Savannah’s cheeks blazed red as she understood Ethan’s intentions were to take her any place, any time, anywhere, much as her fantasies had dictated. ‘Why didn’t I think of the rug?’ she murmured, arcing towards him.
‘Because you’ve still got a lot to learn?’
‘Everything,’ she corrected him happily.
‘So, I’ll teach you. Where would you like me to start?’
‘Right here…’ She placed his hand over her breast, and uttered a happy cry when he turned her beneath him.
Holding her wrists loosely above her head, Ethan dealt with the fastening on her clothes. She loved it when his big, warm hands cupped her buttocks, subjecting her to delicious stroking moves as he prepared her. She loved to feel those hands caressing and supporting her as he positioned her. She loved everything about him—the wide spread of his shoulders, the power in his chest, and the biceps flexing on his arms when he braced himself above her. She felt protected and loved. She wanted this, needed him—needed Ethan deep inside her so she could forget she had to leave him in the morning. Wrapped up in passion, she wound her legs around him and lost herself again.
His intention had been to take Savannah to bed and make love to her all night, but here, in front of a crackling fire in the candlelit room she had made beautiful, there were all the romantic elements she could wish for, and he wanted to give her the full fairy-tale romance. All that had ever stood in the way of that was his cold, unfeeling heart, but for tonight he had the chance to hold Savannah in his arms while she slept, and he wanted to remember how she felt in his arms, and how she looked when he held her safe. He wanted to keep her safe always. Safe from him.
He knew what he must do, Ethan accepted grimly. Easing his arm out from under her, he kissed Savannah awake like some prince in a distorted fairy-tale. There could be no happy ending here. She smiled at him groggily. Reaching for his hand, she brought it to her lips. As she gazed at him her lips moved, and the dread that she was going to say ‘I love you’ made him kiss her again, but this time not to wake her, but to silence her. He wouldn’t lure her into his cold, dark world, but the moment he released her she asked the one question he had been dreading most. ‘Ethan, tell me about your scars.’
He turned his face away for a moment, cursing his arrogant assumption that Savannah could ever be distracted from her purpose. She touched his face to bring him back to her, but he pulled away. ‘What do you want to know?’ he said coldly.
‘Everything.’
Everything? The word echoed in his head. If he would save her from him, he was blindingly certain he would save her from everything.
‘Ethan, why is it so wrong for me to want to be close to you when we just made love? I want to know who did this to you and why. Surely you can trust me enough to tell me that?’
She had no idea. How could she? He removed himself a little more, both physically and mentally. ‘I can understand your fascination.’ He spoke in a murmur as he reasoned it through, his mind set on other occasions when he’d suspected the questioner had obtained some sort of foul, vicarious thrill out of the violence.
‘Fascination?’ Savannah’s voice called him back. ‘Ethan, you don’t know me at all. How can you think me so shallow?’
‘Aren’t all women shallow?’ The bitterness burst out of him before he could stop it.
‘I don’t know what kind of women you’ve met in the past,’ Savannah countered hotly. ‘And I don’t want to. But I can assure you I’m not shallow.’ Her voice was raised, her body tense, and her gaze held his intently—but after a moment she froze, and a change came over her. ‘Is your mother behind this?’
Every part of him railed against this intrusion into the deepest part of his psyche. ‘How could you know that?’
‘Because I can’t think of anything more terrible than betrayal by a mother, and whatever wounded you to this extent has to be that bad.’
‘You know all about me in five minutes?’ he demanded scornfully.
‘I knew you from the moment I met you.’ She said this with blinding honesty ‘From that second on, Ethan, I knew you.’
For the longest moment neither of them spoke, and then he told her some of it.
‘One man did this to you, Ethan?’ Savannah’s face contorted with disbelief, and her eyes betrayed her bitter disappointment that Ethan didn’t trust her more than that.
‘I don’t believe you. I can’t believe this was some random attack. There isn’t a man alive who could do this to you.’ Her eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Unless you were unconscious at the time—were you unconscious? Did someone drug you to do this?’
‘It would be a cold day in hell before that happened.’
He must have been attacked by a gang, Savannah reasoned. The way Ethan had described his stepfather, the man had been a cowardly weed who wouldn’t have had the strength to hold Ethan down and inflict such terrible injuries.
‘Can we drop the subject?’ he snapped, jolting her out of her calculations.
‘No, we can’t,’ she s
aid bluntly. ‘I want the truth, Ethan—all of it. We just did some very adult things, and it’s time you stopped treating me like a child.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ETHAN’S naked torso looked as though a pitchfork with serrated edges had been dragged back and forth across it several times. ‘A gang of men must have done this to you,’ Savannah insisted, sure she was right now.