That fucktard won’t be alive to see us dead, I think, but me declaring: death to Tag may or may not be what she needs to hear about right now. I settle on, “Tag doesn’t want this to get messy. He wants it clean and over with.” I leave it at that and hope she doesn’t figure out how easily me as the ex-fiancé could be painted as a double murderer. She’s seeking comfort, not more fear.
Comfort doesn’t work. She’s too smart for that. “They could make it look like I had an accident months later,” she says. “How am I going to ever feel safe again?”
“Because you’re going to be with me. No one is ever going to get the chance to touch you.”
“So, you’re just going to guard me night and day?”
“Yes. And no. I will always keep you safe, but this is also going to end. And not well for those who mean you or your father harm.”
She hugs herself and sinks down in the seat, saying nothing else. And I know why. She’s too busy reading between the lines. She knows that yes, I believe Tag will come after her and yes, this is going to get bloody.
The rest of the short ride is in silence. I pull us into the garage and kill the engine. “I thought you were going to kill him,” she says, telling me exactly where her thoughts have been, and that’s no place good.
My spine straightens and I glance over at her. “And what if I would have?” I ask, not sure what I expect her to say, not even sure what I’m looking for or why I’m testing her, because I am. That’s wrong. I’m lying to myself. I know. I know what I want. Something, anything that says she really can live with who, and what, I am.
She swallows hard and cuts her stare. It feels like a door shutting—no, slamming—in my face. I don’t like it. I catch her hand, willing her to look at me. “Candace?”
Her gaze finds mine. “Is it bad that I think I might have been relieved?”
Guilt. She feels guilt and I don’t remember what that feels like unless it involves her. Just one of the many ways she’s the reason I’m still human. And just one of the many reasons why I refuse to let this hell turn her into something she isn’t.
“No,” I assure her. “You’re a general’s daughter who was well-educated on war. You know the difference between murder and survival. If it comes down to us or them, we’re the ones who stay standing.” Now it’s me who cuts my eyes, me who hides the truth there. And that truth is that there was a time when I forgot that line.
“I’ll come around and get you,” I say, opening my door and wasting no time exiting the car.
She doesn’t wait for my assistance. By the time I’ve grabbed a duffle from the backseat, she’s at the kitchen door, unlocking it, and I’m already there, standing behind her. She shoves the door open, but she doesn’t enter the house. She rotates to face me, her hands finding the muddy wall of my chest, and I swear this woman’s hands on my body rock my world. Everything else fades. That is until she says, “You didn’t forget.”
My brows furrow. “What does that mean?”
“You didn’t forget the difference between murder and survival, Rick. That’s what you didn’t say in the car, right? That’s what you were thinking. That you forgot that line. You didn’t. You took orders. You did what every good soldier does. Your job.”
Her need to defend me takes me right back where I was in that coffee bar when she asked about my scar. When I told her there were parts of me that she didn’t want to know. My hands come down on her waist. “I told you, baby, don’t turn me into a hero that I’m not. That’s bad for us.” I try to back her up.
She presses her leg to mine and gives my chest a hard shove. “You’re muddy and wet. Undress. Here. Now.”
CHAPTER THREE
Candace
I don’t want to hear what is bad for us right now.
I don’t want to think about Gabriel.
I don’t want to think about my father being in danger.
Or Tag being a killer. Rick either, for that matter.
Which is why I can’t get him naked fast enough. “Undress,” I repeat.
He arches a brow at my command. “You want me to undress here, in the garage, right now?”
“That’s right,” I say, shrugging out of my rain-drenched jacket and tossing it to the ground. “Right here, right now.” I lower my voice. “You’re dirty, Rick Savage. You know how I feel about you being dirty.”
He tosses his bag in the doorway, beside me, and I kick it into the kitchen, retaining my gatekeeper position. Rick rewards my stubbornness. He shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it onto the ground next to mine. “Better when I’m naked,” he says, the edge and intensity of his mood roughening his voice and my nerve endings.
No, I think. Better when he’s here. Better when he’s not gone. I shove away those painful thoughts and focus on the moment, just the moment, and with good reason. I can feel the clawing emotion circling and rising inside of me, the fear, the anger, the emotions that jumble up in my mind and ball in my chest. I need an escape before I explode. I need something that feels real and familiar and right, and that’s me naked with this man. And that’s him too busy being naked with me to tell me why he’s bad for me.
I grab my sneakers and start pulling them off. He does the same with his boots and he never takes his eyes off of me. Nor do I him. How can I? His wet, muddy T-shirt is clinging to rock hard muscle. I didn’t think it was possible for Rick Savage to get hotter than he was when I met him, but age and experience have honed his body and chiseled his face into that of an experienced man. A tormented man and that’s the part of him that was present in the car when he turned away from me. That’s the part of him that warned me not to make him a hero. That the part of him that will decide to walk away again.
He reaches for the hem of his tee and pulls it over his head, tossing it aside. My gaze rakes over his rippling abs, but settling on the ink on his shoulder, the green beret tattoo: a skull in a Beret hat. A tattoo a man proud to serve his country chooses, not the killer he professes himself to be. He doesn’t seem to know how much every part of him turns me on.
