Savage Love (Heatstroke Hearts Book 3), page 5
This is my apartment. I don’t even want him out there. Why shouldn’t I look out of the window? Embarrassed or not, he knows I don’t want him here, but he stayed, so if Savage doesn’t like me looking out my own damn front window, he can leave.
He keeps staring up at me, and I fold my arms and stare right back down at him.
It’s like we’re playing chicken. First person to look away is the loser, except I’m already the loser thanks to the whole “pink lace incident”. And the pepper-spewing. Oh God, the pepper-spewing.
I’m about to pull back when Savage pushes off the front of his SUV, and I grin. He’s going to leave. I win.
But Savage doesn’t circle around his car. Instead, he walks toward the stairs, watching me like I’m a deer, and he’s the hunter.
Eight
SAVAGE
I am a fool.
I knock on her front door.
A fucking fool.
She doesn’t answer. I knock again.
Finally, the latch scrapes and she appears, fucking breath-taking as always. Hannah narrows her eyes at me, still standing in the darkness in her apartment, the door only half open.
“What’s up?” she asks.
“What’s wrong with your power?”
“What kind of power are we talking about?” Hannah asks, covering her breasts with both arms, and my God, am I grateful that she does, because she is wearing punishment in clothing form. “Like my power over my mind, my power as a woman? Because there is nothing wrong with that. My power over my gag reflex, however—” She cuts off, her eyes widening. “I need to stop talking. Oh my God, why do I have a mouth?”
And why isn’t it on mine?
“Your lights are out,” I say.
“Huh?”
“You were standing in the dark at the window. Your lights are out.”
“That’s why you came up here?” Hannah asks, her eyebrows climbing. “Of course. Of course, that’s why you came up here. You were worried that I was alone in the dark with a stalker. Because you’re my bodyguard now. Because that’s a wonderful thing that’s happened in the past couple of hours. And I’m doing it again.” She gives a tight smile and rams her lips together.
“It would be much easier to look after you from inside your apartment.”
“Say what now?”
I clear my throat and take a single step inside.
She releases her door and backs up, her eyelids fluttering. “You can’t just—”
“What?”
“You can’t just come in without asking.”
“All right,” I say. “May I come in?”
“You’re already in.”
We stare at each other in the slanting moonlight from outside. I’m close. So close to her, I could reach out and take her in my arms, walk her back and press her into the wall.
“Savage?” she murmurs, tipping her chin up so she can look me in the eye.
I’m aware that I’m an intimidating guy, and I like that Hannah never acts like she’s afraid of me. Even though she fucking should be.
I shut the door behind me, plunging us both into darkness. She makes a tiny noise, one of those delicious noises I want to swallow, and I reach over and flick on the lights in the living room.
Hannah stares at me, her one knee tipped in toward the other, the heel of her left foot lifted and even that’s fucking cute.
I step closer, and she’s barely breathing, her chest rising and falling so rapidly, she might hyperventilate.
And I want to make her lose her breath. I want it so bad, my fists ball up again.
I walk past her to the window where she was standing a couple of minutes ago and draw the curtains shut. “I told your brother I would be your bodyguard until you leave town.”
Hannah lets out a breath. “We’ve been over that whole fiasco already. But forgive me, I’d rather not be in the same apartment as you while I’m—” She shakes her head rapidly. “I’m not going there. Oh my God, this is so messed up. Look, Savage. Carter.”
I freeze. I haven’t been called Carter in years. Nobody calls me Carter. “Savage is fine,” I grunt.
“Savage,” she says. “I get that I made a total fool of myself with you, several times, and that you probably despise being around me, but I—”
“I don’t despise being around you,” I say, before I can stop my idiot fool fucking mouth.
“You don’t?” She scratches her forehead.
I don’t blame her for being confused after what happened a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not going to set her straight, at least not completely. I told her we could never be together, and I never told her why. Because it would give her hope if she knew how much I wanted her, and how terrible it would be for both of us if I followed through.
“I don’t feel anything toward you,” I say, and bring myself to new level of self-loathing.
She claps her hands. “Right. Of course, you do. I mean, don’t.”
“And that is exactly why I’m equipped to make sure that you’re kept safe. I can remain impassive where your brother clearly can’t,” I say.
“You’re not wrong there.” Hannah gives a small smile.
“You don’t like this,” I say. “Neither do I. But it’s going to get your brother off your back, and it would be more comfortable for me to be on your couch than in my SUV.”
I tip my head to the side and trace my gaze down her body. My eyes haven’t caught the memo about not wanting her. Fuck, my entire body hasn’t. She’s tan and tall, her lean legs a temptation in those short pink cotton PJs.
Hannah clears her throat. “I don’t like to share my apartment with anyone.” She circles her couch and stands behind it, putting space between us.
“And if you don’t want to share it with your stalker, you should probably have someone around who can protect you.”
“I have pepper spray,” she says.
“Do you have your escape route planned out?” I ask.
“My what?”
