Las Vegas, Nevada

[Reputation]

Tbe

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

https://i.ibb.co/ZRRZyNM9/file-00000000deb8622f9cb8431a6d470d15-3.png

The past forty-eight hours had been a blur of airports, backstages, and half-slept hours in hotel rooms that didn’t feel like they belonged to either of them. Blake had gone from screaming his lungs out in front of thousands at Reading Festival to collapsing into the aisle seat next to her on the red-eye to L.A., smelling like sweat, adrenaline, and the kind of exhaustion only rockstars and lunatics seemed to thrive on.

She’d told herself she’d get used to this part—the whirlwind, the constant push and pull of his world and hers. But watching him drag himself off that flight, still reaching for her hand before they’d even made it through customs, she knew she’d never get used to how much it gutted her when he left.

So when he looked at her the next morning, still bleary-eyed but grinning that reckless grin, and said, “We’ve only got two days—let’s make ‘em count,” she didn’t question it. Didn’t stop him when he tossed his bag in the back of the car and pointed them east. Didn’t bother with logic when the Vegas skyline finally rose out of the desert haze, buzzing with neon like a dare.

Now here they were—outside a wedding chapel that looked like it belonged on a postcard from the seventies, the kind you’d find shoved in a thrift store bin. Willa’s boots scuffed against the sidewalk as she tugged Blake’s leather jacket tighter around her shoulders, the sleeves hanging past her fingertips. She could feel the weight of his life in the seams—sweat, smoke, stages. Somehow it felt like armor.

Her heart rattled against her ribs as she looked up at the glowing red sign: WEDDING CHAPEL. All caps. All nerve. All real.

She could still feel the hum of the road in her bones—the static buzz of gas station radios, desert heat warping the air around them, Blake’s fingers tracing invisible lyrics into her thigh at every red light. The whole drive had felt like falling in love all over again. Or maybe like refusing to fall out of it.

Willa adjusted the bouquet in her hands—half-wilted gas station roses wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. Blake had handed it to her like it was sacred, like it was enough. It was. Of course it was.

She felt his eyes on her before she turned. That look he got sometimes, like he was cataloging the moment in real time so he could play it back later. Like he couldn’t believe she was real.

She smiled, but it was crooked—half nerves, half defiance. “You sure you wanna marry a gremlin in fishnets and your jacket?” she asked, tipping her chin up at him.

Blake smirked, but didn’t answer right away. The quiet between them stretched warm and steady.

Willa looked down, shook her head slightly, then added, “I mean, I didn’t even put on real makeup. I think my eyeliner’s from, like… two shows ago.” Her thumb swept under her eye, half-joking, half-bracing.

Then she looked up again, eyes brighter, voice softer. “But if we go in there, Blake… it’s not just for the story. It’s not just because we’re running out of time again. It’s because I mean it. Like—really mean it. Okay?”

She stepped closer, dropping the sarcasm like a shield. Her fingers found his, tugging gently.

“I need you to know that. Before we do it. That I’m not just saying yes to the chaos—I’m saying yes to you.”

[Blake Maddox]

Blake didn’t smile right away.

Didn’t joke, didn’t deflect, didn’t lace it all up in some cocky one-liner the way he normally would’ve.

He just looked at her—really looked at her.

At the girl standing outside a wedding chapel in fishnets and yesterday’s eyeliner, holding half-dead roses like they were a fucking crown. At the storm that had barreled into his life years ago and never let up, only learned how to love louder. At the way her voice cracked just slightly when she said it wasn’t just about the chaos—that it was about him.

That it had always been about him.

His fingers tightened around hers.

Not hard. Just enough to say I’m here. I heard you.

Then, finally, he let out a breath—slow, wrecked, reverent.

“Willa.”

Her name landed somewhere between a prayer and a promise. He stepped forward, letting their foreheads touch, just enough for the world to fade out behind the buzzing neon and clumsy Elvis impersonators.

“You could show up in a trash bag and combat boots and I’d still walk in there like it was the goddamn Grammys,” he murmured. “But this? You, in my jacket, holding those sad-ass roses like you’re about to burn down the world? This is better than I ever imagined.”

He reached up, brushing a stray strand of orange hair from her face, fingers lingering at her jaw.

“And I know it’s not just for the story. I know it’s not just the time we’ve got or the chaos we keep choosing. I know because every time I leave you, it feels like I’m bleeding out in slow motion.”

His voice dropped, just for her.

“And every time I come back? It’s like my lungs remember how to breathe.”

A pause. Then, quieter—raw.

“So yeah. I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure of anything. Let’s go in there and do this, stormcloud. For real. For always.”

He kissed her—quick, almost shaky. Like if he didn’t, he might say too much. Or not enough.

Then he pulled back, still close, still grinning now—just barely.

“But fair warning,” he added, the smirk finally slipping back into place, “I’m 100% telling people you proposed. Just for the record.”

He tugged open the chapel door, hand still in hers.

“Ready to go make bad decisions legally binding?”

And with that, they stepped into the glow.

Two days. One city. Zero doubts.

Just Willa and Blake—louder than vows, messier than fate, and absolutely sure.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She should’ve had something clever to say.

Some snarky quip about him being a sap, or a jab about how dramatic he sounded for someone with that many neck tattoos—but all she could do was look at him.

Her fingers tightened in his instinctively, like her body had decided before her brain could catch up. Like it had already chosen him, again and again, in every version of every life.

And God, the way he said her name. Like it meant something. Like she meant something. Not just the chaos or the eyeliner or the way she never knew how to sit still. But all of it. All of her.

She blinked fast, biting down on the sudden sting behind her eyes. “Okay, rude,” she managed, her voice thick with something too big to name. “I wasn’t trying to cry in a parking lot in front of a glowing heart sign, but here we are.”

She leaned in, bumping her forehead against his with a sigh that came out shakier than she wanted.

“But if you ever tell anyone I cried,” she whispered, “I swear to God I will key something you love. Probably your guitar. Or your face.”

He laughed. That soft, breathless kind of laugh that made her stomach twist and settle at the same time.

Willa let herself memorize him there—blinking slow under neon lights, jacket collar turned up against the wind, looking at her like she was a miracle he got to keep.

And maybe she was. Maybe this was.

Her free hand slid to his chest, resting over the steady drum of his heartbeat. “Let’s do it, rockstar,” she said. “Before I chicken out and demand we do it on stage during your next tour stop.”

A beat. A grin. A spark in her throat. “You ready to marry the gremlin of your dreams?”

She didn’t wait for the answer.

Just tugged him forward by the hand that never stopped holding hers—into the warm, flickering glow of the chapel, into whatever the hell came next.

Not perfect.
Not planned.
But real.

And that was all she ever wanted.

The chapel smelled like roses, dust, and cheap cologne. Like someone had tried really hard to make it feel romantic and mostly succeeded by accident.

Willa half expected it to feel like a joke when they walked in. Neon hearts. Vinyl pew cushions. A cardboard cutout of Elvis propped near the altar, crooked in the corner like he’d had a long night and needed to sit this one out.

But it didn’t feel like a joke.

Not with Blake beside her.
Not with her hand still in his.
Not with her heart beating out a rhythm loud enough to drown out the tacky organ music.

A woman in a rhinestone blazer looked up from the desk and gave them a once-over that landed somewhere between amused and charmed. “You two the 3:15?”

Willa didn’t even remember if they were. She just nodded, breath catching somewhere in her chest, and followed Blake toward the makeshift altar like she was walking a tightrope in combat boots.

He kept stealing glances at her, like he thought she might vanish. Like she was a hallucination conjured by jet lag and caffeine and too many miles. She couldn’t blame him. She barely believed it herself.

The officiant was a man in a velvet suit with sideburns that definitely weren’t regulation, holding a script that looked older than the chapel. He started speaking—something about love, unity, cosmic connection—but Willa only half-heard it.

Because Blake hadn’t let go of her hand.
Because he was watching her like the rest of the world could fall away and he wouldn’t notice.
Because for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t running.

She was right here.
Half-smudged eyeliner.
Leather jacket too big for her shoulders.
Gas station bouquet clutched in shaking fingers.
Saying yes with her whole damn soul.

[Blake Maddox]

He didn’t even try to hide the smile.

Not the soft, crooked one he only ever wore for her. Not the one that came when she got brave in the way that mattered—when her voice cracked a little but she still stayed. When she let herself feel everything and didn’t try to laugh it off.

“Jesus, Storme,” he murmured, thumb brushing slow over her knuckles. “You could key my whole fucking guitar collection and I’d still call that the best threat I’ve ever heard.”

She’d always been the hurricane. All eyeliner and sharp edges and heat. But right now, she was the calm inside it. The stillness. The goddamn gravity of it.

And yeah—he was gone for her.

When she bumped her forehead to his, his eyes closed for half a second like he was anchoring to it. Holding on. Because this wasn’t chaos. Not really. This was her choosing him again. Not the tour. Not the stage. Not the persona.

Just him.

The real shit.

The part of him he didn’t let most people see.

And when she said “Let’s do it,” with her heart practically glowing behind her grin, he didn’t answer with words.

He kissed her temple.

Gentle. Grounded. Grateful.

Then walked with her—hand-in-hand, heartbeat-in-sync—into the dumb little chapel that smelled like cologne and sawdust and every bad decision they were about to make look holy.

The Elvis cutout stared them down as they passed, but Blake barely registered it.

All he could see was her. Leather-clad, roses shaking in her grip, eyes wide and alive like she was about to leap off a cliff and trust he’d catch her.

She didn’t need to say she was scared. He felt it.

She didn’t need to say she was sure. He saw it.

The officiant’s voice faded into static as Blake turned fully to face her, her fingers still locked in his. That dumb velvet suit and the lights above them might as well have been a stadium spotlight for all he cared.

She looked up at him like she was about to bolt and swear she wasn’t.

He squeezed her hand.

And for once, Blake Maddox didn’t feel like the guy in the headlines.

He didn’t feel like the reckless one. Or the tortured one. Or the idiot who’d almost lost her more times than he could count.

He just felt like a man saying yes.

To her.

To all of it.

He didn’t need a song for this.

Didn’t need a crowd. Or a plan. Or even a second to think.

Just her voice. Just that smirk. Just the way she was standing there like a hurricane in fishnets, daring him to love her forever.