I think he needs to know.
And I’m going to enjoy showing him.
I pull my sweater over my head and throw it aside, wasting no time with what comes next. I unhook my red bra, the one I wore because he loves me in red. I dangle it on a finger between us for a moment before I toss it aside. His eyes heat, the air between us combustible.
He steps toward me. I point at him. “Pants. They are literally covered in mud.”
His lips curve. His eyes burn hot and he reaches for his waistband, and good grief, just knowing he’s about to be gloriously naked, has my nipples puckering. He notices too, his gaze raking over them, a hot caress that all but undoes me. His pants slide down his powerful thighs, his erection thick beneath his snug body-hugging boxers. I turn away from him and walk into the house.
I’ve barely made it past the cabinets to my right when he’s catching my arm and pulling me around to him. One of his hands cups my jean-clad backside and molds my hips to his hips, the thick ridge of his erection, pressing to my belly. “You’re teasing me,” he says, his hands cupping my breast. “It’s only right that I tease you, too.” His fingers flicker over my nipples.
I exhale a shaky breath, heat rushing through my body, settling low in my belly. He leans in, his breath warm on my cheek.
“Rick—”
“I need to kiss you,” he murmurs, but when he would press his mouth to my mouth, I pull back. “Your lip.”
“Am I bleeding?”
“Yes,” I say inspecting the swelling of his top lip, and the blood on his goatee. “Actually, it’s your chin. And maybe above your lips, your actual lip isn’t bleeding, but—”
“Then fuck it,” he says, and he’s already kissing me again, and when this man kisses me, it’s impossible to resist. He does it right. He kisses me like the world’s about to end and this is the last kiss we’ll ever share. And maybe it is. Maybe all of this doesn’t just end, maybe it ends us. M
aybe he’s going to leave. Maybe he already knows. It’s not like he came back on his own.
It’s the thought I didn’t mean to have, the one that rips me out of the fantasy moment and plants me in reality.
I press on his chest, tearing my mouth from his. “You feel like the same man that left me.”
“I’m not the same man.”
I don’t ask if that’s good or bad. He’s made his opinion of himself quite obvious. “You judge yourself as evil and me a fool for seeing a hero.”
A storm settles heavy in his stare. “I told you,” he turns me and pushes me to the counter, his powerful body pressed to mine. “Don’t turn me into a hero.”
“If you think you’re a monster, you have an excuse to act like one. Or is it to leave?” I don’t wait for a reply. “You don’t get that pass with me, Rick.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
He turns me and my hands catch on the counter, his breath hot at my neck. “I should punish you for being so foolish.” He leans in close. “But you aren’t foolish, are you? You know me better than anyone. You know I have a dark side. You always knew.”
“Then why are we pretending I don’t?”
“I’m not, but you still are and that doesn’t work for us anymore, baby.” His voice is a rough timbre that vibrates hot on my neck.
He pulls my pants down, his powerful hands shifting me, moving me, and in seconds it seems, I’m naked, and my hands are back on the counter, holding my weight. “I need to know you aren’t going to wake up next to a monster and run away.”
“You say you don’t run. I don’t run.”
“I need you to know who I am. You won’t even admit who I am.”
The thick pulse of his erection is at my hip and my thighs are slick with arousal. “I know who you are. You forget that I like it when you’re bad.”
“I’m fucking serious, Candace.”
“Show me then. Show me how bad you are.”
His hand settles on my backside, fingers flexing in my hips, a promise of what is to come next in that touch. “That’s not a challenge you want answered, baby. I’ll win. You will lose.”
“I guess I’ll just have to take that chance and so will you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Candace
He smacks my backside just hard enough for me to feel a sting.
I arch into the touch, my nipples puckering, my sex clenching, but my mind is clear. This is my chance to prove my point, to prove that he isn’t the monster he tries to make himself. “Is your hand on my backside supposed to promise my punishment?”
He curses under his breath and one of his big, powerful arms is suddenly around my waist, the other across my chest and shoulders, his lips at my ear. “I would never spank you out of anger. You know that, right?”
“Let’s find out,” I challenge because the man he claims to be would hurt me. The man he is, will not. “Do it. Really do it. Spank me.”
He turns me to face him again, his hand sliding over my hair, tilting my gaze to his. “What are you trying to do to me, Candace?” he demands.
He doesn’t need to ask that question. He knows I’m proving a point, forcing him to expose himself as the man I know, not the monster of his creation. “It’s more what you’re going to do to me, isn’t it?” I challenge. “Are you going to spank me properly or not?”
***
Savage
I wrap strands of her silky mahogany hair around my fingers, giving it a rough tug. And I do so not just because she’s daring me to push her limits, not just because she’s trying to prove a point. I do it because I know she likes it. I do it because every time I think about that douche Honest Gabe knowing even a little of what she likes, I get angry. “What are you trying to do to me, Candace?” I repeat.
“Trying to scare me away by being rough?” she challenges. “That doesn’t work with me. Because you’re the one who made me like it rough.”
Which says too much about why I walked away from her. “You think that’s a good thing?” I demand, my voice low, rough like she says she likes me.
