Raw Deal(22)

"I'm waiting for everything to come back online. Like when the power comes back on after a lightning storm."

Laughing, he pushed some wayward strands of hair from her eyes. "Can I  do anything to help?" He nipped her earlobe and she gave a little  squeak.

Her face turned into his chest and her arms tightened around him. "Just keep holding me."

Too sweet. Too sweet for him. "With pleasure."

She was silent and still for several minutes, and he wondered if she was  beginning to doze. He might have himself. But then she said, "It's  going to be so hard to wake up early in the morning."

"Shh. Don't think about the morning. Just be here."
                       
       
           



       
"Okay." She sighed contentedly. "Here's good. I like here."

And he liked her here a little too much for her own good. He liked this.  Relationships had never come easy for him; he was like a bull in a  china shop trying to navigate the emotional complexities. He'd grown up  watching his mother attach herself to one deadbeat drug addict after  another, and even then his impressionable mind had known it wasn't  supposed to be like that. There had to be something more, something  better. His first few relationships-if he could call them that-hadn't  given him much hope. If he could have a woman like this to hold every  night, though . . .

Being with Savannah felt as natural as breathing.

Once she was calm, he slipped out of bed to take care of the condom and  came back to her, her lips immediately seeking his upon his return, soft  and a little shy. How she could feel shy after that explosion, he  didn't know. He cradled her head, stroked her cheek, and kissed her  until she arched her hips invitingly. Renewed lust surged through him,  hardening him again for her, but he took the time he'd been too crazed  to allow himself earlier. Finding her nipples tight and peaked, he  teased them with light caresses until she whimpered deep in her throat.  He could almost taste those succulent little buds in his mouth, feel  them against his tongue, but he was too busy tasting and feeling her  lips, her sweetness, her tongue in his mouth. He wanted all of her, all  at once. And she was so eager to give it to him.

"Still haven't won this damn game," he murmured, savoring the laugh that  burst from her, the beautiful smile that crinkled her eyes. Her lips,  naturally red from his kisses, were irresistible. He enjoyed them for  another moment or two with his own before beginning a journey down her  long, lithe body, leaving no inch of her untouched on his way down.  "Let's see," he said, pulling her right leg out from where it was  tangled in the comforter and holding it out straight for his thorough  inspection.

Laughing, Savannah covered her face with both hands while he ran his  hand over her skin, following with his lips, all the way to her foot.  "Help me out here. Am I hot or cold?"

Her hands fell away to reveal an impish glint in her eyes. "Not telling."

"Come on."

"Nope."

"You're no fair." Convinced there was no little pink heart nestled  anywhere from the top of her thigh to the bottom of her dainty foot with  its pretty pink toenails, he put her leg down and crawled over to give  the other the same treatment.

She helped him this time, lifting her left leg and putting her foot on  his shoulder. Watching him with a little smile clinging to her lips as  he stroked, kissed, stared. Nothing on her ankle. Nothing on her foot  itself, or her smooth calf . . . front or back. Nothing on her thigh. He  couldn't get a good look at the back, but he thought he would have seen  it when he had her on her stomach before.

"Hmm," he said, replacing her leg on the bed. "I'm stumped."

"Don't give up yet," she said, pouting adorably.

"All right. Turn over."

Damn, how he enjoyed watching her do that, the graceful move, the strong  lines of her back, the beautiful curve of her ass. The flip of her hair  as she moved it out of his way. He let his hands discover every square  inch of her, sliding over soft skin, kissing the dimples above the first  rise of her cheeks, letting his fingers lightly skim the sweet recess  between. She made a breathless sound, enjoying his exploration, but the  only heart he saw was the one low on her back.

"Are you sure there's one more?" he asked.

Savannah giggled, low and lusty. "Promise."

His eyes moved over her arms, her wrists. He picked up first one and  then the other. Nothing on the inside of either wrist, nothing on her  soft inner forearms. "Damnit, Savannah. I give up. It must be somewhere  no one would ever see." Surely not on the inside of her lip or-

"No, you can see it. If I want you to."

What the hell. It must be on her scalp. And as much as he would like to  spend the rest of the night with his fingers in that lustrous hair,  there were more pressing matters to attend to. Like how hard he was  after touching her for so long. Oh, she knew what she was doing when she  invented her little game.

"Fuck it. I'll find it later," he said, rolling her over to her back and  pulling her thigh up on his hip as she gasped, watching her eyes half  close in pleasure as he teased her clit with slow strokes of the  underside of his cock. Damn, she was wet. And warm. He wanted her so  fucking bad it terrified him, so bad it hurt. It would be better for her  if she didn't realize how much she affected him, if she could get on  her plane and go back to New Orleans and forget all about this.                       
       
           



       

He didn't want her to. And he damn sure didn't want to forget.

Mike took a minute to slip another condom on, then returned to the  welcoming circle of her arms and eased gently inside her, careful to  monitor any wince, flinch, or whimper. But everything about her seemed  ready to accept him regardless of their earlier exuberance. She was  soft, and sweet, and so beautiful he ached to look at her. So he kissed  her instead, their bodies without a breath of air between them, combined  and moving in perfect rhythm with each other. She fit him perfectly.  Devastatingly.

Minutes or years passed; he lost himself in her. Maybe he was finding  himself too. When she came, giving a rolling, leisurely undulation of  her hips, he drank her cries while her inner muscles pulsed erratically  around him, driving him nuts, taking him down with her. He dropped his  head to her shoulder and cursed as she seemed to draw the release from  somewhere deep in his soul, her fingernails biting the muscles in his  back.

It was a long time before either of them could speak, combined, naked,  sweaty, tangled in the sheets. He never wanted to be anywhere else.



Even after all the times Savannah's soul had been stripped bare for him  tonight, his arms were like a safe haven where nothing bad could see or  touch her if she didn't want it to. She lay facing him, practically  floating, while he gently traced her arm with his fingertips. Somehow  the way he was looking at her was more intimate than anything they had  done together tonight.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him after a moment, smiling a little as she anticipated his answer.

Instead, though, he asked a question in return. "How are you, Savannah?"

Her smile slipped, brows drawing together. "I'm good."

"No," he said softly, moving his hand from her arm to stroke her cheek.  She knew from the emphasis he put on the words exactly what he meant.  "How are you?"

And she almost could hate him right then, because tears filled her eyes  before she even realized what was happening. She wiped at them  furiously, horror-struck.

"Baby," he groaned, pulling her tighter against him and holding her so  close his hand fisted in her hair. "It's okay. You cry if you need to."

"Why do you have to be so wonderful?" she wailed, and hated herself even  more for how pathetic she sounded. "And don't you dare say you're not,"  she added before he could open his mouth.

"Do you want me to stop?" he teased. "Try being a dick?"

"No." She somehow managed to chuckle and sniffle at the same time. "But I do want you to be real."

"This is . . . real as it gets, darlin'."

"You're nothing like I expected you to be. I only saw how you were with your opponents . . . with Tommy."

"It's a part I play. Not that I don't get in there to win. I do. I get  in there knowing the other guy is the enemy and he's trying to take  what's mine. Intimidation tactics are all a part of it."

"I know. It's hard to reconcile what I saw before with what I know about you now."

"Don't get it in your head I'm some kind of saint, Savannah," he said darkly. "I'm not."