Little Bird (The Tangled Series)

by Gaines, Liza

  “You weren’t looking very hard. How were you supposed to find a woman who makes you feel anything but horny when all you were doing was whoring around when you weren’t married?” Savannah arched a brow at him, having focused on that one sentence. He seemed earnest but it was incongruous with his actual behavior. Wouldn’t a man looking for love actually date and have relationships instead of just sleeping around?

  “Savannah,” he rumbled and narrowed his eyes, considering his words before continuing. “You know things were bad with Cara and me and it left me doubting myself in a lot of ways. Mostly that I didn’t think I was capable of a healthy relationship, and I didn’t want to hurt another woman the way I’d hurt her. So no, I wasn’t looking real hard. I didn’t think I deserved it, and I didn’t think I could do it. And at the time, that was just fine with me. I could get laid with all the regularity I wanted without any of the emotional baggage or risk. What’s not to like about that?

  “Then you came along and clobbered me over the head with everything you are, and I realized exactly what I was missing. And I realized, also, that I had been looking for it, that I wanted it. I was looking for you all along, sweetheart. I was just too stupid to know it and I was looking in all the wrong places. Fortunately for me, you showed up on my doorstep anyway.”

  Savannah knotted her hands in her lap, trying to calm her racing nerves and process what he’d said. “And you aren’t worried about hurting me?”

  “Scared shitless, Little Bird.” Lee chuckled quietly and reached across the table, extending his hand to her. With a little sigh, she put her hand in his and he gave it a gentle squeeze before entwining their fingers and continuing, “Thing is, though, you’re worth the risk. I’m not sayin’ I’ll never be a jackass, honey, because we both know I will.” He laughed a little and gave her hand another squeeze.

  “What I am sayin’ is I’d rather cut off my own arm than hurt you. I wasn’t a perfect man when I was married and I never will be. No one is. But instead of learning what I should have from the divorce, I focused on all the wrong things. I thought that mess meant I wasn’t able to be a good partner in a strong relationship but that was wrong. What it really meant was Cara wasn’t the right woman and, if I found the right woman, I had to be willing to do the right thing even when it was hard. Every damn way I fucked Cara over was because I was taking the easy way out and even though she wasn’t the right woman, even though she fucked me over pretty good, too, she didn’t deserve that.” Lee was watching her expression closely. It was important to him she understand what he was telling her. She was trying to, so she nodded, encouraging him to continue even though her pulse was racing and she felt a little wrecked.

  “You are the right woman and I won’t make the same mistakes again. You’re too good for that bullshit and I won’t let you down that way. So, yeah, I’m scared to death I might hurt you. But only a coward would walk away from a good woman, lookin’ at him the way you look at me, because he couldn’t face his own failings and do everything in his power to make it right this time. I’d be the biggest damn fool that ever lived to let you slip through my fingers because you’re worried about where we’ll live. I’m not going to let that come between us and I’m not going to let you let it come between us, either. We will figure it out because the alternative is unacceptable. Do you get that?”

  Lee’s declaration knocked the wind out of her, and Savannah was trying to figure out what it all meant. Lee just revealed a lot more about his divorce, and the effect it had on him, than he had the first time they talked about it. He’d also revealed a lot more about how he felt about her. He’d already said he loved her earlier, but past experience had taught Savannah that just because someone said the words, didn’t make them true. But now Lee had just laid it all out for her. He’d explained, whether he meant to or not, exactly how he loved her and exactly what he was willing to do for love.

  Maybe some women might have thought less of Lee for some of the things he’d said. They might have thought him weak. After all, he admitted to being scared even now and to having taken the easy way out over and over again with Cara and the women who came after. He admitted to thinking he didn’t deserve better than a string of meaningless one-night stands and easy fucks. He’d admitted to being vulnerable.