He met her gaze. Steady. Certain.

And said the only thing that ever mattered:

“Yeah, baby. I’m ready.”

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

Her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat.

It wasn’t the words—it was the way he said them.
Low. Certain. Like he’d already made the decision a hundred times and would keep making it even if she didn’t say a damn thing back.
Like he didn’t need the vows or the witnesses or the velvet-suited officiant to make it real.

Her knees went a little weak.
Not from nerves.
From gravity.
From the weight of what this meant, standing here in gas station perfume and a borrowed jacket, with the only person who’d ever made her feel like being wild wasn’t a flaw.

Blake Maddox, frontman and firestarter, looking at her like she was the headliner.

She could still hear the organ music buzzing faint in the corners, like a knockoff wedding ringtone that didn’t quite land. She could feel the sting of sweat gathering at her spine, her hand still locked in his, bouquet wilting in her other like a metaphor she couldn’t escape.

And then—

The officiant cleared his throat.

"Do you, Willa Storme Jameson, take this man—"

She didn’t wait.

“I do.”

Blurted. Real. No hesitation, no breath in between. Like her soul had jumped the gun on her mouth.

Then she laughed—quiet and wrecked and maybe a little teary—because of course she did. Because how could she not?

She turned her face toward Blake, still grinning like she’d just won something dangerous and glittering. Like she was something dangerous and glittering.

“I do,” she said again, slower now. Steadier. Like a vow all on its own.
“To the chaos. The tour vans. The long-distance calls that always drop at the worst possible time. The morning-after hotel coffee. The come-back-to-me kisses. The way you look at me like I’m art and disaster in the same breath.”

A pause.

“To you,” she added, voice softer now. “Always to you.”

And maybe it wasn’t the most traditional answer.
Maybe she was supposed to wait until the right cue, speak when spoken to, follow the rhythm of the script.

But she was Willa.
And she’d never been one to wait her turn.

[Blake Maddox]

God.

She said it like she meant it.
Like it wasn’t just a line or a moment or a flashbulb memory to look back on later.
Like she was already his. Had been. Would be.
No matter where the road bent or how many red-eye flights they had to survive to keep finding their way back.

Her voice cracked. Just a little.

And it leveled him.

He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she laughed. That soft, half-shaky, wrecked-lovely kind of laugh that always made something settle in his chest. Like she’d dropped an anchor there without meaning to and refused to let go.

She didn’t wait for permission.
Didn’t need a cue.
Didn’t follow the rhythm. She was the rhythm.

And holy hell, did he love her for that.

His lips twitched—something between a smile and a prayer—as he watched her tear the script to shreds in that tiny chapel lit like a roadside carnival.

He felt her vow in his bones.

To the chaos.
To the long-distance.
To him.

His grip tightened around her hand, pulling her the slightest bit closer, like he could fold her into him and never let her leave again. Like her voice had rewired every part of him that had ever been broken and called it home instead.

“Jesus, Jameson,” he rasped, voice low and reverent, the kind that only came out when his throat was thick and his heart was too full to hide. “You’re gonna fucking kill me with that mouth.”

Then—because it was her, and him, and this—

He grinned.

Rough, wrecked, shining with something too sharp to name.

And without looking at the officiant, without waiting for anyone else to speak, Blake leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. Close enough to feel her breath on his lips. Close enough to let the world fall away entirely.

“I do,” he whispered. “To all of it. To you.”

A beat. Then, smirking:

“Now kiss me before I forget how to breathe, yeah?”

Because if he was going to die in a Vegas chapel in a leather jacket and eyeliner-smudged bliss?

It was gonna be with her name on his tongue.

And the rest of forever crashing down in her kiss.

She didn’t need a second invitation.

But for the half-second before her mouth found his, Blake swore the whole world stilled. No tour buses, no setlists, no screaming crowds or fading backstage lights—just her. Standing in some glorified neon shoebox off the Vegas strip, wearing his jacket and a smirk and a vow that shattered him in the best possible way.

And then she kissed him.

Not sweet. Not practiced.

Real.

Like she knew every scar behind the tattoos and didn’t flinch from any of them. Like she’d seen him with the lights off and the armor cracked, and still chose to stay.

Blake’s hands cupped her jaw instinctively, fingers slipping behind her neck like he could hold her there forever. Like the weight of his touch might say what his voice couldn’t yet. That he was hers. Entirely. Recklessly. Without a map or a plan, and sure as hell without regret.

She tasted like cheap champagne and adrenaline. Like whatever came next couldn’t scare him, not if she was in it.

The officiant cleared his throat again, mumbling something about rings and paperwork and legal witnesses, but Blake barely registered it. He pulled back just enough to look at her.

Hair messy. Eyes dangerous. Lips swollen from his.

God, he was done for.

“I think that counts as legally binding,” he muttered, thumb brushing the apple of her cheek. “Pretty sure you just ruined me for anyone else in this lifetime or the next.”

Then, grinning with that familiar brand of Maddox defiance:

“But for the record—you started it. Gremlin bride in fishnets, roses from a Chevron, and the best damn ‘I do’ I’ve ever heard.”

He reached into his back pocket, pulling out the rings they’d bought that morning from a pawn shop with a flickering OPEN sign and a guy named Larry who’d given them a “rockstar discount.”

No velvet box. No glittering tray.

Just metal. Solid. A little scuffed. Lived-in.

Like them.

He slid hers onto her finger, slow and deliberate. A vow all its own.

“I’ll never ask you to be quiet,” he said softly. “Only to stay.”

And when she looked at him like that—like he was worth staying for—he realized she already had.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She didn’t look at the officiant.
Didn’t hear the music.
Didn’t care that the chapel lights buzzed like a motel vacancy sign about to blow.

All she could see was him.

Blake Maddox, standing there like he’d never once doubted her. Like he wasn’t afraid she’d bail, or laugh it off, or make a joke to dull the edge of what they were doing.

Like he knew — had always known — she meant it. Every broken, beautiful bit of it.

She looked down at her hand. At the ring he’d just slid on her finger. Not the one she already wore — the one he gave her in Germany, tucked just off-stage in a moment no one else ever saw. That one was jagged and strange and entirely them. That one had stayed on her finger every night since, never polished, never removed.

But this ring? This was different.

Not louder. Not fancier. Just new.
A chapter on top of a memory. A “yes” on top of an “always.”
Messy. Scuffed. Alive.

She flexed her fingers once — watching the pawn shop band settle against her skin — then looked up at him again.

“You know,” she said, voice soft but steady, “I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who wore two rings from the same guy.”

She smiled — small and wild and all teeth.

“But I guess I’m not the kind of girl who does anything normal.”

Her thumb brushed over the new ring, then the old one, resting them side by side like punctuation marks in a story they’d been writing long before they ever realized it had chapters.

She reached for his hand next, the matching band waiting in her palm — cool metal, slightly uneven at the edge, like it had lived a little before it found its way to them.

Willa slid it onto his finger slowly. Not dramatic. Not careful. Certain.

“You don’t have to ask me to stay,” she whispered, fingers lingering at his wrist. “I’ve been staying. Even when I wasn’t sure how. Even when the noise got louder than the love.”

A pause. A breath.

“But this? This is me saying I’m not just showing up between cities or sneaking backstage or pretending I don’t miss you when you’re gone.”

She looked up again, fire behind her eyes.

“This is me choosing the messy version of forever. With you.”

And God, the way he looked at her then—like she’d just rewritten the laws of gravity—was enough to make her heart feel too big for her chest.

She gave him a shove. Light. Teasing. Just enough to knock the breath back into both of them.

“Now shut up and marry me again before I steal that ring back and sell it to Larry for gas money.”

She tangled her fingers with his and stepped in close, nose brushing his.

“And for the record?” she added, grin curling. “You’re mine. Legally. Spiritually. Emotionally. Spiritually again, just to be extra annoying about it.”

A beat.

“I hope you’re ready, Maddox. Because I’m gonna love you like a damn riot.”

The officiant blinked, clearly unsure if he was supposed to say something or let them keep writing their own vows from the middle of a rom-com directed by the devil.

He cleared his throat, flipping hastily through his notes.

“Well,” he muttered, mostly to himself, “that’s a first…”

Then, louder — with all the ceremonial weight a man in a rhinestone tie could muster:

“By the power vested in me by the state of Nevada, this very legal chapel, and the good lord of rock and roll—I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

There was no organ swell. No polite applause.

Just Willa.

Grinning like sin and summer and everything he’d never deserved but somehow still got.

And Blake?

Blake didn’t wait a second longer.

He kissed her again—full, reverent, a little breathless—and this time when the world blurred, it wasn’t from the lights.

It was from the way her hands fisted in his jacket like she’d never let go.
From the way the word wife hit like lightning and felt like peace.
From the sound of her laughter caught between their mouths like a promise they’d never stop chasing.

Willa Storme Jameson-Maddox.
Holy hell.

They did it.

And somehow, against all odds and time zones and chaos—

It felt exactly right.

[Blake Maddox]

Blake didn’t look at the officiant.

Didn’t register the buzzing lights or the crumpled paper in the guy’s hands. Didn’t hear the words, not really. The whole damn world could’ve been burning down outside and he wouldn’t have noticed.

Because Willa was standing in front of him.

Not just standing — choosing.

Looking at him like he was something sacred. Like he hadn’t screwed things up a thousand different ways and she hadn’t bled for every one of them. Like this wasn’t crazy or reckless or loud in all the wrong places.

Like she meant it. All of it.

And Blake? He felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him and handed him oxygen in the same breath.

She flexed her fingers — two rings now. Both his. Both hers. One from Germany, sharp and strange, like them. The other, scuffed and real, slid on beneath a Vegas sky and a vow only she could’ve spoken. And when she looked at him with that wildfire smile and said “I’ve been staying,” something in his chest cracked open.

Because she had.

In hotel rooms and green rooms and quiet corners of too-loud nights. In the silence between shows and the seconds after every fight. In every moment she could’ve left and didn’t.

She’d been staying — even when he hadn’t deserved it.

And now she was here, calling him hers with a grin full of teeth and a promise that didn’t need soft edges to be true.

God, he loved her.

He didn’t need the officiant to pronounce it. Didn’t need the state of Nevada or the rhinestones or the script.

The moment she reached for his hand and slid that second ring on, everything settled. Everything stayed.

