Raw Deal(38)

He'd made this drive a couple of times before while heading to Destin,  Florida. That route bypassed New Orleans, though-I-12 taking over the  passage through Louisiana in Baton Rouge while I-10 dipped down to the  Big Easy. So once he left Baton Rouge in his rearview mirror, he was in  unfamiliar territory. And he couldn't wait to see where Savannah lived,  where she liked to go, what she liked to do, all the things he'd  wondered about but seemed impossible to discover while they had sipped  coffee at the Café Du Monde a lifetime ago. He couldn't wait to see a  little piece of her life the way she'd glimpsed a little piece of his.

At long last, he was easing through the historic New Orleans streets,  following his GPS directions to where Savannah had told him to park. It  wasn't quite five A.M., but cities never slept.

He wondered if she had ever managed to.



"Tommy?"

"Hey, little sister."

"Is it wrong?"

"Is what wrong?"                       
       
           



       

"I think I might love him."

"Can't help who we love."

"We can choose whether or not to be with them."

"Well, then choose."

"Don't leave."

"I'm always around . . ."

It was a strange one, as dreams went-she couldn't see her brother,  couldn't see their surroundings, only knew he was there. Her mind  conjured his voice from the depths of her memory as plainly as if they'd  spoken a day ago instead of months.

She shifted restlessly in her sleep, and as a gentle weight squeezed her  upper arm and a male voice whispered her name, she woke with a start.  "Michael?"

"I'm here."

Savannah reached for him, and his weight came down on the bed beside her  in the darkness. Hard, warm, reassuring. God, she hadn't realized how  much she'd missed his arms around her, and it had only been a few days.  His chin nestled into her hair, his lips pressing against her head. She  closed her eyes, absorbed his strength, and fell right back to sleep  within seconds while he held her.

A few times she woke afraid she'd dreamed him there, only to find him  sleeping beside her, still in his clothes. The next time her eyes  opened, gray dawn bloomed outside her bedroom window, showing her his  face. Hard lines, soft curves, all so peaceful in sleep. If only we  could bring that peace back with us when we wake up, she thought, and  snuggled against him to try to find her own again, however brief it  might be.

He'd driven all night to reach her when he knew she needed him. She  doubted there was even one other person in her life who would have done  such a thing.

"You okay?" he murmured sleepily, his arms going around her again-at  some point in their sleep, they'd lost their grips on each other.

"Am now," she whispered. His full lips curved in a trace of a smile, and  then he was out again. Savannah wanted desperately to kiss those lips,  but no doubt he was impossibly tired. She should have tried harder to  talk him out of making that trip, but if she had, she wouldn't have  this.

And this . . . this was divine.

Sheets of rain began pattering her window. She dozed again briefly, but  it was her natural waking time and her internal clock wouldn't allow her  much more sleep. Luckily, she had no appointments until later this  morning, but she might be able to get one of the others to cover those.  If not, she would just have to go in, though the thought of leaving him  was almost unbearable now that he was here. She wanted to lie all day in  the shelter of these powerful arms and not have to face the world.

His lashes fluttered against his cheeks, and she wondered what he was  dreaming about, what those intense eyes were seeing behind his closed  eyelids. Her dream about Tommy came back to her . . . casually telling  her to choose with the wry humor he'd always had in his voice, as if he  had not a care in the world.

How could she ever choose anything but this?

Then her mind drifted to Rowan waking up in an empty bed this morning,  probably hanging over a toilet with morning sickness. And her face last  night . . .

Savannah rolled onto her back, breathing hard, a hand to her mouth. How  dare she find comfort when there was none to be had for Tommy's wife,  her sister, her best friend?

"Savannah?" Mike's voice was sleep roughened but sharp, his eyes heavy  lidded but wide awake. He rose up on his elbow beside her, searching her  stricken face with both gaze and gentle fingertips.

"I'm fine," she said, reflex taking over as she scuttled from his touch  and then from the bed. "Just give me a minute." Making a beeline for her  little bathroom, she shut the door and sat on the edge of her claw-foot  tub, sobbing quietly into her hand.

This had all been a horrible mistake. She was so fucking confused she  had no business making any decisions for herself. Now she'd brought a  wonderful man from his bed to drive five hours overnight to get to her,  and she'd just run from him as if he had the plague when he hadn't done a  fucking thing to deserve it.

Get it together, her mind screamed at her, but her heart still beat agony through her veins.

Minutes ticked by, and she tried, she really did. She splashed cold  water on her face, washed the tears away. Tried to plaster on a smile  for her reflection, but even to her it looked fake.

"Okay, I've given you a minute," Mike said from outside her door, and  she wondered how long he had been standing there. "Talk to me,  Savannah."

It reminded her of telling Rowan about him through the closed dressing  room door at the Galleria. Somehow it had made it easier to say  difficult words. Not this time. She needed him as much as she wanted to  run from him.                       
       
           



       

Sighing, she pulled the door open, not even trying on her fake smile for him; he would see right through it.

He stood with one arm braced on the door frame, head lowered slightly  but eyes trained directly on hers. His very presence eclipsed her  bedroom. "Should I not have come?"

"I'm glad you did," she said, sounding small. "I just . . . last night . . . and thinking about how hurt she still is . . ."

"I get it."

"How is it that I deserve this? Deserve you?" And how damn long would he put up with her erratic emotions?

"Shit, you deserve someone a hell of a lot better than me. If I weren't  so fucking selfish I would leave you alone so you could find him."

"You're one of the least selfish people I think I've ever met. I mean . . . you're here."

"When I shouldn't be. I should be getting up to hit the gym with Jon but I don't care."

Her heart, rattling around somewhere around her feet, lifted a bit when  he said that. Maybe he really was moving away from that life, the one  that she didn't think she could ever be a part of again. Especially now,  hearing how damn easy it was for an old injury to spell a fighter's  demise. It amazed her it was so rare.

And it took her mind back to Rowan. She'd fallen in love, planned for  forever. Counted on it . . . only to have "forever" with Tommy cut  brutally short.

What a precious, fragile thing it was to have Mike in front of her right  now. Reaching up for his face, she felt the rasp of his stubble against  her palms, marveling that he was real and he was here. Hard blue eyes  bored into hers, warming as they stripped through her layers of anguish  to seek a depth inside her she hadn't known existed. Then his mouth  found hers while thunder rumbled through the skies overhead. There was  so much she wanted to show him now that he was with her, but at the  moment there was only time for the feel of him against her, of his mouth  moving slowly over hers, questing for entrance. She gave it eagerly,  standing on tiptoes to reach him. She loved how small he made her.

"Fucking missed you," he growled against her lips, and she whimpered as  his big hands crept around to cup her ass cheeks and squeeze her against  his groin. She climbed him, lifting her legs to wrap around his narrow  waist, her hands tugging at back of his snug black T-shirt to get to the  hot bare skin underneath. Needing him naked, needing him between her  thighs making her forget all the bullshit in her life.

"You know," he murmured, depositing her on the mattress amid her rumpled  white sheets, "I wanted to wake you up with my mouth between her legs."

"Oh, God, why didn't you?"

"You seemed a little emotionally fragile last night. You seem that way now, too."

"That's a damn good reason to get your mouth between my legs," she  insisted, stripping his shirt off now that she had room to do so.

He grinned, goddamn gorgeous in the gray morning light with his shadowed  jaw, chiseled body, and that mouth that was mere moments away from  driving her wild. Here. Now. In her bedroom. He'd come to her. It was  almost too much to believe.