  Savannah wasn’t one of those women, though. Instead, his confession awed her. Everyone had weaknesses, even the biggest, toughest, manliest man, and a coward wouldn’t be able to look his love in the eye and detail them as Lee had just done. No, it had taken courage, trust, and a whole lot of bravery for him to put it all out there like that. Lee was proving himself to be the strongest man she’d ever met, and she admired and respected him for that. And oh, how she loved him for it. Loved him so much her chest hurt and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  Finally, Savannah’s voice barely a whisper, her gaze locked on their hands laced together on the table, she told him exactly that, “I don’t know what to say, Levon.”

  “Look at me, Savannah.” Lee gave her hand another squeeze and she raised her eyes to meet his. “I told you I love you and I meant it. I’m in this for the long haul, baby. You get that?” Savannah nodded, getting lost in his eyes as he continued, “And I’m telling you I’ll live in the city, live in the country, what the fuck ever. I’d move to the goddamn North Pole if it meant being with you. You get that?”

  “Yeah, I get that,” Savannah said around the lump that had taken up residence in her throat.

  Lee went on with another squeeze of her hand. “Are you going to keep worrying about this or are we good?”

  “We’re good.” Oh yeah, they were good and the more she thought about everything he’d said the more sure she was they were more than good.

  “Good.” Lee smiled at her, satisfied and content. “Now, there’s something else we do need to talk about.”

  “What’s that?” Savannah gave him a questioning look, hoping whatever was on his mind would be a hell of a lot less intense.

  “Last night.” Lee met her eyes and held them, his voice calm and steady.

  “Cara?” Savannah swallowed hard. She knew he hadn’t meant Cara but she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about the rest of the night.

  “No.” Lee smiled, watching her fidget with her napkin. After a moment, he slid out of the booth and moved to her side of the table. Sitting down next to her, he pushed Savannah over with his hip. “Come on, scoot.”

  Making room for Lee next to her she gave him a suspicious look. “What are you doing?”

  “I just wanted to be close enough that we could talk quietly and not broadcast our conversation to the whole bar.” But even as Lee spoke, his hand settled on her thigh, pushing beneath her skirt, and he continued with a whisper, “How many men have you been with?”

  Savannah gasped, blushing. She definitely had not expected that question. “None of your business.”

  “You’re mine. Everything about you is my business.” When they’d dressed to leave her apartment, Lee had told her not to wear panties and now his knuckles brushed against her bare pussy. Savannah moaned softly, her heart seizing at that intimate touch in such a public place. “Look, I know it can’t have been that many. You were with Douchebag five years or so and you’ve only been having sex for seven. There’s no reason to be embarrassed about this, just tell me.”

  “All right, all right.” Savannah blew out her breath with frustration as she tried to focus her thoughts. She’d answer his stupid question but she expected the same from him. “Five. No, maybe six. How many women have you had?”

  Lee shook his head, frowning. “We’re talking about you, not me.”

  “No. I’ve answered, and it’s only fair that you do, too.” Savannah’s jaw set stubbornly as she glared at him. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and all that bullshit.”

  “Okay, you’ve got two choices here. One, you can let it the fuck go. Or two, I’ll tell you but you aren’t going to like the answe
r and I’ll spank you later for pushing me when you should have let it the fuck go. What’s it gonna be, sweetheart?”

  Savannah felt like the little bird he always called her, a little bird tracked and hunted by a much larger and much scarier bird of prey. The way Lee looked at her was all too similar to the way she’d seen hawks contemplate the smaller songbirds. Predatory was the only word she could think of to describe that look.

  “I want to know.” Savannah swallowed hard, her voice quiet and more than a little uncertain. It was sort of perplexing he was so resistant to answering this question after all the other things he’d just willingly shared.

  Lee smiled at her, that predatory look vanishing to be replaced by his natural good humor. “Okay, the answer to your question is I don’t know. When you get a little older you quit keeping track of the notches in the headboard.”

  “All just a haze of tits and ass, huh? Make a guess.” Savannah wasn’t sure if she believed him or not. She couldn’t imagine having slept with so many people you couldn’t keep it straight anymore, although, that probably explained why he hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

  “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “Double digits?”

