Berlin, Germany
 

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Willa hadn’t expected to feel this much.

Maybe that was foolish. Maybe it was impossible not to when the air thrummed with bass and sweat and the kind of electricity that only came from watching someone you loved do exactly what they were born to do. But still—she hadn’t expected this.

Not the lump in her throat.
Not the burn in her chest.
Not the way her fingers curled tighter around the backstage curtain like it might anchor her to the moment.

Germany was a blur. They’d only been in town a day, most of which had been swallowed by gear checks and lighting tests and media chaos. She barely remembered dinner, or how many languages she’d awkwardly tripped through just trying to find the right hallway backstage.

But she remembered the hotel room.

Their room.

The one from all those years ago, when she’d shown up without warning and Blake had opened the door like he’d been waiting for her ever since. The room hadn’t changed much. Different sheets. New paint. Same narrow window with that view of the river she used to trace with her fingertip while he slept.

She hadn’t meant to feel nostalgic. But Blake had that effect on her. He always had.

Tonight, he’d insisted she watch from the side of the stage—back behind the rigged lights and sound monitors where no fans could see her. “I want you right there when I come off,” he’d said, voice low against her ear. “First face I see.”

So she’d stayed.

And now?
Now she was so glad she had.

He was electric tonight. Voice raw and magnetic, moving across the stage like he owned the dirt beneath it. The crowd surged with him, word for word, pulse for pulse, feeding off every note. Willa swayed with it from the shadows, mouthing along, heart thudding like it wanted to be in the pit.

Then—like a spark skipping out of the fire—he changed the set.

She saw it before she heard it. A brief glance toward his bassist. A nod. A grin.

And then—

Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you…

Willa’s breath caught.

Oh my God.

It was Wonderwall.

A song he never played live. A song his band had only recently covered in the studio as a joke, tucked into the tail end of an EP with zero promo. A song Blake once caught her singing under her breath while brushing her teeth at three a.m., still half asleep and swaying in his hoodie.

Her hand flew to her mouth, instinctively. She laughed—quietly, disbelieving—while the stage lit up around him, and he leaned into the mic like he was telling the whole damn world her secret.

She didn’t notice the rest of the band looking her way.

Not yet.

Not until the final chorus swelled—familiar, gorgeous, theirs—and right before the short instrumental kicked in, Blake disappeared.

He slipped off his mark like he’d done it a thousand times, ducked behind the amp stack, and suddenly—he was there.

Right in front of her.

Chest rising. Face flushed. Grinning like he was about to do something stupid and perfect.

Willa blinked, startled. “What are you—”

And then she saw it.

The ring.

He didn’t say a word.

Just held it out, grinning, one eyebrow raised like you in or what, Riot Soul?

Her heart stopped.
Then stumbled.
Then soared.

Thirty seconds. That’s all he had.

But it was enough.

Willa’s eyes burned. Her breath hitched. And then—she let out a breathless laugh, biting her lower lip so hard it hurt.

“Yes,” she whispered, eyes locked on his, hand already reaching for his shirt like she couldn’t help it.

Then she smacked his chest lightly, tears and laughter mixing in her voice.

“You absolute asshole,” she said, almost giddy. “You couldn’t have waited one more song?”

He just grinned wider, kissed the side of her head in one quick motion, and turned back toward the stage.

Already gone before she could fully catch her breath.

And Willa stood there, shaking, grinning, eyes full of stars and heart full of him—a ring on her finger, the crowd still singing, and the boy who never once let her forget that even in the dark, they were always the light.

Blake had never been good at waiting.

Not when it came to her.

From the second he saw Willa standing side stage, half-shadowed by cables and velvet drapes, he knew. The setlist could change. The timing could shift. Hell, the world could fall apart mid-bridge. But the second her eyes found his—wide, wondering, lit from within—he wasn’t going to wait another song. Another minute.

She was it.

She’d always been it.

And yeah, maybe dropping a proposal mid-show was unhinged.

Maybe it was chaos.

But so was he.

And she’d loved him through every last second of it.

So as the opening chords of Wonderwall rolled out across the crowd, he grinned like a man with a secret and nodded to the band. They knew what to do. The lights dipped just a little warmer. The drums softened. The moment stretched.

And then—

He vanished.

Slipped off his mark, around the amps, sneakers ghosting across years of history and too many almosts. Every beat of his heart felt like a countdown, but not the kind that ended in an explosion.

The kind that landed here.

In front of her.

His Willa.

His wild thing with the soft voice and the fire-heart. The one who sang love songs with her eyes closed and cursed him out with his own lyrics. The one who stayed—even when he tried to run. Especially then.

She looked up, stunned, laughing. And when she caught sight of the ring, she froze.

Blake didn’t speak.

He just dropped to one knee.

Right there in the dust and the light spill, with thirty seconds and the biggest grin he’d ever worn in his life.

Then he held out the ring, heart pounding, smile tugging crooked at his mouth.

“Hey, Riot Soul,” he said, breathless. “Marry me?”

She stared.

And for a second, all the noise dropped out—the crowd, the lights, the rest of the damn world.

It was just her.

And him.

And the ring he’d been hiding for weeks in a sock drawer labeled “DO NOT OPEN UNLESS ON FIRE.”

He kept going, voice low, warm, utterly sincere.

“I’ve written a thousand songs trying to explain what you are to me, and I still don’t have the words. But I know this—”

His eyes never left hers.

“You’re home. You’re peace. You’re every chorus I want to live inside.”

He laughed a little, nerves fraying the edges of his voice.

“I don’t care where we do it. Backyard, courthouse, middle of a mosh pit. Just… be mine. Always.”

And then—she said yes.

Of course she said yes.

Even as she smacked his chest and called him an asshole through tears.

Blake laughed, full and wild, stood up and kissed her like he was sealing a pact. His hands cradled her jaw for just a second longer than the moment allowed. Then he whispered against her hair:

“I’ll make it up to you with a whole album. Just you. Just us.”

And then—

He was gone again, back on stage, guitar slung back into place like nothing had happened.

But everything had.

Because backstage, just out of the spotlight, Willa Jameson was still standing with a ring on her finger, her heart in her throat, and Blake Maddox’s love written into her bones.

Willa couldn’t move at first.

She stood there, off-stage, half-swallowed by shadows and string lights, one hand pressed flat to her chest like she was holding her heart in place. The other trembled slightly, fingers flexing around the cool weight of the ring now shining on her finger.

Blake was already gone.

Back on stage, his voice spilling into the night like nothing had happened—like the entire universe hadn’t just tilted on its axis backstage in the middle of a 30-second instrumental.

The crowd had no idea.

But the crew?

Oh, they knew.

She could feel them watching. From behind drum crates, through headset mics, across tangled cables and water bottles and wireless guitar packs—everyone in the wings was trying very hard to look busy while grinning like complete idiots.

One of the lighting techs gave her a thumbs-up so exaggerated it bordered on mime-level enthusiasm. The stage manager—usually stone-faced—wiggled his brows like a sitcom uncle and mouthed “about time.”

Willa blinked. Then blinked again.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered under her breath, pressing her hand harder to her sternum. “What the hell just happened?”

The audio assistant next to her—barely nineteen and definitely trying not to squeal—offered her a folded towel and a bottle of water like she’d just run a marathon. Which, emotionally speaking, wasn’t that far off.

“Y-you good?” she asked, eyes wide.

Willa just nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I’m… yeah.”

But her voice cracked a little, because damn it, she was still wrecked.

From the rush. From the way Blake had looked at her. From the way he hadn’t said much—but somehow said everything.

She lowered onto a road case like her legs needed a minute to remember how knees worked. Someone—probably the bass tech—passed her a pack of tissues like it was a sacred offering.

She wiped her eyes quickly, biting down a laugh-sob that came out sounding like a choke.

God. He’d done it. He’d really done it.

Proposed to her during Wonderwall.

The fucker.

She glanced at the ring again—brushed white gold, smoky and soft, catching the red-and-gold spill of stage lights like a secret—and her throat tightened all over again.

Then—

She heard him.

Blake’s voice—strong, cracked at the edges, carrying that last verse like a confession he wasn’t trying to hide anymore.

“And all the roads we have to walk are winding…”

The crowd roared with him now, thousands of voices echoing what had just become theirs.

“There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how…”

Willa closed her eyes for a second, pressing her lips together as the song built around her—his voice and the crowd’s, the lights blooming across the smoke-thick stage like something holy.

And then, clear as ever:

“Because maybe…”

She opened her eyes again, just in time to see him step to the edge of the stage, sweat-damp curls falling into his eyes, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth even as he sang the last line like it meant everything.

“…you’re gonna be the one that saves me.”

Pause. Kick of the drums. And then—

“And after all…”

He turned just slightly, just enough that the edge of his gaze caught hers across the chaos.

“You’re my wonderwall.”

The final chord rang out and the crowd exploded.

Cheers. Applause. Arms raised and shoulders shaking with the high of it.

But Blake didn’t let it linger.

He nodded once to his band, breathless, sweat-slick and wild-eyed, and motioned to the drummer.

No banter. No thank-you speech. No delay.

The kickdrum thudded again.

And the final song began.

The real closer.

Something harder. Faster. Loud and raw and pure Blake Maddox—like he needed to shake off the proposal adrenaline before his heart gave out.

And Willa?

She stood again, gripping the curtain edge with one hand, the other still curled around the ring he’d just placed on her finger.

Eyes shining.
Chest heaving.
Heart already gone.

Because tonight?

She wasn’t just the girl in the wings anymore.

She was the girl he came running back to.

And she always would be.

Blake’s lungs were burning.

From the run. From the stage lights. From the goddamn miracle that had just happened off-stage like some fever dream he barely had the words to name.

But mostly?

From her.

Because even as the crowd howled and his guitar roared and his band locked into the final track with the kind of precision only chaos could teach, all he could see was her.

Willa Jameson. Backstage. Hand to her chest like she was keeping the world from falling out of it.

And the ring?

Still on her finger.

He’d done that.

He’d made the music pause and bent time just long enough to ask the girl who’d been singing his name in quiet moments and middle-of-the-night memories to stay. To stay for good. To marry the idiot who once tried to flirt by challenging her to a tequila shot contest.

(Which he lost. Spectacularly.)

His hands moved on autopilot now—strumming, commanding, leading the finale with grit and fire—but his eyes?

God, his eyes.

They kept flicking toward the shadows. Toward her. Toward that wildflower soul in combat boots who looked like she’d just survived a category-five emotion hurricane.

And won.

He didn’t need to hear her answer.

She’d said it without saying a word.

The second her fingers curled into his hoodie.
The second she grinned through those tears and called him an asshole.
The second she looked at that ring like it was home.

Yeah.

That was his yes.

And holy hell, he was going to spend the rest of his life earning it.

He hit the last chord of the set like it owed him rent, sweat flying, voice raw, and heart not even remotely recovered. The crowd surged with him, but Blake didn’t raise his arms or throw his pick into the pit. He just turned, breath catching in his throat—

And looked for her again.

There.

Still at the curtain.
Still watching.

His Wonderwall.

When the final feedback faded and the lights dipped to blackout, Blake didn’t wait for the stage hands or the tech wrap. He was already moving—half-jog, half-sprint—right back to her.

And when he reached her?

No words.

Just arms.

He scooped her up like he’d earned the lift, burying his face in her shoulder with a hoarse, breathless laugh.

“You stayed,” he whispered, dizzy with adrenaline and her shampoo and the fact that she was still wearing his damn hoodie. “You said yes.”

Then, pulling back just enough to see her face, his voice cracked again—softer, but still him:

“Hey, uh… just checking, but… you’re not saying yes just because I sang Wonderwall in front of fifteen thousand drunk Germans, right?”

His smile turned teasing, warm and wicked.

“Because if so, I might have to add ‘Oasis cover band’ to my resume.”

He kissed her forehead—quick and reverent—before nodding toward the ring, voice low again.

“You sure, Wills?”

His thumb brushed her cheek, his eyes locked on hers like the world stopped existing past her answer.

“Because I meant every word. You’re the one. Always have been.”

Willa didn’t answer right away.

Mostly because she couldn’t.

Not with her heart doing somersaults in her chest like it had just been plugged into the amps.

Not with the taste of electricity still in the air, her pulse still syncopated with the kickdrum echoing in her ribs.

Not when Blake Maddox—stage-slick and star-eyed and hers—was looking at her like she was the encore he’d been chasing since the first song he ever wrote.

She was supposed to be cool.

Collected.

Maybe a little smug.

But nope. All bets were off the second he scooped her into that post-show adrenaline hurricane and whispered you stayed like she hadn’t spent the last five years tethered to every version of him that ever dared to burn too bright.

So now?

Now she was full-blown, mascara-smudged, breath-stolen wreckage.

