed nothing, setting me on the edge of the bar so he could stand between my thighs, so he could kiss me properly, thoroughly, until I forgot my own name.
When we finally broke apart, gasping for air, my forehead pressed against his, I could feel his smile against my lips.
"Been wanting to do that since our last date." He admitted, his voice rough and breathless, his hands still spanning my waist, his thumbs tracing circles against my hips.
"Really now?" I laughed, the sound shaky with desire and emotion, my fingers still twisted in the fabric of his shirt, my heart pounding against my ribs. "I've been wanting to do that again since the moment you walked away." I confessed, tilting my head back to watch his dark eyes crinkle with surprised pleasure, his cheeks flushing beneath his beard.
"You should go ahead and do it next time." He told me, smiling—really smiling, the expression transforming his stern face into something almost boyish, the corners of his eyes crinkling, his whole body relaxed in a way I'd never seen before.
"Maybe I will… you'll have to wait and find out." I grinned up at him, feeling bold and beautiful and wanted in a way I'd never felt before, my hands sliding up his chest to curl around his neck. I pulled him back down, kissing him again because I could, because he was mine and I was his and nothing had ever felt more right.
We stayed in that back room until the moon rose high outside, trading kisses and whiskey and pieces of ourselves we'd never shared with anyone else. He told me about his grandfather teaching him to fish, about his grandmother's cornbread recipe, about the first time he'd tasted truly good whiskey and known exactly what he wanted to do with his life. I told him about Marguerite's tarot cards, about the first time Gumbo had let me pet him, about the dreams I'd had as a girl that seemed foolish now but had somehow led me here.
By the time he walked me to my truck, the night air cool against my kiss-swollen lips, I felt like I was floating.
"I'll see you Thursday for the pack meeting." He said, his massive hand wrapped around mine, his dark eyes soft in the moonlight. "But maybe Tuesday after that? Just us again?" Heasked, his voice carrying a hint of uncertainty, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to want this, his thumb tracing slow circles on my wrist.
"I'd like that." I smiled up at him, my heart swelling at his uncertainty, at the way this massive, stoic man still couldn't quite believe someone might want him. I rose on my toes to kiss him one more time—soft and sweet and full of promise, my fingers curling into the flannel at his chest. "Goodnight, Harper." I whispered against his lips, tasting whiskey and longing.
"Goodnight, chere." He rumbled back, the endearment sending warmth flooding through my chest, his hand lingering on my waist like he couldn't quite bear to let go.
I climbed into my truck and drove home through the dark bayou roads, my heart full to bursting, the taste of whiskey and Harper still lingering on my tongue.
This was what falling felt like, I realized.
For once, I wasn't afraid to hit the ground.
Chapter Eighteen
Artemis
The morning mist hung low over the bayou as I paddled my pirogue through the water. Gumbo swam alongside me, his massive body cutting through the still water with barely a ripple, his eyes just visible above the surface like twin golden stones.
I knew this route by heart. Could paddle it blindfolded, probably. Had been making this trip every month since Marguerite died, more often when I needed to think. Today, I needed to think.
The little island appeared through the mist like something out of a dream—a mound of earth rising from the water, crowned with a single massive live oak draped in moss. Marguerite had picked this spot herself, years before she'd needed it. "When I go," she'd told me, her weathered hands shuffling her tarot deck with the ease of decades, "you put me under that tree. Let the bayou have what's left. I came from this water, and I'll go back to it."
I'd honored her wishes. Scattered her ashes around the base of the oak, planted wild iris and swamp rose in the soft earth. Now, two years later, the flowers had spread into a riot of purple and pink, and the tree seemed to hum with something that felt like her presence.
