Page 101 of Lady and the Butcher
Atticus was still danger, still shadow, still the cleaver at his throat. But he was also here—in my crooked little house, in my life, in my bed. Both inside and outside of what I’d built. Both fitand foreign. Both exactly what I wanted and more than I knew how to hold.
I turned my face into his chest and whispered, “You fit here. Even when you shouldn’t.”
His hand slid up my spine. “Then this is where I’ll stay.”
And I believed we could build a life out of both our halves.
Dangerous, imperfect, holy, ours.
EPILOGUE
The coast road shimmered in the heat, low-country air heavy with salt and cicadas. We’d driven for nearly an hour, Atticus’s hand resting on my thigh the whole way, his thumb stroking absent circles into my skin like he was writing his name there.
We didn’t talk much. He never filled silence unless it needed it, and with him, silence didn’t feel empty. It felt charged, waiting.
The cottage appeared like something drawn onto the horizon just for us. Weathered clapboard, shutters the color of old moss, a porch that leaned toward the water like it had something to confess. And off to the left, rising behind the line of pines, was a lighthouse—white tower, black cap, its slow turning beam sweeping across the inlet like a pulse.
He parked. Killed the engine. Looked at me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Somewhere no one can touch us.”
It wasn’t the words. It was the way he said them—like a man who had finally buried his past noise deep enough that it couldn’t reach this shore.
I blinked at the house, at the wild marsh beyond. “But … we already have a house in Charleston,” I said, hearing my own voice tilt into disbelief. “Your place. My place. The city.”
His eyes stayed on me, soft in a way that still startled me. “Yes,” he said. “And that’s home. That’s life. That’s where we build days and show up for your brother and run your shop and live like people. But I wanted to give you this, too. A place away. A place no one knows but us.”
“You bought this?”
“For you.” His mouth tilted, almost shy. “For us. For when you need a door that only opens to your key. For when you want the sound of water instead of traffic. For when you don’t want to whisper.” His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist, a slow circle. “You can yell as loud as you want here. Moan as loud as you want. No carriage driver. No city leaning in to listen.”
Heat rushed through me, not just from the promise but from the memory—the carriage in Charleston, his mouth between my thighs while hooves clopped on cobblestones and strangers laughed on sidewalks. The exquisite wrongness of it, the way it had felt like a dare.
He leaned closer, voice lowering. “Here, Lady, you don’t have to hide. Not a sound. Not a thought. Not a piece of yourself.”
I swallowed, staring at the cottage, at the porch that sloped like it had been waiting for us to climb its steps. The fantasy of it pressed against my ribs. He had thought of everything. Privacy. Safety. Space to be loud, to be messy, to be us.
“Show me,” I whispered.
He got out and circled to my door, opened it, and held out his hand. When I put mine in his, the weight of the past fell off my shoulders like a coat. This wasn’t escape. It was arrival.
Inside, the cottage smelled of sun-warmed wood and salt. Whitewashed walls. Windows that caught the river light andthrew it across the floor. A fireplace for winter. A wide, screened porch for nights like this.
Atticus set my bag down and turned to me. “Ours,” he said quietly. “When you want to disappear. When you want to be found.”
My chest ached. “It’s perfect.”
“No,” he said. “It’s private. You’re perfect.”
And then he took my face in his hands and kissed me—slow, claiming, the kind of kiss that didn’t just stake ground but built a house on it.
In the bedroom, candles dotted the dresser and the wide sill by the window, their flames bending in the breeze from a cracked pane. A bottle of wine waited on the table, already sweating.
I turned, ready to tease him about romance not being his brand, but he pressed me against the wall before I got the chance. His mouth crashed into mine, hunger sharp and claiming.
“Mine,” he growled against my lips.
