Sin & Savage

by Anna Mara

  Savage fell backwards, smashing into Tori. His full 200 hundred pounds slammed into her small 115 pound one; and the brute force of the collision sent Tori careening backwards, her feet tripping over the radio.

  She let out a blood-curdling scream one second before she went flying over the lip of the house and off the roof.

  Chapter 28

  “Tori!”

  Savage’s anguished roar reverberated around the remote desert location. Like a rabid animal, he leapt to his feet and his crazed eyes scanned the roof. Where was she? He lunged to the structure’s edge and looked over, his heart beating wildly with fear, not knowing what he was going to find.

  And then he saw her!

  She was dangling from the edge of the overhang, hanging on with both hands for dear life to a lone wooden beam. If she let go, she would fall to the ground, a good 25 feet below, killing her instantly. She glanced up at him then, her eyes filled with terror and a silent scream parted her lips.

  Savage felt the blood drain from his face. “Tori, hang on!” he yelled, as he dropped onto his stomach, extending his hand out over the roof’s edge as far as he could go. But there was a four-inch gap between his fingers and her left hand, and, try as he might, he just couldn’t reach it.

  “I—I c—can’t hang on,” Tori whimpered, her strangled words immediately piercing through the biker’s heart.

  “You have to!” Savage shouted, as he thrust his upper torso even further out over the roof. He tried to grab her again but he still couldn’t touch her. “Tori, move your left hand an inch towards me.”

  “I can’t!” she screamed.

  “Try, please!” he shouted back.

  “I’ll f—fall.” Her words came out breathy and weak.

  Savage pushed his body even further over the roof’s edge, his hand straining to reach her but he was still a couple of inches too far away. “Just one inch, Tori, please, just try. I won’t let you fall,” he pleaded.

  “I—I’m sc—scared!”

  “Trust me, Tori. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, I promise. Trust me, please,” he begged, his words laced with desperation and fear.

  Sweat poured down Tori’s forehead and cheeks, and her eyes swiveled to the ground below. Her heartbeat drummed even more fiercely inside her chest, as a new wave of terror engulfed her. She was going to die; she knew it for a fact! It was all going to happen in about three seconds from now because that was all the strength she had left in her body to hang on.

  And she would never see her Nana again or her parents—or Savage.

  Savage?

  Her eyes blinked rapidly in confusion at the thought of the biker. Why would she miss him of all people? After all, she’d only known the man a couple of days; and he was a criminal who did bad things to people. He came from a world of violence and embodied everything that she abhorred and despised. Why was she sad that she would never see him again? Or thinking about how she would miss his teasing eyes crinkling at the corners, as he grinned at something she’d just said? Or how his rich, lush voice sounded when he called her “Snow White”, chiding her for the umpteenth time because of something she’d done that, in his eyes, she shouldn’t have? Why was she feeling like this? It didn’t make sense.

  Suddenly, in that nanosecond of time before death overtook her and as her life flashed before her eyes, realization hit her. Prim and proper, general all-around good girl, Victoria Alexandra Jones was going to miss outlaw biker and general all-around badass, Matthew Monroe because, no matter who he was or what he had done, he had somehow pushed his way into her heart—and her heart would always win out over her mind any day, that’s why.

  “Tori, don’t look down! Look at me! Now!”

  Savage’s forceful directive blasted at her, breaking into her thoughts. She immediately jerked her head back up and her frantic gaze focused on him again. Her brain registered how he was pushing his body dangerously off of the roof, as far as he could, in order to reach her. But his hand was still one inch away from hers—one tiny, eternity-spanning inch between life and death—her death.

  “Just move your fingers towards me, Tori. I’ll grab you. Trust me, please, trust me,” he pleaded again.

  Tori’s frightened eyes glommed onto his and she saw gentleness in them mingled with dread and terror at what was happening. And suddenly, she knew that she could trust him and he would help her, and protect her always. Nana’s tingle had been right! Somewhere, couched beneath all that evil and violence, he was good—a good man with a good heart, who had once upon a time lost his way.