“Blake fucking Maddox,” she breathed, half-laughing, half-crying as she stared up at him—hair wild, cheeks flushed, that goddamn ring still glinting on her finger like it was made of every bridge and chorus and 3 a.m. lyric they’d ever survived. “You absolute nightmare in glitter. I should punch you.”

She didn’t.

She kissed him instead—quick, fierce, a little unhinged. The kind of kiss that said I know exactly who you are, and I’m still all in.

And when she pulled back, breathless, voice shaking with something that wasn’t nerves anymore—it was joy—she pressed her palm to his chest.

Right over the heartbeat that had always sung in time with hers.

“Of course I said yes,” she whispered, eyes wide and burning. “I’ve been saying yes since the moment you let me hijack your couch with a bottle of wine and my emotional trauma playlist.”

She blinked, laughed through it.

“And just for the record? I would’ve said yes even if you proposed in your boxers in a hotel hallway eating pretzels. But you—” she poked his chest, grinning like she was trying not to combust, “—you went full festival proposal chaos with a Wonderwall fake-out? You asshole.”

He started to say something—some smug little reply, probably—but she shut him up with another kiss, softer this time. Slower. The kind of kiss that tasted like every stupid fight they’d survived and every forever they still had coming.

Then she leaned her forehead against his, brushing her nose against his just because she could now. Because this was hers.

“I’m so sure, Blake,” she murmured. “It’s terrifying.”

A pause.

“And perfect.”

Another pause, a hiccup of laughter catching in her throat.

“And I swear to God if I see one ‘Oasis Cover Band’ demo in your email drafts, I’m eloping solo with the ring and a speaker that only plays our demos on loop.”

She brushed her thumb under his eye, catching the edge of whatever emotion he was still trying to blink back, then whispered so only he could hear it:

“You’re my always. There was never anyone else.”

She didn’t say thank you for asking me.

She said it with the look. The touch. The way her hand found his again and didn’t let go.

Let the rest of the world exist outside the curtain.

For now?

She was going to kiss her fiancé until someone physically pulled them apart.

And even then?

She’d still be humming Wonderwall.

Blake was done for.

Absolutely, unapologetically ruined in the best goddamn way.

Because Willa—his Willa—was standing there with mascara warpaint, a ring on her finger, fire in her chest, and chaos in her kiss, and all he could think was this is it.

This was the moment his whole life bent toward without him even realizing it.

She kissed him like a warning. Like a promise. Like she was going to love him whether he was ready or not—and hell, he was ready. Always had been. From that first disaster night on his couch to the chaos in Berlin, he’d been saying yes to her in every lyric and every late-night voice memo he never sent.

But now?

Now she’d said yes back.

He laughed into her kiss, forehead still pressed to hers, arms locked around her like he couldn’t decide whether to dance or drop to his knees.

Instead, he whispered:

“Jesus Christ, you’re gonna kill me.”

But he was grinning. That full-body, stupid-happy, I’m-the-luckiest-son-of-a-bitch-on-earth kind of grin.

“I don’t even care. That was worth everything.”

He stole another kiss—quick and dizzying, his hands framing her face like the stage lights hadn’t faded and the world wasn’t still spinning without them.

Then, a mock-wounded gasp.

“Nightmare in glitter? Babe, rude. I wore matte shimmer tonight, thank you very much.”

He leaned back just far enough to look at her hand again—his ring, their ring, glowing under the stage spill like it had been waiting for her all along. He kissed her knuckles. Every one of them.

“Can’t believe you said yes. Well—actually I can, because I’m objectively incredible—but still. You could’ve said no. Would’ve been real awkward with fifteen thousand people watching me spiral mid-solo.”

He looked up at her again, all teasing gone from his voice now.

“But you didn’t.”

A breath.

“You never do.”

He touched his forehead to hers again, the noise of the crew and the crowd fading to white static behind them.

“I’m gonna spend the rest of my life writing songs about this moment. About you. About the way you looked at me just now like I was your whole damn setlist.”

He laughed—choked and breathless, more emotion than sound—and added, softer:

“Promise not to pitch all of them to my Oasis cover band, though. Maybe just… the wedding version.”

He tilted his head slightly, brushing his nose against hers.

“You’re it for me, Wills. You’ve always been it. The end of every bridge. The last word in every verse.”

Then he took her hand again, the one with the ring, and pressed it against his chest—right over that rhythm she always knew.

“You feel that?”

Beat. Beat. Beat.

“That’s yours.”

And then he kissed her.

Not just because he could. Not just because she was his fiancée now (Jesus, fiancée). But because this kiss? This one said I’m never letting go.

Not even if the amps blow. Not even if the world burns.

Because in every version of forever?

It’s still her.

Blake didn’t let go of her hand.

Not once.

Even as the stage faded behind them and the roar of the crowd turned into a muted thunder, even as wires and water bottles and road cases blurred past in streaks of backstage chaos—he kept Willa close. Like the second he stopped touching her, the whole thing might turn out to be a dream.

So yeah. He held on.

And then?

He looped his arm around her shoulders like it was second nature—like she belonged there, tucked into his side, every inch of her pressed against the afterglow of the moment they’d just lived. His fingers curled into the curve of her arm, pulling her in tight as they walked, step in step, through the buzzing backstage maze.

He bumped fists with his people as they passed—his bassist mouthing finally with a wink, his guitar tech flashing a thumbs-up so enthusiastic it almost turned into a high-five. Blake just grinned, still riding the high, still half-drunk on adrenaline and the way Willa kept looking at him like she was trying to memorize this version of him forever.

Security guided them to the backdoor—fast, practiced, like this wasn’t their first post-show escape—but this time, everything felt different.

Because outside?

The fans were screaming. Louder than ever. Hands reaching, flashes popping, signs waving. A few had already caught wind of what happened—he could hear someone yelling she said yes! like it was gospel.

But none of them could reach her.

Not right now.

Not here.

Blake kept her tucked into his side as the security line parted for them, his free hand raised in a casual wave. And when they reached the tour bus steps, he didn’t even hesitate.

He stopped. Turned toward her. Dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

“After you, future Maddox.”

His voice was low, cheeky, sweet.

And he held out his hand with a small flourish, like she was royalty boarding a getaway chariot.

Once she climbed the steps, he followed—two at a time—into the quiet hum of the bus. Away from the crowd. Away from the noise.

And straight into the future they’d just carved out, one lyric at a time.

Willa couldn’t feel her legs.

Or maybe she could and they just weren’t listening—still drunk off adrenaline and mascara tears and the fact that Blake freaking Maddox had just proposed to her mid-song like it was nothing. Like it was everything.

And she’d said yes.

God. She’d said yes.

The ring felt too heavy and too light all at once. Like a secret and a spotlight. Like a promise written in ink she’d never want to wash off.

She barely remembered climbing the steps onto the bus. Only that his hand never left hers. Only that his voice—“After you, future Maddox”—was still fluttering around her ribs like a damn bird that hadn’t figured out how to land yet.

They passed through the front lounge, dodging grins and half-hidden applause from crew members pretending not to stare. She heard someone whisper “about time,” and someone else quietly lose a bet. Blake just kept his head low and his smile soft, leading her like they were sneaking away from their own wedding.

He opened the door to the back lounge and ushered her inside.

Privacy.

Sanctuary.

The moment the door clicked shut behind them, Willa finally let the breath go.

And then another.

And then—

She laughed.

The kind of laugh that cracked open her chest and spilled joy all over the floor. Wild. Unfiltered. Over the moon. She pressed both hands to her face and sank down onto the futon like her knees had just remembered they were decorative.

“You’re actually insane,” she breathed out, grinning so hard it hurt. “Like, clinically. Who does that mid-set? Who proposes during Wonderwall?!”

She looked up at him, eyes gleaming, lips still parted in disbelief.

“Do you know how feral I’m about to go every time that song plays now? I hope you’re ready for the absolute menace you just created.”

She tugged him closer, dropped her head to his chest, and just held. Like if she let go, the universe might change its mind.

Her voice was gentler now, threading the space between them.

“I knew I’d say yes the second I saw that stupid look on your face,” she said into his shirt. “You didn’t even need the ring. Just that look. Like I’m the only thing you’ve ever been sure about.”

She lifted her head, cupped his face in both hands, and smiled like the future had already started.

“I don’t need fireworks or a castle or a cathedral, Blake. I just want you. Screaming over rehearsal tracks. Stealing my socks. Leaving love notes in my guitar case and getting distracted every time I walk into the room. I want all of it. Loud and messy and ours.”

Her thumb brushed his cheekbone.

“So yeah. I’m in. I’ve been in. From the first time you looked at me like I was the chorus you couldn’t shake.”

And softer now—barely more than a breath:

“I think my soul’s been singing about you for years.”

She kissed him.

Slow. Fierce. Certain.

Then leaned back with a hiccup-laugh and mock glare.

“Also, if you ever pull some reckless, heart-exploding shit like that again without warning, I will throw your skinny jeans into the Rhine.”

She shoved his shoulder playfully before curling into his side, the ring catching the glow of the fairy lights above.

And this time?

She didn’t say anything else.

Just breathed in the quiet.

Just let it settle.

Because this—Blake beside her, her hand in his, the weight of the moment still clinging to her skin like glitter and smoke—was enough.

More than enough.

It was everything.

Blake leaned back against the door for a second after it clicked shut, watching her with that grin—his Willa grin—the one that only ever showed up when she was happy like this. Shining from the inside out. Laughing like her bones had finally exhaled.

God, she was beautiful.

Completely wrecked. Mascara under her eyes, hair wild from the humidity and the stage lights, still wearing the black boots she swore were “comfy enough, shut up, Maddox”—and he’d never loved her more.

“You think I’m insane?” he said, kicking off his boots and padding toward her, eyes still dancing. “You’re the one who said yes knowing I own five pairs of glitter pants and once tried to stage dive into a crowd of middle-aged dads in Prague.”

He dropped down onto the futon beside her like his entire body was still buzzing, half-wrapped his arm around her waist, and let out a laugh of his own—deep, chest-shaking, full. Like her joy had spilled into him and taken root.

“I had a whole other plan, you know,” he murmured, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “Candles. String lights. Something Pinterest would’ve died over.”

He kissed the side of her head.

“But then I looked at you backstage, clutching that curtain like you were about to either throw up or propose to me—and I just… couldn’t wait.”

His voice dropped a little, went softer, like maybe he was talking more to her heartbeat than her ears.

“Didn’t need a perfect moment. Just needed you in it.”

He reached for her hand, tracing the ring with his thumb.

“I’ve never been sure of anything the way I’m sure of you, Wills. You’re not just the chorus I couldn’t shake—you’re the whole damn song. The melody I didn’t know I was playing for until you started singing along.”

A pause. Then:

“And for the record?” He leaned in, forehead brushing hers. “You go feral every time any song plays. It’s part of your charm.”

He kissed her again—quick and messy this time, smiling against her mouth—and pulled her fully into his lap without ceremony, wrapping both arms around her like he was anchoring himself.

“I want the loud. The messy. The socks and the scribbled notes and you yelling at me for stealing the last slice of pizza again.”

He rested his chin on her shoulder.

“I want hotel rooms and studio floors and tour bus naps and losing every argument because you weaponize the eyebrow raise.”

Then he glanced down at the ring again, still a little awed.

“You said yes,” he whispered, like he needed to hear it one more time. “You really said yes.”

He tucked her even closer.

“And just so we’re clear, I’d let you throw all my skinny jeans into the Rhine if it meant waking up next to you with that look on your face.”

A beat.

Then, grinning again: “…Okay, maybe not all of them. I have a reputation to maintain.”

He tipped her backward gently so she landed in his arms, tangled in laughter and fairy lights and the quiet hum of their new forever.

“God, I love you,” he said into her hair, the words so soft they barely made it past his lips.

Willa couldn’t sit still.

She was practically vibrating—part adrenaline, part emotional whiplash, and mostly Blake freaking Maddox being the most infuriatingly, wildly, recklessly romantic human she had ever laid eyes on.

She was in his lap before she could even pretend to be chill, legs thrown across his, her hands cupping his stupidly beautiful face like she couldn’t decide whether to kiss him or strangle him with joy. Her laugh was all breath and disbelief and glittery chaos as she leaned in, eyes wide and wild and burning with that very specific brand of love that had always belonged to him.

“Oh my God, you idiot,” she breathed, nose bumping his. “You really proposed mid-set, didn’t even give me a chance to ugly cry in peace—just threw a ring at me and grinned like a feral golden retriever on a sugar bender.”

She kissed him once. Hard. Then again, gentler. Like she didn’t quite trust the world not to blink and make it all disappear.

“And you know what’s worse?” she whispered, dropping her forehead to his. “You were right. About everything. About this moment. About me not needing a Pinterest moment with string lights and violins—though, for the record, if you ever serenade me with a violin, I will walk into traffic.”