  “Sweetheart, it was double digits by the time I graduated high school.”

  “Triple digits?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  “Jesus! Well, I guess compared to all that I’m practically a virgin.” Savannah stared at him, stunned. Previously she’d thought she had a respectable amount of experience, not too much but enough she didn’t need to be embarrassed about it. But Lee’s answer, and his casual attitude, made her realize she wasn’t nearly as experienced as she’d thought.

  “Indeed.” Lee started stroking his fingers over her pussy and Savannah’s lashes fluttered, her lips softly parting, but she didn’t make a sound. “Your five or six, were they all boyfriends then?”

  “No, just Douchebag, three one-night stands, and a sort of friends with benefits kind of situation. I was sort of gun shy about the whole relationship thing after Douchebag. Anyway, I guess that’s five now that I think about it. Well, no, six if I count you.”

  “I see. And none of them ever put you on your hands and knees and smacked that delicious round ass while he fucked you?”

  Lee sounded skeptical, his eyes narrowed, but she just shrugged. “No, never. You’re the first one who has ever hit me.”

  Laughing quietly, Lee flicked his thumb against her clit, watching as she bit back a moan and shivered. “Did any of them ever tie you up? Or hold you down, restrain you some way?”

  Savannah shook her head, terrified if she opened her mouth to speak she’d moan instead. How the hell had this happened? Five minutes ago they’d been having a sweet meaningful discussion and now all the sudden he was fingering her, in public no less, and asking her all these dirty questions. Talk about a change of gears.

  “So I assume you’ve also never had a threesome or group sex?”

  Savannah did gasp then, shocked enough by the question that she momentarily forgot the way he touched her. Her voice was a quiet warble as she said, “Of course not.”

  “What did you think last night when I used my belt on you?” Lee was still smiling, his eyes on her as he slipped two fingers inside of her.

  “I don’t know.” In reality, Savannah had been thinking a lot of things. She’d been embarrassed to be treated that way, especially in front of other people. She’d been confused, not understanding why Lee did it. And she’d been aroused, which only confused her more. But she didn’t know how to express all those conflicting thoughts, so she simply told him she didn’t know.

  “That’s not an acceptable answer. You do know. I know it turned you on. But I want to know what was going on in your head.” When Savannah just stared at him helplessly, he gave her a reassuring smile as he withdrew his fingers from her, his hand resting comfortably on her thigh again. “Were you frightened? Did you think I might really hurt you?”

  Savannah took a deep breath, able to think more clearly without him touching her like that. “It’s not like I’d never heard of BDSM before, I just never expected to find myself in that situation so it was a little overwhelming. And I was frightened, but not of you. You’d never hurt me.”

  Lee chuckled, brushing his lips against her ear as he whispered gruffly, “I will hurt you. Often. My belt was just the beginning, Little Bird. But I don’t ever want you to be afraid of me. I promise I’ll never do anything to you that you don’t like. I’ll never give you more than you can take, I’ll never hurt you seriously, and I’ll never ever hurt you in anger.”

  Savannah drew her brows together, bewildered. “If you love me why would you want to hurt me?”

  Lee gave her a brief kiss before answering. “Because we both like it. You crave the way I touch you, just the same as I crave touching you that way. I’m dominant, or an overbearing bastard, as you like to call it, and you’re submissive. I’m a sadist, and you’re at least a little bit of a masochist.”

  “How can you be so sure I’m submissive if I don’t even know it?” Savannah looked at him skeptically, but his use of the word crave struck a chord with her. She did crave him. Still, this conversation seemed more than a little surreal after all the tender words and lovemaking just a little bit ago.

  Lee grinned, brushing his knuckles between her legs. “For starters, you let me do that. You think I’m being inappropriate in a public place but you never asked me to stop, instead you accepted it. But there have been lots of other clues. It’s not some big mysterious thing I know and you don’t. You’d have figured it out on your own eventually given the right set of circumstances. Hell, you’d have figured it out before now if Douchebag and the four dimwits hadn’t been such shitty lays.”