She was right — they’d been writing this story before they even knew it had chapters. And now she was the one grabbing the pen and scribbling riot across the title page.

When she shoved him, Blake laughed under his breath, steadying himself on instinct. And when she tangled her fingers in his and stepped in close, nose brushing his, he didn’t hesitate.

He kissed her like the word wife was oxygen. Like her mouth had always been the truth. Like every version of himself that came before had been holding his breath for this.

And when the world blurred, it wasn’t the chapel lights.

It was the way she held on. The way her laugh broke between them like a secret only he got to keep. The way everything — time zones, chaos, detours, doubts — suddenly made sense.

Willa Storme Jameson-Maddox.

God help him.

They did it.

And somehow, impossibly, it felt like peace.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

The kiss hit like thunder.
Not clean. Not pretty.
Not the kind you could package up in photo albums or make PG for the relatives they weren’t inviting.

It was teeth and breath and God, yes.

It was the kind of kiss you didn’t come back from the same.

Willa didn’t pull him in — he was already there, already crashing into her like a stormfront that knew exactly where to land. But she met him. Fierce. Demanding. Hands curled in the front of his jacket, rings digging into the leather, her body tilted up and into him like she was done pretending she could exist at any distance.

The room vanished.
The lights. The cheap velvet curtains. Elvis in the corner. Gone.

Just Blake.

Just his mouth crashing into hers, like a vow he didn’t know how to say out loud. His fingers slipping through her hair, cradling the back of her skull like something precious. Like she was made of fire and he’d never stopped chasing the burn.

She kissed him like she’d die if she didn’t.

And he kissed her like she’d just saved him.

By the time they finally broke apart — flushed and breathless and still tangled in each other — the officiant was blinking behind the podium like he’d just watched something private and holy and a little profane.

Neither of them looked at him.

They just stood there for a beat longer, foreheads pressed together, trying to catch their breath.

Then came the paperwork.

It felt impossible that something so ordinary could come next. The kiss had felt like a goddamn earthquake. This — the clipboard, the ballpoint pen, the slightly crooked desk shoved off to the side — felt like an aftershock.

Willa’s hand shook just slightly as she took the pen. Not from nerves. From the way her body still hadn’t settled. From the way he was still looking at her like she was both the storm and the calm that followed it.

She filled out the top half. Name. Date.
Then paused.

Her name stared back at her in black ink.

Willa Storme Jameson.

The last time.

She stared at it longer than she meant to, chest tight and full and strange all at once. It wasn’t grief. Not exactly. Just a little ache. The kind that came with shedding a skin you’d lived in for a long time.

She glanced at Blake — who gave her the smallest nod. No rush. No pressure. Just presence.

So she signed it.

Quick. Sure.
One last flick of the pen, and the chapter closed.

She set it down gently, fingers lingering for a second too long at the edge of the paper. Like she was saying goodbye to a girl who’d fought her way here — fists up, mascara running, heart wide open — and was finally ready to become someone new.

Willa Jameson-Maddox.
Holy shit.

She stepped back, eyes meeting Blake’s again, and felt it settle deep in her bones.

Not the chaos. Not the fear. Not the adrenaline.

The peace.

The choice.

The kind of love that held steady when the world didn’t.

[Blake Maddox]

The kiss hit like thunder.

Not clean. Not pretty.

Not the kind you could bottle or tame or make polite for cameras they weren’t inviting. It was everything they’d ever been — messy, defiant, alive — crashing into the center of a chapel with velvet curtains and flickering bulbs that had no business witnessing something this real.

Blake didn’t pull her in — he was already moving, already gone. Like gravity had finally stopped pretending it wasn’t hers. He felt the sharp scrape of her rings through his jacket, the way she rose into him like she was done keeping any part of herself behind.

And God, the way she kissed.

Like she meant it. Like she’d been waiting to let the storm break.

He met her just as fierce — breath stolen, chest open, hands threading into her hair with a desperation he didn’t bother hiding. She tasted like adrenaline and laughter and the kind of vow you didn’t need words for.

And when her lips crashed into his like salvation, Blake swore the ground tilted under his boots.

The world fell away.

He didn’t see the officiant, didn’t hear whatever poor bastard might’ve tried to clear his throat. All he felt was her.

Willa. His wife.

When they finally broke apart, still breathless, still holding on like the earth might shake again if they let go too soon — Blake didn’t speak. Just let his forehead rest against hers, steadying both of them with the weight of it.

She was here.

Still.

And then came the paperwork.

Of course it did.

He watched her fingers close around the pen, that little shake in her hand saying more than she ever would. Not nerves — not really. Just the aftershock of something seismic.

She stared at her name. Long enough that he almost reached for her. But he didn’t. Not yet.

She didn’t need rescuing.

She needed witnessing.

So he just stood there, letting her have the space to grieve and grow in the same breath.

And when she signed — quick, sure, unstoppable — something swelled so hard in his chest it nearly cracked open.

Willa Jameson-Maddox.

Jesus.

He wasn’t the type to believe in fate. Had spent most of his life giving the middle finger to anything that tried to script him. But this?

This felt holy.

Like the kind of forever they’d had to fight for tooth and nail. Like the kind of love that didn’t ask you to behave — just to stay.

He met her eyes when she stepped back, and this time, he didn’t hold back.

Didn’t smirk. Didn’t joke. Didn’t say a word.

He just looked at her — at all of her — and let himself feel it.

The chaos. The calm. The ring still warm on his finger. The girl who’d just shattered every rule and stitched it back together in her name.

His wife.

And it didn’t feel like an ending.

It felt like a riot starting slow.

It felt like home.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

The night hit her like another kiss.

Heat rolling up from the pavement, neon signs buzzing overhead like they were tuned to the same frequency as her heartbeat. Vegas had a way of swallowing people whole, but tonight? Tonight it felt like the whole damn city was spitting sparks just for them.

Willa tugged Blake’s jacket tighter around her shoulders as they spilled onto the sidewalk, still hand-in-hand, rings new and glinting under streetlight glow. The smell of cheap perfume and cigarette smoke tangled with the desert air, making her grin wider. It wasn’t holy or polished. It wasn’t quiet. But hell, it was theirs.

She could still taste him. Still feel the bruising press of his mouth on hers, the way his hands had held her like he’d finally decided to stop letting go. And she couldn’t stop replaying it. The kiss. The paperwork. The look in his eyes when she scrawled out her new name for the first time.

Willa Jameson-Maddox.

Christ, it looked wild even in her head.
Like a riot and a promise.
Like something that would stick, no matter how many red-eye flights or screaming crowds tried to pull them apart.

She stopped under a sign shaped like a broken heart glowing electric pink, yanking him to a halt with her. He stumbled, laughed, and she shoved her gas station bouquet into his chest just to keep him off balance.

“You realize,” she said, voice low but sharp enough to cut through the noise, “this means you’re stuck with me. Legally. Even if I set fire to your tour bus someday.”

Blake smirked — that lazy, dangerous curve of his mouth that had ruined her years ago. He said something back, but she barely heard it.

Because all she could focus on was the way the night wrapped around them like a stage light, the way strangers hustled past without knowing they’d just witnessed the start of something feral and permanent.

She laughed, breathless and wrecked and more alive than she’d ever been. Then she grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him again, harder this time, right there on the strip with neon bleeding across their skin.

Tourists cheered. A couple of drunk guys hollered. A woman in rhinestones clapped. None of it mattered.

Because for once, the chaos wasn’t the enemy.
The chaos was the vow.
And she’d just chosen it — chosen him — loud enough to drown out the whole damn city.

When she finally pulled back, lips swollen, chest heaving, she pressed her forehead to his and whispered with a grin that cracked her wide open:

“Let’s go raise a little hell, Mr. Maddox.”

[Blake Maddox]

Blake barely caught the bouquet before it slammed into his chest — crumpled roses, crushed baby’s breath, and cellophane still sticky with whatever bargain-bin glitter the gas station had thrown on it. He looked down at it, then at her, then burst out laughing.

“Oh, this is definitely going in the house,” he said, voice already winded from trying to keep up with her. “Glass vase. Centerpiece. Wedding heirloom. We’ll pass it down to our kids and tell them their mom tackled me under a neon sign and proposed with a two-for-ten bouquet and a threat.”

He was grinning so hard it hurt.

Because God, she was beautiful like this. Wild-eyed, lips kiss-bitten, laughing like the world could burn and she’d still have the last word. And somehow — somehow — she was his.

Wife.

His wife.

Blake made a high, helpless sound in the back of his throat, the kind of sound you didn’t plan — the kind that just escaped when reality slapped you with something so good it knocked the sense out of you.

“You just married me,” he said, like he still couldn’t believe it. “You married me. Legally. On paper. That’s—do you realize how dangerous that is for both of us?”

He gestured around dramatically, nearly smacking a passing Elvis impersonator in the face with a rose stem.

“We should not be allowed to have paperwork this official.”

Then her hands were on his face again, and whatever smartass follow-up he had got swallowed whole by her mouth. The kiss hit him like a sucker punch in the ribs, and all he could do was hold on.

Tourists shouted. Someone whooped.

Blake flipped them all off behind her back without breaking the kiss.

When she pulled back — glitter smeared across her cheek, pupils blown wide, that look in her eyes like she’d already dared him to survive her — he laughed again, giddy and breathless and completely wrecked.

“You want hell?” he rasped, brushing her hair back with both hands. “Babe, I just married the storm. I’m not surviving the honeymoon, am I?”

He pressed a quick kiss to her nose, then her temple, then her lips again, because fuck it — it was Vegas and she was his wife and nothing else mattered.

“Okay, Jameson-Maddox. Let’s go set the city on fire.”

And with one arm slung around her shoulders and a stolen bouquet in the other, Blake Maddox marched down the Vegas strip like the world was theirs and always had been.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

The Strip felt like a fever dream — neon bleeding into the pavement, glitter stuck to her cheekbones, laughter spilling out of casinos like broken champagne bottles. Willa clutched his hand, the bouquet bouncing against his chest as he marched beside her like a man who’d just won a war.

Her war.

Their war.

She couldn’t stop laughing. Couldn’t stop kissing him every three steps, either — sometimes quick and sharp, sometimes slow enough to draw whistles from strangers who passed. She heard phones snapping pictures, saw flashes in her periphery, but none of it mattered. Let them take their shots. Let them guess.