  With a half-choked sob lodged in her throat and a “Help Me, Lord Jesus” prayer in her heart, Tori began, ever so slowly, to move the fingers of her left hand along the beam towards him.

  “That’s it! You can do it. Come to me,” he shouted.

  With every fiber of her being, she willed her fingers a sliver of an inch forward along the wood. Her heart was racing and her breathing had stopped but she kept her focus on him and only him, trusting in him completely. A calmness overtook her and she knew he wouldn’t let her down, no matter what.

  Her fingers moved a few more centimeters along the beam; and then suddenly and miraculously, it was enough for him to reach her. He grabbed her wrist and by the sheer strength of his will and body, he pulled her up. His powerful muscles strained to their limit, as he yanked her weight up with one hand.

  As soon as he was able to, he seized both of her arms; and then, with one swift yank, jerked her whole body up and over the lip of the house, back onto the roof. She slammed into his chest and fell against him; his arms instinctively grabbing her. They fell backwards onto the freshly laid tarpaper, with her on top of him.

  Shock and bewilderment laced Tori’s eyes as she stared dumbfounded at Savage’s face beneath hers. One second ago she had been clinging to life and now she was safe and sound again, protected in his arms.

  Savage stared back at her, equally surprised that the ordeal was now over. He had seen much violence and bloodshed in his young life but he had never felt such terror as when he’d seen her hanging out there on that damned beam, seconds away from certain death. He felt sick to his stomach all over again just thinking about it.

  “You saved me,” Tori whispered.

  “Always.” His smoldering, dark eyes devoured her beautiful face.

  Suddenly and without thinking, Tori instinctively lowered her lips one tiny, small speck towards his. A crackling, sizzling heat passed between them and within a fraction of a second, their lips had locked with Savage capturing her mouth in a hungry, greedy kiss that demanded everything of her.

  Who kissed who first, Tori didn’t know, nor did she care. She wasn’t even thinking anymore, only feeling. All that mattered was the blazing, hot wildfire raging between them, like a roaring furnace that every cell in her body was urging her to keep stoking because it meant life. It was a celebration of everything that was alive and breathing and feeling. He was giving her life all over again, just as he had seconds ago when he’d saved her from certain death. She was burning for it, lapping it up with an intense, ferocious hunger she never knew she possessed. And she was burning for him—for Savage Matthew Monroe, dirty, outlaw biker who came from a different world than hers and who solved problems with his fists! But where he came from didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was him—and her powerful need for him.

  Her fingers threaded through his soft, thick hair, pushing aside the bandana from around his forehead and she pressed her body deeper into his, as he lay beneath her. She felt herself melting into him, the boundaries between them blurring and melding, and a low moan escaped her lips.

  His hands tightened around her, before sliding desperately up and down her back; then lowering to her ass and squeezing. He pressed her body even deeper into him and Tori could feel his erection inside his jeans, straining against her thighs. He wanted her and she knew it—and she wanted him too.

  And all the while, his lips, both hard and soft all at the sam
e time, moved over hers with a need that was both terrifying and magnificent. Sparks of ecstasy swept through her at the feel of his strong body beneath her; engulfing her in flames and fueling her mouth on his even more. Yes, his lips were rough and ruthless, but so were hers; and she matched him kiss for kiss—giving and taking—taking and giving—both of them feeding the aching need between them into an even higher blaze.

  Suddenly, Savage tore his mouth off of hers and stared dumbfounded into her fevered eyes, his breathing hard and labored, like a man who had just run a ten mile marathon. “Holy shit!” he gasped, his stunned eyes telegraphing shock—shock at what he was feeling. Because the second his lips had touched hers, he knew he had come home, and that thought alone scared the shit out of him. It meant she had power over him and no one in this godforsaken, fucking world had that! He’d made damned sure of it his whole life and had even hardened his heart against it. But in one raw, blazing-hot kiss, all of that crashed down around him and he knew he had just been defeated—defeated by a small-town, Snow White, preacher’s daughter who was the sexiest, hottest thing he’d seen on two legs ever, and who could make him hard with just a simple smile.