Her hands slid into his hair, tugging just enough to make him smirk, her voice dropping into something soft and sincere beneath all the teasing.

“But you were right. All I needed was you.”

She pulled back just enough to flash him that wicked grin—the one that had gotten her into trouble on four continents.

“And this hotel room? Oh, it makes sense now. You had plans, Maddox.” She arched a brow, legs tightening around his waist just slightly, smug as hell. “The sentimental value and the room service menu? Real smooth.”

Blake just laughed and pulled her closer, arms banded around her waist like they had nowhere else to be. And honestly? They didn’t. Not yet.

So they stayed.

Curled together in the dim hum of the bus, surrounded by empty water bottles and forgotten setlists and the quiet creak of the road beneath them.

Willa tangled her fingers with his and studied the ring again—how it looked in the low light, how it caught on the strands of her hair, how it felt like a weight and a promise and a beginning.

“Gonna be real hard to top this for our honeymoon,” she murmured, voice lazy now, softer with the weight of the moment settling in. “Unless you plan on skydiving into a volcano and proposing again mid-flight.”

Blake made some ridiculous sound—half-snort, half groan—and buried his face in her shoulder. She let him stay there, her fingers drifting over the nape of his neck, tracing lines only she knew.

“I can’t believe I get to marry you,” she said after a minute, more to herself than anything.

It was breathless. Honest. No armor. No deflection. Just her, open and wrecked and completely in love.

“I mean—I can. Obviously. Because I’m a menace and you’re a menace and together we’re unstoppable chaos with too many guitars and a disturbing number of inside jokes. But still.”

She held up her hand again, watching the way the ring shifted in the low light. It sparkled like it knew it had just been part of something cinematic.

“I’m yours. I’ve always been yours. Even when I was pretending not to be.”

She leaned in, forehead pressed to his, and whispered like a secret:

“Now shut up and kiss me again.”

And he did.

Slow this time. Deep. Like every unsent voice memo, every missed moment, every lyric he never let her hear finally found its way home.

They stayed like that. A tangle of limbs and heat and wonder. Letting time slow down. Letting the noise stay outside. Her boots kicked off and forgotten on the floor. His hands tracing the edge of her jaw like he couldn’t believe she was real. They didn’t need the hotel yet. Didn’t need champagne or rose petals or fireworks.

Just this.

Just them.

And the promise of forever, humming under their skin like a song only they knew how to sing.

Blake couldn’t stop smiling.

Not the cocky, stage-stealing grin he wore like armor most nights. No—this one was something else. Softer. Sloppier. Like his whole damn soul was grinning and his body just had to deal with it.

Because Willa? Willa was in his lap, chaos incarnate, gorgeous and wild and glitter-eyed and his. She was rambling and cursing and threatening to murder him with affection—and he’d never wanted to slow down time so badly in his life.

Her hands were in his hair, her legs wrapped around his waist, her voice all sharp edges and soft truths—and every single part of her wrecked him.

In the best way.

“Sugar bender?” he echoed, barely choking back a laugh. “You are so lucky I didn’t propose mid-cartwheel. Or in sequined bell-bottoms. I had the means, Willa.”

He let her kiss him, then kissed her right back—deeper, longer, like his entire chest was collapsing into the shape of her mouth.

And when she pulled back with that grin—that grin, the one that had started more world-ending nights than any of his bad decisions—he just shook his head and stared at her like she’d rewritten the laws of physics.

“Room service menu was my backup plan,” he murmured, hands warm on her hips. “If you said no, I was gonna woo you with overpriced fries and a chocolate fountain.”

He dropped his forehead to hers, their noses brushing as he whispered, completely serious:

“Willa Riot Maddox has a ring to it, doesn’t it?”

When she teased him about volcano skydiving proposals, he snorted so hard he nearly startled himself.

“Oh, babe,” he said, voice low and already laughing. “Skydiving into a volcano? Please. I already booked us a cursed castle in the Scottish Highlands. The ghosts are very excited for the wedding.”

But then she said it—that quiet, no-armor I can’t believe I get to marry you—and the joke caught in his throat.

Blake stilled.

Looked at her.

And something in his chest cracked open again. That part of him that used to be all noise and static and defense mechanisms—gone. Because this girl, this terrifying, incandescent, sings-too-loud-in-the-shower menace of a soulmate, just said she was his.

Always had been.

Even when she pretended not to be.

He wrapped his hand around hers and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles like they were holy, then murmured against her skin:

“You’ve always been mine, Wills. Even before I knew how to say it. Even when all I had were broken chords and bad metaphors and a heart that didn’t know how to stop bleeding.”

He grinned then, eyes still glassy. Still wrecked.

“But now?” He kissed her again—her palm, her cheek, her mouth. “Now I’m yours too. Forever. Fully. Chaos and all.”

And when she whispered “Now shut up and kiss me again,” he did exactly that.

God, did he.

Hands on her face, thumbs brushing her cheekbones, mouth slow and reverent like a hymn sung under his breath. He kissed her like he was still on stage, like the whole crowd was watching and he didn’t give a single damn.

Like she was his encore.

And when they broke apart—foreheads pressed together, the world gone quiet—he whispered the only thing that mattered:

“I love you, Willa Riot. Always. Loudly. Stupidly. Forever.”

Then softer, with a grin:

“And for the record? That was not even my final form.”

Willa beamed.

Not smiled—beamed. Like a living sparkler with too much caffeine and too many feelings, grinning so hard it hurt. Her whole body felt like it was buzzing, from her toes to the ends of her hair, and Blake Maddox—this absolute menace of a man—was looking at her like she was the sun, the moon, and every line he’d never gotten right in a song until now.

She kissed him again, quick and breathless, her nose scrunching with delight.

“Okay, first of all,” she said, voice bright and feral, “sequined bell-bottoms and a cartwheel proposal? You can’t just say that like it’s normal. What the hell would I have done? Clapped? Fainted? Filed for emotional damages?”

She fake-gasped. “Wait—is there a version of me somewhere in the multiverse who said no because you did too much? Like glittered yourself into a breakup?”

But then he said Willa Riot Maddox—and her heart just flipped. No warning. No parachute. Just freefall into something that felt dangerously close to perfect.

“I mean, yeah,” she admitted, trying not to melt, “that does sound cool as hell. But I can’t just drop Storme Jameson, babe. That name’s basically a Marvel origin story. People already think danger is my middle name—riot might suit me better, but let’s not undervalue the brand.”

She poked him in the chest, flirty and smug. “I’m thinking hyphenated. Or mashed together. Like a power couple. Willa Storme Jameson-Maddox. Sounds like someone who writes poetry and wins bar fights.”

And oh, his face. That look he gave her when she said she couldn’t believe she got to marry him? It wrecked her. In the best, most undignified way. Her grin faltered, her heart clenched, and suddenly all the chaos was wrapped around something steady and quiet and achingly real.

She kissed his temple, then rested her cheek there like her bones were finally allowed to rest.

“I’ve had a lot of names in my life,” she said softly. “But this one? Yours? This is the first one that ever felt like mine too.”

She let that settle between them for a second—just long enough to breathe. Just long enough to be still.

Then she exploded again.

“Nope, nope, can’t be sappy for more than five seconds,” she declared, shifting in his lap like she was already halfway to launching herself into orbit. “If we don’t make out immediately, I will combust and haunt this bus with horny ghost energy forever. And don’t test me, Maddox—I’ve got poltergeist vibes.”

She grabbed his hoodie, yanked him in, and kissed him so hard he groaned into her mouth. Hands everywhere, laughter spilling between kisses, limbs tangled and the world be damned.

They stayed like that. A mess of denim and declarations. Her fingers tracing the edge of his jaw. His hands never straying far from the curve of her waist.

Their first night as an engaged couple?

Wasn’t fireworks.

It was this.

Heat. Laughter. The smell of stage sweat and perfume. Her boots still half-laced. His voice a rasp against her skin.

Willa tipped her head back, flushed and breathless, and just looked at him.

“My forever’s gonna be loud, you know,” she murmured, thumb brushing the corner of his grin. “Louder than your amps. Louder than your fans.”

A beat. Then:

“You sure you’re ready for that?”

But her eyes were shining like she already knew the answer.

Blake couldn’t breathe.

Or maybe he could, but it was all Willa—filling his lungs, stealing his balance, short-circuiting every logical part of his brain with that beam of hers. Not a smile. Not a smirk. A full-on, soul-bright, heart-punching beam that hit him dead in the chest like she was the encore he’d never stop begging for.

And when she said “glittered yourself into a breakup”?

He wheeze-laughed. No shame. Full body. Nearly folded in half.

“I mean,” he gasped between kisses and cackles, “that would’ve been one hell of a breakup story. ‘Man proposes in sequins and gets left for crimes against sparkle restraint.’ I’d go viral.”

But then she said it—Willa Storme Jameson-Maddox—and Blake went absolutely still.

Because Jesus, that name.

It sounded like a legend.

Like a headline.
Like a war cry and a wedding vow all rolled into one.

“God, that’s so hot,” he whispered, eyes wide, dazed grin spreading slow. “Like… dangerously hot. ‘Writes poetry and wins bar fights’ hot. Like accidentally seduced a city councilman during a protest hot.”

She kissed his temple and meant it, and he felt it all the way to his knees. Which, for the record, were already weak from the chaos of loving her.

And then—because she was Willa and couldn’t sit in a quiet moment for more than two seconds without self-combusting—she declared her poltergeist threat and practically launched at him.

He barely had time to grab her thighs before her mouth was on his again, wild and fierce and full of glittery menace. He groaned into the kiss, hands finding her waist like they were pulled there by gravity.

“I swear to God,” he muttered between gasps, “if you haunt this bus with horny ghost energy, I’ll marry you twice. Once alive. Once undead.”

They kissed like it was a sport. Like their mouths had waited through six entire albums to get to this verse. His hoodie bunched in her fists. Her fingers in his curls. One of them knocking a water bottle off the side table with a sharp clatter neither of them acknowledged.

And when she pulled back, flushed and smirking, to ask “You sure you’re ready for that?”

Blake didn’t hesitate.

Not for a second.

He reached up, brushed his thumb along her cheekbone like he was mapping the coordinates of every stupid lifetime he’d lived without her.

Then, quiet and sure:

“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my entire dumb, chaotic, glitter-filled life.”

A pause.

Then:

“Now come here and kiss your future ghost husband.”

And God, she did.

Loud. Messy. Forever.

Willa kissed him like she meant it.

Like every chaotic, glitter-smeared, middle-finger-to-subtlety part of her had been building to this exact moment since the first night she crash-landed into his world and refused to leave. Her hands fisted in the collar of his hoodie, her mouth hot and laughing against his, the kind of kiss that said you’re mine and I’m yours and if we die like this, we die legendary.

When she finally pulled back—breathless, grinning, cheeks flushed with post-proposal euphoria—she didn't let go. Just leaned her forehead against his and muttered with a smirk, “God, we’re gonna ruin that hotel room.”

Blake choked on a laugh, but she kissed the corner of his mouth like a peace treaty and curled herself tighter into his lap, letting the rhythm of the road and the hum of the bus lull them into a tangled version of calm.

The ride didn’t last forever.

Eventually, the brakes hissed, the outside world creeping in. The familiar jolt of arrival made her lift her head, eyes still half-lidded with joy.

“Back where it started,” she murmured, voice soft. “Our cursed-ass little hotel room.”

Blake just smiled, didn’t say a word. But his fingers traced over hers as the door clattered open and a crew voice called, “Hotel stop!”

Willa reluctantly unwrapped herself, hopping off his lap and adjusting her hair with the grace of someone who knew it looked like they’d been making out on a moving vehicle. (Because they had.)

She grabbed his hand as they stepped into the narrow aisle, the low glow of the bus lights turning everything golden. A few heads turned. Smirks. Winks. Light applause from one of the tech guys that made her roll her eyes.

“Oh, shut up,” she said, though she was beaming. “We’ll do an encore tomorrow. Let us go be gross in peace.”

“Congrats again!” someone yelled. She threw up a peace sign.

Blake gave a salute.

Together, hand-in-hand, they stepped off the bus and into the cool German night.

No screaming fans. No security scramble. Just the quiet hum of the city and the automatic glass doors of the hotel sliding open like they’d been waiting for them.

Willa looked up at him—her dumbass fiancé, her favorite disaster, the man who somehow made her believe in always.

And as they walked through the lobby—still glowing, still grinning, still riding the high of holy shit we’re engaged—she squeezed his hand and leaned in close enough for only him to hear.

“I hope that room’s ready for a riot.”

And Blake?

He just kissed the back of her hand and followed her through the elevator doors like he’d follow her anywhere.

Blake was already gone for her.

Fully. Completely. No seatbelt, no hesitation.

