The insane physical pull between us was just a bonus. Even now, covered in dirt and blood, she made my blood run hot. That fire in her eyes, the way her body had fit against mine in the truck earlier… yeah. That part I could handle.
I swallowed hard. My hand was still on her knee, fingers digging in like I could anchor her here. “It’s not about the club,” I said, voice rough. “It’s about keeping you alive. They know your face, Sienna. They know what you saw. If we don’t lock thisdown tonight, they’ll bury you next to those bodies before the sun comes up.”
Her eyes searched mine, wide and stormy. I saw the fear, the exhaustion, and underneath it something hotter, something that had been simmering between us since the sidewalk kiss. She didn’t pull away from my hand.
Regan’s voice crackled through the speaker on Edge’s phone—she’d been listening on the ride. “Come on, scientist. My Vegas wedding to Edge was the best bad decision I ever made. We can do this right. Quick ceremony, big party when the dust settles. You’ll look killer in white leather.”
Sienna let out a shaky laugh that sounded half-hysterical. “White leather? What the fuck is happening to me?”
I leaned in, forehead almost touching hers, blocking out the rest of the room. “I’m not asking you to love me tonight,” I said, low enough that only she could hear. “I’m asking you to let me keep you breathing. The rest… we figure out after. But I swear on my patch, Sienna, I won’t let you regret this.”
She stared at me for a long, aching beat. The lantern light caught the cut on her arm, the dirt in her hair, the fire that had never really gone out in her eyes.
Then she whispered, so quiet I almost missed it, “You’re still an idiot, Mason.”
My mouth curved despite everything. “Yeah. But I’m your idiot. If you’ll have me.”
Tank cleared his throat. “Clock’s ticking, brother. We need an answer before we roll out. Vegas is four hours away and those bodies won’t stay hidden forever.”
Sienna looked around the shack—at the armed men who’d just killed for her, at Regan’s voice still buzzing on the phone, at me. Her hand finally came up and covered mine on her knee, small and trembling but steady.
She took a breath that sounded like surrender and salvation all at once.
“Fine,” she said. “But if Elvis asks me to renew our vows, I’m shooting him.”
The room exploded into rough laughter and back-slaps. I didn’t laugh. I just pulled her into my chest and held on like the desert might still try to take her.
Vegas.
A ring.
A piece of paper that would make her mine in every way the law—and the club—cared about.
And maybe, just maybe, a shot at something real once the bullets stopped flying.
I kissed the top of her dusty head and felt the first real piece of hope I’d had since the wedding.
We were getting married tonight.
CHAPTER 16
MASON
We were getting married tonight.
Whether she hated me for it or not.
That thought kept punching through my skull as we rolled out from the line shack with the whole damn desert at our backs and Vegas waiting like a neon dare on the horizon. Sienna sat beside me in Dolores, wrapped in my jacket, knees pressed together, hands twisting so tight in her lap her knuckles had gone white.
She hadn’t said much since she’d agreed.
That worried me more than if she’d screamed, cursed, threatened to stab me, or demanded I pull over so she could run back into the desert on foot. All of that, I could handle. That was fire. That was Sienna.
This pale, twitchy silence?
This was shock.
Every few minutes, she blinked hard like she was waking up into the nightmare all over again. Her foot bounced against the floorboard. Her fingers twitched. Her breathing kept catching, sharp little pulls of air she tried to hide by looking out the window.
