She’s also sitting on the edge of the bed. “Are you serious right now, Rick? You left.” She stands up.
I shackle her wrist and pull her to me. “I never gave a ring to another woman.”
“Ten years.”
“Eight fucking years.”
“Does it matter? It was too long.”
I catch her neck under her hair and drag her mouth to mine. “I know that. Do you not feel how much I know that? Do you know how many times I changed one decision because it meant life or death? Do you know why I did that? Because I needed one more chance with you.”
“You took too long.”
“Don’t say that. Not if you mean it’s too late. Tell me it’s not too late.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Savage
I don’t give her time to answer. I don’t want the gutting reply to be delivered. “Don’t answer,” I say. “Because I know what you’ll say now. I’m going to change your mind.” I turn her, taking her down on the mattress, me leaning over her. “I’ll pay for your anger in orgasms.” I try to move away and she catches my neck.
“I don’t want an orgasm—okay, that’s not true—but that’s not the point. I want you, Rick Savage. I’ve always wanted you. I missed you. I really did miss you.” She says those words like they hurt. Because they do. She didn’t want to miss me. She doesn’t want to want me again. But it’s something. I’ll take anything I can get.
“I won’t let you miss me again,” I promise, fighting the demons in my head that scream: she’ll wish you were gone again soon. She’s not better without me, I remind myself. And I’m damn sure not better without her. “Of the many things I missed about you, baby,” I say, “and there are so damn many things I missed about you, I missed you on my tongue.”
“Rick,” she breathes out. “Rick, I—”
“Don’t talk. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Later. This now.” I kiss her jawline and then her neck, my breath warm on her skin as I whisper, “Candy on my tongue,” repeating what I used to say to her, reminding her of all the things that make us, us. “I could lick you all night long.” I fill my hands with her spectacular breasts, licking one of her puckered pink nipples. She gasps and arches into my hands. I have a moment when I think of that fucker Gabriel touching her like this and I want to punch something. Instead, I lick her nipple, suckle it deep and then I inch back upward to kiss her. “You’re not marrying him.”
“No. I’m not. But not because you’re ordering me not marry him.”
“Why?”
“Among other things, because I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t hate me?” I repeat.
“That’s all you get right now.”
“All right. I’ll take it. Say it again.”
She lifts her head and kisses me and then says, “I don’t hate you.”
I kiss her, I kiss the hell out of her again, and I can feel a dark, raw need expanding inside me. A seed of something that I don’t want to feel. That part of me that doesn’t feel like I’m worthy of her. That part of me that knows my life is dangerous. That my life is not what she deserves. I don’t want to feel those things. I don’t want to go to that place now or ever again. She’s not better off without me. She’s not safer without me, a man who will kill for her, die for her.
Dragging my mouth from her mouth but not her perfect body, I start kissing a path downward. And she is perfect. She has always been my ideal woman, the one no one else lived up to. The one no one could ever make me forget. I kiss her belly and then drag her lower, to the edge of the mattress and I go down on one knee, spreading her legs wide. My lips return to her belly, my eyes meeting her eyes. She swallows hard and squeezes her eyes shut. I kiss my way downward, lower. Lower. My fingers slide between her legs, stroking the wet, slick heat there, my mouth lowering, tongue licking her clit. Her body jerks and arches upward. My hand slides under her backside and I squeeze at the same moment I suckle her deeply. I’m on a mission now, the taste of her, the soft, sexy sounds she’s making, telling me where she needs me and I don’t make her wait. Not this time. This time I want her to remember how good I can make her feel. She shatters on my tongue, the salty-sweet taste of her release on my lips, the shudders of her body beneath my hands. I bring her down, lick her until she’s trying to sit up and then I’m up. I’m moving to the bed, taking her with me, rolling her to her side, to face me, settling my rock-hard cock between her thighs and tangling fingers in her hair, dragging her mouth to mine. Licking against her tongue before I murmur, “Taste yourself on my lips. That’s where you belong.”