The second she kissed him like that—wild and messy and stamped with every sharp-edged truth they’d never been able to say without laughter or lyrics—he was done. Folded. Wrecked in the way only Willa Jameson-Maddox-probably-hyphenated could manage. Every part of him was buzzing, his hands greedy where they held her like she might vanish if he loosened his grip.

So when she pulled back and grinned, whispering “God, we’re gonna ruin that hotel room,” with her forehead pressed to his and her voice full of sin and sunshine?

Blake snorted so hard he almost lost his breath. “We are banned in advance,” he muttered. “They’re gonna frame our bill like it’s an ancient curse.”

But then she curled in tighter, and for a minute, the world slowed down. Just her in his lap, the bus humming like a lullaby, the night stretching wide and full of promise.

Until it stopped.

Until real life crept back in with the hiss of brakes and the distant shuffle of roadies gathering gear. He felt her shift, her joy still painted across her cheeks as she whispered, “Back where it started. Our cursed-ass little hotel room.”

And yeah—Blake remembered it too.

The door that barely locked. The tiny minibar they turned into a champagne graveyard. The argument about who got the window side of the bed that ended in breathless compromise. It was their origin story, wrapped in peeling wallpaper and cheap linens—and he’d never loved a place more.

He didn’t say a word. Just let his fingers drift over hers like a promise and followed her down the aisle.

Willa was chaos and grace, pulling herself together like she hadn’t just kissed the soul out of him ten minutes ago. She tugged him after her, throwing peace signs and insults in equal measure at their grinning crew. Blake could only laugh and keep pace, hopelessly, helplessly gone.

“We’ll do an encore tomorrow. Let us go be gross in peace.”

Blake tossed a wink over his shoulder. “There’ll be pyrotechnics. And possibly nudity.”

They stepped off the bus and into the kind of night that wrapped around you gently—cool air, faint city sounds, the glow of hotel lights waiting like a stage curtain about to lift.

She looked at him then, with that look.

That don’t you dare look away, this is forever kind of look.

And Blake couldn’t help it.

He leaned down just a little and kissed the back of her hand slow, deliberate—like it was his signature on the biggest promise he’d ever make.

When she whispered, “I hope that room’s ready for a riot,” he didn’t miss a beat.

“Oh, baby,” he said, voice low and reverent as the elevator swallowed them whole, “it’s about to get legendary.”

And he meant it.

Every second of it.

Because Blake Maddox didn’t just fall in love with Willa.

He freefell.

And he wasn’t hitting the ground.

He was flying.

Blake watched her the whole way up.

Even with the hum of the elevator and the soft whir of city noise leaking through the cracks of the building, the only sound he really heard was the static under his skin—that electric, low-level buzz he only ever got around her. Still flushed from the show. Still wrecked from the kiss. Still stunned that she’d actually said yes.

She hadn’t let go of his hand since the stage.

He didn’t want her to.

When the elevator dinged and they stepped into the hallway, he glanced down at her fingers laced through his, then tugged her just a little closer. Just because he could now. Because she was his in a way she hadn’t been yesterday. Or maybe she always was—and now the world just knew it too.

They stopped in front of the door. Same room as before. Same scuffed corner of the carpet. Same dull-gold numbers nailed to the wood. But everything felt different.

He slid the keycard. The lock clicked.

He pushed the door open and let her step in first, then followed, quiet.

The room hadn’t changed.

Neutral tones. Warm light over the headboard. That narrow window with the view of the river she used to trace in silence. But now? It held something else. A memory rethreaded with promise. A before-and-after.

He dropped their bags by the armchair, kicked the door shut with his heel, and turned.

She was just standing there. In the middle of the room. Glowing in a way that had nothing to do with the lighting.

Blake crossed to her without thinking. Just went. Hands finding her waist. Forehead to hers.

His voice was low when he finally spoke—barely a whisper, like anything louder might shatter the moment.

“Jesus,” he breathed, lips brushing her skin. “You’re really mine now.”

He didn’t wait for a reply.

Didn’t need one.

He kissed her slow—like he was signing a contract with his mouth. Like he was making sure she knew exactly what she was saying yes to. His hands roamed under her jacket, up her spine, over the curve of her waist. Mapping her again. Claiming her gently, reverently.

When they broke apart, her eyes were still closed. Her lips still parted.

He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, then leaned in again—softer this time. A kiss to her temple. Her cheek. Her jaw. His hands never left her body.

They backed toward the bed together—no urgency, no need to rush. Just gravity. Just them.

Blake sat first, pulling her into his lap like he’d done it a thousand times. Her legs folded over his, arms settling around his neck, ring catching the low light.

He looked down at it. Then up at her.

He didn’t speak.

Just kissed her knuckles, one by one.

Then the inside of her wrist.

Then the spot under her jaw that always made her breath hitch.

And when she tilted her head, inviting more?

Blake smiled against her throat.

The kind of smile that said this wasn’t the end of anything.

It was the start.

Willa didn’t answer him with words.

Didn’t need to.

Because the second he pulled her into his lap—slow, reverent, like she was something sacred and electric all at once—her whole body answered for her.

She exhaled like it cracked something open. Like the weight of the day and the lights and the stage and the yes she’d thrown at his heart with both hands finally landed in her chest.

And then?

She moved.

Deliberate. Focused. Her fingers brushed the side of his jaw, then slid into his hair, tugging just hard enough to pull a low sound from his throat. She kissed him—deep, unhurried, tasting him like he was something worth memorizing. Like she had time now. All the time.

Willa twisted in his lap, one knee on either side of his hips, pressing him back just enough to stretch him out beneath her. She didn’t rush. Didn’t speak. Just held his gaze as her hands ran down his chest, slipping beneath the hem of his shirt, cool fingers tracing every ridge like a lit match leaving trails.

She wanted to burn it all in. Tonight. Him.

The way he was looking at her like she held the sky in her palms.

The way her ring sparkled when she slid her hand against his throat, thumb brushing the edge of his grin before pulling him back into another kiss—this one slower. Hungrier. A promise sealed with tongue and teeth and just the right amount of tease.

She felt him grip her tighter.

Felt the tension in his thighs, the way his hands curled at her waist like he didn’t know whether to anchor her or worship her.

And God, she loved that.

Loved that Blake Maddox—her favorite disaster, her reckless rhythm, her stupidly hot fiancé—still looked at her like that. Like chaos wrapped in silk. Like danger and devotion with glitter under her nails.

Her hips rolled once—slow, sinfully slow—and she smirked when he groaned, head tipping back.

“I don’t think this hotel room’s ready for a riot,” she murmured, lips brushing his ear now. “But I am.”

And then she licked the edge of his jaw, just because she could.

Just because he was hers now.

She kissed her way down his neck, dragged her nails along the back of his shoulders, left a bite against his collarbone he’d still be feeling tomorrow.

And when he tried to say something—anything—she pressed a finger to his lips and leaned in, eyes dark and dancing.

“No talking, rockstar,” she whispered, mouth brushing his. “You’ve got a new setlist now.”

And then she kissed him again.

Wrecked him again.

Loved him like she was staking a claim—gritty, gorgeous, loud.

Because Willa Storme Jameson-Maddox wasn’t the kind of woman who said yes and waited.

She took yes.

And made it hers.

The second her weight settled into his lap, Blake knew he was gone.

Not stage-gone. Not spotlight-gone. Not even the kind of gone he got when the music hit just right and the crowd moved like a wave around him.

No—this was deeper. Quieter. Dangerous in the way only she could make it.

Willa wasn’t just in his lap. She was everywhere. In his breath. In the thrum of his pulse. In the way her fingertips dragged slow trails across his ribs, leaving goosebumps in their wake like a melody only she knew how to play.

Her legs bracketed him, warm and firm on either side, and her body curled into his like it had been molded to fit. Like the space between them had never really existed at all.

Blake’s head tipped back against the cushions as her mouth found his again—insistent, claiming, sugar and fire and chaos wrapped in the shape of a kiss. One of her hands slid up the back of his neck, threading into his hair, tugging just hard enough to make him groan low and wrecked against her mouth.

His fingers clenched at her hips, grounding himself in the press of her, the roll of her body against his. She moved like a metronome set to ruin him—slow and steady, hips tilting just enough to keep him chasing, to keep him begging in the way she loved. The way only she could pull from him.

“Fuck,” he breathed, the word a rasp in her ear as she kissed down his jawline, her teeth grazing just enough to make him shudder.

Every inch of his skin felt lit. Like his nerves had been rewired to respond only to her.

She pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him—and that look. God, that look.

Willa Storme Jameson-Maddox: all feral grin and flushed cheeks, eyes dark with want and something far heavier underneath. Something holy. Something true.

He was drowning in it.

In her.

The ring caught the light again as she braced a hand on his chest—white gold gleaming against sweat-warmed skin, a reminder that she’d said yes. That this wasn’t some fever dream conjured by tour fatigue and infatuation. This was theirs.

And Blake?

He couldn’t stop touching her.

His hands roamed—up the strong line of her back, down over the curve of her ass, memorizing the way she fit against him like a favorite chord progression. Familiar. Addictive. Necessary.

“You’re not real,” he muttered against her collarbone, voice hoarse. “There’s no way you’re real.”

But she was.

Oh, she was.

She was the scraped-raw reality he’d built every lyric around. The storm he’d walked into with both arms wide open. The girl who never left quietly, who kissed like rebellion and held him like she knew the worst parts and still stayed.

And now she was grinding down on him with slow, devastating precision—making him forget every note, every lyric, every version of himself that existed before she carved her name into the center of his chest.

Their breaths tangled, messy and uneven.

The room spun. The bus swayed. The world outside didn’t exist.

It was just her.

Hands. Mouth. Heat. Love like a tidal wave, crashing over him again and again, until he didn’t know where she ended and he began.

Blake pressed his forehead to hers, panting, dizzy, his heart trying to punch its way through his ribs.

This wasn’t just sex.

This wasn’t even just love.

This was theirs.

Loud. Beautiful. Devastating.

A riot in every sense of the word.

And as Willa moved against him—every shift, every kiss, every sigh a declaration—he realized something simple, terrifying, and completely undeniable:

He’d never come back from this.

And he didn’t want to.

Willa felt it the moment he tipped his head back—neck exposed, lips parted, hands clenching at her hips like she was the only thing tethering him to gravity. And maybe she was. Maybe that was the whole point.

She moved slow, deliberate, not out of gentleness, but control. Her kind of control. The kind that dared him to lose his mind while she kept hers razor sharp and soaked in want. Her hips rocked against him, silk dragging against denim, friction just shy of maddening. A tease. A promise.

His breath hitched beneath her.

Good.

Her mouth chased the sound, teeth grazing his throat, tongue soothing after. She kissed her way down—jaw, pulse, collarbone—mapping him with lips and hunger. He tasted like salt and adrenaline and everything that had been hers long before tonight.

His hoodie bunched beneath her palms as she pushed it up and over his shoulders, peeling it off like a secret. His shirt followed, her fingers dragging along his torso with reverence and heat. She paused when it caught on his elbow, laughing breathlessly into his mouth as she tugged it free, tossing it somewhere behind them.

Then she sat back on his thighs, looking at him.

Flushed. Bare-chested. Wrecked.

Perfect.

Her own top came off with less grace—arms crossed, yank, gone. She didn’t care. He didn’t either, not with the way his hands flew right back to her waist like magnets. Like he couldn’t stand the half-second of space between them.

She rolled her hips again, slower this time, grinding down with a purpose that made both of them gasp.

And then she kissed him. Harder now. Mouth open. Greedy. Her hands slid down his sides, hooking into his waistband, testing how far she could push before he lost that last thread of control.

The answer?

Not far.

She dragged his belt open with a soft clink of metal, letting it hang loose as she mouthed at the edge of his jaw, her voice a whisper against his skin. Not words. Just breath. Just need.

His fingers were in her hair now, gripping tight, guiding her back to his mouth like he couldn’t go another second without kissing her again.

She let him.

Gladly.

Their pants followed—hers slipping down with his help, legs tangling, her body sliding back into his lap with a hiss of air that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

Skin on skin now.

Heat on heat.

Her hands roamed. His did too.

And the sounds—God, the sounds—half-muffled groans and breathless curses and the kind of noises that never made it into setlists but lived between tour stops and closed hotel doors.

They moved to the bed without ever breaking contact. Half stumbles. Full-body laughter. Fingernails dragging. Mouths chasing each other like they were addicted to the taste.

The sheets barely settled before she was straddling him again—bare knees braced on either side, hair wild around her shoulders, eyes heavy-lidded and focused like she was writing scripture with her body.

She leaned down, lips grazing his, and smiled against his mouth—hot, wicked, entirely hers.

And then she moved.

Slow. Deep. Wild.

His hands gripped her thighs. Hers cradled his jaw. Every shift, every grind, every kiss stitched together with sweat and reverence and reckless, unstoppable want.

