a reason to live(99)

“I can’t breathe,” I forced out. “What’s wrong with me?”

Jack growled, “Fuck,” and started the engine.

“No! I need to get out,” I shouted in panic, reaching for the door handle before he took off, but Shane hauled me back from the door and wrapped me in a tight hold, crooning, “Breathe, baby. In and out. Just breathe.”

***

Shane kept hold of Sage as Jack maneuvered swiftly through Gunnison. She was having a panic attack and he needed to get her alone so he could talk her down.

Sage had held up for twenty-nine years under the crushing force of her past abuse. Had become a strong woman in the face of it. But the past year had finally taken its toll. She kept repeating, “You could have died because of me,” while trying to break free from him.

When Jack pulled into the drive, Shane ripped open the door and pulled Sage out, carrying her into the house and down the hall to their bedroom. Once inside, he lowered her to her feet and ripped off his shirt.

“Touch me,” he ordered.

She didn’t listen. She was distracted. Her hands were shaking; her eyes were wide with panic like a cat ready to bolt, so he grabbed her hand and slapped it on his chest, holding it there with his hand.

“I’m here. I’m alive. Touch me.”

Sage closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Her shaking subsided a fraction, then she stared blankly at his hand, lost in some fucked-up sense of responsibility to everyone around her. When her eyes dropped to the bruise on his chest where Heller’s bullet had landed on his vest, she began to tremble again.

He barked out, “Sage!” and her eyes popped to his. “I’m not going anywhere. This wasn’t your fault, baby. He would have found a way to get to you, so stop blaming yourself.”

“You could have been killed,” she whispered, “and it would have been my fault.”

“Did you force him to act like a madman?”

She rolled her lip between her teeth and shook her head no.

“Did you deserve anything that man put you and your family through growing up?”

Her eyes swept down in thought, a crease pulling across her freckled brow, then she looked back up at him and answered, “No.”

“Then don’t give him another second of your life. Touch me.”

She held his gaze, searching for some unknown answer until her wired eyes relaxed a fraction and she raised her free hand to touch his arm. He held still even though he wanted to throw her on the bed and bury himself inside her. To pound her body with his until the panic she was fighting disappeared.

With shaking hands, she moved closer and rested her forehead on his chest. She took a shuddering breath, the warm air bouncing off his chest in a puff, then he felt her lips on his skin. It burned a trail straight to his cock, but he held still. She traced kisses across his chest until she reached his nipple. Then she flicked her tongue against it and his breath hitched.

Sage pulled back at his reaction, and he watched a single tear run down her cheek. He resisted chasing it with his thumb. Instead, he stepped back and raised his arms wide in a gesture of submission, inviting her to take his control, to take his strength, and whispered, “I’m here. I’m yours. Take what you need from me.”

Time fractured as he waited. Almost immediately, her breathing increased as she studied him, then her expression cleared and hunger replaced the splintered soul he’d seen moments before.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered when she took her first step in his direction. “Take what you need from me.”

With deliberate slowness, Sage moved to his right and then began a slow circle around his body while he stood stock-still. She paused at his back, placing a warm, slender hand in its center, then ran it up through his hair and tugged his head back. Shane closed his eyes when her mouth found his neck, her tongue dancing on the tendon. Sucking in a deep breath to keep from grabbing hold of her, he grunted when her teeth grazed his neck.

“You’re mine,” she whispered, her warm breath heating his blood further. “No one is taking you from me.” Hearing the possessiveness in her voice caused his cock to ache. Giving up his control so she could have some for the first time in her life was killing him. But he’d do it again for her, his saving grace. So he held still as she kissed her way to his other ear, yanking his head again so she had more access, then groaned deep in his lungs when she said, “No one is taking you from me, not even you. I don’t want control, I only want you.”

One second she was behind him, the next she was on her back, her clothes gone because he’d ripped them from her body. He grabbed her hair, pulling her head to the side, and then sunk into her heat in a single thrust while burying his head in her neck.