For once, she didn’t care. She was his wife.

She looped both arms around his neck as they paused beneath a blinking neon martini glass sign, roses crushed between them, petals falling onto the sidewalk. “Careful,” she murmured, breath hot against his mouth, “you’re gonna make me believe in all this.”

“All what?” His grin was reckless, teeth sharp, eyes softer than she deserved.

“This—” She shoved a rose stem against his chest until a thorn snagged his shirt. “The city. The lights. The way you keep looking at me like I didn’t just marry you in combat boots and smudged eyeliner.”

Blake’s laugh cracked out of him, low and rough, and he kissed her again just to shut her up. She let him — mostly. Until she broke away, grabbed his hand, and tugged him into the throng.

They cut across the street against the light, traffic blaring. Willa stuck her tongue out at a cab driver who honked. Blake flipped him off with the bouquet still in his hand, roses wobbling like a banner.

They ducked into a casino just long enough for her to perch on a slot machine stool and wedge a rose in her teeth like a tango dancer, earning catcalls from a drunk bachelorette party two machines over. Blake played along — dropped a coin, pulled the lever, kissed her neck when the reels spun and lost. “Rigged,” he muttered, and she laughed so hard she almost fell off the stool.

By the time they stumbled back onto the sidewalk, her boots scuffed raw, his eyeliner smudged worse than hers, the bouquet looked like it had survived a bar fight. But Blake still held onto it like it was holy.

Her ribs ached from laughing. Her lips ached from kissing. Her whole body buzzed with the certainty that she’d never forget tonight.

Not because of the chapel.
Not because of the paperwork.
But because of this — the Strip at their feet, chaos at their backs, the world gawking and them not giving a single damn.

Willa Jameson-Maddox tilted her face up to the neon sky, the roses still crumpled in his fist, and grinned.

“God help Vegas,” she said, tugging him closer. “We’re just getting started.”

[Blake Maddox]

Blake’s grin was a slow, feral thing — the kind that came from deep in his chest and lit up his whole damn face like the Strip itself was plugged into him.

“Vegas doesn’t stand a chance,” he said, voice rough with glee, dragging her in by the waistband of her dress until they were chest-to-chest again. “Neither do those roses. Or my shirt. Or any poor bastard who looks at you too long.”

She was electric. Sweaty. Glowing. Laughing like the night was bending to her will.

And Blake?

Blake was ruined.

Ruined and grinning and entirely gone.

He dipped his head and brushed his mouth against hers, not quite kissing her — just hovering there, lips grazing skin like a fuse right before it lit. “You believe in it yet?” he asked, breath warm, thumb rubbing circles at her hip. “The city. The lights. The idiot who just married you under a flickering Elvis sign.”

She rolled her eyes, but her fingers curled tighter in the front of his shirt.

Blake didn’t wait for an answer. He kissed her like he already knew it.

And when they pulled apart, her hair tangled, her lipstick wrecked, his heart still pounding like it wanted to crawl out of his ribs — he looked around at the Strip blazing in every direction and shook his head like he still couldn’t believe they’d done it.

“You’re stuck with me now, Jameson-Maddox,” he said, holding up the bouquet like a crown. “Bouquet’s dead. I’m unhinged. You’re wearing my ring. Legally. No takebacks.”

He tossed the mangled roses into the air like confetti and caught her around the waist when she laughed.

Then he kissed her again — right there under the neon martini glass, in the middle of the sidewalk, with tourists cheering and Vegas buzzing like the wires couldn’t handle what they’d just unleashed.

And when he finally pulled back, eyes blown wide with awe and fire, he whispered against her mouth:

“God help Vegas?”
He smirked.
“Babe, we just married the storm.”

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She laughed so hard her ribs hurt, head tipped back against the glow of the martini glass sign, throat raw from joy instead of smoke.

“Married the storm?” she shot back, eyes glinting. “You married the hurricane, Maddox.”

And before he could answer, she jumped.

No warning. No build-up. Just pure muscle memory — hurling herself at him like her body trusted his more than the ground. Her boots left the sidewalk, her dress hitching up her thighs, and her arms looped tight around his neck.

Blake grunted, staggered back a step, and caught her anyway. Of course he did. Big hands locked at her thighs, leather jacket sliding against bare skin, bouquet already forgotten in the gutter.

“You’re insane,” he rasped, eyes wild, grin splitting his face like it might never stop.

“Your problem now,” she shot back, forehead pressed to his. Her laugh was breathless, shaking against his mouth. “Legally binding, remember?”

She kissed him before he could answer. Hard. Sloppy. Perfect. Her thighs tightened around his hips, her fingers digging into the back of his hair, pulling him closer like even Vegas neon wasn’t loud enough to compete with the noise in her chest.

The city roared around them — traffic, tourists, cheers from somewhere behind them — but none of it mattered. Not when his heart was thundering under her palms. Not when his breath stuttered against her lips. Not when he was looking at her like she was the riot and the rescue all at once.

He spun her once — reckless, dizzy — before setting her back down on her boots, his grip lingering at her waist as though letting go wasn’t an option.

She was still laughing when she leaned up to bite at his jaw, her voice half a growl, half a vow.

“C’mon, husband,” she said, tugging him back into the Strip with all the subtlety of a wildfire. “Let’s go see how much trouble Vegas can actually handle.”

And with Blake’s arm locked tight around her, the bouquet left behind in the gutter, and the city blazing wide open in front of them — Willa Jameson-Maddox didn’t just believe in it.

She was ready to burn it down.

They didn’t make it far before the neon pulled them into a trap.
A souvenir shop — fluorescent, overstuffed, reeking faintly of plastic and bad air conditioning.

Willa skidded to a stop just inside, tugging Blake with her until the chime over the door gave a half-dead jingle. Rows of shot glasses, sequined keychains, plastic Elvis bobbleheads grinned down from every shelf. The place was a shrine to everything cheap and gaudy, and somehow it felt exactly right.

She twisted out of his grip, eyes dancing. “Alright, Maddox. Five minutes. Pick something out. Don’t tell me what it is.”

Blake arched a brow, smirk already curling, but he didn’t argue. He just gave her that look — the one that said you’re out of your mind and I’m following you anyway — before stalking off toward the back wall of t-shirts.

She spun the other way, weaving through a rack of rhinestoned fanny packs and miniature dice clocks, grinning to herself.

The absurdity of it made her giddy. Married in a neon chapel, signing her name into forever with a ballpoint pen, and now? Hunting for the perfect piece of trash to hand him like it was treasure.

She passed shelves stacked with glitter mugs, glow-in-the-dark decks of cards, shot glasses that read What Happens in Vegas. Her fingers trailed over them all, but none felt right. None felt him.

Then she saw it.

Tucked low on a carousel stand, almost hidden between racks of plastic wedding veils and novelty cufflinks.

A lighter.
Cheap. Chrome scratched to hell. But etched on one side in bold red letters: HOTTER THAN HELL.

She laughed under her breath, sharp and delighted. Picked it up, flipped the cap, sparked it just once. The flame flared small and stubborn in her hand, and she pictured him with it immediately — thumbing it open absentmindedly backstage, sliding it into his pocket, carrying it until it wore down to nothing.

Perfect.

She snapped it shut, grin feral as she turned to track him down.

Whatever Blake Maddox thought he was about to surprise her with, Willa Jameson-Maddox was ready to win this round.

[Blake Maddox]

Blake was crouched near the sunglasses rack like he was casing the place for a heist, one hand braced on his knee, the other holding up a pair of gold shutter shades shaped like dollar signs. He was squinting at them like they were ancient runes.

He didn’t hear her at first. Too focused. Too deep in the chaos of decisions. He’d already rejected a foam cowboy hat, a glitter flask, and a pair of furry dice that looked like they might actually give you rabies.

But then he felt her.

Willa, back at his side like gravity had remembered its job. He didn’t need to look — he knew that grin. Knew the heat in her eyes when she thought she was winning.

Blake slowly stood, tucked something behind his back, and gave her that crooked smile that had ruined stages and relationships and probably a few fire codes.

“You first,” he said, voice still wrecked from laughter and kissing and vows spoken like dares.

She held up the lighter.

His whole face lit.

“Oh, baby,” he said, low and reverent, taking it like she’d just handed him Excalibur. He thumbed it open. Click. Flame. “Tell me this isn’t exactly what I’d keep in my bass case next to the duct tape and half a granola bar.”

“It is,” she said, smug. “You’re welcome. And now you’re obligated to carry it forever.”

“I already carry you,” he shot back, voice softer, almost an afterthought — but it landed hard anyway.

Then he pulled his hand from behind his back, revealing a tiny, ridiculous plush Elvis dressed in black leather, arms spread wide like he was mid-pelvis thrust.

Willa snorted so hard she wheezed.

“He’s wearing eyeliner,” she gasped.

“I bonded with him,” Blake said solemnly. “Felt seen.”

They traded the goods at the register like it was a black-market exchange — lighter for plush Elvis, smirks for smirks, breathless laughter the only currency that mattered. The cashier didn’t blink, didn’t care, just bagged their chaos with all the ceremony of a hungover saint.

Back on the sidewalk, Willa stuffed Elvis into Blake’s jacket pocket so his tiny head peeked out like a tour mascot. Blake tucked the lighter into his jeans, then caught her hand again, twined their fingers like he was afraid she’d float off without him.

“Alright, hurricane,” he murmured, tugging her back into motion. “We’ve got sin to commit and legends to become.”

And just like that, the Strip swallowed them whole — chrome lighter and plush Elvis and all — two rings gleaming under the buzz of a thousand broken stars.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

By the time they made it to the hotel, Willa’s cheeks hurt from grinning. Her lipstick was gone, her boots were wrecked, and Elvis was still riding shotgun in Blake’s jacket pocket like he’d been promoted to best man after the fact.

The elevator ride was a blur — some drunk in a feather boa tried to get in on the twentieth floor, saw Blake’s glare, and thought better of it. Willa was too busy laughing into his shoulder to care.

Then the doors opened, and there it was: their suite.

Honeymoon, according to the brass plaque bolted to the door like the hotel was trying too hard. The keycard beeped, and Blake shoved it open with his hip, tugging her inside before the lights even warmed up.

