The first light of dawn was a shy, pearlescent thing, filtering through the cypress trees and the grimy panes of Nash’s cabin window.
It found me tangled in his sheets, his arm a heavy, possessive weight over my waist. The scent of him—woodsmoke, marsh water, and something uniquely masculine—was a brand on my skin.
Last night hadn’t just been passion; it had been a full-scale demolition of the walls I’d spent years building.
He had seen the ugliest, most broken parts of me, and instead of flinching, he’d pulled me closer.
I shifted, careful not to wake him, my muscles aching with a sweet, unfamiliar soreness. His grip tightened in his sleep, a low sound rumbling in his chest.
He was a man who held on to things. I was beginning to realize I didn’t want him to ever let go.
For the first time since Hannah’s death, the crushing weight of solitude had lifted. It wasn’t gone, but it was shared.
The burden was still there, but now I had someone strong enough to help me carry it.
His eyes opened, a startling, clear green in the dim light. They weren’t hazy with sleep, but sharp and focused, as if he’d been awake for hours, just watching me.
“Morning,” he murmured, his voice a gravelly rumble that vibrated through my bones.
“Morning,” I whispered back, my throat tight with an emotion I couldn’t name. It felt too big for a single word.
He didn’t need one. He simply leaned in and kissed me, a slow, deliberate claiming that was nothing like the desperate possession of the night before.
This was quieter, a confirmation. I’m still here. We’re still here.
An hour later, we were at his rough-hewn kitchen table, coffee cups steaming between us.
A nautical chart of the bayou was spread out, marked with grease-pencil circles and lines. It felt like a war room.
My laptop was open beside it, displaying satellite images I’d pulled of Devereaux Shipping’s more remote warehouses. We were a team.
The thought sent a thrill through me that had nothing to do with last night and everything to do with right now.
“My contact says Devereaux has a shipment moving tonight,” Nash said, his finger tapping a spot on the chart near a secluded inlet.
“Not their usual route. It’s quiet, off the books. He says it’s high-value contraband. Not drugs. Artifacts, illegal imports… stuff that requires delicate handling and discreet buyers.”
“And discreet paperwork,” I added, my mind already racing.
“Or a lack thereof. If they’re moving smuggled goods, there will be ledgers, records. Something that connects the shipments to the money, and the money to the man at the top.”
“That’s the thinking,” Nash agreed. His phone buzzed on the table.
He glanced at the screen, his expression hardening. “That’s him now. The exchange is happening at Warehouse 7. Midnight.”
My heart gave a hard thump against my ribs. Warehouse 7. I knew it.
A derelict, corrugated steel monster on the edge of the industrial swamp, accessible by one crumbling service road and a deep-water canal.
It was perfect for the kind of business you didn’t want anyone to see.
“It’s a long shot, Cal,” he said, his gaze locking with mine, searching. “It’s dangerous. We don’t have to do this.”
I reached across the table, my fingers covering his. His skin was warm, calloused. Strong. “Last night, I gave you the whole, ugly truth, Nash. I’m not stopping now. We’re not stopping now.”
A slow, fierce smile touched his lips. “Okay, then. Let’s go hunting.”
***
Eleven hours later, the air was thick and humid, tasting of salt and decay.
The moon was a sliver, offering little light as we cut the engine on Nash’s truck and coasted the last hundred yards down the pitted service road.
We were dressed in black, the color of the starless sky and the murky water that lapped at the reeds nearby.
Nash passed me a pair of bolt cutters. They were heavy, cold in my hands.
“You handle the lock on the side door. I’ll keep watch. We’ll have a ten-minute window, max, between the regular security sweep and when the buyers are supposed to arrive.”
“Ten minutes,” I breathed, the words puffing out in a white cloud. Adrenaline was a live wire under my skin, sharp and terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
He cupped my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheek. His touch was a grounding force in the swirling chaos of my nerves.
“Stay close. Don’t make a sound. If anything feels wrong, we’re out. The evidence isn’t worth you. Got it?”
The raw protective instinct in his voice stole my breath. I just nodded, my throat too tight for words.
He gave me one last, hard look, a silent communication that passed between us, clear as a shout. I’ve got you.
We moved through the shadows like wraiths, our feet silent on the gravel. The warehouse loomed over us, a skeletal beast against the night.
The salty wind whined through holes in the rusting metal, a mournful sound that echoed the frantic beating of my own heart.
The side door was secured with a heavy chain and a brutish-looking padlock. I positioned the jaws of the bolt cutters, my arms straining with the effort.
Nash stood behind me, a solid wall of warmth at my back, his head on a swivel, watching every shadow.
I squeezed, putting all my weight into it. The metal groaned in protest before snapping with a sharp crack that sounded like a gunshot in the silence.
We both froze, listening.
Nothing. Just the wind and the distant hum of the highway.
Nash pushed the door open a crack. It protested with a low, agonizing creak.
We slipped inside, into a cavern of darkness that smelled of rust, diesel, and stagnant water.
A few grimy skylights let in faint starlight, illuminating colossal shapes—stacks of crates, shrouded machinery, the skeletal frame of a forgotten boat.
