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My heart’s still pounding like a runaway thoroughbred when Legend set me down, slow and careful like I might shatter if he moved too fast. His hands linger at my waist a second too long.

Thank God. I don’t want to be alone in my skin right now.

My fingers tangle into the front of his shirt like I needed it just to breathe.

"Are you alright?" His voice’s all grit, low enough to melt the panic still buzzing in my veins.

"I think so." I force out a shaky breath. "Unless I’m dying and this is the sexy part of the afterlife."

He huffs out a rough laugh, but his thumb was already on my cheek, brushing away something I was too proud to admit might’ve been a tear. I hate feeling weak. But right now? I’m unraveling, and he saw every thread.

"We were close to something," he says, voice serious. His eyes search mine like they might hold the answer.

"Welcome to my life lately," I mutter, trying for brave but landing somewhere between exhausted and wrecked. “Legend…”

His name tastes like aged bourbon on my tongue. Dark, hot, spicy. I swallow hard, suddenly too full of everything I’d been holding in.

“I’m scared,” I admit. “My father’s legacy, the farm, the Derby. It’s all coming apart. I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

His muscles tick beneath that stubble I shouldn’t be thinking about right now.

"You can trust me," he says, fierce and final, like a vow. "Ain’t nobody touching you. Ain’t nobody stealing what’s yours."

Something cracks open inside me. All those walls I’d spent years building brick by brick? He bulldozes through them with one look. And the worst part? I don’t even want to stop him.

He pulls me in, slow but sure, our bodies fitting together like we’ve been carved that way. My breath hitches, nerves sparking like live wires, but I don’t pull away.

"Sophie…" His voice dips lower, rougher. His mouth hovered just over mine, ghosting my lips, almost close enough to taste. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

“Me too,” I whisper. And I mean it with every jagged inch of my heart.

The moment he kisses me, the world spins off its axis. Fire. Thunder. Soft lips, rough hands, and the kind of hunger you don’t fake. I curl my fingers in his hair, dragging him closer like it was the only thing keeping me upright.

He lifts me like I weighed nothing, pressed me back against the hallway wall, and the whole world tilts around us. There’s nothing delicate about the way he holds me. It’s fierce, possessive, consuming, like he’s waited years and can’t wait one second more.

But even with the heat between us, my mind drifts, to that night.

We were teenagers. Barely. I’d stolen that bottle of Pappy from my father’s study, tucked it under my coat like I had something to prove. Legend was already at the stables, sweat on his brow, hay in his hair, and shadows in his eyes.

“I stole something,” I’d said like a dare, pulling out the bottle like a prize.

We’d passed it back and forth on hay bales, knees touching, breath catching. I remembered how his gaze burned through me, like I was the only thing he could see. I remembered the way he leaned in when I called him out for looking at me like I wasn’t real.

I remembered the kiss.

It hit like lightning. Sweet, hot, and over far too soon. Because his father’s voice had cut through the barn like a blade. I ran like a coward. I never forgot.

I never forgot.

And now, here we were.

That kiss, the one that had haunted me all these years. It lives again in this moment. But now there’s nothing innocent about it. No more pretending we don’t want this. No more excuses.

“You’re mine,” he growls against my lips, the words so raw they burned.

“Yes.” My voice comes out breathless, honest, real. “I’m yours.”

And God help me, I mean it.

Right here, right now, wrapped in danger and memory and the scent of bourbon and leather, I’m his.

And he’s mine.

The past doesn’t matter. The fear didn’t matter. Because this? This is real.

And there’s no going back now.