Page 12 of Savage Heart

Thank God her phone rang in that moment, because she was having serious issues keeping her hand from ripping his balls from his body.

Ignoring the way his jaw clinched and his eyes narrowed, obviouslydispleasedat the interruption—well, fuck him—Liz pulled her cell from her purse draped over the rolling supplies case handle. She didnotsee the way his arm muscles bulged when he crossed them over his chest. Nope. Her body didnotget tingly at the sight of his forearm tattoos, snaking up over his elbows and disappearing under his tight as hell t-shirt. Nuh uh. She didnotremember what it felt like to be wrapped up in those arms, held close, held down…just…held. But she wouldfreelyadmit to remembering how it felt when those arms let her go.

She mentally shook herself, looked down at the phone, and smiled when she saw the name on the screen.

“Hey, baby.” Beside her, Trouble stiffened. She ignored that, too.

“Mama,” her daughter’s squeaky, excited voice came through the phone, and Liz’s grin grew wider. “Dolly said that Mona said that the spa by the Chinese place closed.”

Shit. Dolly was one caregiver at the all-day childcare center where Liz dropped her daughter off every weekday. The center was more than just a daycare; they transported the kids to their respective schools in the morning, picked them up in the afternoons, then made sure they were fed a snack and worked on their homework before the parents came to get them after work. It cost an ass load of money every month, but it was worth every penny. She trusted Dolly and Marian, the owners, and the assistant teachers that worked closely with the kids. Liz knew that every person who worked there had been fully vetted, right down to their fingerprints.

It made her mom’s heart happy that her daughter had some place safe but also fun for her to go to every day after school.

“Did she say why?” Liz asked, knowing that Dolly was the epitome of a “big ears, bigger mouth” gossiper.

“Pipes exploded and water goteverywhere!”

Hell.

Well, that would do it. Ugh. She felt bad for the small business, but she also felt shitty because her daughter had been looking forward to getting her nails painted by a professional. Liz tried, but she’d never been into all the girly stuff like painting her nails. The few times she’d attempted it for her daughter, it had looked like the girl had just dipped her fingertips in a paint bucket.

But the spa was closed because of flooding.

That was where she’d planned to take her baby girl that night for her first mani-pedi. Dammit. She could check out another spa, but doubtless all the time slots for that night were already full. It had taken her a week to get the appointment for tonight.It was too late to get into a reputable place that wouldn’t give her or her daughter a skin infection.

Yes. She wasthatanal about her daughter’s health and safety. As a doctor, she’d seen too many bad things happen to people just going about their day. As a mother, she was careful about the myriad ways her child could get sick, and she protected her from it. As was her right and duty. The last thing she wanted to do was deal with an infection from poorly maintained nail clippers.

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you tonight, okay?”

“Okay, Mama. Can we do pizza and donuts and…and—Hotel Transylvania?”

Liz couldn’t help it, she chuckled. Her daughter’s enthusiasm never failed to put a smile on her face, even though the thought of watching that movie again for the fifteenth time made her head hurt. The things moms did for their children. She inwardly sighed.

“Yeah, baby, we can do whatever you want.” Her daughter would watch the movie, and she would read her latest smut selection on her phone while pretending to laugh in all the appropriate places in the movie. Win-win. They would both get their vampire fix—her daughter from her silly kid’s movie, and her from her filthy Suzanne Wright book.

There was the sound of a small, excited voice muffled in the background of the call. “Okay, Mama. I got to go; Sammy wants to do the swings.”

“Alright, baby, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Mama, I love you!”

“I love you.” Still smiling, she ended the call and bent to slip the phone back into her purse. The heat at her back made her tense.

“Who the fuck was that?” Trouble barked, making her flinch.

Shit, she’d completely forgotten Trouble was still in the room. And she’d been talking to her daughter, too. That could have been bad. Obviously, he had heard nothing through the phone, so he couldn’t tell she’d been talking to a little girl.

And why did he need to know, anyway? Immediately, her hackles were up.

Keep it professional. Keep it impersonal.She couldn’t show him any emotion, or he’d ride that shit into the sunset, slicing open old wounds along the way.

“Why is that any of your business? Once again, you’ve stepped over the clear lines from professional to personal. I am here to do my job, andyourjob is to let me do it.” There. She’d kept her voice flat, despite the driving need to growl at him.

His lip curled as he dropped his arms, planting his massive hands on his narrow hips. “Personal? Really, Skizzy? You and I have only ever beenpersonal.”

Oh, hell no! He did not usethatname, the name he’d given her when they’d first gotten together. Why the hell would he do that? What was the game he was playing? They weren’t anything. They hadnever beenanything—not to him. So why was he determined to drag up old shit?

She tilted her head, taking in the man before her, her gaze drifting over his features as though she were taking in every curve, every angle, every whisker, and coming up dissatisfied.

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