  “Douchebag and the four dimwits would be a great band name.” Savannah giggled before adding more seriously, with a trembling voice, “And the masochist part? Because that’s a whole lot scarier than the submissive part.”

  “You’re seriously asking how I know you’re a masochist?” Lee looked a little surprised by her question but Savannah nodded, chewing her lip.

  Lee leaned closer to brush his lips over her ear as he talked. “You go wild every time I tug and twist and pull your piercings and the rougher I am about it the wilder you get. You like it when I pull your hair, too. And with every swat of my hand while we were fucking and fighting the other night, you gripped my dick so hard I couldn’t fucking see straight. Then last night, when I used my belt on your naughty little ass, you were so wet and ready I thought for a second you might come lying across my lap while I did it. That’s masochism, baby, sweet and true. And you’ll be lying to both of us if you try and pretend you haven’t loved every fucking second of it so far.”

  “Yep. Definitely that’s the scary part.” She had liked it but it was still intimidating.

  “All we have to figure out is just how much of a masochist you really are. We’ll go slow, see what you like and what you don’t, and then we’ll do a whole lot of the stuff you like and none of the stuff you don’t. I might hurt you, baby, because we both like it when I do, but I promise I’ll always do it with care. I have to trust you to tell me when it’s too much so we don’t cross a line and you have to trust me to listen when you do. As long as we both hold up our end of that everything will be just fine.”

  “So what does all this mean? I mean, for us? What if I don’t want this?”

  Lee stared at her, his eyes piercing, and for a minute she had the irrational thought he could read her mind. Finally, he said, “If you don’t want it, we won’t do it. But I think if you give it a chance, you’ll realize it’s a part of you just like it’s a part of me.”

  “It’s a part of you.” Savannah’s voice was flat as she looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “I guess that means if I’m not interested, you’ll be reconsidering that marriage talk earlier.”

  “No. But I do think that’s irrelevant because you are i
nterested.” When Savannah continued to stare at him, he said, “Look, it’s confusing for you and I know that. You’re proud of the fact that everything you have you’ve done for yourself and you should be. You’re strong and independent and I love that about you, I wouldn’t ever want to change that and I’ll be honest, I even like that you sometimes stand up to me. But my point is, I understand finding out you actually enjoy it when a man dominates you has you a little rattled. That’s natural.”

  “So if I were willing to give this a try, what exactly would that mean?”

  “All you have to worry about is pleasing me, Little Bird. I’ll take care of all the rest.”

  “How 1950s. What am I supposed to get out of that?” Savannah scowled at him. Until this conversation she hadn’t realized what a sexist asshole he really was.

  Lee surprised her when he chuckled and reached up to tweak the end of her nose before leaning close to whisper, “I didn’t mean it like that. Every inch of you already belongs to me, I own you. And you already want to please me. If you can just stop thinking so much and listen to what you feel, I think you already know what you get out of it.”

  Lee was right, and the realization sent her reeling. Savannah felt breathless, her heart pounding. She closed her eyes, her palms flat on the table in front of her and she tried to steady herself. She didn’t want him to want her; she needed it. Lee made her feel safe, protected, cherished and the idea of surrendering to him didn’t make her feel weak as she’d first thought. In some ludicrous twist, it made her feel empowered. If she belonged to him, she could do anything. He would help her do anything. His strength became her strength. She had a professional job, hobbies and interests of her own, friends and family she cared about, and all of those things were important to her. But when it came to Lee, when it came to the part of her life he inhabited, at her very core she just wanted to belong to him.

  Lee’s arm slid around her shoulders and her eyes fluttered open as he pulled her against his chest. Looking up at him, his handsome mouth curved in an encouraging smile, his hand squeezing her shoulder, she felt her heart slip. Her voice was quiet as she asked, “And what do you get out of it?”