It was gaudy in the way only Vegas could get away with. Heart-shaped bed with mirrored posts. Champagne bucket sweating by the window. Curtains the color of molten gold. A shag rug so loud it might’ve been screaming.

Willa stopped just inside, hands on her hips, taking it all in. “Jesus,” she muttered. “It looks like Liberace exploded.”

Blake’s laugh was low, chest against her back, arms circling her waist before she could escape. He dropped his chin onto her shoulder like he belonged there. Maybe he did.

She felt the weight of the rings again, both of them pressing against her skin like promises. The old one from Germany. The new one from Vegas. Together, they felt permanent. Solid. Hers.

And when she glanced at their reflections in the ridiculous mirror — his jaw against her temple, his hands at her stomach, her grin sharp enough to cut glass — something in her settled.

She dropped Elvis onto the nightstand, where he slumped sideways like he’d had too much champagne. The lighter clinked down beside him. Little tokens of a night too big to hold.

Then she turned in Blake’s arms, palms flat to his chest, eyes lifting slow and sure.

“Congratulations, Maddox,” she said softly, leaning in until her breath brushed his mouth. “You just married a riot.”

Her grin broke wide, wild, unstoppable.

“And now…” She shoved him lightly toward the bed, her laugh spilling out as she followed. “Let’s see if this honeymoon suite survives us.”

[Blake Maddox]

Blake’s grin was immediate — slow, crooked, and entirely unrepentant.

He staggered back a step as she pushed him, arms raised like he was being held at gunpoint by joy itself. “Alright, alright,” he said, jacket already halfway off, Elvis tumbling out of the pocket and landing face-down on the shag like he knew better than to watch.

“You realize,” Blake added, voice rasping through his smile as he kicked off his boots, “this rug’s gonna give me nightmares.”

Willa cackled, already half on the bed, sprawled across the heart-shaped monstrosity like it was her throne. The lighting caught her just right — cheeks flushed, hair wild, that ring glinting on her finger like it had always been there.

Blake just looked at her.

His wife.

His goddamn wife.

“I married a riot,” he echoed, slower now, walking toward the bed like the whole world had gone quiet except for her laugh and the faint hum of city light leaking through the curtains. “And I’d do it again. With worse odds. Louder shoes. Fewer witnesses.”

He leaned over her, hands braced on either side of her hips, grin still burning. “But just so we’re clear—” He dipped down, brushing his mouth against her jaw, then lower, chasing that grin with his own. “This honeymoon suite? Doesn’t stand a chance.”

And when Willa laughed again — that deep, full-body kind of laugh that made the whole night feel real — Blake didn’t just fall with her into the pillows.

He leapt.

No hesitation. No script. No filter.

Just love, loud and sharp and stupid with joy.

Exactly the way it was supposed to be.

He kissed her.

Not rushed. Not showy. Just… real.

The kind of kiss that didn’t need permission, because it was already built into the way his hands cupped her jaw. The way his thumb brushed her cheek like he was memorizing it. The way everything about her — the grin, the gold, the goddamn glitter still stuck to her collarbone — made sense against his mouth.

Blake breathed her in like it was the first time. Like he hadn’t already kissed her a hundred times tonight in the chapel and under streetlights and next to slot machines that ate their money with a whine.

But this one was different.

This one wasn’t chaos. It wasn’t neon. It wasn’t wild.

It was slow. Intentional. Built from every inch of knowing her — the temper, the fight, the softness she tried to hide. It tasted like the kind of forever he’d never believed in until she slammed into his life like a goddamn meteor.

And when he finally pulled back, barely, just enough to rest his forehead against hers, his voice dropped quiet:

“I’m not going anywhere, Willa.”

Then he kissed her again.

Because now he could. Because now she was his.

And God, it felt like breathing.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She kissed him back.

Slow. Intentional. The kind of kiss that stripped away all the neon noise, all the adrenaline and laughter, until it was just them. Her palms framed his jaw, her thumbs dragging along the stubble she loved too much to admit, her mouth moving against his with the certainty of someone who’d already decided.

Not chaos. Not frenzy.
Just love, steady and deep, the kind she didn’t know how to bottle even if she wanted to.

When she pulled back, it wasn’t because she wanted to stop. It was because she had something to say. Something that needed breath behind it.

Her lips brushed his bottom one, teeth catching there just enough to make him groan — rough, low, wrecked — before she finally let him go. The sound shivered down her spine, sharp and dangerous, and God, she liked leaving him that undone.

“Don’t get cocky, Maddox,” she murmured, voice all grin and gravity at once. “Marriage doesn’t mean I’m gonna make it easy on you.”

His laugh was ruined, gravel low, but he didn’t reach for her again. He let her move.

So she did.

She sat up, tugging at the zippers of her boots. Each thunk to the carpet sounded like a drumbeat, heavy and final, until she was bare-footed except for the fishnets clinging to her skin. Still hers. Still wild. Still not playing anyone else’s version of a bride.

She stood, crossed the suite with a sway in her hips, and pulled the champagne from its sweating bucket by the window. The cork popped easy, fizz spilling over the lip like the night couldn’t contain itself either.

Two glasses poured. One for her, one for him.

The city sprawled outside — neon humming, cars streaking along the Strip, Vegas breathing like it knew exactly what had just happened inside that chapel.

She lingered at the window for just a second, glass cool in her palm, soaking it all in. The rings on her finger caught the reflection, twin glints of gold and promise against the glass.

Willa Jameson-Maddox.
Wife. Riot. Hurricane. Still her, still his.

She turned, champagne in both hands, and walked back to the bed where Blake was waiting.

Her grin curved sharp as she held one out. “Here,” she said, voice soft but unshakable. “To the storm we just married.”

[Blake Maddox]

Blake took the glass with a crooked grin, eyes flicking from her mouth to her bare feet to the rings she wore like brass knuckles.

“To the storm we just married,” she’d said — like she hadn’t just rewritten the forecast of his entire life with that one sentence and a look that could floor him faster than any vow.

He tilted the flute toward hers and clinked it, soft but deliberate, his gaze never leaving her. “To the best bad idea I’ve ever had,” he said, voice warm with awe and whiskey, threaded with that signature rasp that always gave him away. “And the only woman who could make a honeymoon suite with a heart-shaped bed look like a crime scene waiting to happen.”

He sipped, slow, and set the glass on the nightstand next to the slumped Elvis and the scratched chrome lighter she’d chosen like it already belonged to him. His eyes didn’t leave her — not even for a second. The grin on his mouth curved like a challenge, but his expression? That was something else entirely. Something wrecked and reverent.

She was barefoot in fishnets, hair half-wrecked, cheeks flushed, eyes dangerous.

And somehow, she looked more like a bride than anyone he’d ever seen.

“Jesus, Willa,” he muttered, head shaking slow, that same grin softening into something undone. “You look like the devil signed your marriage license and handed you the pen with a wink.”

He reached for her — not rushed, not rough, just sure — his fingers catching the hem of her dress where it skimmed her thighs. The fabric bunched in his hand, cool and familiar, and he tugged her toward him like he didn’t know how to stop. Like every instinct in him had already rewritten itself to follow her.

“C’mere, Mrs. Maddox,” he said, voice low and full of something she’d put there. “Before this suite gets cold and I forget that I’m the lucky bastard who gets to ruin it with you.”

And he kissed her again.

This one wasn’t careful.

It was slow, yes — but it was claiming, too. Deep and messy and all tongue and teeth and heat, his hands framing her face like she was something holy and furious, like he wanted to memorize the taste of her vows all over again.

She leaned into him with a growl of a laugh against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound like oxygen.

The city was still sprawled out beyond the window, still humming neon and sin, but Blake didn’t see it. Didn’t care.

Because Willa Jameson-Maddox was standing in front of him in ripped fishnets and a grin sharp enough to start fires — and he was never letting her go.

Not tonight.
Not ever.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

The champagne was sharp on her tongue, bubbles snapping like sparks as she tipped the glass back. Sweet, fizzy, reckless — the perfect drink for a night like this.

She didn’t get more than a few swallows down before he had her again.

Blake’s hand slid higher on her thigh, tugging her in like she’d never been anywhere else but here. His mouth crashed into hers — slow, deep, certain — and the glass slipped right out of her hand.

She heard it thud against the shag carpet, fizz bleeding out over fibers that had probably seen worse sins than this. She didn’t care. Not when his tongue stroked hers like it was a vow, not when his thumb brushed her cheek as though he was steadying himself with her face alone.

Her laugh broke against his mouth, muffled, dangerous. “God, you don’t play fair,” she whispered, biting at his bottom lip before she let him have it back. He groaned — low, guttural, wrecked — the sound vibrating through her bones like a bassline.

She loved that sound. Loved that she was the one who could drag it out of him.

The hem of her dress was already bunched in his fist, his rings scraping lightly against the fishnets stretched over her thighs. Every pull of his hand felt like a promise. Every breath against her mouth felt like confession.

She was so close to saying rip them. To daring him. To letting the night devour them whole.

Instead, she pushed back for just a second, grinning, flushed, lips swollen. “Careful, Maddox,” she rasped, voice shaking but steady all at once. “These fishnets don’t stand a chance.”

Her boots were long gone, her pulse was wild, and the city might as well have stopped outside.

Because she was here.
With him.
Ready to burn the night down piece by piece.

[Blake Maddox]

Blake’s breath caught on a laugh, sharp and rough at the edges. “Then maybe they shouldn’t,” he said, voice like gravel and sin, his grin flashing wicked and reverent all at once.

One hand curved around her jaw, thumb brushing her bottom lip — swollen from his kiss, still slick from champagne. The other didn’t budge from her thigh, knuckles dragging up the inside with just enough pressure to make her knees threaten mutiny.

“You think I give a damn about fishnets?” he muttered, mouth brushing her cheek, her temple, her jaw. “You could walk in here wearing crime scene tape and I’d still find a way to get on my knees.”

His voice was lower now, reverent in its ruin. Like a prayer disguised as a dare.

He pressed her back toward the bed — slow, coaxing, like he was giving her the choice even though they both knew it wasn’t really up for debate. Her calves hit the edge, and his hand splayed across her back, steadying her as she dropped onto the mattress in a sprawl of limbs and laughter and hunger.

Blake just looked at her for a second.

