Savage Love (Savage Trilogy 3)

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Candace

I’m still laughing when Rick throws me on the bed and comes down on top of me but somehow my mind goes back to what he just said: Not as long as I have you. That’s his line in the sand. He’s human if he has me and only if he has me. He leans in to kiss me and I press my hand to his chest. “If anything happens to me—”

“It won’t—”

“Listen to me, Rick. If anything happens to me, I need you to make me a promise.”

“That I’ll go with you?”

“That you won’t go with me. That you’ll save lives for me. That you’d honor our love by saving lives. I’m not saying be a surgeon, but I’m saying, don’t go off the deep end. Don’t become a killer.”

“I already am a killer.”

“Damn it, Rick. I’m serious. I can’t be the end of you.”

“Baby, you’re the beginning and the end of me.”

“Promise me. If anything happens—”

“It won’t.”

“Rick,” I compel.

His lips tighten. “I will honor you and us, always.”

Relief washes over me and I smile. “How about that shower? And suds and—”

“I don’t need to be asked twice.”

He scoops me up and carries me to the bathroom that is gloriously beautiful, with a huge oval tub, a window with a city view, and a granite shower. It doesn’t take us long to end up in that shower, under the stream of the water. Or long before we’re soaping each other up, and my hand is exploring his tattoos—his mouth on my nipples. Or long before he’s kissing me, and running his hands all over my body. He presses me in the corner and goes down on one knee, his tongue licking between my thighs. I shatter quickly. How can I not with this gorgeous man licking me? And then he’s on his feet again, and there’s a shift in the air, that dark part of Rick, present, and accounted for.

“I want to taste like you for the rest of my life,” he murmurs, his voice raspy, rough, and I can barely breathe until he kisses me, an intense, drugging, possessive kiss that shouts a message. He wants. He needs. He’s coming apart inside and out.

I don’t fight this darker him, I never fight it, in fact, I welcome this part of the man I love. I revel in being how he escapes, how he copes, with that burn inside him. He turns me to the wall, and I press my hands against it. He drapes himself over me and I know this is about control, his need for it. I took that from him with that promise. The idea of me dying is the ultimate loss of control. The idea that he might die, is the same for me. I need out of my head as much as he needs that power, that control.

His hand slides over my backside, a shiver of anticipation skittering along my damp skin, and I glance back at him. “Do it. Do it.”

He smacks my cheek but it’s light, a promise of more that has my sex clenching and my back arching. “Do it,” I call out. “Rick, I—”

I moan as his fingers slide between my legs, then his thick, hard cock is pressing against my sex. His lips find my ear. “You’re not leaving.” It’s a possessive command, and he follows it by smacking my cheek again, this time harder. “Ever.”

“Neither are you,” I say, and then he’s inside me, stretching me, filling me, one hand on my breast, the other, spanking me. He thrusts, and his hand comes down on my cheek. I cry out with pure pleasure. The sting of his hand and the explosion of nerve endings as he thrusts undoes me. He undoes me.

His fingers pinch my nipple and his hand comes down again, his cock pounding deep inside me at the same moment. Over and over, he repeats, and just when I think I might topple over into bliss, he pulls out and rotates me to face him. He catches my leg, lifts it to his hip, and then he’s not just back inside me, he’s kissing me like he will never kiss me again. We erupt in wildfire and dissolve in passion. When our bodies still, and Rick lowers my leg, he drags his hand over my wet hair and tilts my face to his.

“No, I do not promise to save the fucking world if you die. You don’t get an excuse to die. If you die, I will blow the fucking world up. Non-negotiable.” He kisses me again and walks to the shower door and exits.

***

Savage

She doesn’t get to die.

The end. That’s the only ending I accept. I grab a towel and wrap it around my waist. She steps out of the shower, her naked body glistening with water, and despite how hard I just rode her, I could easily do it again. But now is not that time.