“Why didn’t you come back sooner?” she asks again.
“It was easier to have you hate me for not coming back than to hate me for who I’d become.”
“I don’t hate you at all. I never hated you. I worried about you. I missed you. I really missed you. I hurt without you. You hurt me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you ever again, never again. And to be clear: you’re stuck with me. The only way I leave is if you tell me you want me to leave.”
She wraps her arms around me, her soft curves pressed to my body. “I want to grow old and boring with you, too, Rick Savage.”
“Not fat?” I tease.
She smiles. “Not fat. I like your muscles too much.”
I laugh but the light moment burns instantly hot, and I’m not sure if it’s her or me that moves, but our mouths collide, desperate and hungry—a wild turbulent hiss of lust and love, unleashed. Her hands on my body. My hands sure as fuck on her body. She strokes the hard line of my cock and tugs at my zipper. I cup her sweet little backside and lift her, settling her down on the mattress, and tugging her to the edge.
I’m back on my knees in front of her where I intend to place my mouth and tongue in that sweet spot between her legs. I never get the chance. She sits up, wrapping her arms around me, her puckered nipples between us, her lips finding my lips. Her tongue lances past my teeth, and caresses. I meet that caress with a deeper stroke that ends with a scrape of my teeth. I squeeze her backside and pull her closer, the fingers of my free hand settled into the slick heat between her open thighs, she whimpers into my mouth.
That whimper is my undoing more times than not this time, not until I’ve become the undoing of her. My fingers sink inside her, and now she’s panting, murmuring “Rick” all soft and sweet.
“I never let anyone else call me Rick.” I tangle my fingers into her hair and drag her gaze to mine. “No one.”
She inches back and stares at me, understanding in her eyes. I fucked around but no one else was ever worthy of knowing my first name. “No one?” she asks tentatively.
“No one, baby.” I devour her mouth, savoring the taste of her surrender that I don’t deserve, but I’ll change that. I’ll spend a damn lifetime changing that. My thumb works her clit, lips parting with her pant. I watch her lashes lower and it only takes a few pumps of my fingers, and caress of her swollen nub before she whimpers with an arch of her hips, grabbing my arm. “I—I—” She quakes against my hand and around my fingers.
I lick her bottom lip and ease her through the spasms, my fingers caressing deep and long, and then slow and slower yet. She grabs my shoulders, limp for a moment before she brings her lips to mine. “I need a lot of things with you, Rick. Right now, I need you inside me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Savage
Me and my cock really want Candace riding us right now, but I’m not trying to make this all about me. It’s about her, and her pleasure. Okay, it’s also about me. Her pleasure is still a whole lot of my pleasure. “I want you on my tongue right now.”
She reaches for my pants once again. “I want to be on your cock right now.”
I laugh, a good laugh, the kind of laugh I’ve never been able to share with anyone while fucking but Candace. The kind of laughing and joking that does nothing to diminish the intensity between us. “Does this mean you want to be on top?”
She nips my lips this time. “You’ll have to get undressed to find out, now won’t you?”
“Hmmm.”
“Rick, damn it. I need—”
My mouth finds hers, and we’re all kinds of wild that turns into me naked with her now, and when I sit down on the bed, she’s standing in front of me. I pull her to my lap, and in a hell yeah moment, my arm catches her waist, and she’s got my cock in her hand, guiding me into all that wet, tight heat between those beautiful thighs. Nice and slow, she’s sliding down the length of me until she’s settling all sweet and right, against my hips.
“Do you miss my tongue?” I ask, cupping her pretty little ass, and rocking my hips.
“Only because you’re not kissing me,” she murmurs breathlessly and damn I really love it when she’s breathless.
I catch her head and pull her mouth close. “A kiss for now but my tongue has other ideas for you and soon.”