“Office is on the catwalk,” Nash whispered, his breath warm against my ear. He pointed towards a dark silhouette high up on the far wall.
We moved as one, our steps synchronized. Every scrape of a boot, every drip of water from the ceiling, was a potential alarm.
He led the way, his big frame a shield. My job was to watch our backs, my eyes scanning the darkness we left behind.
We weren’t just a man and a woman anymore. We were a single entity, two halves of a predator, perfectly in sync.
The metal stairs to the catwalk groaned under our weight. I flinched with every step, my hand tight on the railing.
The office was a small, glass-fronted box overlooking the main floor. The door was unlocked.
Inside, the air was stale. A desk was littered with shipping manifests and an empty bottle of cheap whiskey.
A single laptop sat closed on the corner.
“Jackpot,” I breathed.
Nash went straight to a heavy filing cabinet, prying it open with a crowbar he’d tucked into his belt.
I went for the laptop, my fingers flying as I powered it on, bypassing the simple password with a trick a source had taught me years ago.
Files. Folders labeled with dates and codes.
I jammed a flash drive into the USB port and initiated a massive data transfer.
“Got it,” Nash grunted, pulling a thick, leather-bound ledger from the cabinet. “This looks like the motherlode.”
As he spoke, the white bars on my data transfer crawled agonizingly slow. “Come on, come on…” I muttered.
Then, we heard it. The low growl of a diesel engine outside. Headlights swept across the warehouse floor below, casting long, dancing shadows that shot up the walls like accusing fingers.
“Time to go,” Nash’s voice was a low, urgent command.
“Almost there… ninety percent…” My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs.
Voices drifted up from below. Rough, impatient. The heavy clang of the main roll-up door being cranked open echoed through the cavernous space.
“Callie, now!”
The progress bar hit one hundred percent. I ripped the flash drive out, shoved the laptop into my pack, and slammed the lid shut.
We bolted from the office, back onto the catwalk. Below, two men were walking towards a line of crates, their heavy boots echoing on the concrete.
They hadn’t looked up. Not yet.
We scrambled down the stairs, sticking to the deepest shadows. We were almost to the side door when a third man appeared, walking directly toward our position.
There was nowhere to go.
Nash reacted instantly. He grabbed my arm, pulling me behind a towering stack of wooden pallets, pressing me into the narrow space between the pallets and the cold, corrugated wall.
He crowded in front of me, his body a human shield. The space was so tight I was plastered against him, my face buried in the rough fabric of his jacket.
I could feel the frantic thunder of his heart, or maybe it was mine. His arms came around me, holding me still, his breath hot on my temple.
The footsteps grew closer. A beam from a flashlight sliced through the gaps in the pallets, dancing inches from us.
I held my breath until my lungs burned. The metallic tang of fear flooded my mouth. Nash’s body was tense as a coiled spring, ready to fight, to do whatever it took.
In that suffocating, terrifying darkness, pressed against him, I had never felt safer in my life.
The man grunted, stopped, and then the footsteps receded. He’d just been doing a casual sweep.
We waited an eternity, not moving, barely breathing. When the voices on the main floor grew louder, focused on their business, Nash finally shifted.
He looked down at me, his eyes glittering in the sliver of light. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.
The adrenaline, the danger, the sheer, terrifying intimacy of the last few minutes had forged something new between us. It was a bond hammered out in fear and sealed in silence.
Unbreakable.
He took my hand, his fingers lacing through mine, and we slipped out the side door, back into the forgiving darkness of the swamp.
The ride back to the cabin was a blur of headlights on a dark road. We didn’t speak.
The ledger and my backpack sat on the seat between us like a trophy. My hand was still in his, his thumb rubbing slow, soothing circles over my knuckles.
The high-octane terror was slowly bleeding away, replaced by a deep, humming current of victory and something more. A profound, bone-deep connection.
Back in the cabin, he locked the door and I dropped the backpack on the table. The silence wasn’t empty; it was charged, humming with everything we had just survived together.
I turned to face him. “We did it.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. “We did.”
He closed the space between us, his hands coming up to frame my face. His eyes searched mine, raw and intense. “You were incredible. You weren’t even scared.”
“I was terrified,” I admitted, my voice trembling slightly. “But I wasn’t alone.”
That was the truth of it. The fear was real, but it had been eclipsed by the solid, unwavering presence of him beside me, with me. Moving as one.
He lowered his head, his forehead resting against mine. We just stood there, breathing each other’s air, the adrenaline of the escape morphing into a different, more potent kind of energy.
The danger was past, but the intensity it had ignited between us was still there, burning hotter and brighter than ever. He had seen me break, and now he had seen me fight.
He knew all of me.
“What we did tonight…” he started, his voice thick with emotion.
“I know,” I whispered, finishing the thought for him.
This was no longer just about grief or passion. This was partnership. This was trust, absolute and unconditional.
He tilted my chin up, and his mouth found mine. The kiss was desperate and deep, a fusion of relief and triumph and a fierce, undeniable claiming.
We had faced the darkness together, and now, in the safety of his arms, we were ready to see what secrets we had dragged back into the light.