  And the crazy shit part about it all was that, even though what he was feeling for her scared the crap out of him, he didn’t want to let her go ever, even if someone had had a gun to his head. She belonged to him, and with him. He knew it! She was his sanctuary, his hope and his salvation. She brought him life, taking him out of the depths of hell and despair and evil; and having just tasted all that in her kiss, he was desperate for more.

  A shudder went through him and with a low groan deep in his throat, he reached for her again, splaying his hands along either side of her sweet face and drawing her soft, swollen lips back to his throbbing ones. Half expecting her to resist, he was again stunned when she didn’t.

  Like a starving man, his hot mouth moved over hers again, this time searching and begging and pleading. His tongue slid across her lips, parting them effortlessly and she allowed him in, her own tongue teasing his with light strokes. A shiver ran through her body and her sweet response to him made him wild. His kiss grew more insistent and suddenly he wanted to give her pleasure—more pleasure than she’d ever felt in her life. His lips began to give and give and give—and not take. And he always took!

  But one moment, her lips were on fire for him, responding to every thrust and flick of his tongue with ones of her own; and the next, she was tearing herself out of his arms, scrambling up and away from him.

  It took a second for Savage to realize what had just happened, his empty arms instantly aching for her to come back to him. He jumped up from his prone position and faced her. She backed away like a skittish colt, her eyes gleaming with shock and confusion.

  Savage tried to calm his breathing, finding it difficult to control the hunger still raging through his hard body. “Tori—about what just happened—know that I’m crazy about you. You—you’re incredible. I’ve never met anybody like you before in my life. You’re good and honest and…” a sudden grin lit up his face, “so fucking hot!” He laughed at himself and shook his head at the power she seemed to have over him. “I swear you bring me to my knees.” He chuckled. His smiling eyes came back up to hers and suddenly he realized that she was just standing there like a cold statue, not giving any inclination of what she was thinking. His smile dropped and his lips thinned. “Say something!” he rasped.

  Suddenly, her chin angled up, her eyes turned hard and she met his gaze head on. “You’re fired!” She turned and stalked towards the ladder that would take her off the roof.

  Chapter 29

  Fury had frazzled her brain. She should have been scared to death of climbing down that ladder after what she’d just been through, but she wasn’t. She was just so angry—mainly at herself, really—that she didn’t even think twice about descending from that great height.

  With steely determination, Tori placed each sneakered foot on every rung until she reached the bottom. When her right foot hit the hard-packed desert dirt, she marched around the house structure and towards the parked motorcycle.

  Through her crimson haze, her brain briefly noted that the BMW was gone, as Rat had quickly scurried away when she’d been hanging on that wooden beam for dear life. A sliver of fear of ran through her as she remembered what had happened—and what could have happened if she’d fallen—but it was quickly pushed aside by the anger boiling in her bloodstream over that damned kiss.

  My God, what had she done? How could she have been so stupid stupid stupid as to get involved with a criminal like Savage Matthew Monroe? He was an outlaw biker, for God’s sake—a member of the notorious Sons of Perdition gang, a sinister outfit that was probably involved in all kinds of illegal activities, like drug dealing and gun running and extortion and prostitution, and who knew what else. That’s what the man did for a living! Twenty-four, seven—day in, day out, he hurt people and that was wrong, even if he believed some of them did have it coming to them, as he always liked to tell her whenever he was justifying his violent actions.

  And when she had kissed him up there on that roof—my God, her whole world had tipped upside down. Her brain had stopped working, as had her morals. In that instant, she’d felt such an overpowering connection to him that she’d never felt with anyone else before, not even with her ex-husband, Tod.