Lit by the neon bleed through the window, dress bunched around her hips, fishnets spidering against her thighs, cheeks pink and pupils blown wide — she looked like the punchline to a song he hadn’t finished writing yet. Like sin wrapped in silk and something too tender to name.

“You,” he said hoarsely, running a hand through his hair, rings glinting. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

Then he crawled over her like he meant it.

His mouth found her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder where a strap had fallen out of place. Every kiss was a promise she could feel. Every scrape of stubble a confession he couldn’t voice.

And Willa?

Willa arched into him, head thrown back, laughter spilling from her lips even as her hands fisted the front of his shirt.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she gasped, and tugged him down with her.

If Vegas had a god, it wasn’t listening tonight.

And if those fishnets survived — they’d write a hymn in their honor.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

His mouth on her throat was fire. Slow drags of lips and teeth against skin he already knew better than anyone, leaving her breathless in the way that wasn’t panic but hunger. Every kiss he pressed to her collarbone felt like he was signing something permanent, and every scrape of stubble was a reminder that this wasn’t a dream, wasn’t neon fever.

This was him. Her husband.

Her fingers slipped up into his hair, tugging just hard enough to drag another groan out of him. God, she loved that sound. It vibrated against her pulse when his mouth hit the spot just below her ear, wrecked and reverent, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing into the ceiling.

“You’re easy to kill, Maddox,” she teased, voice low and rough, nails dragging across his scalp before sliding down the back of his neck. “Guess it’s a good thing you married me.”

He muttered something against her skin — half curse, half prayer — and bit at her shoulder, and her whole body arched up into him.

“Fuck,” she hissed, the word catching on a laugh, her lips grazing his temple. “Do that again and these fishnets really won’t stand a chance.”

His hand was already sliding higher, fingers ghosting against lace, against heat, against the lines of her legs still caught in that black webbing. She knew she should stop teasing, but hell, she never had. Not with him. Not when she had him like this — ruined and grinning and hers.

So instead of biting his lip like she always did, she angled her head and caught the side of his throat instead. Slow at first — tasting salt and champagne and him — then harder, teeth catching just enough to make him groan into her shoulder.

The sound shot straight through her, left her buzzing, left her aching.

She pulled back to look at him — hair mussed, pupils blown, rings catching light as he braced himself above her. He looked like the end of the world and the start of something better.

Her hand slid down his chest, hooked into his shirt, tugging him closer.

“Ruin me, Maddox,” she whispered, voice shaking with heat and certainty. “I dare you.”

And the grin that broke over his face then — wrecked, reverent, wicked — told her she’d just lit the fuse.

[Blake Maddox]

She said ruin me, and it hit him like gasoline over an open flame — all spark, no warning.

Blake didn’t smile. Not really. Not in the way people expected when they heard the word grin. What curved over his mouth was darker, deeper — reverent like a hymn, wicked like a storm rolling in too fast to name. Because this? Her, breathless and burning beneath him? This was church. This was wildfire. This was everything he’d ever chased with a guitar string and a broken compass and still never found until her.

His fingers tightened in the fabric beside her hip — an anchor, a prayer, maybe just the last bit of control he had left. God, he could drown in her. And what a way to go.

“You think I won’t?” he whispered, voice roughened from the inside out. “You think I won’t take you apart just to learn how to put you back together?”

His mouth found hers again — slower this time, deeper, like a vow carved into smoke. Like he was tasting the future and the past in the same breath. She tasted like defiance and promise. Like every late-night dare they ever made and every sunrise they never meant to sleep through.

Blake kissed her like it meant something. Because it did.

Because this wasn’t neon fever. Wasn’t adrenaline and eyeliner and running on borrowed time.

This was his wife.

His.

And if she lit the fuse — well, he’d always been the explosion waiting to happen.

So he moved like it. Careful, then not. Devotion braided into every drag of his mouth against her pulse, every press of his hand mapping lace and skin and the parts of her only he knew how to touch like that.

He pulled back just enough to look at her — truly look — the way a musician studies a melody they already know by heart but want to play better this time. Always better. Always more.

“Don’t say dare,” he murmured, voice low and edged with thunder. “You know I don’t back down.”

And then he kissed her again — ruinous, reverent, and right on time.

It was the way she looked at him that undid him most.

Like she already knew he was wrecked. Like she liked him that way.

Her hand on his chest had set something off, but it wasn’t just want — it was that deep, bone-level ache he only ever got when she looked at him like that. Like she trusted him with all of it. Like the damage was part of the design.

His breath caught as her fingers curled into his shirt. She didn’t say another word — didn’t have to — but every heartbeat between them was screaming now now now. And Blake? He’d never been good at patience when it came to her.

God, he remembered the first time he touched her like this. The way she arched into him, already knowing exactly how far she could push, how deep she could pull. It had been chaos then — fast, hot, wild. But now?

Now it was intentional.

Now she was his wife.

That truth hit him square in the chest — like a song that finally makes sense after the chorus has been sung a hundred times. Like lightning striking the same place on purpose.

He didn’t rush. Not this time.

His hands moved slow, reverent. Mapping every line of her with the kind of certainty that came from memorization. Her legs wrapped in fishnet, the way her breath hitched when his palm brushed the soft inside of her thigh, the heat of her skin beneath the lace — it was all familiar and still completely devastating.

He kissed her again. Not because he needed to, but because he could.

Because there was no one watching. No cameras. No countdown.

Just her. Just him. And the kind of silence that wrapped around them like velvet — heavy, rich, filled with tension and promise.

Blake let his forehead rest against hers for a beat. He could feel her breath against his lips, fast and warm, synced to the thrum beneath his ribs. His thumb dragged slowly along her jaw, and he felt her lean into it.

She was the slow burn. The late-night melody. The match he struck just to feel something, and the reason he didn’t need to anymore.

And fuck if he wasn’t already gone for her.

But he wanted to do this right.

He wanted to make her feel it for days.

He wanted to leave no doubt that he didn’t just love her — he chose her. Every second. Every breath.

And tonight, he’d show her the difference.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

God, the way he looked at her.

Like she was both the match and the inferno. Like he’d been waiting his whole life for her to strike.

Her pulse was a drum in her throat, beating hard against every kiss he laid down her skin. Every drag of his mouth was slow, deliberate, the kind of worship she wasn’t used to. She should’ve made a joke, thrown gasoline on it just to keep him off-balance, but she couldn’t. Not when he was looking at her like that.

Like she wasn’t chaos at all. Like she was home.

Her hands slid under his shirt, palms hot against the muscles of his stomach, nails scratching just enough to make him hiss. She grinned, breathless, chasing the sound with her mouth against his jaw, then lower — the sharp curve of his neck where she knew he was weakest.

Her teeth grazed, lips dragging, and when his groan spilled out into the space between them, she laughed low against his skin. “Don’t pretend you don’t love it,” she whispered, voice cracked with want.

She wanted to savor this. To memorize it. To match him, stroke for stroke, kiss for kiss, devotion for devotion. But she also wanted to burn. To leave him marked in ways fishnets couldn’t cover.

So she gave him both.

Her mouth found his again, slower this time, deeper, like she was swallowing him whole. Her hips lifted to meet the weight of him pressing her into the mattress, every shift of lace and skin against him sparking brighter.

She broke the kiss only long enough to breathe, forehead pressed to his, their lips still brushing. “You’re right,” she gasped, fingers curling in his shirt until the fabric strained. “I shouldn’t dare you.”

Her grin was feral, but her voice was steady, reverent. “Because I want you to. Every way you can think of. Make it spectacular, Maddox. Make it ours.”

Her hand slid down to the hem of her dress, pushing it higher, exposing more of the fishnet stretched over her thighs. She arched into him deliberately, daring without words, adding fuel to the fire with every movement.

This wasn’t just chaos anymore.
This was intention.
This was forever.

And tonight, she was ready to let him prove it.

[Blake Maddox]

God, she was gravity.

Every part of her pulling him in, anchoring him to this moment like it was the only one that had ever mattered. The world could’ve burned around them and he wouldn’t have noticed — not with her looking at him like that. Not with her breath catching like she’d been waiting her whole life for this version of him. Not with her body curled into his like they’d been built to break and rebuild each other.

His hands slid over her like memory. Not new, not hesitant — known. He’d traced these curves in a dozen lifetimes already, but tonight felt like the first time they meant forever. Like her skin had rewritten the map of his life and left no room for return.

When she arched into him, when she grinned like sin and dared him with that voice, something primal in him snapped loose — not wild, not reckless — certain. Like a storm finally allowed to land.

He kissed her like he was drowning and she was air. Like every breath between them was sacred. Like if he did this right — slow, sure, hers — the world might finally make sense.

His fingers found the edge of the fishnet, the silk of her dress, the heat beneath it all — and he didn’t rush. He never would. Not with her. She deserved the build, the ache, the way the world tilted and held its breath just for them.

She said make it ours — and he would.

Every kiss, every touch, every reverent drag of his mouth along her throat was a vow he couldn’t speak aloud. She’d dared him to ruin her — but she didn’t know.

He already was.

Not because she was fragile — God, no. She was wildfire wrapped in velvet. But because she made him want too much. More than he’d ever let himself want before.

So he gave her everything: hands like thunder, breath like prayer, devotion stitched between every beat of his heart.

This wasn’t heat anymore.

This was home.

And tonight, he was going to burn with her.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She felt it.

Not just his hands or his mouth — not just the slow, delicious drag of skin and silk and stubble — but him.

All of him.

The way his breath hitched when she moved just right, the way his fingers trembled even as they steadied her. The way he held her like this wasn’t about taking — like it was about staying.

And God, she could’ve drowned in it.

But not yet.

Not until she got her hands on him the way she’d wanted to since the second they stepped into this ridiculous, velvet-drenched honeymoon suite.

Her fingers curled into the hem of his shirt, dragging it up slowly, deliberately — not to tease, but to feel. She wanted to touch the man she’d married. Wanted her palms on his skin, warm and solid and already hers.

He sat up just enough to let her pull it off.

And then it was gone — the barrier, the weight, the last scrap of fabric that kept her from pressing every inch of herself to him without apology.

She tossed the shirt aside without looking, without caring.

Her hands flattened against his chest, fingers splaying wide like she needed to memorize the way his heartbeat felt under her touch. He was burning up, skin hot, chest rising fast, and still — still — he looked at her like she was the one undoing him.

