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Exclusive Bonus Scene

Thank you for reading The Asset! Here’s your exclusive bonus scene.

BONUS SCENE: The Wedding Night

An Exclusive Extended Scene from The Asset

Clara

The apartment above Vance Automotive smelled like motor oil and want.

Clara stood in the doorway, still wearing her wedding dress—a simple ivory slip that Jenny had helped her find at a vintage shop two towns over—and watched her husband prowl through the small space, checking windows out of habit even though the only threat tonight was how long she could wait before getting her hands on him.

Husband.

The word sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the evening chill.

“All clear,” Silas said, turning to face her. He’d worn a charcoal suit for the ceremony—the first time she’d seen him in anything other than work clothes or tactical gear—and the effect had been devastating. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, the fabric straining slightly across his chest when he moved.

She’d spent the entire reception thinking about taking it off him.

“I should hope so.” She stepped inside, closed the door behind her. “If Obsidian crashes our wedding night, I’m going to be very upset.”

“Noted.” His eyes tracked her as she moved into the room—dark and hungry in a way that made her breath catch. “You look…”

“Yes?”

“Dangerous.” He closed the distance between them, stopping just short of touching her. “You look like something I shouldn’t be allowed to have.”

“Good thing I’m not asking permission.”

She reached up, grabbed his tie, and pulled him down to her mouth.

The kiss was nothing like the sweet, chaste one they’d shared at the altar. This was hunger—five years of hunger, all the watching and wanting and waiting finally given permission to consume. His hands found her waist, her hips, slid around to cup her ass and pull her against him. She could feel him through the thin fabric of her dress, already hard, already desperate.

Mine, she thought fiercely. Finally, completely mine.

“Clara.” Her name was a groan against her lips. “We should slow down. Make this—”

“If you say ‘special,’ I’m going to hurt you.” She was already working on his tie, yanking the knot loose with more force than finesse. “I’ve been special for five years. I’ve been patient and careful and good. Tonight I want to be something else.”

“What’s that?”

She got the tie free, tossed it aside, started on his buttons. “Yours.”

His hands tightened on her hips. “You’re already mine.”

“Then act like it.” She shoved his jacket off his shoulders, let it fall to the floor. “Stop treating me like I’m fragile. Stop holding back because you’re afraid of what I might do.” The shirt joined the jacket, and she spread her palms across his bare chest—warm skin, hard muscle, the scattered scars she knew by heart now. “I’m not the Asset anymore, Silas. I’m not going to break. And tonight, I want to feel everything.”

Something shifted in his expression. The careful restraint he always wore cracking, giving way to something rawer underneath.

“Everything?” he repeated.

“Everything.”

He moved.

One second she was standing in the middle of the room, and the next she was pressed against the wall, his body caging hers, his mouth hot and demanding on her throat. She gasped, arched into him, felt his hands find the zipper at the back of her dress and drag it down with agonizing slowness.

“I’ve thought about this,” he said against her skin. His fingers traced her spine as the fabric parted, leaving trails of fire in their wake. “Every day for five years. Watching you through windows. Smelling your perfume when you brought me coffee. Imagining what you’d look like, what you’d sound like, what you’d feel like—”

“Show me.”

The dress pooled at her feet. She was wearing nothing underneath but a scrap of ivory lace, and Silas made a sound that was barely human—a growl from somewhere deep in his chest as he pulled back to look at her.

“Christ, Clara.”

“Like what you see?”

“I like it too much.” His hands skimmed up her sides, over her ribs, cupping her breasts through the lace. “I like it so much I don’t know if I can be gentle.”

“Who asked you to be gentle?”

His eyes snapped to hers. Dark. Burning.

“Careful what you wish for.”

He spun her around—quick and controlled, his training evident in every movement—and pressed her face-first against the wall. One hand splayed across her stomach, holding her in place. The other slid up her spine, tangled in her hair, pulled her head back until her throat was bared.

“This what you want?” His voice was rough in her ear. “You want me to stop being careful?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to take what I need?”

“God, yes.”

His teeth found her throat—not gentle, not careful, just claiming. She moaned, pressed back against him, felt the hard length of him against her ass through his trousers.

“Please,” she gasped. “Silas, please—”

“Please what?” His hand slid lower, fingers toying with the edge of her lace. “Tell me what you need.”

“You. Just you. All of you.”

“You have me.” His fingers slipped beneath the lace, found her wet and wanting. “You’ve always had me, Clara. Even when I was trying to stay away. Even when I told myself it was too dangerous.” He stroked her, slow and deliberate, and she keened against the wall. “You’ve owned me since the first time you smiled at me. I just didn’t know how to admit it.”

“Admit it now.” She was panting, trembling, so close already just from his hands and his voice and the feeling of being wanted. “Tell me.”

“I love you.” He turned her around again, lifted her like she weighed nothing, pressed her back against the wall with her legs wrapped around his waist. “I love you, and I’m done pretending I can live without you.”

She kissed him—messy and desperate—while her hands found his belt, his zipper, freed him from the last of his clothing. He was hot and hard against her, and when he finally, finally pushed inside—

“Oh God—”

“Look at me.” His voice was strained, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding still. “Clara. Look at me.”

She forced her eyes open. Found him watching her with an intensity that stole her breath.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “Whatever happens. Whatever comes next. I’ve got you.”

Then he started to move.

Silas

She was everything.

Every fantasy he’d ever tortured himself with, every dream that had woken him aching and desperate—none of it had come close to the reality. The reality of Clara wrapped around him, her nails raking down his back, her voice breaking on his name as he drove into her again and again.