“Your escape route. If you need to run, you have to plan it out, and know that route so well, you could run it in the dark.”
“I—”
“Let’s say you’re woken in the night by the sound of glass breaking. What are you going to do?”
“I… don’t. I mean, probably get out of bed, I would assume.”
“Assuming will get you killed. You need to be prepared.”
“What are you, Ross from Friends? You going to tell me about unagi next?”
“Isn’t that an eel?”
“That’s literally the joke from the show.” She flips her palm out. “And this is the most I’ve heard you talk, like, ever.”
“I give a shit about this.”
She freezes. “About… About what?”
“Self-defense. Keeping people safe. It’s what I do.” Until I failed at it.
“I might not have an escape route planned out, but I’ve been fine up until now.”
“You haven’t had a stalker up until now, correct?”
“Technically,” she says, pressing a hand to her chest. “But hey, I don’t know that for sure. None of us do. There could be somebody stalking me right now.”
“That’s the point.”
“Darn,” she whispers. “That made way more sense in my head.” She points at me. “I’m still mad. But, fine. Whatever. Sleep on the couch. I’m not going to be the girl who lets you sleep in an SUV because of… Anyway, doesn’t matter. Do you need a pillow and a blanket?”
“That would be nice,” I say.
Hannah stares at me for a second, then walks off and stops. She turns back around, fists on her hips. “I don’t like this either,” she says. “I want you to know that. I—I don’t like it either. This isn’t fun for me.”
“I understand.”
“No, you really don’t,” she says. “And I—” Hannah makes a zipping motion over her lips. “I really don’t know you well enough to be blabbing about this.”
“We’ll keep it that way.”
She huffs and throws her hands up before walking down the hall. She stops at the closet next to her bedroom and opens the concertina, slatted door. She mumbles under her breath for a bit then returns with a pillow and a comforter.
I go to take them from her, but she hurriedly plops them on the couch before I can get there. “Are we sure you’re going to fit on this thing?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage.”
“Right, you were in the Navy. You probably slept on cots and bunk beds and in bushes and stuff.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
Hannah gnaws on the corner of her lip. “I wasn’t that drunk tonight. I had, like, two glasses of wine.”
I let the silence brew. What am I supposed to say to her? I don’t care how much she drinks or when, only that she’s safe. And that there are no men gawking at her, hovering nearby. Asshole.
Hannah puffs out her lips on an exhale. “Right. Goodnight, Savage.”
“Goodnight.” Princess.
And then she walks off to her bedroom and shuts the door. Her bedsprings creak and then she’s still. I walk through the living room and check everything’s locked up tight. Finally, I strip off my shirt and hang it over the back of a stool that flanks her kitchen counter, and cut the lights.
I lay down on the sofa that’s way too small for me, my legs and calves hanging over the edge, my arms behind my head, and wait for my mind to still. Except it won’t.
Because Hannah is right down the hall.
Nine
SAVAGE
Sleep won’t come.
I don’t try to force it any more. When I was on active duty, sleeping wasn’t a problem. I could’ve slept standing up if it was necessary to get the energy needed to complete the mission, but now? My thoughts aren’t as easily silenced.
And for once, they’re not torturing me with images of the past, the mistakes I’ve made, the people I’ve lost, and—the rest.
Tonight, it’s Hannah caught in my mind. She’s tiptoeing through it, in those pink PJs, talking too much, saying too little, and telling me everything I need to know without words. She wants me. But she doesn’t actually want me. She wants my body, she wants the thought of me, rather than the reality of what I am.
I check the time on my watch.
It’s past three in the morning, and it’s been hours since I got here.
Lying here isn’t achieving anything. So I push myself up and walk through to the kitchen, keeping quiet so as to not wake Hannah. I pour myself a glass of water and drink it, then make my way to the bathroom but stop.
A noise. Imagined?
No. I trust my instincts.
That was something, but what was it?
Soft and—
A tiny, muffled moan penetrates the quiet.
My hands ball into fists. What the fuck?
Another moan. Coming from Hannah’s bedroom.
This can’t be happening, but it is. I’m inches away from the door to her room, which is right across from the bathroom, but I can’t move.
Because she is in there, and she is moaning. And I swear to fucking God, it is like every part of me is on high alert, like I’m living for the next sound.
I take a step toward the room and stop myself.
She wants you.
You can’t.
I won’t.
This could be anything. This could be her having an inappropriate dream, and she doesn’t need me hanging out around her bedroom listening in on her private—
“Yes.” Her voice is laden with desire, muffled, so quiet, that I definitely wouldn’t have heard it if not for the fact that I had gotten up. “Savage, please.”
Fuck. Oh my God. Holy fuck.
I’m in front of her door, my hands at my sides, staring at it like I can see through the wood. Like I haven’t pictured her touching herself, touching me, a million fucking times in the last couple of years.
“Savage,” she whispers, and her moan is punctuated by the wet sounds of her playing with herself.
My cock is hard as rock, and I bite the back of my fist to keep myself from kicking that fucking door down and taking her.