They didn’t speak.

They didn’t need to.

Because this wasn’t about confessions anymore.

This was about knowing.

About saying I choose you in every sigh, every roll of hips, every beat of shared breath between bodies that no longer remembered how to separate.

And if the walls had ears?

They were about to get one hell of a love song.

Blake didn’t stand a chance.

From the moment Willa pushed him back—eyes dark, movements slow, like she was orchestrating the fall of empires—he was gone. Every thought he might’ve had scattered like ash the second she looked down at him from above, skin kissed by stage light residue and moonlight through the curtains, all heat and history and that fire she never once dimmed for anyone.

She moved like a secret he was lucky enough to be told.

His breath caught when her hands slid down his chest—each fingertip a spark, a claim, a ghost of every night they’d barely survived the wanting. His hoodie had hit the floor, his shirt was god-knows-where, but her hands? They never stopped. She touched him like he was something worth worshipping. Like she already knew every fault line and still wanted to feel the quake.

When she peeled her own top off, all grace thrown to the wind, he swore the world shifted.

She was stunning—hair tousled, flushed from the heat of them, that grin of hers cocky and unrepentant as she rolled her hips again and nearly made him forget his own name. He gripped her tighter, fingers digging into her waist, the ache of her above him eclipsing the ache of every song he’d written before she crashed into his life.

God, she knew what she was doing.

Every kiss, every drag of her mouth along his neck, every twist of her hips was deliberate. Measured. She wasn’t in a hurry. She was crafting a memory. Etching herself into his skin in places no lyric had ever touched.

When her fingers found his belt, he nearly lost it.

The sound of the buckle—the scrape, the metallic clink, the tension that followed—made him groan, low and broken, his head falling forward until his mouth found her shoulder, breathing her in like he’d never get enough.

And he wouldn’t.

He never would.

Their pants joined the chaos—clothes scattered like fallen armor, the only thing left between them the heat and the ache and the years of almost that had finally given way to now.

And when her bare skin slid against his?

He stopped breathing.

Every nerve lit up. Every inch of him tuned to her.

They stumbled to the bed, half-laughing, half-drunk on the gravity of it. But the second she climbed on top again—legs bracketing him, eyes locked with his, hips beginning that slow, soul-wrecking rhythm—he wasn’t laughing anymore.

He was begging.

Not with words. With hands. With breath. With the way his body arched into hers like it was chasing something divine.

And God, she gave it to him.

Her name might’ve been Willa, but right then? She was a fucking storm. All thunder and teeth and reverence, moving above him like she was trying to carve eternity into his spine.

His hands slid up her thighs, traced the curve of her waist, cradled her back as she bent over him again—hair cascading around their faces like a veil spun from the smoke and gold of everything they’d survived.

She kissed him slow.

Deep.

Like it was a vow and a warning all at once.

And he kissed her back, pouring every unsung lyric, every backstage heartbeat, every quiet moment between tour chaos and hotel halls into the press of his lips on hers.

They didn’t speak.

But everything was said.

In the way her nails dragged down his back.

In the way his hand cupped the side of her neck, thumb brushing the edge of her jaw.

In the way she gasped when he shifted beneath her—just right, just enough—and the way she came apart like he was the only person who’d ever gotten her open.

And maybe he was.

Maybe that was the whole point.

Because this wasn’t just lust.

It wasn’t even just love.

This was Willa and Blake.

Riot and rhythm.

Crash and crescendo.

And as the room pulsed around them, filled with nothing but breath and skin and the relentless, quiet promise of forever—

Blake Maddox knew one thing for certain:

There was no encore that would ever top this.

Willa’s pulse thrummed in her throat like a second heartbeat—louder than the distant city noise, louder than the hum of the AC, louder than the soft creak of the mattress beneath them.

Blake was beneath her, bare and burning, and every inch of him was hers to ruin.

And she was going to.

Slowly. Completely.

Her hands dragged up his chest, palms mapping the slope of muscle and heat and history. She moved like she was claiming territory, and in a way, she was—staking her name in the spaces between his ribs and the places he forgot to guard. Her thighs flexed around his hips, body rocking just enough to make him hiss through his teeth, his hands tightening where they held her like he didn’t trust the universe to keep her there.

Good.

Let him burn a little.

She kissed him again, slow and filthy and starved—biting his lower lip before soothing it with her tongue, grinning into his mouth when she felt the way it wrecked him.

Her hips rolled harder now, drawing a groan from deep in his chest, and it lit her up. That sound. That unraveling.

Blake Maddox, stage god and chaos king, was unraveling for her.

She reached between them, freeing what was left between their skin, dragging her fingers with just enough pressure to make his head thud back against the pillow, his breath breaking apart in sharp, wrecked stutters.

“Fuck,” she whispered, the word a confession and a command all at once.

Her body slid against his like it belonged there—slick, scorching, unstoppable. She rocked into him with a slow, brutal rhythm that had nothing to do with mercy and everything to do with control. Her control. Her hands planted on his chest, hair falling around her face in wild, dark waves, she rode him like it meant something.

Because it did.

This wasn’t a post-show fuck or a celebration. This was something bigger.

It was every missed moment finally catching up to them. Every night spent tangled in tension. Every glance, every lyric, every not yet coming undone between their bodies.

Blake’s hands slid up her back, reverent, searching, gripping tight like he needed the anchor. She gave him her mouth, her throat, her gasps—tilting her head when he kissed the spot that made her see stars, dragging her nails down his stomach as her hips snapped harder, hungrier.

He moaned her name like it was the only word he remembered.

Her eyes fluttered closed, breath catching, teeth catching her lip.

She didn’t need a mirror to know she was flushed, wild, glowing.

She felt it.

In the sting of her skin. The way their sweat-slick bodies slid and tangled, the bed creaking beneath them in time with the rhythm she refused to break. The kind of rhythm born in the bones, pulsing louder than any drumline.

Willa leaned down, catching his mouth again, her hands on either side of his head, her body moving with relentless, steady precision.

Every movement a promise.

Every kiss a claim.

Every breathless moan a reminder that he was hers now.

He always had been.

She felt him shift again beneath her, felt the way his muscles tensed, his breath hitched, his fingers dug into her thighs like he was trying to memorize the shape of her from the inside out.

Her forehead dropped to his. Eyes locked.

Breathless.

Burning.

And without a word, she rolled her hips one more time—just enough to make him shudder—and smiled.

Let him fall apart under her.

Let the room remember.

Let the world wait.

Because in this bed, under these hands, in this heat and want and wildfire—

They were infinite.

Blake could barely keep his eyes open.

Not because he was tired—God, not even close—but because she was too much and not enough all at once. The way she moved above him, slow and devastating, like she was rewriting gravity just to pull him under with her. Like she knew she was undoing him, and did it anyway. Because she could.

Because he wanted her to.

Willa didn’t need to say a word.

Her body spoke louder than any lyric he’d ever bled onto a page. Her hips rolled like poetry, like percussion—steady and deliberate. His name kept slipping out of her like a mantra, wrecked and wanting, and every time it did, Blake gripped her tighter like it was the only thing tethering him to this plane of existence.

His hands mapped her back, memorizing the slick curve of her spine, the twitch of her muscles every time he met her rhythm. She was a living drumline and he swore he could feel her under his skin—notes and nerves and need.

She was everywhere.

And when she leaned down, hair brushing his cheek, lips brushing his ear, chest pressed tight to his—he didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.

The world narrowed to skin and sweat and the sound of the bed frame giving up under them.

Every sigh that left her mouth was a hook.

Every gasp was a chorus.

And God, when she looked at him like that—flushed and glowing, a fucking wildfire with mascara smudged down her cheeks and love lighting up her eyes like a riot—he came undone all over again without even touching her.

He whispered her name like it was sacred.

Like he’d never been sure of anything else in his life.

His fingers shook when they dragged across her jaw, thumb brushing over her bottom lip like he was trying to convince himself she was real. That this wasn’t some post-show delusion. That he’d really done it. Proposed mid-set. That she’d said yes. That she was here. Still here.

“You,” he rasped, barely a breath, voice cracked wide open. “You’re my fucking religion.”

Willa moved again—slower this time, deeper—and his hips stuttered up to meet her without thought, his body chasing hers like it was coded in his DNA.

He swore the stars shifted.

The world blurred.

He felt her everywhere—on his tongue, in his lungs, under his nails, behind his ribs.

When she kissed him again—hard and claiming, like she was making sure the universe knew he was hers now—he moaned into her mouth and swore he’d never need anything else.

Not a crowd. Not a chorus.

Just this.

Her voice in the dark. Her mouth on his. Her body wrapped around him like a battle cry and a lullaby all at once.

And when she finally dropped her forehead to his, and they locked eyes again—wide open, burning, whole—he let go.

Of the tour.

Of the fear.

Of everything but her.

He gave her all of it.

Right there in that busted hotel bed, wrapped in sweat and sheets and the kind of love that didn’t ask for permission anymore.

He came apart with her name in his mouth and her pulse under his hand and her breath curling into his.

And afterward, when they were just a tangle of limbs and hums and aftershocks, he didn’t say anything at first.

He just held her tighter.

Pressed his mouth to her temple.

And smiled against her skin like a man who’d finally found home.

Because Blake Maddox had loved a lot of things in his life.

But nothing—nothing—like this.

Like her.

Like Willa fucking Riot Maddox, the girl who turned his chaos into a chorus and said yes like it meant everything.

Because it did.

Willa couldn’t stop shaking.

Not from nerves. Not from cold.

But from the aftershocks of having him—of riding the high of that kiss, that yes, that unraveling that started onstage and ended here, in this too-warm room with the smell of skin and sweat and something sacred hanging thick in the air.

Blake was beneath her, breath ragged, chest rising fast. And she was wrecked.

Utterly, stupidly wrecked.

Her thighs ached in the best way. Her body hummed with adrenaline and heat and the ghost of every place he’d touched like he was trying to memorize her from the inside out. And maybe he had. Maybe he had carved his name into every bone in her body tonight, because God, she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.

She was still straddling him, bare and kissed raw, her hands braced on his chest. His skin was flushed and gleaming in the low light, and his eyes—fuck, those eyes—looked at her like she was the final lyric to a song he hadn’t known how to finish until now.

She dipped her head, brushed her nose against his, kissed the corner of his mouth, his jaw, the curve of his throat where his pulse still thundered.

“I can feel your heartbeat in my teeth,” she whispered against his skin, lips curling into a smirk even as her voice cracked. “That’s how hard you’re loving me right now.”

She kissed lower, lazy and possessive, tongue flicking against his collarbone before she bit—soft, then harder. Just enough to make him groan again. A sound she’d bottle if she could. Something guttural and punched-out and hers.

Willa eased back, watched him for a beat, the rise and fall of his chest, the faint tremble in his arms as he pulled her down against him like he couldn’t stand not having her close. His mouth was parted, eyes dazed, and she kissed him again—slow and deep and claiming.

Then her body collapsed over his.

Skin to skin. Scar to scar. Heart to heart.

And Blake?

Blake wrapped his arms around her like he never wanted to let go.

She curled her fingers into his damp curls, breathing him in, grounding herself in the thrum of him under her cheek.

The world was still moving—sirens outside, headlights washing briefly through the window, the hum of a minibar fridge trying its best—but in here, it was just them. Tangled limbs. Shaky breath. Sheets twisted around their ankles.

No stage. No audience.

Just two chaotic hearts that had crashed into each other and found something real in the rubble.

Her voice was hoarse when she spoke again, quieter this time, like she didn’t want to startle the moment.

“Next time you wanna propose, maybe do it somewhere I’m not already planning to crawl you like a jungle gym.”

She felt his laugh vibrate through his chest, a low, delicious sound, and she grinned against his skin.

But she didn’t move.

Didn’t need to.

Because this? This was it.

Not the finale.

Not the fade-out.

Just the start of a new track—one only they could hear.

And Willa had never been more ready to press play.

Blake’s chest was still shaking with the tail end of that laugh—deep, ruined, full-body—when he curled one arm tighter around her back and let the other tangle in her hair. He didn’t speak right away, couldn’t. His brain hadn’t caught up to the fact that this was real yet.

That she’d said yes.

That she was here, molten and perfect, sprawled across his chest like she owned the goddamn sky and had just decided to gift him the stars.

Her breath fanned across his neck, warm and a little uneven, and he swore he could still feel her printed into the lines of his palms. Not just the way she moved. Not just the way she kissed him like he was a living vow. But the way she felt. The weight of her. The trust.

He kissed her temple without thinking. Then again, slower this time. Anchoring.

“Jungle gym,” he muttered, voice wrecked and rasped with the kind of bliss that only came after someone had dismantled your soul in the most loving way possible. “Jesus Christ, Willa.”

Another laugh, but this one was gentler. Reverent.