“Silas—”

“I know.” He hitched her higher, changed the angle, felt her whole body shudder. “I’ve got you. Let go.”

“I can’t—it’s too much—”

“You can.” He pressed his forehead to hers, held her gaze even as his own control frayed at the edges. “You can take it. You can take everything I give you. That’s my girl.”

Something flared in her eyes at the words—recognition, desire, a challenge that he was more than willing to meet.

“Then give me more.”

He did.

They didn’t make it to the bed—not that first time. He took her against the wall until she screamed, then on the floor when they collapsed in a tangle of limbs, then bent over the kitchen counter because she’d looked at him with those challenging eyes and said “I bet you can’t make me come again.”

He’d proven her wrong. Twice.

By the time they finally stumbled to the bedroom, the moon was high and they were both wrecked—sweaty, satisfied, drunk on each other in a way that had nothing to do with the champagne they’d had at the reception.

Clara sprawled across his chest, her hair a tangled mess, her skin still flushed. He traced patterns on her back, feeling the raised line of that old scar, the one he’d watched her get in a life she didn’t remember.

“Hey,” she murmured.

“Hey yourself.”

“That was…”

“Yeah.”

She propped her chin on his chest, looked up at him with soft, sated eyes. “I can’t believe we waited so long.”

“We were a little busy. With the assassination attempts. And the neural programming. And the general apocalyptic chaos.”

“Excuses, excuses.” She pressed a kiss to his sternum. “We should have been doing this the whole time. Would have made the running and fighting way more bearable.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the next time we have to take down a shadow government conspiracy.”

“Let’s not have a next time.” She climbed up his body, settled over him, and he felt himself stirring again—impossibly, given how thoroughly she’d already drained him. “Let’s just have this. Forever. You and me and very athletic sex and absolutely no one trying to kill us.”

“Sounds perfect.” His hands found her hips, guided her into a slow rock that made them both groan. “Might need to invest in better soundproofing, though. Pretty sure the whole town heard you earlier.”

“That was your fault.”

“Guilty.” He pulled her down for a kiss, felt her melt against him. “And planning to stay guilty. Every day. For the rest of my life.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She sank onto him, slow and deliberate, and his vision whited out.

Clara

The fourth time was different.

Slower. Sweeter. The desperate edge finally sanded down, leaving something deeper in its wake. They moved together like they’d been doing this for years—learning each other’s rhythms, anticipating each other’s needs, building toward a peak that felt less like an explosion and more like a sunrise.

“Clara.” His voice was wrecked, barely a whisper. “You’re so—I can’t—”

“I know.” She cupped his face in her hands, held his gaze as she rolled her hips. “I know. Me too.”

“I’ve never—” He broke off, shuddering, clearly fighting for control. “No one’s ever made me feel like this. Like I’m coming apart. Like I could stay in this moment forever and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

“Silas.” She stilled, something cracking open in her chest. “Look at me.”

He looked.

“I spent five years not knowing who I was,” she said softly. “Not knowing what was real, what was programming, what was lies. But this—” She pressed her hand to his heart, felt it hammering against her palm. “This is the realest thing I’ve ever felt. You’re the realest thing. And I don’t ever want to stop feeling it.”

“You won’t have to.” He pulled her down, kissed her with a tenderness that made her eyes sting. “I’ll spend every day reminding you. Whatever it takes. However long we have.”

“That’s a big commitment.”

“I’m a committed kind of guy.” He rolled them over, settled between her thighs, entered her again with a slow, deep stroke that made her gasp. “Especially when it comes to you.”

She wrapped herself around him—arms, legs, heart—and let herself fall.

Afterward, they lay tangled together in the wreckage of his sheets, watching the moonlight shift across the ceiling. Clara’s head rested on his shoulder, her fingers tracing absent patterns on his chest.

“Hey, Silas?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me.” She pressed closer, felt his arm tighten around her. “When I was standing in that parking lot with a gun to your chest—you could have run. Could have fought. Could have done anything except walk into the bullet and dare me to pull the trigger.”

“Couldn’t have done anything else.” His lips brushed her hair. “You were worth the risk. You’ve always been worth the risk.”

“Even when I almost killed you?”

“Especially then.” He tilted her chin up, made her meet his eyes. “That moment—when you dropped the gun, when you chose me over the programming—that’s when I knew for certain. You’re not what they made you, Clara. You’re what you chose to be. And you chose love. You chose us.”

She felt tears prick her eyes. “When did you get so wise?”

“Must be your influence.” He kissed her forehead. “Now go to sleep, wife. You’ve got bread to bake in the morning, and I’ve got cars to fix. Boring, normal, domestic things that boring, normal, domestic people do.”

“We’re not boring.”

“No. But we could be. Someday. When we’ve had enough excitement to last a lifetime.”

Clara smiled, nestled deeper into his warmth. “I think I’d like that.”

“Me too.” His breathing was slowing, sleep pulling at him. “Me too.”

She lay there in the quiet, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the solid warmth of him beside her. Outside, Oakhaven slept peacefully, unaware of the battles that had been fought to protect it. The Flour Pot stood ready for tomorrow’s bread. The garage waited for tomorrow’s customers.

And Clara—the baker, the bullet, the woman who’d fought through hell to find her way home—closed her eyes and let herself rest.

For the first time in five years, she didn’t dream of blood or missions or cold code running through her brain.

She dreamed of bread rising in warm ovens.

Of a man who’d walked into a gun for her.

Of a life that was finally, completely, irrevocably hers.

Thank You for Reading!

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