Contracted Wife to the MC President

Chapter 13

Harper POV

The armored SUV rolled into a dark parking garage under a derelict warehouse on the edge of the city.

Gage cut the engine, and the silence afterward felt heavier than the gunfire had.

"I'll take the perimeter." He racked a round into his rifle. "Scanners are up. Nobody comes down that ramp without me putting a hole in them."

Reaper nodded once and pushed his door open. He didn't say anything about the pain, but I saw it in the way he moved, arm held stiff against his ribs, the stain on his shirt spreading down past his belt now.

I climbed out after him, boots dragging on the concrete. He led me to a steel door at the back, punched in a code, and we stepped into a windowless safehouse. A kitchenette, a metal table, a narrow cot. Dust and bleach in the air.

He braced his hands on the table, chest working hard.

I didn't wait to be told what to do.

I kicked the boots off so I could actually move, set the Sig on the table, let the jacket drop to the floor.

"Sit." I pointed at the chair.

He glanced back at me, something faint and dark tugging at his mouth despite everything, but he didn't argue. He pulled the ruined shirt over his head, jaw locking as it dragged over torn skin, and sat.

I found a trauma kit on the wall, ripped it open, grabbed gauze and tape and iodine.

I stepped between his knees.

The wound had torn wide open during the firefight, jagged and bleeding across old ink.

I soaked a pad in iodine. "Brace."

I pressed it hard against the tear. He went rigid, knuckles white on the chair, but he didn't make a sound.

I wiped the blood away, working on autopilot. My hands were already covered in concrete dust and grease, and now his blood on top of that.

I stared down at my own hands.

Gray dust mixed with red.

And then the quiet of the room disappeared. Ringing in my ears. I saw the mercenary stepping out of that doorway again, felt the recoil snap through my wrists, watched his head jerk back before he dropped.

I killed a man. I pulled a trigger and stopped a heart.

My breath caught. My hands started shaking, bad, spreading up my arms.

"Harper." Low. Steady.

I tried to tape the gauze down and couldn't get the adhesive to separate. My chest closed up. I couldn't get a full breath in. The smell of blood suddenly turned my stomach.

The tape slipped out of my fingers.

"I can't." I stepped back, vision blurring at the edges. "I can't breathe. I killed him."

He didn't hesitate, didn't spare a thought for his own wound. His hands closed around my waist and pulled, dragging me back between his knees, then down, sideways, onto his good thigh.

"Look at me."

I had my eyes shut, hands gripping his shoulders, breath coming in short frantic pulls.

"Harper. Open your eyes." Not a request.

I did. He was right there, dark eyes locked on mine, holding me in place.

He took my shaking, bloodied hand and pressed it flat against his chest. His heart beat slow and heavy under my palm.

"Feel that?" Low, rough. "I'm breathing because of you."

"I shot him." A tear finally broke loose, cutting through the dust on my cheek.

"You put him down before he put me down." No pity in it at all. Just certainty. "You didn't freeze. You didn't panic. You protected what's yours."

What's yours.

Something cracked open in my chest, and the panic turned into something else entirely.

I looked at his mouth. He looked at mine.

The room went thick and close. My hands stopped shaking, replaced by heat pooling low and heavy. I was sitting in his lap, fingers against his bare chest, tracing the edge of a faded tattoo. His hands gripped my hips, thumbs pressing under the hem of my shirt.

His pupils blew wide, all the calm gone from his face, replaced by something raw.

His hand came up to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. No asking.

He pulled my mouth down to his.

The kiss was hard and certain, no hesitation in it at all. He tasted like coffee and copper and survival. I gasped against him and wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him back just as hard. I needed to feel him alive. I needed his heat to burn out the memory of the man on the pavement.

He groaned against my mouth, arm banding around my waist, pulling me flush against him without any regard for his ribs. His hand slid up my thigh, and heat shot straight down my spine.

He broke away just enough to breathe, forehead pressed to mine.

"You're mine, Harper." Fierce, low. "You hear me? You belong to me."

I gripped his hair and pulled him back down.

"Prove it."