“You realize I blacked out for a solid two minutes in the middle of that set, right? My brain was just echoing ‘say it, say it, do it now, you coward’ over and over until I sprinted offstage like a gremlin.”

He turned his head, nuzzling his nose into her hair, then tilted just enough to catch the curve of her cheek with his lips. His other hand—still shaky, still reverent—smoothed down the line of her spine, slow and sure.

“You made it impossible not to,” he added, quieter now. “You, standing there in the wings like you’ve always fucking belonged to me… like I could finish the whole tour and still come undone the second I looked at you.”

A beat. Then another.

“And I have to propose before you jungle gym me again, because I’m a control freak and I wanted to win one thing tonight.”

His grin pressed against her skin this time. Lazy. Lopsided. Undeniably his.

Outside, the city murmured on. Distant traffic. Someone shouting three floors below. The rhythm of life still pulsing.

But in here?

They were wrapped in quiet.

The kind that came after surviving something. After choosing someone. After wreckage and rebuilding and saying yes with your whole body.

Blake pressed another kiss to her shoulder—then one to the corner of her jaw, where he could still feel her pulse.

His voice, when it came again, was softer than the city outside. Just a thread of breath and truth.

“I love you, Willa Jameson-Maddox.”

Not a song.

Not a performance.

Just a fact.

Said in the kind of hush meant only for hotel rooms and sweat-drenched sheets and the space between two people who’ve decided to build something permanent out of every broken part.

And he meant it.

Every syllable.

Every beat.

Willa didn’t lift her head right away.

She couldn’t.

Not when he said it like that. Like it wasn’t a question. Like it wasn’t even a confession anymore—just gravity. Truth wrapped in warmth, tangled limbs, and the aftermath of something holy.

Her fingers flexed against his chest, nails dragging lightly through the damp there as if to anchor herself, to make sure she was still real and he was still here. Still hers.

God. Hers.

The laugh she let out was quiet and wrecked and maybe a little dangerous. The kind of sound that came from deep down—lower than her ribs, lower than her thoughts—born from the parts of her that had always been a little wild and a little starved. And right now? She was full.

Of him. Of this.

Of the weight of his body under hers and the echo of his voice in her bones.

She shifted just enough to look up, chin resting on his sternum, hair sticking to her cheeks, her expression lazy and flushed and radiant in the low light.

“Only one thing?” she murmured, voice gravel-soft and smug with affection. “Baby, you won the whole fucking night. You practically made the scoreboard short-circuit.”

Her hips nudged against his just enough to make him inhale through his teeth, but there was no heat in it now—just that slow, molten afterglow and the way her eyes locked on his like he was a planet she hadn’t finished mapping yet.

“I love you too,” she said. Plain and simple. No fireworks. No chaos. Just the raw center of her, peeled back and handed over like a dare.

Then she bent down and kissed him—soft and unhurried. Not demanding. Not urgent. Just theirs. Her mouth barely parted his, and yet he tasted everything: the promise, the surrender, the wild thunderclap of a girl who didn’t do quiet but gave him all her quiet anyway.

When she finally pulled back, she tucked her head into the crook of his neck again, lips brushing his skin as she whispered, “But if you think for one second I’m not gonna jungle gym you again before checkout…”

Her grin curled slow and wicked against his throat.

“…then you don’t know what the fuck you just signed up for, Maddox.”

And he could feel her smile—pressed into him, blooming through the hush.

They stayed like that for a long moment. The room a cocoon. The air thick with heat and heartbeats and unspoken plans.

Tomorrow, the world would start again.

But tonight?

They had time.

Blake didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe right for a second.

Because God, how could he, when Willa was curled over his chest like a living crown and an unapologetic threat to his sanity? When her voice—wrecked and velvet and smug as sin—dragged itself across his ribs like a match just waiting to be lit again?

He was done for.

Completely. Gloriously.

The kind of undone you don’t recover from—don’t want to recover from. The kind that rewrites you at the molecular level and leaves your name permanently scribbled in someone else’s margins.

And her saying I love you like that? All grounded and unflinching and stupidly hers?

It didn’t just land—it detonated.

He swallowed hard, arms flexing instinctively around her waist, his fingers brushing soft, aimless patterns over the bare curve of her back. Anchored there. Desperate to stay there.

She felt like gravity and gasoline.

And that promise in her smile—the one about the jungle gym?

Yeah.

His heart did something deeply unhelpful. Skipped or exploded or something in between.

A hoarse laugh slipped out, low and winded. His head tipped back against the pillow, and he closed his eyes for a breath.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, grinning so hard it was almost a problem. “I proposed once and now I’ve unleashed a sexy jungle gym gremlin with a god complex and a vendetta.”

He cracked an eye open. Watched the way her hair spilled against his shoulder. The way her fingers kept absently tracing along his chest like she was cataloging each heartbeat.

And then—softer, but still grinning—he added:

“I really hope housekeeping has hazard pay.”

His hand slid up, brushing back a strand of hair stuck to her temple, lingering just long enough to trace the line of her cheek. Then her jaw. Then her mouth, which was still curved in that dangerously perfect little smirk.

His thumb rested there, not moving, just being.

And when he spoke again, it was quieter.

Not because he was afraid.

But because some things were meant to be said in the hush.

“You feel like home, Wills.”

His voice cracked on it—just slightly—but he didn’t look away.

“You always did.”

And then he kissed her again, with none of the heat from before—but with all the weight of a man who knew exactly what he was holding.

Not chaos.

Not just want.

But a lifetime.

And he was never letting go.

Willa didn’t answer right away.

Didn’t need to.

Because her whole body responded for her—melting into him like a slow exhale, like a sigh she hadn’t realized she’d been holding since the day they met. Her arm curled tighter around his ribs, cheek pressed to his chest, lashes fluttering against skin still damp with sweat and something sacred.

She could feel his heartbeat. Still racing. Still reckless. Still hers.

And she smiled.

God, she smiled.

Not the cocky, flirtatious kind that used to mask how much she hoped he loved her back. Not the playful kind she tossed over her shoulder when she knew she had him wrecked. This one was quiet. Full. Real.

The kind that didn’t ask for anything—because it already had everything.

Her fingertips danced lazily along the ridge of one of his tattoos, tracing it like a trail only she was allowed to follow. She wasn’t in a rush. Wasn’t trying to start anything up again. She was just… there. With him. Completely.

She tilted her chin up slightly, just enough to press a soft kiss to his collarbone. Then another. Slower. Thoughtless. Reverent.

“You’re warm,” she murmured against his skin, voice hazy with afterglow and adoration. “Like a weighted blanket and a furnace and an ego trip all at once.”

Her grin curved against his chest, but her tone softened, dipping into something truer. “But mostly? You just feel like… peace.”

She let that hang in the air for a moment. Let it breathe.

Then she shifted up slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. Her elbow propped between them, hair sticking to her back, her cheek still flushed with leftover heat.

“But don’t tell anyone,” she whispered conspiratorially, brushing her nose against his. “Riot Willa has a reputation to uphold. Can’t have the world knowing she gets cuddly and starry-eyed after wrecking her fiancé in a shitty hotel bed.”

Her gaze flicked down to his mouth.

Then back to his eyes.

And for a moment, she didn’t speak.

She just looked at him.

Open. Present. So full of love it nearly knocked her flat all over again.

Then she dropped back down with a dramatic sigh, her body half-draped across his, her legs tangled with his like they belonged there.

Which—God, they did.

She tilted her head so her lips brushed the base of his throat.

“So this is what forever feels like,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Sticky and exhausted and stupidly happy.”

A beat.

Then she added, smug and sleepy:

“...and a little sore.”

And fuck, she was glowing.

Not from the sex. Not even from the ring.

But from him.

From them.

From the kind of love that didn’t have to perform anymore. Didn’t have to prove itself.

It just was.

And as her eyes drifted closed, fingers still tracing soft patterns over his ribs, Willa didn’t say another word.

She didn’t need to.

Because her whole body—pressed close, unguarded, anchored in the center of the storm they’d both survived—was already saying the only thing that mattered.

I’m yours.

And she always would be.

Blake didn’t say anything right away.

He couldn’t.

Because if he opened his mouth, he wasn’t sure what would come out—words or a sound or just a mess of breath and wrecked wonder at the fact that she was here. Still draped over him like she belonged there. Like all that fire and fury and fragile softness had decided to make him its home.

His arms tightened around her without thinking, like his body was trying to memorize the shape of her all over again, even now. Even still. His thumb brushed lazy circles at the base of her spine, slow and grounding, like he was trying to etch calm into the curve of her.

She was warm. Soft. Smirking against his chest like she hadn’t just reduced him to holy ruin an hour ago.

He tilted his chin just enough to glance down at her, hair stuck to her temple, that smug little smile still curled like a secret across her lips.

Peace, she’d called him.

Peace.

Blake exhaled through a grin he couldn’t contain if he tried, the kind that made his eyes squint a little at the corners. His voice, when it finally came, was low and wrecked and tangled in awe.

“Well, shit,” he murmured, his chest rumbling under her cheek. “You call me peace and a furnace in the same breath, and expect me not to walk into traffic for you?”

He felt her huff against his skin, that silent laugh that made his ribs ache in the best way.

“And for the record,” he added, voice rough with love, “you can keep Riot Willa for the world. But this one? This sleepy, smug little gremlin melted on top of me, whispering about forever and cuddling like it’s not a public safety risk?”

He kissed the crown of her head—slow and full, lips lingering in her hair.

“That one’s mine.”

His voice dropped, softer now. Less for teasing. More for truth.

“Always has been.”

He felt her hum against his chest, felt the way she sank further into him, like the words settled her deeper than the sheets ever could. And God, she was right.

This wasn’t a performance anymore.

This was them.

Sticky and exhausted and happy.

And yeah, probably a little sore.

He laughed quietly into her hair, one hand stroking the length of her spine now, slow and aimless, like a lullaby with skin.

Then—just above a whisper, like a vow wrapped in nothing but breath—he said:

“Go to sleep, Willa Riot Maddox.”

And when she didn’t argue?

He smiled.

Because he’d won.

Not the night.

Not the scoreboard.

But her.

Forever.

Willa’s lips twitched into a sleepy, smug grin against his chest.

She didn’t move—didn’t need to—not when he was stroking her spine like that, slow and steady, like she was something to be cherished. Like she was something that didn’t need to be fought for anymore. Just held.

His voice—rough and sweet and all hers—settled into the hollow of her collarbone like a secret, and she let herself melt. Fully. Unapologetically. As if it was the easiest thing in the world to let go of every jagged edge she'd ever weaponized and just be.

With him.

A low hum vibrated against his ribs, content and unbothered. “You win one round,” she muttered, voice heavy with drowsy affection, “and suddenly you think you’re king of the jungle gym.”

But her hand curled tighter against his chest, fingers splaying like she could hold the moment in place. As if staying tucked against him—bare and boneless and bonafide his—might keep the rest of the world from intruding.

She shifted just enough to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. Not heated. Not teasing. Just soft.

Final.

A punctuation mark on the kind of night you only get once in a lifetime if you’re lucky.

And she was.

God, she was lucky.

Because no one had ever loved her like this. No one had ever let her take up space like a storm and still called her home. No one had ever looked at the wildest parts of her and grinned like they were a gift.

But Blake did.

Every time.

And tonight, in this hotel bed with his heartbeat under her ear and his promise still echoing through her bones, she let herself believe it would always be like this. That chaos could coexist with calm. That love didn’t need taming to be true.

She didn’t say anything else.

Didn’t have to.

Because the quiet was enough. His arms were enough. He was enough.

And as her eyes fluttered shut and her breathing slowed, Willa drifted into sleep with a smile on her lips and a name in her heart—hers now, in every way that mattered.

Blake Maddox.

Her furnace.

Her peace.

Her always.

Blake stayed awake a little longer.

Not out of restlessness. Not because he couldn’t sleep.

But because this—her, folded into him like they’d been stitched together by something ancient and cosmic—was a view he wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

He watched the way her lashes rested against flushed cheeks, how the corner of her mouth still quirked up in that stubborn little smirk even as sleep tugged her under. Her fingers twitched now and then against his chest like her body was still reaching for something it already had.

And God, did she have him.

He tightened his hold on her slightly, just enough to draw her closer, to press another kiss into her hair and breathe her in like a grounding spell. She still smelled like stage lights and perfume and sweat and something sweeter—something hers—like rebellion dipped in honey.

Blake closed his eyes.

Listened to her breathing sync with his.

Felt her heart, steady and sure, right against his own.

And for the first time in a long damn time, the future didn’t feel like a question mark.

It felt like her.

Wrapped in sheets. Whispering threats and promises in equal measure. Kissing him like he was a prayer and a punchline all at once. Sleeping with her whole body curled into his like she’d never known how to want something halfway.

