"Also," I reach up, tangling my fingers in the front of his jacket, "the landlord at the other place is much hotter."
Oliver lets out a breath that sounds like a curse, his arms wrapping around me and lifting me off my feet. He crushes me to his chest, burying his face in my hair. His shoulders drop, the iron tension draining from his frame.
"You’re staying," he growls into my neck.
"I’m staying," I promise. "I’ll run the inventory. I’ll fix the cabin on weekends. But I’m coming home to you."
"Damn right you are." He pulls back, his hands framing my face, his thumbs tracing my lips. "You belong on this mountain, Avery. You belong with me."
"I know."
He kisses me then, and the shift is instantaneous. Unlike the desperate friction of last night, this touch creates a contract signed in breath and heat.
When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against mine. "Logan’s coming up the pass this afternoon. He wants to meet you. Officially."
"The President?"
"Yeah. And Austin. Probably Chase too. They’re nosy."
I laugh, the sound bubbling up light and free in the cold air. "Am I ready for the Broken Halos MC?"
Oliver pulls back, looking down at me with fierce, possessive pride. "You handled the storm. You handled me. You can handle a few bikers."
He sets me down but keeps his arm around my shoulders, tucking me into his side. We stand there on the sturdy new porch, looking out over the valley. The snow shines blinding white, the pines stand tall and dark, and the road below finally clears.
A black, rugged truck crawls up the switchbacks in the distance. The brothers. The club. The life I’m choosing.
I touch the silver key in my pocket again.
"Let’s go home," I say.
Oliver tightens his grip. "We are home, Little Bird. We are home."
He turns me back toward the trail, back toward the high ridge where his cabin sits waiting. The Vanguard and his girl. The wilderness has shifted, transforming into a kingdom.
And we’re just getting started.
But as we head back toward the ridge, I catch Oliver looking at me with a hunger so sharp it makes my breath hitch, a silent demand that says tonight, the cabin is ours alone.
10
OLIVER
The angle grinder screams in the small space of my workshop, throwing a shower of orange sparks against the oil-stained concrete floor. The noise fills my head, drowning out the wind howling through the pines outside. It silences the instinct in my brain commanding me to check the perimeter, the locks, the ridge.
Here, with the smell of hot steel, sawdust, and grease filling my lungs, I am just a man working with his hands. Not the Vanguard. Not a broken soldier. Just a man building something solid.
I kill the power to the grinder. Silence rushes back in, heavy and ringing.
I lift the steel bracket I’ve been shaping. Heavy gauge. Overkill for a normal front door, but the cabin down the ridge isn’t just a house anymore. It’s where she lives. Nothing gets through that door unless I invite it in.
The workshop door creaks open.
I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. The air in the room shifts instantly, the sharp, metallic tang of the shop cut by something sweeter. Vanilla. Rain. Avery.
My body reacts before my brain does. My grip tightens on the steel bracket until the tension in my arms makes them shake. My blood heats, rushing south, pooling heavy and hard in my jeans. A conditioned response.
She is the trigger, and I am the weapon.