She leans into me, claiming my mouth, and I don’t deny either of us the adrenaline rush of the kiss that follows. I squeeze her backside and give her a hard smack, just the way she likes it. She yelps and bites my lip, a hard pinch that turns me the fuck on. I catch those long silky strands of her hair and give them just enough of a pull for her to feel it. We’re back to that wild push and pull between us, and she rocks into me with a hard shove. She wants me on my back. It would be easy to place her on her back or her stomach. To take her, to touch her, to turn her inside out, but I don’t do any of those things. I give her what she wants, me on my back, her in control. Because this really is about what she wants and needs. And tonight, she needs control. I think she needs it often with me, at least right now. At least until she’s over the way I took that control by leaving. I don’t revel in the way I’m going to be forced to take her control again tomorrow when we battle over the party.
I’m barely pressed to the mattress, and she’s straddling me, beautiful as hell on top of me; her long silky hair wild around her shoulders, strands teasing her perky pink nipples. Her lips roughed up from my kisses, eyes heavy with desire. It’s all I can do not to turn her over, and hold onto her, capture her beneath me. She leans over me and into me, kissing me and my hand flattens on her lower back, pressing her hips into my hips. She arches into me, sways and strokes my cock, left and right, up and down. And when she sits up, riding me with abandon, it’s not me that owns her—it’s her that owns me. Watching her, feeling her, is fire and adrenaline. Both of which magnify by ten when she leans forward again and gives me this sultry, I’m-so-damn-in-lust-and-love-with-you look, that every man should want to experience.
Now, I roll her over. I can’t fucking help it. I pin her arms over her head and I press my cheek to her cheek, my lips at her ear. “I am so damn in love with you, woman.”
“Prove it,” she challenges her breath warm on my lips.
There’s something hidden in that challenge, something dark and emotional that has me withdrawing just enough to study her face. “How?”
“Trust me. Really trust me.”
My lips lower to her lips, my breath a warm hiss on her lips as I say, “I wouldn’t be here now, if that wasn’t where I am and where we are, Candace. Done, but you have to give what you get.”
“Done,” she whispers.
We’re still there, naked, bodies connected intimately lingering in those next few seconds that feel like minutes before we’re drinking each other in with our hands and mouths. Until she bucks beneath me and I thrust into her, and somehow our bodies are a sultry sway and a dirty grind, all at once. I don’t know when I release her hands, or how her arms wrap my neck but when she cries out my name and whimpers, I’m lost in her— in her soft sounds, in her trembling body, in her taste and smell. I shudder, hard and far too fast, with my release.
A long time later, I pull a blanket over our naked bodies and Candace snuggles close to me. We don’t talk. We just lay there, holding each other. Almost as if we both know there’s a battle we still have to fight, one about the other man in her life, the one she’s engaged to, who isn’t me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Candace
I wake to the light of a new day peeking through a crack in the hotel blinds, cool air conditioning chilling the room, and Rick’s big, warm body cradling mine from behind. My lashes lower in a savoring moment as I snuggle in just a little closer to him. Still asleep, he instinctively reacts by folding me into him, nuzzling my neck. It’s surreal. This is surreal. Just weeks ago, I didn’t believe I’d ever see Rick again, let alone, wake to him, and yet, I am, and we are very much back together. And for that reason, I promised him that I’d trust him, a
nd I’m going to give him that trust.
The shadows of sleep dance in my mind, decorated with rose petals and memories. I’m suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly, faded into sleep and that past, reliving one of the best nights of my life.
After a night of dancing and naughtiness in the loft above our favorite country bar, which still has me blushing, Rick pulls his truck into the garage and kills the engine. “Don’t move, baby,” he orders. “I have a surprise for you.”
I laugh. “Sneaking into that loft is all I can handle tonight.”
“We both know that’s not true.” He winks and kisses me. “Stay here or I’ll be forced to spank you right here in the truck because the surprise is inside.”
“You’re bad.”
He wiggles an eyebrow. “You know it, baby, more than anyone.”
He slides out of the truck and shuts me inside. I laugh and peek over the dash, enjoying the view of his nice tight ass that looks just as good in scrubs as it does in tonight’s faded jeans. He enters the house, and curiosity is killing me for obvious reasons. With Rick Savage, there is no telling what comes next, and I love it. I love the way he makes me live life, the way he breathes excitement into every second of every day, yet somehow calms me at the same time.