Hannah’s breathy little moans, accompanied by those forbidden fucking sounds, are driving me to the brink. I press both my fists to the doorjamb, either side of her bedroom door and hang my head, staring directly at the wood.
You can’t. You won’t.
You can’t. You won’t.
The words reverberate through my mind, as she pleasures herself, and in that moment I feel so fucking connected to her, I can almost taste her. I can just about picture being the one to give her the pleasure she’s wringing from her body.
Her pace grows frantic. “Oh God, Savage, yes.” The last moan is a little louder than the others, like she can’t hold back, but it’s still muffled, and I picture her, pressing her face into her floral pillow, crying out, her hand down the front of those shorts.
Yes, Princess. Come hard.
There’s silence afterward, and I stand there for a few minutes, trying to bring myself back down to earth. She is Hannah Taylor.
I am me.
Nothing will ever happen.
She can come and dream about me, but I can’t—
The door opens, and Hannah steps out and right into my chest. She lets out a horrified scream and starts banging on my chest like my pecs are bongo drums. It would be hilarious if I wasn’t harder than a fucking granite dildo.
I take her by the shoulders and hold her out. “It’s me,” I say.
Hannah’s screams die slowly. “S-Savage?” She peers up at me with those sapphire blue eyes. “Savage? What the hell are you—?” And then it dawns on her. I witness the realization flashing across her face, that I’m out here, and she was just touching herself in there, whispering my name. Moaning it. She gulps. “You… What…? You were…? Huh?”
“I was getting some water,” I say.
“Water?” She turns her head in the direction of the kitchen.
“And then I was heading to the bathroom.”
“Bathroom.” Her head swivels toward the bathroom.
“Yeah. You opened your door just as I was heading in.” It’s a blatant fucking lie, but if she can tell, she doesn’t call me on it. I keep her away from my body, away from the evidence of my arousal for her.
Hannah sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, then pops it free, and my resolve is weakening so fast, it’s criminal. I’m no better than this stalker, standing outside her door and listening to her make herself come.
Moaning my name.
“You good?” I ask.
“Y-Yeah.”
“This is why you need an escape route,” I say. “Banging on your attacker’s chest is not the best defense mechanism.”
“I was just going to use the bathroom.”
Hannah’s not hearing me, even though I’m trying to taunt her and get her to fight back. To forget about what happened so I can too.
I purposefully keep my focus on her face and don’t let it wander lower.
“Go ahead,” I say, stepping back and gesturing toward the door.
Hannah hesitates. She stares at my bare chest, eyes wide. “Goodnight.”
I nod, and Hannah darts into the bathroom. I head back to the living room to wait for my dick to calm the fuck down. I plump the pillow she gave me, resisting the urge to break something.
This is a fucking recipe for disaster, us being around each other, but now that I’ve agreed to help, I can’t go back. I’m going to bury this memory deep fucking down and never touch it again. Hopefully, Hannah will do the same.
The toilet flushes, and Hannah’s bedroom door shuts a couple of seconds later. I wait a while then get up and use the bathroom myself, staring at myself in the mirror of the sink, at the gray streaks in my beard, the tattoos. A lifetime stares back at me.
No matter what, I can’t fuck this up. I won’t break Cash’s trust in me. I won’t lose another person I care about.
Who? Hannah or Cash?
I go back to staring at the living room ceiling.
Ten
HANNAH
He didn’t hear me. There’s no way he heard me. No way.
I’ve been going back and forth on that all day, from when I woke up and found Savage was gone, to when I spilled coffee over my shirt at the kitchen sink, to now, in the library listening to Irma grumble about unpaid late fees and how the youth of today have no respect.
“You would think,” Irma says, “that they would understand what it means when we say have the book back by a certain date. But nooooo. They just don’t get it.” She taps away on the keys at the computer, using the index fingers of either hand to type. “No, they just cannot fathom what it means to return a book on time. There are other people who want to take out those books.”
“Yuh-huh.” I nod and stare out of the open doors of the library.
It’s a strangely blustery day outside. The clouds rolled in this morning, accompanied by the occasional gust of wind or a roll of thunder. There’s this strange tension in the air, like the world’s holding its breath and waiting for something to happen.
Or maybe that’s my nerves talking. This afternoon, I’m heading out to Savage’s ranch for a one-day self-defense crash course. Thank God June will be there, because I can’t be alone with him after last night.
He didn’t hear you.
But he was right there. Right outside the door.
And I ran into him.
It was late. I was sure he wouldn’t be awake, and I’d woken up from the most erotic dream ever, featuring Savage, of course, and well, a girl has to do what a girl has to do. It wasn’t like I was out there in the living room, flicking the bean, as Marci would call it.
I was in the privacy of my own bedroom, and I was quiet about it.
Wasn’t I?
Oh God, what if I wasn’t quiet enough?
What if he’s currently so revolted about what he heard that he’s avoiding me?
That’s a good thing. That’s what you want. Savage probably heard me and decided to tender his resignation as my bodyguard as a result.