  Being held in Savage’s arms had felt so right that she would have done anything for him, even made love to him up there. But that was crazy and insane, and went against everything that she believed in. She didn’t even believe in sex before marriage, for pity’s sake, and had been a virgin when she’d married Tod. But there she’d been, moments ago, about to throw all that away just because of one wild, foolish kiss.

  What was wrong with her? Yes—you could say that her judgment had been clouded by the fear and terror she’d felt at having almost plunged to her death moments before, but it had also been clouded by him, because somehow, Savage Matthew Monroe had wormed his way into her heart.

  But thank God, she had come to her senses. In the midst of that devastating kiss, when she’d been about to give him everything including her body, her brain had suddenly kicked in and images of Savage ‘at work’ had begun flashing through her mind at breakneck speed.

  She remembered the way Savage had beaten up Wizard with his hard fists and violently smashed the rapist’s head against the wall, and then there was dirt bag Roger, the massage parlor owner, whose blood Savage calmly rinsed off of his hands while the other man lay bleeding on the floor. And now Rat, whose eyes bulged out in terror as Savage viciously held the Glock to his head while the metal chain choked the life out of him.

  Yes, she knew that Nana’s tingle was right about him and deep down, he was a good man—and yes, these things had all been done to help Tori, but bottom line? There was a lot of bad in him too; and by hiring him, she was condoning his violence. If truth be told, there was just as much blood on her hands as there was on his. It had been wrong of her to pay a criminal biker for his services. And it had been wrong of her to allow him into her heart too. Nothing good could come of any of it because evil always found a way to corrupt.

  Wasn’t he always reminding her that it was his world and his rules? Well, he was right about that but his world was one of violence and she refused to be a part of it any more. Their association was now over—completely and irrevocably—and she vowed never to see him again.

  Tori had almost reached the Harley when she sensed footsteps behind her. Suddenly, a hand reached out to grab her arm and Savage whirled her around to face him. “That’s far enough, sweetheart,” he growled, his angry eyes locking onto her face.

  Tori glared at his dictatorial stance but not before noting how wildly handsome he looked with his shoulder length hair tucked behind his ears; the black bandana she’d removed when they’d been kissing having been stuffed into his biker vest pocket. She instinctively lowered her gaze to his other hand at his side and noticed how it w
as clutching the Glock pistol and the metal chain he’d used on Rat. She was riveted by the sight and felt the blood draining from her face. If there was ever a reminder to her of how dangerous and deadly Savage Monroe really was, it was the sight of that chain and that gun.

  And what had her Nana always told her when Tori was growing up? “Sugarplum,” she would say, “always pay attention to how people treat others because one day, that’s how they’ll treat you.” The words reverberated in Tori’s brain over and over again, as she continued to stare hard at the weapons clasped in his hand. She yanked her arm out of his grip and took a protective step away from him.

  Savage’s gaze followed her line of sight and immediately knew what she’d been thinking. The look of disgust and revulsion that was plastered all over her face only emphasized the great gulf between their worlds. Ashamed, he moved to one of the bike’s saddlebags and stuffed the chain and handgun inside, quickly hiding them from her view.

  He turned back to her and his eyes narrowed. “Explain to me, please, what happened up there? I pour my heart out to you and all you can say is that I’m fired? What the fuck, Tori?” A new wave of anger sizzled through him, the first wave having happened when he’d seen her cold reaction after their amazing kiss.

  Tori raised her chin and stared him down hard. “Pouring out your heart? Come on! It was more a case of ‘pouring out your dick’…or at least, you wanted to.”

  Savage took a step towards her, desperately wanting to feel her in his arms again but he held back knowing she would just reject him all over again. And there was only so much rejection a man like him could take.

  “There’s more to it than that and we both know it. Tell me you don’t feel the connection we have. Tell me you don’t feel how we fit together like the last two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that completes the whole picture. Tell me right now, to my face, that I’m wrong,” he shouted, his words clipped and rough.