“God, Blake,” she breathed, more breath than words, lips brushing his collarbone, her voice caught somewhere between wonder and want.

She leaned in, kissed the curve of his neck — slow and lush — and smiled when he swore under his breath.

She loved him like this.

Undone. Still trying to hold back, even now. Still savoring her like she was something precious.

But this was her, too.

She could be slow. She could be sacred.
She could match him kiss for kiss, touch for touch — fuel for fire.

Her thumbs brushed his ribs, her lips trailing down the center of his chest. She wanted to worship him the way he worshipped her. Not with restraint, but with intention.

Because he wasn’t just hers.

He was Blake.

And he was everything.

She looked up from beneath her lashes, eyes catching his in the low light, her voice velvet and low and dangerously certain.

“This is ours,” she said, fingers still roaming, reverent and hungry. “And I’m gonna make you feel it.”

Then she pulled him back down to her like gravity had just remembered who it belonged to.

[Blake Maddox]

She pulled him down like gravity had made a choice — and God, maybe it had. Maybe he was always meant to fall into her.

Because this? This wasn’t just touch.

This was tether.

The second their skin met again, Blake felt it in his ribs — like his bones had been hollow until she pressed herself against him, filled every space with heat and heartbeat and the kind of closeness that made a man believe in permanence. Her hands were warm and sure, mapping the length of his chest like she was rewriting the lines of a story she already knew by heart.

He didn’t speak.

He couldn’t. Not when every inch of her was singing against him — every shift of her hips, every brush of her lips, every breath that ghosted over his collarbone like a promise. She moved like a slow-burning comet — all fire and pull and impossible beauty — and he was just the sky she chose to streak across.

She’d said this was theirs.

And it was.

Because no one else ever touched him like this — not with hunger, not with heat, but with knowing. With reverence. Like she wasn’t just unbuttoning him, she was unmaking him. On purpose. With care.

Her mouth found the curve of his shoulder and lingered, and he felt her smile there — felt the curl of it like a match head against his skin.

Blake’s hands slid down her waist, finding the edge of her dress, fingers catching on lace and fishnet and the last fragile barrier between them. He didn’t rip — he didn’t rush — he just moved like he had all the time in the world to savor this, because he did.

She was his.

And she wanted to feel it.

So he gave her everything.

Every kiss like a vow. Every breath like a hymn. Every movement like he was trying to memorize what it meant to be loved this way — fully, fiercely, without apology.

Because she wasn’t just a flame.

She was the whole damn fire.

And he wasn’t afraid to burn.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

Willa didn’t breathe.

Not really. Not when his hands slid along her sides like they belonged there. Not when his mouth traced heat along her jaw and down the hollow of her throat. Not when his fingers reached the hem of her dress and stilled — reverent, like even undressing her was sacred.

Because it was.

This wasn’t rushed. Wasn’t wild.

This was slow worship in the shape of undressing.

He peeled the fabric up her body inch by inch, knuckles brushing her skin like he was trying to memorize the shape of her — and she let him. She let him see her. Let him look.

Eyes half-lidded, lips parted, chest rising in time with the beat of something heavy and holy inside her.

Her arms lifted, the dress sliding over her head, leaving her in nothing but the wreckage of fishnets and heat. She expected his hands next — rough, eager — but no, Blake Maddox kissed her again.

Soft. Sure. Ruinous.

She exhaled against his mouth, eyes fluttering closed as he kissed his way down her neck, her collarbone, her ribs. Her hands knotted in the bedding as his fingers slid over the curve of her hip and down the backs of her thighs.

And then he reached the fishnets.

She felt the tension shift in his shoulders. The pause. The decision.

But he didn’t tear them. Didn’t rush. He slipped them down slow, careful — rolling them off like something precious, like even the ruin of her deserved to be unwrapped like a gift.

Willa’s breath hitched. Not from nerves. From the weight of it. The care in it. The intimacy.

She looked at him then — really looked — and found him staring at her like he was unraveling, and didn’t mind one damn bit.

Her hand found the waistband of his pants, and she didn’t ask permission. She didn’t need to.

She undid the button, slow and deliberate, eyes never leaving his. There was power in it — not just lust, but love. That deep, searing knowledge that this wasn’t about taking. This was about giving. About choosing.

Her palm pressed flat to his abdomen as she slid the zipper down, her voice barely above a breath:

“Your turn.”

And God, the way he looked at her — like she was gravity and gospel and every sin he’d ever wanted to confess — that alone could’ve undone her.

But she wasn’t done.
Not yet.

She wanted to feel all of him.

Wanted to hold this night in her skin for days.

And as he stepped out of what little was left between them, she reached for him again — hands on his hips, mouth already chasing his, her body flushed and bare and braver than she’d ever been.

This was theirs.

Not just the marriage. Not just the night.

The ache. The tenderness. The heat.

All of it.

[Blake Maddox]

God help him, he’d never seen anything more devastating.

Willa — flushed, fierce, and unflinching — with her hands on his hips and that look in her eyes like she already knew how this would ruin him. Not break him. Not destroy. Reshape. Like heat to glass. Like fire to iron. And he was letting her.

No — begging her.

She said, “Your turn,” and he swore something inside him bowed to it. Not because she demanded. Because she invited. Because she said it with her palms and her breath and her whole damn heart.

He stepped free of what remained between them, the last barrier slipping to the floor unnoticed. And when she reached for him again — mouth hungry, fingers searing — he didn’t resist.

He gave.

Everything.

Blake lowered himself with a reverence that didn’t need words. His hands slid up the length of her thighs like tide returning to shore — inevitable and pulled by something deeper than gravity. Her skin was warm and taut beneath his palms, muscle twitching at the gentlest pass of his fingers. God, she was already trembling for him.

And still, he went slow.

Not to tease.

To worship.

His lips followed his hands — a trail of heat mapped with purpose. The inside of her knee. The curve of her hip. The hollow just below her navel where her breath stuttered, sharp and sweet. Every place he touched, he marked with intention. Not to conquer. To honor.

She writhed beneath him, soft sounds slipping past bitten lips, the kind that lit his blood like wildfire and made restraint a prayer he had to whisper between every kiss.

Her fingers threaded into his hair, nails catching against his scalp, anchoring him there like she needed him close to survive it. Like she wanted to pull him deeper, to keep him pressed to every place she ached.

And God, he wanted that too.

He took his time — their time — memorizing her with mouth and hands, tracing promises into her skin with every breath. Her body moved against his like music only they could hear, a melody spun from need and devotion and something too sacred to name.

She moaned his name like a litany, like it meant salvation. And maybe it did. Maybe she didn’t know that every sound she gave him was a thread winding tighter around his ribs, stitching him to this moment, to her, to forever.

Because this wasn’t just heat.

This was vow and velvet.

This was Willa.

And he would spend the rest of his life learning how to worship her properly.

She arched beneath him, hips lifting like instinct, like offering. And Blake swore under his breath — rough, reverent, barely sound at all — because God, she moved like a wildfire learning how to dance.

He didn’t rush.

Didn’t need to.

Every part of her already called to him, loud and aching. But he didn’t take. He studied. Let his hands learn the curve of her waist, the lines of her thighs, the rhythm of her breathing when he kissed just there — yes, that spot, where she tried not to gasp and failed beautifully.

And when she trembled, when her fingers fisted the sheets and her legs shifted just slightly apart — an unspoken plea dressed up like gravity — he sank lower. Let his mouth press into her skin like he could leave scripture behind in every place she let him touch.

Because this wasn’t just intimacy.

It was belief.

It was baptism.

And he would make her feel it — all of it — not just in the places that burned, but in the ones that ached. The places no one else had ever learned to name.

He worshipped with lips and teeth, with hands that shook from how much he felt instead of how much he wanted. And God, he wanted — more than he’d ever wanted anything — but the wanting didn’t own him.

She did.

The way she moved under him, trusting. The way her body chased every kiss like it already knew his mouth was built to adore her. The way she was unraveling, slowly, fiercely, gorgeously — not like someone losing control, but like someone giving it.

She let him in.

And that undid him more than anything.

Blake buried his face against the soft skin of her stomach, breathing her in, grounding himself in the scent of warm skin and wildness and her. His hand slid up, palm pressing over her heart, and he felt it — the flutter, the thrum, the way it kicked like thunder beneath bone.

It matched his own.

Everything about her did.

So he pressed his mouth to her ribs like it was a vow. Kept kissing his way back up, across her sternum, her throat, the underside of her jaw — until he was hovering over her again, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath on his lips.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

Because this — this gravity, this ache, this impossible, incandescent want — it wasn’t just about making her feel.

It was about showing her.

That he’d never been more sure of anything in his life.

That this was hers.
That he was.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

Willa had never felt more seen.

Not stared at. Not admired. Seen.

Like Blake wasn’t just touching her — he was learning her. Like every pass of his hands over her skin was some sacred study, and every kiss he pressed to her body was him taking notes in a language only they spoke.

Her thighs trembled under his palms, but not from nerves. It was the tension — unbearable and exquisite — of being unraveled deliberately.

God, the way he moved… like he had no intention of rushing. Like his devotion wasn’t tied to outcome, only to her. To the process of worshiping her. And that’s what it was — this slow, sensual pilgrimage he was making up her body. Not for performance. Not even for pleasure.

For meaning.

He kissed her ribs like they mattered. Traced his fingers over her hip like it was a scripture he’d rewritten. And when his mouth brushed the underside of her breast, she felt her whole body arch toward him, not with desperation — but with welcome. With offering. With want.

Her fingers threaded into his hair — gently at first, then tighter — not to guide him, but to anchor herself. Because the deeper he loved her, the more she felt herself dissolving.

Not breaking.

Transforming.

She moaned his name low, the sound wrecked and reverent all at once, her head tilting back into the pillows as her legs shifted wider without thought. A silent invitation. A dare. A prayer.

“Blake…” she breathed, and it wasn’t a plea. It was a declaration. A surrender. The name of the man who made her feel everything.

When his mouth moved lower — unbearably slow — she swore she felt the world tilt. Her hips lifted in instinct, in anticipation, in ache.

Every breath he dragged from her — every gasp, every moan, every curse bit into her own lip — only added to the fire already consuming her. But it was his patience that undid her most. Not the heat. Not the pressure. The care.

