“On and off switches?” He bent his head and pressed a line of kisses from the small of her back along several of the faint stripe marks still visible over her bottom. “You can’t be talking about the part of my body you love best.”
The whisper of his fingers slid through her wetness again. Her sex clenched in reaction. Nerve endings lit up. It felt good to just lie there with him stroking her so gently. Those little caresses, asking nothing of her. Just being so sweet. Teasing. She loved it when he was like this with her. When they were just happy.
“Well, I did kind of fall in love with that particular part of your anatomy, it’s true. So many things to love about it. But—and that’s a big but—it’s very demanding when I want to sleep. I’m a woman who loves my sleep. A remote might be just the thing. You can control my comings and goings, and I’ll control your … er … ups and downs.”
He laughed—a real laugh—and her heart turned over. Her stomach did that looping roller coaster that did her in every time. Love was intense. Overwhelming. The slow burn was even better than the rush of a firestorm. His breath on her neck, the soft laughter melting her heart. She was so in love with him.
“Seychelle,” he whispered right in that spot where her shoulder met her neck, sending shivers down her spine. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful inside and out. I swear there’s this light in you that shines so fuckin’ bright it pushes out the demons in me and makes me feel like a human being. You make me feel like I’m a man, not a monster walking this earth.”
Air was instantly trapped in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. A lump formed in her throat. She closed her eyes tight against the sudden burn. Savage kept his face buried tight against her sensitive skin, the bristle along his jaw rasping like sandpaper, causing every nerve ending to rise to the surface in electrical shock.
“From that first moment when you shoved me out of the way of the truck and you took the hit for me, when you opened your eyes, you saw right past the monster. You never saw him. You always saw the man. Even in the hospital room, I let him out deliberately. I let him taunt you, so you’d be afraid and run from me, but you kept looking past him and seeing the man.”
He kept whispering to her, choking her up, so she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. His arm had curved around her hips, locking down the way he did, holding her so tight sometimes she wondered what he was doing—until now. Until this moment. Now she knew why he lay facedown on her belly, arms around her hips, locking her to him.
“Honey.” One hand managed to move to his head—the head he kept shaved. No thick blond hair for him. He wouldn’t ever be that little boy again. She couldn’t imagine what he would do if he ever had a son with blond curls. “You’ve always been that man. That sweet, loving man. Mine. I’ll always see you.”
He shook his head. “Why do I need …” He shook his head again and then lifted it to look her in the eyes. “No, crave. Have to hurt the woman I love, adore, respect and admire the most in the world. Why do I need that in order to be aroused? I can’t stop thinking about what I want to do to you next. I love what we did last night. I want more. I’ve never felt so free. At the same time, when we’re not having sex, I look at you and wonder how you can be with someone like me. I used to not care what I was. I really didn’t. Now, when I watch you sleep and you look like a fuckin’ angel, I want to put a bullet in my head or drive off a cliff for what I’m doing to you, for where I’m taking you.”
Her heart accelerated. Savage was capable of doing either one of those things if he decided he wanted out. She forced her sore body to move, turning enough that she could frame his face with both hands.
“You aren’t thinking straight, Savin Pajari; clearly you need me to set you right. You are a man. My man. My choice. You don’t ever get to take that away from me. I’m not such an angel that I don’t enjoy what we’re doing. That’s part of the reason I have such a difficult time with coming to terms with our relationship. I still don’t understand the me part of it. Stop condemning who you are. Let it be. We’re going to have real issues, Savage. Relationship issues. The sexual part is something we seem to communicate about fairly well.”