He ran his thumb along her back one more time—gentle, absentminded, like he was etching the moment into memory.

Then, finally, with her name echoing in his chest like the best kind of chorus, he let his head fall back against the pillow.

And he let go.

Of the noise.

Of the doubt.

Of everything that didn’t start and end with Willa Storme Jameson.

The woman who kissed like a riot and loved like a vow.

His.

Now and always.

And as sleep pulled him under too, one last thought flickered behind his eyes:

Damn right I won.

[fast forward two days. The festival is over, they've decided to stay an extra night and meet the band tomorrow]

The water was just on the edge of too hot—Willa’s favorite temperature. The kind that flushed her skin and made the world outside the tub feel like an afterthought. Steam curled up around them, fogging the antique mirror above the sink and turning the entire hotel bathroom into a sanctuary of dim gold light and soft echoes.

The bottle of champagne sat in a silver bucket nearby, half-sunk in ice. Two long-stemmed flutes rested on a narrow tray Blake had dragged over, positioned just within reach. She’d already knocked hers once with her foot, but he’d caught it before it tipped.

Of course he had.

He was behind her now, arms resting along the rim of the tub, legs stretched out to either side, his chest a solid wall of heat against her back. Willa reclined fully into him, her head resting just below his collarbone, her damp hair trailing over one of his arms like seaweed caught in a current.

She sighed—content, heavy-limbed, almost drunk from the heat and the day and him.

“Well,” she said, voice lazy, lips curling into a smile she didn’t bother hiding, “if this is what post-proposal life looks like, I gotta say…I’m thriving.”

She reached for her flute without sitting up, fingers curling delicately around the stem as she brought it to her lips. It was crisp and cold, a perfect contrast to the molten water lapping at her shoulders.

“I mean, look at this,” she continued, gesturing vaguely with the flute before taking another sip. “Giant tub. Bubbly. The hottest man I’ve ever met as my personal pillow. I feel like a scandal waiting to happen.”

Her toes wiggled above the surface, bubbles clinging to her ankles. The tips of her knees brushed his thighs when she stretched, and she could feel the way his hands drifted lightly over her hips, grounding her with every subtle touch. She didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to.

Willa tilted her head just enough to nuzzle into the hollow of his throat. Her voice dropped to a whispery purr.

“Y’know, if you keep letting me get away with things like this, I’m gonna get spoiled.”

She smiled against his skin, letting her teeth graze lightly over the spot just below his jaw.

“Actually…” she murmured, teasing, “I’m already spoiled. I mean—look at you. Look at this. I’m sitting in a five-star Berlin bathtub with the man I’m going to marry, drinking champagne out of glass slippers like I’m on my third fairy tale.”

Her free hand lifted, settling over his forearm where it curved along her ribs. She ran her fingers lightly along the tattoo near his wrist, then laced their hands together under the water. Her thumb brushed his knuckles, slow and rhythmic.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” she admitted, softer now. “Not just safe. Like…held. Like I could fall apart a little and not have to rebuild myself alone.”

She wasn’t trying to make it heavy. But it slipped out anyway, honest and warm and echoing between the tile walls and the bubbles.

Then—because she was still Willa, and still herself even wrapped in love and champagne—she tipped her head back to look up at him, her smile curving slow and dangerous.

“By the way… you didn’t exactly specify a rating system, but I think I nailed it,” she said. “Two days into being your forever and I’m already setting the bar so high you’ll have to write a whole new album just to keep up.”

She took another sip, eyes glittering, cheeks flushed.

Then she added, with a wink:

“You’re welcome.”

And she sank back into him like the smug little menace she was, entirely at home in the arms of the man she planned to make hers again and again—forever.

Blake didn’t say anything at first.

Didn’t need to.

He just let his hand trail slow, lazy circles over the dip of her waist, the pads of his fingers tracing the edge of a bubble that had the audacity to cling to her like it was invited. His other arm stayed firm across the rim of the tub, anchoring them like maybe this whole moment could last longer if he didn’t move too much.

God, she was something else. Willa Maddox. Willa Riot Maddox. Whatever name she ended up stealing from him, he’d never stop being wrecked by the fact that she was his.

He leaned down—barely—and let his lips brush the shell of her ear.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured, voice rough from heat and champagne and the way she always managed to floor him without even trying. “You were born to be spoiled. I’m just giving the universe a little help.”

He kissed the spot just behind her jaw, right where her pulse fluttered. Didn’t rush it. Just let it linger, warm and certain.

“And for the record?” he added, lips brushing her skin as he spoke. “You’re not a scandal waiting to happen. You’re the headline. Front page. Limited edition. Collector’s item.”

She shifted in his arms, that smug little grin of hers blooming like trouble incarnate, and he could feel her pride in the way her body melted deeper into his. Like she knew exactly what she was doing to him. Like she always had.

His hand slipped beneath the water, finding hers. Their fingers laced like muscle memory, like they’d been doing it for lifetimes.

Blake tilted his head down, cheek brushing her temple as he spoke low, almost reverent now. “I’ve never felt like this either, baby. Not once. Not with anyone.”

He paused. Let that live in the space between heartbeats.

“I’ve had stages. Spotlights. Crowds screaming my name. But this right here?” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “This is the first time I’ve ever felt seen.”

He kissed her temple. Slow. Full. Let it say all the things he was still learning how to put into words.

Then—because she tipped her head back with that damn gleam in her eye and claimed she’d already set the bar too high—he let out a low, delighted laugh and leaned in close, nose brushing hers.

“Oh, you nailed it alright,” he said, smirking. “You shattered the damn scale. I’m not even mad about it. Just deeply, wildly turned on and a little terrified.”

He stole her champagne flute from her hand, took a sip, and grinned like he’d just gotten away with something dangerous.

“And you’re right,” he added, voice lower now, eyes locked on hers. “I am gonna write a whole album about you. Might even call it Riot. But you’re gonna have to help me finish it. In between more baths. And breakfasts in bed. And ruining hotel room sheets.”

He placed the glass back down with care, then tucked her tighter against him, chest to her back, nose in her hair, like he could inhale her.

“I’m in this for everything, Willa,” he said, voice soft now. Steady. “All of it. Every chaotic minute. Every giggle-fit and wardrobe malfunction and backstage kiss. I don’t want the cleaned-up version. I want you. Loud. Soft. Bratty. Brilliant. Mine.”

A beat.

Then, against her ear, barely a whisper:

“Forever looks real fucking good on you, stormcloud.”

And he didn’t say another word.

Just held her there in the heat and the hush, bubbles popping around them, hearts beating in sync, the future waiting politely at the door while they finished their moment.

Together.

Willa didn’t move at first.

Didn’t even blink.

Just let the warmth of him wrap around her, all voice and chest and slow, reverent hands—like he was trying to memorize her from the inside out. His words had settled into her skin like ink, still warm, still bleeding a little at the edges.

Forever looks real fucking good on you, stormcloud.

God.

It hit like a chord struck just right—sharp and sweet and vibrating through the cage of her ribs. She could’ve made a joke. Could’ve winked or teased or said something slick and shameless to keep the moment light.

But she didn’t want light.

Not this time.

So she leaned back into him instead, letting her head rest on his shoulder, her fingers curling around his under the water. The air between them was thick with quiet and warmth and the smell of champagne and hotel soap and him.

She tipped her chin slightly, lips brushing the edge of his jaw—not quite a kiss, more like a thank-you disguised as a breath.

“I used to think I’d burn out before anyone ever saw the whole of me,” she said quietly. “Like maybe I was too much to carry. Too much to keep.”

Her thumb ran across the back of his hand, slow and steady.

“But you… you keep showing up with a damn bucket and a grin like I’m something worth catching.”

She smiled at that, small but certain. A little shaky, maybe. But honest.

Her voice was lower now. Threaded through with awe she hadn’t meant to let show, but couldn’t quite bury.

“I’ve been in love before. I’ve been in lust. I’ve been adored and I’ve been wanted and I’ve been fucking worshipped—but this?”

She twisted slightly, just enough to glance up at him, lashes damp, eyes reflecting both candlelight and something bigger. Something steadier.

“This is the first time I’ve ever felt kept.”

Her voice cracked on that last word, barely audible over the soft fizz of bubbles. But she didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch.

Because the truth didn’t scare her anymore.

Not with him.

She turned her face back into his neck, breathing him in like the end of a song she never wanted to stop playing. And when she spoke again, it was soft. Flirty. Dangerous in the way only she could make danger feel like a promise.

“Also, side note? If you call an album Riot without letting me design the damn cover, I’ll actually kill you.”

She felt him chuckle—felt it in his chest, against her cheek, low and warm and hers.

Then, quieter:

“I want the mess, too. The writing at 3 a.m., the missing socks, the way your laugh sounds when you’re sleep-deprived and caffeinated and trying to pretend you’re not. I want your nightmares and your tour meltdowns and every cracked version of you the world doesn’t get to see.”

She tilted her head back again, eyes on him now. No teasing this time.

Just truth.

“All in, Blake Maddox. I’m in this all the way.”

Her fingers tightened in his.

Then she smiled, slow and wicked and completely herself again.

“But fair warning—forever with me means you’re never gonna get bored. Or well-rested. Or possibly clothed.”

She reached for her flute, took a sip without breaking eye contact, then smirked.

“Think you can handle that, rockstar?”

And she settled back into him again—content, fearless, and absolutely kept.

Because for the first time in her life?

Forever didn’t feel like a cage.

It felt like home.

Blake didn’t answer right away.

Couldn’t.

Because damn if she didn’t just strip him bare with words alone—no lipstick, no lace, no swaggered hips or smirking bravado—just her, wide open and wild and incandescent with the kind of honesty that broke him in the gentlest way possible.

Kept.

He felt that word like a gut punch and a vow all at once. It rang in his chest, louder than stadium crowds, deeper than any lyric he’d ever scratched into a hotel napkin at 2 a.m. And the way she said it—quiet, cracking, brave? He didn’t deserve her. Not really. But he’d spend the rest of forever earning every goddamn second of her saying it again.

He brought their joined hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles like a prayer. No smirk. No line.

Just reverence.

“I don’t want the easy version of you, Willa,” he said, voice low and close, the kind of tone that belonged to confessions and back-of-the-bus promises. “I want the wild. The worn-out. The wicked. I want every piece that makes you flinch when people get too close—because I’m not gonna flinch.”

His nose brushed hers, soft and steady. Like punctuation. Like gospel.

“I want the storm and the quiet after. The riot and the recovery.”

He let that land. Let it breathe.

Then—because she smirked, because she made that damn album cover threat with enough venom and velvet to wreck a lesser man—he grinned, teeth flashing.

“Baby, you are the cover. I’ll just slap your boots and your chaos and a middle finger in rhinestones on it and call it a day.”

He laughed, deep and warm, tugging her in closer like he couldn’t get enough of her skin on his.

Then—quieter, throat tight around something thick and real—he pressed his lips to her temple and whispered, “Forever with you sounds like the best kind of beautiful trouble.”

A pause. His thumb brushed the top of her thigh beneath the water, slow and grounding.

“And yeah, I can handle it. All of it. The mess. The magic. The not-so-clothed parts.”

He tilted her chin up again, met her gaze without a trace of doubt.

“I’ll take your nightmares. Your morning breath. Your rage-texts and off-key singing and tour burnout tantrums.”

His voice softened.

“I’ll take your love. However it shows up. However it crashes in.”

Then he kissed her—slow, deep, like a promise in motion.

And when he finally pulled back, their foreheads still pressed, steam curling around them like a cocoon, he smiled.

“You’re not too much, stormcloud,” he murmured. “You’re just finally with someone who knows how to hold thunder.”

And with that, he reached for the champagne, clinked her glass with his, and said the only toast that mattered:

“To home.”

Because Willa Storme Maddox wasn’t a destination.

She was the storm and the shelter.

And God, he was never leaving.

Willa didn’t answer right away.

Not because she didn’t have anything to say—but because her heart was a little too full, and her throat a little too tight, and because fuck, sometimes love was just so much.

Even after all these years—after every airport reunion, every backstage bicker, every I love you murmured through teeth and tears and laughter—he still found new ways to ruin her.

Not with grand gestures.

Not even with the proposal, if she was honest.

But with this.

With him. Sitting there like sin incarnate in a candlelit bathtub, steam haloing around them, saying things he had no right to say with that voice and that face and that goddamn heart.

Her cheeks were flushed, sure—from champagne and heat and the way his thumb was still tracing slow circles over her thigh—but mostly from the weight of it. The realness.

“Jesus, Maddox,” she whispered, laughing under her breath as she tipped back the last of her champagne. “How am I supposed to compete with that? You say things like ‘the storm and the quiet after’ and I’m just over here hoping my boobs are floating symmetrically.”

