That little dimple flashed again, and his cock jerked. His reaction to her was genuine. Real. Maybe it was because she had risked her life and wasn’t a vain, haughty, judgmental bitch, or someone who chased after him not because they knew the first thing about him or cared but because they wanted something from him. Seychelle hadn’t wanted a thing except to save him and the kid. More likely it was because of the lacerations and bruises that belonged to him.
“Savage.” She repeated the name softly. Her voice was melodic. A whisper of sound that played down his spine like the touch of fingers. Three golden notes floated into the air.
He liked the way she said his name, a little too much. He shook his head. If he had any kind of sense at all, he’d leave. Right the hell now. Just get up and walk away. He was there to thank her, and he’d done that. He’d wanted to know she was all right, and he’d done that too. Instead of thinking with his brain, he was thinking with his dick. He looked around the bare room. “How long you in for?”
That smile came out again, tying his gut into tight little knots. The dimple was a turn-on any way he looked at it, when nothing turned him on. Her mouth? Those lips? She was lying there bruised and scraped and his body was reacting all on its own, proving he was an even bigger monster than he’d thought. But damn, it felt good. He hadn’t known he was capable of getting it up without commanding it first in his brain. His brain wasn’t even engaged. He had proof of that, because he was still sitting on her bed.
“It is kind of a prison, isn’t it?” She looked around the room as well. “Although I’ve never actually been to prison, have you?” She looked up at him.
His gaze met hers. Those damn eyes. So blue. Seeing too much. One eye was very bruised. She was going to have a hell of a shiner. It was already coming up, dark purple and swollen.
“Grew up in a prison. Been there a time or two since.” Both times he’d been there to assassinate a prisoner. Why the hell had the truth come out of his fuckin’ mouth?
He never talked. He kept his mouth shut. He didn’t like people or their reactions. He didn’t understand them, and he didn’t want to. Most of the time, he was contemplating killing them. He was disciplined and had been since he was a child, yet he couldn’t stop himself from telling her the truth because he hadn’t thought before he answered. Staring into those blue eyes, he drowned. Went under and acted like a fuckin’ pussy-whipped asshole. He had to get out of there before he ran his mouth and had to take her out. He had too many secrets to just sit there and cough them up because his dick was hard.
“Harsh. But you survived. Good for you.” Her voice sounded drowsy. Sexy. It was that tone she had. Musical. Low. Soft. It played over his entire body as if she was stroking him with caresses—or licking him with her tongue.
Her lashes lowered, those long, thick, feathery lashes that he knew he was never going to get out of his mind. At the same time, she touched him. A brush of her fingers against the back of his hand. On his bare skin. His body went still. That small brush got under his skin and rippled outward, spreading slow, flickering flames that kept growing hotter and hotter. It was as if she’d branded him inside his body and that stream of heat turned into a smoldering fire that began to consume him from the inside out.
He had to get out of there. She was tying them together in some undefined way he didn’t understand, but whatever magic she wielded, it was dangerous to both of them. She was . . . nice. She was beautiful. She was normal. He couldn’t be in her life, and she sure as fuck couldn’t be in his. He didn’t want a woman. He didn’t need a woman. Not full-time. Not when he knew if she belonged to him, he’d become an even bigger monster than he already was.
He picked up bitches all the time. Always, always, he was in charge. He did his thing, they blew him and some of the time it brought relief. Not most of the time, but some of the time. Once in a very long while, he snagged a woman who let him use her roughly, completely on his terms, and when she blew him, the relief lasted more than a few hours. The results were days, weeks and once in a while a month or two where the monster in him settled.
“You goin’ to sleep on me?” He hoped she was. He didn’t want her to. He’d never sat with a woman in the dark and just talked quietly. Maybe he just needed to hear the sound of her voice.
“No. I don’t like places like this. They walk in and out and think they aren’t disturbing you, so you have to be nice. They’re helping you. But if I fall asleep, when I jerk awake because they’re in my room, my heart goes wild and I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”