The fact that he wasn’t just taking her apart. He was cherishing every broken piece.

And Willa — wild, sharp-edged, high-voltage Willa — had never known what it meant to be held like that.

To be tasted like that.

To be chosen like that.

Tears prickled behind her eyes, sudden and sharp, not from sadness but from how much it was. From how soft she felt in his hands and how safe she was letting herself be there.

She was panting now, fingers fisting the sheets, knees drawn high, and all she could think — over and over — was: this is mine.

Not the pleasure. Not the moment. Him.

Blake Maddox — her husband, her match, her ruin — was kissing her like he had all night to learn her devotion and all eternity to earn her trust.

And she wanted to give him everything.

When his mouth pressed to that perfect spot again — the one that made her hips jerk, her voice catch, her whole body pull taut — she cried out, his name, hands flying to his shoulders. She didn’t stop him. She never would. But she needed him now. Needed to feel all of him. Skin to skin. Soul to soul.

“Come here,” she gasped, voice thick, breathless, laced with reverence and wreckage. “Blake—baby—please.”

He rose up, eyes blown wide, lips flushed and reverent, body already trembling with restraint.

She reached for him.

Guided him up and into her arms, into her body, into the space only he got to have.

And when he pressed against her — skin on skin, heat on heat, heart on heart — she gasped and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him impossibly closer.

“This is ours,” she whispered, voice shaking but sure. “I’m yours.”

And when he finally moved — slow, deep, perfect — she didn’t break.

She burned.

From the inside out.

From the first kiss to this.

From storm to stillness to this.

Because this wasn’t just a wedding night.

It was a homecoming.

And Willa Jameson-Maddox had never felt more wanted.
More chosen.
More loved.

[Blake Maddox]

Blake didn’t know where he ended and she began.

Every breath she gave him, every sound that slipped from her lips, felt like it was carving scripture into his spine — sacred, unshakable. Her name had never felt more like a prayer than it did in that moment, pulsing through his chest like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to just him anymore.

She wrapped around him like gravity and fire — anchoring and consuming in the same breath.

And he let it happen.

He gave in to the pull of her, the pace of her, the rhythm that wasn’t just between their bodies but beneath them. Something older. Something truer.

Every movement was a confession.

Every press of skin a vow.

She gasped — sharp and breathless — and he swore the sound would echo in his bones for the rest of his life. Not because it was wild or loud or perfect.

Because it was hers.

Because it was real.

Blake moved with care, not restraint — like every shift of his hips was meant to honor her, not claim her. Like pleasure was the offering, not the goal. She arched beneath him, met him without hesitation, and God — the way she trusted him with all of it — it nearly undid him.

He dipped his head into the curve of her shoulder, breathing her in like oxygen, like salvation. Her skin smelled like heat and softness, like lavender and lightning, and he wanted to live in that scent forever. Wanted to earn it, over and over.

Her body rose to meet his like the answer to a question he hadn’t known he’d been asking all his life.

And when she trembled — when her fingers dug into his back, anchoring herself to him like he was the only thing holding her in place — he didn’t speed up.

He didn’t let go.

He just stayed with her. Moved with her.

Loved her.

Not because she was fragile, but because she wasn’t. Because she was strong and wild and brilliant, and still — still — she had chosen him.

And he would never forget the feel of that.

Of her.

Of this.

The night wrapped around them like a seal, velvet and dim and full of promises they hadn’t yet spoken. But Blake knew.

Whatever came next — whatever storms, whatever stillness — this moment would live beneath it all.

The burn. The beauty. The way she looked up at him like she already knew he’d never stop loving her.

And he wouldn’t.

God help him, he never would.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She’d never felt more alive.

Not wild. Not reckless. Alive.

Like every nerve in her body had finally remembered what it was meant for. Like her skin had been waiting its whole life for his hands, his mouth, his devotion carved into motion.

And Blake — god, Blake — was everything.

He moved inside her like he knew her. Like he wasn’t just chasing her body, but chasing her — the sharp, the soft, the sacred. Every press of his hips was deliberate. Every kiss that landed against her throat, her shoulder, her chest was a vow.

She couldn’t speak.
Didn’t need to.

Because he was listening to every breath, every gasp, every trembling plea she gave him without words. And he answered — not by taking, but by giving. Again and again and again.

She was burning.
Not out of control.
By design.

Because this was the moment she’d never let herself imagine. Not in hotel rooms. Not backstage. Not in all the hours they’d spent almost-touching and trying not to fall too hard.

But now she could.
Now she was.

He pressed deeper and she moaned — low and ragged, the sound torn from somewhere behind her ribs. Her back arched, spine curving into him, and his hand slid under her — supporting, cradling, honoring.

Her thighs trembled. Her heart stuttered. Her hands found his jaw, cupped it, held him there like she needed to make sure he was real.

And when their eyes met — god, when their eyes met — it was like standing inside the eye of the storm.

The chaos, the noise, the ache — all of it stilled.

All that was left was him.

His breath ragged. His body shaking. His lips parted like he wanted to say something and couldn’t remember how. And the look in his eyes…

Willa swallowed hard, breath catching, and whispered, “I love you.”

Not because she had to.

Because it was true.

Because it had always been true.

And when she felt him break — just a little — when he kissed her with more than his mouth, when his hips stuttered and his arms tightened and his forehead pressed to hers like he couldn’t not hold on — she broke too.

Not like glass.

Like sky.

Wide open.
Glorious.
Unstoppable.

She came with his name on her lips, and it wasn’t a cry — it was a promise.

And as he followed, chasing her through the unraveling, his body shaking against hers like he was coming apart just to fit into her again, she held him.

Anchored him.

Loved him.

Because he had given her everything — not just his body, but his heart. His gentleness. His fire.

And Willa Jameson-Maddox — riot, bride, wife — had never felt more whole.

[Blake Maddox]

Blake didn’t move at first.

Couldn’t.

Not with the echo of her still wrapped around him — the sound of his name from her lips, the tremble in her thighs, the feel of her arms locked around his back like she wasn’t letting go. Like he was something holy, and she’d finally decided to keep it.

His breath was a storm in his chest, uneven and wrecked, but his hands… his hands were gentle. One slid along her ribs, thumb tracing the curve just beneath her breast like a vow he wasn’t done making. The other curled at the nape of her neck, cradling her as if she were the most breakable, beautiful thing he’d ever touched.

Because she was.

God, she was.

Willa Jameson-Maddox. His wife.

The woman who had scorched herself into his skin with every kiss, every breath, every whispered truth she hadn’t needed to say — but had said anyway.

“I love you.”

He’d felt it more than heard it. Not just in her voice, but in the way her body opened to him. The way she gave herself without hesitation. The way she met his gaze like she wasn’t afraid of what lived there.

And now, in the quiet aftermath, she was still looking at him like that.

Like he was hers.

Like she was his.

The world had gone soft around the edges — colors dulled, sounds distant — except for her. She was in full color. Full volume. Heart pounding against his, breath warm against his shoulder, legs still tangled with his like she belonged nowhere else.

Blake leaned down and kissed her temple, slow and steady. Then her cheek. Her jaw. Her shoulder.

Not to start again.

Just to stay.

She stirred beneath him — a small, content shift — and he wrapped his arms around her tighter, guiding them both to their sides. Her body followed his like muscle memory, like she knew the shape of this comfort without needing to think.

And he just looked at her.

Looked like a man starving for truth and finally finding it in the curve of her nose, the shine of sweat at her temple, the way her lips were still parted from everything they’d just survived together.

She was the storm and the shelter.

And in that moment, Blake swore he’d never forget what it felt like to be held by her like this. Loved by her like this. Chosen, not because she had to — but because she wanted to.

He kissed her again, barely a brush of mouths.

Then whispered it back, not just with his voice, but with the way his fingers threaded into hers.

“I’m yours.”

Forever, if she wanted him.

And based on the way she sighed — soft, sleepy, utterly undone — he thought maybe she did.

And God help him, he’d spend the rest of his life proving she was right to.

[Willa Jameson-Maddox]

She couldn’t stop touching him.

Not in the desperate, greedy way she had before — but in the quiet aftermath, where her fingers traced the edges of what they’d just become. His shoulder. His ribs. The ink just beneath his skin.

Hers.

Blake’s breath was still uneven, hot against her cheek, but his arms had settled around her like they belonged there. Like they’d never known how to hold anything else.

And maybe they hadn’t.
Maybe this had always been waiting — just beneath the noise and the fire and the wanting.

She curled into him, one leg sliding between his, her lips brushing the corner of his jaw, and felt the way he exhaled like she was the only oxygen he trusted. It made her ache in a way that had nothing to do with the sex.

This was the part that ruined her.

The stillness. The closeness. The way his fingers tangled with hers like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go. The way his body curved around hers on instinct, as if keeping her warm was something he was born knowing how to do.

She could still feel the echo of everything they’d just shared pulsing low in her spine — the ache, the sweetness, the overwhelming truth of it. It was dizzying. Holy.

And it was theirs.

Willa pressed her forehead to his chest, letting her lips hover just above his heart. Listening. Feeling.

“I’m yours,” he’d whispered.

God.

She blinked, eyes stinging, and didn’t say anything right away — not because she didn’t believe it, but because she felt it too deeply to speak. Like if she opened her mouth, it might shatter her.

Instead, she kissed the center of his chest. Then again. Then again.

“You’re mine,” she whispered finally, voice thick with love and disbelief and everything else that had no name yet.

And he was.

Blake Maddox — her riot boy, her husband, her softest place to land — was hers.

She didn’t know what tomorrow would look like. Didn’t care.

Tonight, they’d claimed the chaos.
Tonight, they’d made a chapel out of sweat and silk and starlight.

And here, in the hush between heartbeats, Willa made a vow.

She would never let him forget this feeling.

Not when the lights came up.
Not when the world got loud again.
Not when the glitter faded and the headlines moved on.

Because what they had wasn’t built on performance.

It was built right here — in breathless silence and tangled limbs and the way he looked at her like she was still glowing from the inside out.

She kissed him again, slow and sure.

“Forever, Blake.”

And she meant it.
Even if the whole damn world burned down, she’d still be holding his hand in the smoke.

Because this wasn’t the end of their story.

It was the beginning.

[... it is the end of the scene however. ;)]