Savage Love (Savage Island 2)

“Cy?” Harper says, though she’s still asleep. “Cy?”

Then she’s pushing me, and I’m waking up. But instead of the brilliant, sunlit sky ahead, I’m staring at an ivory headboard. It all comes crashing back on me in vivid detail. Where we are. Why we’re here. What happened last night.

The room we’re in is enormous and luxurious. It’s like we’re heroes. How are we heroes? We’re just ordinary people, people doing ordinary things, who had that all taken away and somehow survived. Escaped. And are working on setting things back to rights again.

But maybe that’s just what heroes are? Just normal people who deal with shit but survive.

“We should order room service,” she says with a soft smile playing at her lips. “Don’t you think?”

“I do,” I say with a smile. “Anything you want, baby.”

Her old employer is footing the bill for this, and they’ve told us to order anything we want from room service.

“I want eggs,” she says. “And bacon. And a croissant with real butter.”

“Sounds good,” I say, taking the room service menu from her hand and snapping it open. “Get me the Hungryman special.”

“Hungryman special?” she says with a giggle, taking the menu from my hand and looking at it again. “Seems about right.”

She leans over and takes the phone, dials room service, and orders. I watch her, a warmth spreading over me looking at her simple, elegant beauty, lying in the enormous hotel bed. It’s a king size or something, but it’s so huge compared to the little bed we shared on the island, we both instinctively clung to each other in the center.

Last night, we were too tired to do much more than kiss, then fall to sleep, tangled between the massive sheets. But this morning, I want more.

“Come here,” I say, pulling her onto me. She showered for so long last night she resembled a raisin when she was done, and I teased her for it. But when it was my turn, I didn’t want the endless stream of hot water to end, either.

It’s weird being here. It’s like we’re here, but we’re not. Not on the island anymore, but where are we?

But I don’t know what normal is.

“Cy,” she says, while we wait for our food to come. She curls up on my chest and reaches for my hand. “We need to talk.”

“We do,” I agree. My chest is tight, as I reach for her. I love this woman so much it aches. The thought of anything but a future with her is too much to even think of. “Where does this leave us?” I ask her gently. “Is that what you want to know, baby?”

She nods, biting her lip. “Yeah,” she says. “We found out the insanity behind what happened to us. And we’ll have to take care of ourselves. You know. Physically. Mentally. But then… but then what?”

“Marry me,” I say, rolling her so that she’s on her back and I’m over her. “Last night I was seconds away from calling myself your fiancé, Harper, when you were on the phone with Daniel. I am your friend, baby, but hell if I’ll be just your friend. Bullshit. I’m your lover. But I can’t imagine a life without you. Never. I love you, Harper. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

It won’t be easy. Somehow, oddly, it was easier on the island when it was just the two of us.

Her eyes fill with tears and she bites her lips. “When we were on the island,” she whispers, as if she doesn’t trust her voice. “I feared that when we came back, you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

I nod. “Of course, baby. I get it. It was so out of the ordinary, it’s only natural you’d fear that. I worried about the same thing.”

My phone rings. With a scowl, I answer it. “Mr. Kaufman, we need to ask you some—”

“Not. now,” I growl into the phone, before I power it down and toss it behind me into the overstuffed chair. “Fucking hell,” I mutter.

She wipes away her tears and smiles. “For a minute there, you looked just like you did on the island. Ferocious and savage. And hell, I love that about you.”

I lean over and kiss her pretty, tear-stained cheek.

She places a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for understanding. But Cy, there’s no going back to who I was before. I can’t, no more than you can. Who we were, that is in the past. And the island changed us. For better or for worse.”

I reach for her hand and clasp it tight, before I open her fingers and kiss her palm. “For better,” I tell her. “I was a self-centered asshole before I landed there. And now, I’d give anything to devote the rest of my life to you.”