“I thought everything about us was a good thing.”
I all but flinch with the past tense. “And now?”
“I’m not the one who walked away,” she reminds me. “Forget I said that. We need, I need, to stop talking about why you left. I’m done talking about why you left. I need this to be about—”
“You know why I left. I was—”
“That’s why we need to stop talking about this. Because I swear to you that if you say that you were protecting me, you’re going to royally piss me off, Rick Savage.” Her fingers dig into my arm. “Never mind. Too late. I’m pissed. I trusted you like I have never trusted anyone in my life. You know that, right?”
“And then I left,” I say.
“And then you never came back.”
And now, nothing feels real to her. We don’t feel real to her. In other words, she doesn’t trust me anymore. She also doesn’t give me time to reply. She tries to move away. I hold her firm, my legs, my body, encasing hers. “Candy, baby, I—”
“Don’t ‘Candy, baby’ me. You say trust you. You say hate you. You say a lot of things that confuse me, Rick. I can’t be confused right now. I need something real. Do something real. Either let me go or spank me. Choose. Choose now.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Savage
Do something real.
In other words, give her a reason to trust me.
Fuck me, I’ve hurt her. I’ve burned her. And still, she gives me this gift. She offers me her vulnerability and dares me to deserve that trust. This is what she needs. It’s what I fucking need, too.
“I should be honorable and tell you that I want your trust,” I say, “but not like this, not with my hand. But you see, baby, I stayed away for a reason. I knew if I ever touched you again, I’d want all of you. I’d want to own you and I wouldn’t give a shit about the price. So, yes, I’m going to spank you.”
“You think me submitting during sex means you own me?” she challenges.
“One night at a time, baby.”
“One night at a time, until you ruin me?”
“And then some,” I assure her. “There’s no saving you now.” Just to be sure she’s clear on that fact, I scoop her up and start walking.
She doesn’t object. She holds onto me. I want to believe she’ll hold on forever, but I’m not sure we’re there yet. Who am I kidding? I know we’re not fucking there yet, which is why we’re not doing this in the kitchen. This isn’t about sex. It’s about us, it’s about our relationship, our connection, the intimacy we have shared, the past come back to life. That means our bedroom.
The place we started and ended days together. The place we talked for hours. The place where we did naughty, kinky things to each other. Okay, I did naughty, kinky things to her more than she did to me. But it was here where the most intense moments were shared.
Once there, I find a small lamp by her bedside alight, casting the room in a dim yellow hue, shadows dancing on the walls with our movements. Shadows that taunt me with everything I’ve hidden from Candace and can no longer hide if I want to make this work. And I do.
I set her down on the floor in front of the mattress, her back to my front. My hand is on her belly, my erection at her hip. My lips at her ear. “Do you think you’re ready to trust me again?”
Her hand goes to my hand as if she’s trying to control where it goes, to hold it there, and yet, she leans into me. “We’ll find out now, won’t we?”
I stroke her hair, and lean in, my lips at her ears. “You know that if you—”
“Say no you’ll stop,” she supplies for me. “And therefore, I have the control only we both know that I never had control. You did.”
The accusation in those words undo me.
Words that bleed pain.
I turn her in my arms and my hand slides under her hair, to her neck. “You were always
in control,” I say. “Why do you think vodka makes me talk about you? Eight years later, vodka still makes me talk about you. You have the control. You’ve always had the control.”
“You didn’t come back because you wanted to come back, Rick. You came back because Tag forced your hand. I can’t, I won’t, go down this path again with you. You want to spank me? Spank me. Sex is something we’ve proven we still do well, but no promises. No talking. No pretending. Just sex.”
Suddenly, I’m not sure she’s giving me trust at all. I catch her wrists and hold them between us, beating down the anger rising inside me. “Just sex? That’s what you want?”
“Just sex. We fight this war together. And we’re friends with benefits.”
My anger goes from zero to a hundred in two seconds flat. “You want to push my buttons, baby. Done. Buttons pushed. We are not friends with benefits. And we are not, nor have we ever been, just sex.”
“Take it or leave it, Rick Savage, because now that I woke up to reality, that’s all I’m offering.”
“What I’ll take is you, all of you and nothing less.” I fold her close, my lips at her ear. “On my tongue. Riding my cock. Moaning my damn name. Drinking fucking coffee with me every morning when you wake up next to me.”
“Until I’m ruined, right?” she whispers.
She’s pushing me and it’s working. My mood is a hot fire stoked to burn hotter. I pull back, cupping her face, staring down at her. “I’m all in. It’ll be fun, don’t you think? Me ruining you. You ruining me. Loads of fucking fun. Let’s get started. Unless you’re suddenly afraid of me?”
CHAPTER SIX
Candace
“I’m not afraid of you,” I say, my temper burning hot, my body hotter. How can it not? He’s so damn perfectly naked and pressed against me, his big body encasing my body. I feel small and feminine with Rick, but I don’t feel weak. “I’m pissed at you,” I breathe out with that declaration because it’s true. I am pissed at him. He let us live apart. He let me hurt. I think he let himself hurt, too.
Savage Burn Page 2
