Page 48 of The Last Dance You Saved
I needed her settled. I needed her fully on board with what we were going to do to each other tonight. I wanted the woman from the elevator who’d stepped toward me with nothing but a dare between us. The one whose bare back had been up against my window with the nightlife of the Vegas Strip exposed behind her.
I stalked to the table, picked up the other glass, and took a sip as she eyed the cabin.
“You said the horse trainer used to live here?” she asked.
“Levi. He taught me everything I know about horses, breaking them, taming them, riding them.” I hadn’t meant it as an innuendo, but her eyes darkened, pupils widening.
“I get things are complicated with your family, but I’m surprised your business is so completely different from how you were raised. Didn’t you want to stay? Didn’t you miss it?” That restless energy had the questions spilling out of her one after the other.
I put my glass down and then took hers and set it on the table as well. I circled her wrist and tugged her gently toward me. “Tell me, Tennessee, where did these nerves come from? Where’s the woman who bought me a drink and invited herself into my bed?”
She swallowed, tilting her head to look up at me. “It was easier when I didn’t know you. It was just supposed to be one night. A few hours of good sex before I left Vegas behind.”
I traced her jawline with my finger, and her breath caught, heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my rib cage.
“Good isn’t the right word for what we’re going to do, and you’ll still be gone soon enough.”
She stared at me for a moment. “But I’ll see you tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I can’t—”
“Run away after I’ve exposed all your secret wants and desires,” I said. I knew what she meant. I’d have to face her again in the morning. Worse, I’d have to decide what to do with this craving I had for her if it didn’t disappear after a handful of nights spent together.
“I feel like… No one has ever been able to rip away my outer layers before, Rafe… I… You…” She swallowed, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I hate that you discombobulate me or love it.”
I fisted her hair with one hand, the other sliding to her waist as my mouth brushed against hers once more. Bourbon. Honey. Sadie. God, it was delicious. “You think too much, Tennessee. That’s why you like the idea of me telling you what to do. It makes that big brain of yours come to a complete halt.”
She tried to respond, but I didn’t let her. I sank into her, tasting every corner, dragging out another gasp I got to swallow and make mine. The heat scorched me, dragged me into it like a fire that had jumped from the grate and burned like a raging inferno.
When I relinquished her lips, she moaned in objection, trying to reclaim mine. Instead, I slid my mouth along the sensitive slope of her neck before biting the notch at the top of her collarbone. “You taste like campfires and honey and damnation.”
Her hips slammed into mine, and when I looked up, her eyes had shifted into deep midnight skies. The kind where shooting stars left fiery trails behind.
I tugged at the bow of the halter top, and her entire dress came tumbling down, revealing those snowy slopes, those gorgeous ripe breasts I’d been unable to forget since Sunday, and a pair of lace underwear that made my mouth water. I dipped my head, taking a taut tip in my mouth while twisting the other between my fingers. I rejoiced in feasting on her, not a quick inhale that would soon fade, but a slow and languid savoring that required me to taste every inch.
Tongue and fingers danced in a sensual rhythm, determined to torment her the way she’d been tormenting me for days. I reveled in her every response. The way her hips shifted against mine, the way her breath became a desperate pant, and the way her nails dug into my neck.
When she yanked at my shirt, I stepped back enough to pull it over my head and send it sailing before returning to my worship of her smooth skin and pebbled tips. Her fingers skated over my shoulders, my back, my side. I knew when she found the scar, because she hesitated for a second.
We’d get there. I wanted to know what had happened to her. Wanted to know who to hunt down for wounding her. But first, I needed us to lose ourselves in each other. In this moment. In the way our skin felt sliding against each other.
I recaptured her mouth as I picked her up, and those long legs wrapped around my waist. My palms squeezed her soft curves, and she bit my lip, letting out another enchanting moan. She was a delightful mix of muscles and curves. Force and kindness. Fire and rain. I found myself ridiculously close to losing control simply from having her twined around me. I was already desperate to sink into her. To thrust inside and pound away until we both got relief. That wild need was too heady. Too fast. And I fought to regain my restraint by dropping her on the bed and putting distance between us.
“No,” I said, my voice loaded with emotions.
Her lids were heavy and sexy but her voice was confused. “What?”
“I’m taking my time with you,” I told her. “This isn’t going to be over and done within minutes, Tennessee.”
She sat up, hair tousled, lips red from my kisses.
“Lie down,” I told her.
She hesitated. I leaned in to pinch a pebbled tip, and she gasped.
“Lie down, Sadie.”
She pushed herself back onto the pillows, eyes following me as I sat next to her, trailing a finger down her unmarked thigh, over her knee, down her calf, and to the graceful arch of her slender foot. Delicate bones. Delicate toes. I started there. Kissing, licking, caressing my way up one side, worshiping each inch of skin until I reached the hot juncture between her legs. I let my breath coast over the delicate lace, and she quivered, drawing a wicked smile to my lips before I skipped over her center to her other leg.
When my fingers and tongue found the scars on her thigh, I spent an inordinate amount of time worshiping them, and her breathing turned even choppier, hands landing in my hair, tugging and caressing. I wanted to destroy whoever had put the scars on her. Marred her. Hurt her. I’d get the truth out of her. I’d get the truth, and then I’d make sure they never found happiness again.