Rick enters the house, our house now for nearly four of the six months we’ve known each other, and I count the seconds that turn into a few minutes, until his return. Finally, he exits the house, holding something in his hand that I can’t quite make out.
Eager to find out what he’s up to I watch him round the truck and open the passenger door to retrieve me. “Madam,” he says, offering me his big, strong, surgically-gifted hand. The very hands that saved the life of a little boy and his parents just last night, but there is so much more to him than just the surgeon. He’s complicated. He’s damaged. I’ve seen the ways his father contributes to just how damaged. And yet when he’s with me, especially here at home, he relaxes into the moment. I watch it happen, often.
“Sir,” I say formally, playing along with his game, as I press my palm to his, and he guides me across the seat. A second later, he catches my waist and lifts me out of the truck with such ease you’d think I was a feather. I do like his muscles. I sway slightly with the influence of my one Tequila Sunrise which proves I’m truly a lightweight, but Rick had only one beer. I think he’s always afraid he’ll be called out on an emergency even when he’s not on call. Or maybe he’s just afraid of becoming his father.
He catches my hips from behind. “Easy, baby,” he murmurs, nibbling my neck and sending a delicious rush of goosebumps down my spine. “I got you. Always.”
Always.
That word.
He’s used it often lately.
“I hope so,” I whisper, and maybe it’s the Tequila Sunrise, but right now, I have this fear pinching my chest—fear of loving him this much and losing him. But then, I’m an army brat who lost my mother to war. Rick is still a surgeon, but he’s also a more than willing soldier.
He shuts the truck door and guides me forward, smiling one of his sexy mischievous smiles. He catches my fingers and backs up. “What are you up to?”
“Wait and see.”
He stops with the kitchen door at his back and holds up a blindfold. “Turn around.”
My eyes widen. “What are you up to?” I repeat.
He turns me and steps into me. “You’re just going to have to trust me. I promise I’ll only lick in those special spots.”
Laughter erupts from my throat and I let him place the blindfold over my eyes. “You’re dirty.”
“Just the way you like me.” He turns me to face him and I can feel him watching me.
“You’re staring at me.”
He strokes a finger over my cheek. “I am. Because you’re just so damn beautiful.” His voice is rough, almost guttural.
Emotion washes over me—my emotion, his emotion. “Rick,” I whisper.
His lips press to my lips, a simple kiss, lips to lips and nothing more, that is somehow so much more. It’s fire, it’s passion, it’s love. A kiss that savors. A kiss that lingers when his mouth parts mine, and he claims my hand. “Come,” he murmurs, and before I know his intent, he’s lifted me and set me inside the house.
I laugh as he sets me on my feet, and then he captures my hand again, much like he captured my heart at that coffee bar when we met. I just didn’t know it then, but I do now. This started with hello, actually I’m pretty sure it was something more forceful than hello considering he’d blocked my car in with his truck.
Rick leads me forward, his arm around me to protect me from bumping into furniture or walls which I most certainly would without his aid. My body is pretty much all about how good he feels, but my mind tries to place where we are. My nostrils flare with a hint of a woodsy masculine scent that is all Rick and our bedroom. I love that about our bedroom. Rick halts our path to a stop, and he steps behind me, his breath a hot tickle on my neck. “Ready?”
I smile. “Yes. Very ready.”
He pulls off the blindfold I blink at the bed that is dusted with rose petals. A dozen roses sit on each nightstand and in the center sits a tray that holds two giant pieces of our favorite chocolate and a bottle of champagne. My heart swells with the effort he’s put into romancing me and I rotate as Rick goes down on a knee.
My heart starts to thunder in my chest. “What are you doing?” It’s a stupid question considering everything, especially the velvet box in his hand.
“I can’t imagine a happy day on this earth without you, Candy, baby. Will you marry me?”