She set the flute on the tray, her fingers lingering on the stem just long enough to pretend she wasn’t trying to collect herself.

But when she finally turned—when she twisted in the water, sliding slick and warm across his lap to face him fully—she didn’t hold back.

Didn’t filter. Didn’t blink.

Her knees bracketed his hips now, arms looping loosely around his neck, the grin she wore equal parts trouble and truth.

“You know,” she said, tilting her head, “we’ve been doing this thing for over five years now. Friends for more than ten. And somehow…” Her voice went quieter. Softer. “Somehow you still make me fall for you in new ways. Like you’ve got tricks hidden in your back pocket just waiting to emotionally destroy me when I least expect it.”

Her thumb brushed over his bottom lip, slow. Thoughtful.

“And honestly? Rude.”

She leaned in, mouth barely an inch from his now, eyes locked and dark with affection.

“But effective.”

Willa kissed him slow, deliberate, like she was branding the moment into his bones. Then again, quicker, lighter, more playful—smiling against his lips because God, this was her life now. This was her person.

“You’re lucky you’re hot,” she murmured, teasing. “And that I love you. And that you keep saying shit that makes me want to cry and climb you at the same time.”

Her fingers threaded through the damp ends of his hair, tugging just enough to be bratty. Just enough to make a point.

“You said you’d take it all, remember? The rage-texts. The tantrums. The off-key karaoke.”

She raised a brow, daring him to flinch.

“Good,” she said, voice a little breathless now, “because you’re stuck with it. Forever. Every meltdown. Every messy part. Every time I cry at a dog commercial or flip off a paparazzi or make you late because I need to change my outfit again.”

A beat.

Then—quiet and absolutely sincere, her heart worn wide open on her face—she added:

“I’ll give you all of me, Blake. Every version. Every storm. Every damn sunrise I get to wake up in your arms.”

She kissed him again—just once, soft and still and home.

Then leaned back, smug and starry-eyed all at once.

“And you better start prepping that album, husband-to-be,” she whispered. “Because I’ve got at least six verses worth of opinions on track titles.”

And when she curled into him again—heart-first, grin-still-smoldering—there was nothing left in her but certainty.

She was his.

Fully. Loudly. Forever.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

Blake’s eyes didn’t leave her—not when she turned, not when she said it, not even when she tried to hide how much it meant. Because that was the thing about Willa: she could bury her heart in a thousand jokes, drown it in champagne and chaos and that sharp, dazzling grin—but he still saw it. All of it. All of her.

And God, he loved her for it.

He let out a soft breath, arms tightening around her as his thumb traced a lazy, reverent circle on her hip under the water. The candlelight caught the curve of her cheek, the curl of her hair damp against her shoulder, and he couldn’t believe—still couldn’t believe—that this was his life now. That she was.

“Yeah,” he murmured, voice low and honest, lips brushing the edge of her temple. “That’s the part no one warns you about.”

She tilted her chin, curious. He smirked.

“How loving you sneaks up on me in new ways. Even when I think I’ve hit the ceiling—you go and say something like that, and it wrecks me all over again.”

His fingers threaded through hers beneath the water, slow and sure.

“I’ve been in bands, Willa. I’ve played to sold-out crowds. I’ve seen cities from rooftops and sunrise from tour buses—but nothing’s ever leveled me like loving you.”

He kissed her shoulder. Then again, closer to her neck.

“And yeah,” he added, eyes soft, voice rough, “I’m all in. Every late-night spiral. Every outfit change. Every time you yell at traffic like it insulted your ancestors.”

A beat.

Then, quieter: “Every version of you.”

He leaned back just enough to look at her—really look at her. Hair a mess. Shoulders bare. Eyes dark and wild and full of everything that made him whole.

“You’re the song, Wills,” he said. “You’ve always been the damn song.”

And then, smirking as he raised her hand from the water, kissing her ring finger:

“So yeah. Start prepping those verses, babe. Because I’m ready to spend the rest of my life writing the chorus.”

And in that little cocoon of steam and candlelight, with her heartbeat steady against his and forever already written in the space between their skin—

Blake Maddox had never felt more certain of anything.

Willa kissed him before he could say anything else—quick, a little fierce, full of feeling she couldn’t wrangle into words yet. Her fingers curved around the back of his neck like she meant to hold the moment in place, like she could bottle the heat and hush of his heartbeat right there beneath her palm and keep it forever.

She didn’t pull away so much as melt back—soft lips trailing against his jaw, then the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose like punctuation marks made for lovers. And when she finally breathed again, it was a little uneven. A little stunned by how easily this still gutted her.

“God,” she muttered, a hand dragging down his chest, wet skin on wet skin, “you really never fucking miss.”

She let her fingers wander over the ink sprawled across his collarbone—slow, delicate, almost absent-minded. But it wasn’t. She was memorizing him again. The topography of every line she’d kissed a hundred times but still got dizzy from tracing. The one that curled over his ribs. The sharp, black smudge near his hipbone. The phrase just above his heart that had meant something before her and now, somehow, meant them.

“This one still gets me,” she whispered, brushing the tip of her finger over a half-faded lyric, a secret only she knew the story behind now. “Like it knew I was coming.”

And then—because softness didn’t mean silence—she grinned, dropped her head briefly against his shoulder, and muttered, “And don’t flatter yourself too hard, Maddox. I’ve seen cities from rooftops too. I’ve screamed into microphones and kicked down doors barefoot. But this—” she gestured loosely between them, between bathwater and bubbles and candlelight flickering against tile—“this is the kind of chaos I never saw coming.”

She let the silence settle, just for a second. Let it warm her ribs from the inside out.

Then Willa shifted again, slipping back into place like puzzle pieces and permanence, her back pressed to his chest and her hair wet against his collarbone. She sighed, long and content and unbothered by the water cooling or the city pulsing on without them.

Because right now?

She didn’t need the crowd. Or the anthem. Or the fire.

She just needed this.

His arms around her. The soft rise and fall of his breath against her spine. The quiet.

“I love that you know how to handle the riot,” she said eventually, voice quieter now. Honest in the way that crept up only in the in-between hours. “But I love you more for letting me burn loud when I need to.”

She turned her head just slightly, enough for her cheek to brush the line of his jaw. “And for making this feel like a choice, not a consequence.”

A beat. Then, smirking faintly:

“Also, champagne baths? A little slutty. Proud of us.”

And with that, she reached blindly for her flute, raised it in the air without turning around, and declared, “To the last night in Berlin.”

A pause.

“And to giving the hotel staff something deeply awkward to gossip about tomorrow.”

She clinked his glass with hers behind her back, leaned back into him like gravity owed her a favor, and whispered with a grin just for him:

“Next stop: chaos. But tonight? I just wanna be soft.”

And for once, she didn’t need to brace for the next drop.

Not when she had this to land in.

Blake grinned—slow, crooked, totally wrecked by her in that way she never tried to hide. The kiss had stunned the breath right out of his lungs, but it was what came after that gutted him. That voice. That chaos. That heart of hers, all spitfire and softness in the same damn breath.

He leaned in, pressing a kiss to the spot just behind her ear, damp curls stuck to her skin, his mouth barely a whisper against her pulse.

“God, you’re dangerous,” he murmured, smiling into the hollow of her throat. “Like… I should genuinely fear for my life a little.”

His fingers slid under the water again, tracing slow circles along her thigh, lazily reverent, like he was trying to commit the whole shape of her to memory one brush at a time. She felt so real like this. Not just the girl in the spotlight. Not just the riot. But his.

“And you wanna talk about chaos?” he added, voice dipping lower, softer, warmer. “You are the rooftop. You’re the scream and the fire and the anthem. But you’re also this.” He kissed her shoulder. “This exact moment. All melted into me, calling me rockstar like it’s a goddamn spell.”

He tilted his head, nuzzled her temple, nose brushing her damp hair.

“I love you loud. I love you soft. I love you when you’re barefoot and feral and flinging shoes across hotel rooms, and I love you when you’re draped over me like steam and silk and mine.”

He tapped his flute gently against hers, letting the chime echo off the tile.

“To Berlin,” he echoed, voice a little hoarse now. “To the chaos that comes next. And to the hotel maid who’s gonna find a rhinestone in the soap dish and wonder if we bathed in glitter.”

Then, low and close to her ear:

“And to you, Willa Jameson. My riot. My calm. My always.”

He kissed the side of her neck, just once.

And for the first time in forever, he didn’t need to be on a stage to know he’d just hit the best note of his life.

She didn’t answer right away.

Didn’t have to.

Because his voice had already wrapped around her like a second skin, rough and reverent, full of that maddening tenderness he reserved only for her. It echoed in her chest, somewhere between a hymn and a dare, and she let herself fall into the quiet of it.

Into him.

For a while, they just stayed like that—limbs tangled, breath syncing, the last flickers of candlelight playing against the tiled walls. Willa let the silence bloom, thick and golden, pressing her cheek against his bicep as if that might slow time down.

Her fingers idly skimmed the tattoos along his forearm underwater, now just muscle memory and affection. She traced the edge of a lightning bolt, a lyric, the outline of something he’d once drawn on a napkin in the middle of nowhere—and smiled. Quietly. Almost to herself.

The champagne flutes rested nearby, nearly empty. Bubbles fizzled out like applause after the final encore. Berlin pulsed faintly behind the windows—alive, electric, unaware that in this little bathroom cocoon, the world had already shifted on its axis.

But eventually, the water started to cool.

Not dramatically. Not in a way that shattered anything. Just enough to make her shiver a little. Enough to remind her they were human again, and maybe a little pruny.

She exhaled a reluctant breath.

“Alright,” she murmured, breaking the spell as gently as possible. “Before I lose circulation in my ass or turn into a raisin…”

Willa eased out of the tub with a soft groan, bracing her hands on either side before standing—bare skin slick with water and candlelight. She grabbed one of the oversized white towels from the warmer and wrapped it around herself with the kind of flair that only came from years of dressing room chaos.

The ends of her hair dripped onto the tile. Her legs goosebumped instantly.

But her eyes?

Still molten as she looked over her shoulder at him. Still dangerous.

“You stay there,” she said, towel hitched around her chest, voice lazy and amused. “You look like a damn Renaissance painting. All sultry and smug and slightly cocky about the fact that you just made me forget what planet I’m on.”

She grabbed another towel from the warmer, turned, and held it out to him with a raised brow.

“Come on, Michelangelo. Before you catch a chill and I have to explain to your fanbase that their favorite tattooed menace went out like a Victorian heroine.”

A beat.

Then, softer—no less flirty, but honest in the way she only ever gave to him:

“Also, I kind of want to be warm and wrapped up with you again in five minutes. So let’s not die of romantic hypothermia, yeah?”

She offered a wink, towel still extended.

And somehow, in a five-star hotel bathroom lit by candlelight and steam, Willa Storme Jameson had never looked more like home.

Blake didn’t move at first.

Didn’t blink.

Just stared—completely, shamelessly—at the woman standing in front of him, wrapped in nothing but steam and sass and a towel that had no business looking that good.

God, she was a problem.

His favorite one.

And the way she tossed that line about romantic hypothermia over her shoulder like she hadn’t just turned a five-star bathroom into a whole-ass movie set? Yeah. He was done for.

He grinned—slow, lopsided, absolutely smitten.

“‘Sultry and smug’?” he repeated, voice rough with leftover heat and something stupidly fond. “You know, I was going for ‘tragically poetic in a bathtub,’ but I’ll take it.”

He took the towel from her hand, fingers brushing hers—just for a second, just enough to spark—and stood, water sluicing off him in rivulets, muscles shifting beneath ink and candlelight. The kind of sight that would’ve had any tabloid foaming at the mouth.

But the only audience he cared about?

Was standing there with goosebumps and galaxy eyes and a look that said hurry the hell up and get in my arms again.

He toweled off quickly—efficient, practiced—and then tossed the damp cloth onto the sink with zero elegance, because honestly, who had time for tidy when she’d just told him he looked like a Renaissance painting and then winked?

“Let the record show,” he said, crossing to her in two long strides, “that I’m only getting out because you promised me warmth and wrapping and five more minutes of whatever the hell this night is.”

He stopped just in front of her.

Close enough to feel the steam still clinging to her skin. Close enough that her damp hair tickled his collarbone.

His hands found her waist beneath the towel, thumbs brushing the curve of her hips. He dipped his head, kissed her shoulder—just once, slow and reverent.

Then again, higher.

Then again, just beneath her jaw.

“You’re trouble,” he murmured against her skin.

Then: “And home.”

And just like that, he scooped her up—laughing as she yelped—and carried her straight toward the bed like some lovesick, inked-up disaster of a knight in damp armor.

“C’mon, Jameson,” he said over her squeal, already smiling into the hollow of her throat. “Let’s go get warm and make the Renaissance jealous.”

And the door closed behind them like a period at the end of a perfect verse.