He flips open the box to a gorgeous diamond and sapphire ring and tears streak my cheeks and the word, “Yes,” is all I can manage before he’s on his feet, kissing me.
I blink awake with a smile on my lips and the sound of thunder outside the hotel window, the room darker now. The air conditioner blowing even colder, too. Rick’s arm is heavy and protective around my body like he’ afraid of losing me. I don’t want to think about that fear. I just want to sleep a few more minutes. I just want to be back in that perfect night when Rick proposed. But that’s not where my mind goes. My mind decides to take me to hell instead.
CHAPTER NINE
Candace
The haze of sleep becomes a deep dark tunnel that travels right to the graveyard where Rick’s mother is buried. I grab Rick’s hand, trying to pull away from the nightmare but it’s too late I’m there, living the night all over again.
The night is upon us, the graveyard dimly lit, shadowed by storm clouds hovering in the deep abyss of the night. Rick’s kneeling beside his mother’s grave, and I angle the flashlight toward his hands where he wields a blade to dig for the secrets he believes he left here at his mother’s grave, under her protection. I have a fleeting moment of appreciation for his skill, for the ease at which he handles that blade as if it’s an extension of his body, a part of him. I know he can kill with those hands, I do, but perhaps that’s part of his appeal, part of his mesmerizing gigantic presence—the real power of this man is how easily he can give and take lives. Rick’s cellphone rings and an odd prickling at my neck has me glancing over my shoulder, the wind blowing my brown hair across my face.
Drawing a calming breath, I refocus on Rick, a deep, almost foreboding rumble of thunder sounding loud nearby, low echoes vibrating through the sky in its aftermath. Rick disconnects his call and I glance upward, a drop of icy rain plopping onto my nose. It’s then, that the prickling sensation explodes into a warning. I try to turn but someone grabs me from behind. I reach for the powerful arm now shackling my waist, and the flashlight crashes to the ground. I think I call out. I’m not sure I do. My heart is racing, my adrenaline pumping too hard and fast. That’s when the cold steel blade presses to the delicate skin of my neck and I go still. Instantly, I know, I just know who my captor is, without ever seeing his face. This is Wes, and Rick killed his wife, by slicing her throat. He’s going to slice my throat, poetic justice, no doubt, in h
is mind. Rick straightens, turning toward us, his face chiseled in stone, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking behind me at Wes and that blade he’d been using to dig is in his hand. I open my mouth to tell him I love him but I never get the chance. Suddenly his hand moves, and there’s a flash of steel. I barely know what’s happened, that he’s thrown the knife when Wes’s grip falls away, and I stumble forward onto my hands and knees. Heart thundering against my breastbone, still on the grass, I rotate to watch Rick straddle him, and shove the blade into his body.
I wake to a gasp, sitting up and clutching the sheet to my chest, adrenaline surging through me as if I was back at the graveyard. Rick is immediately sitting beside me, his strong arms wrapping my body. “Easy, baby. Easy. It was a nightmare.”
Struggling to control my breathing I twist to face him. “You didn’t even hesitate to throw that knife.”
His lashes lower, and he looks skyward before his eyes meet mine. “If I had you’d be dead instead of him.”
I rotate to face him, still chilled from the nightmare, still sheltering under the blanket. “I know that. I do. Do you know that right before Wes showed up, you were digging, and I was mesmerized by your hands? And you know what I thought?” I don’t give him time to reply. “I thought that your true power, that magic that makes you bigger than life, is your ability to give and take lives. And yet, Rick, you choose to save them over and over. That’s what happened last night. You took a life and you saved mine.”
“Don’t make me a hero, baby. That sets us both up for failure.”
“I need you to know that I see you, all of you. I see you, Rick. Really see you. I can handle the truth, whatever it is. I’m in this thing called ‘life’ with you. And I can handle what happened to me and us last night. I can handle how you kill because I know you don’t do it for sport. Trust me.”
“Baby—”
My hand goes to his cheek, the rasp of his two-day beard rough on my fingers. “Trust me.”
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