Page 85 of The Last Dance You Saved
I woke to soft hands caressing my face, and I opened heavy lids to see Sadie leaning over me as if my thoughts and dreams of her had called her to me. The cut on my cheek protested, even though her touch was light, but I didn’t stop her. I was happy to feel the pain. To feel anything. To feel her.
I dragged her onto my lap, slanted my mouth over hers, and feasted on her sweetness. She moaned, and I inhaled it, making it mine just like I wanted to make all of her.
But as I came fully awake, I found Beatrice’s words clinging to me. The despair of those last few entries before she’d completely stopped writing. Loving my great-grandfather had cost her. I had to figure out a way to keep Sadie without her losing everything. I needed time to pull my shit together. To figure out what to do with Fallon and Lauren and the ranch. To find Adam and put an end to nearly a hundred years of family drama.
I broke the kiss, and Sadie protested, seeking my lips again. But I just rested my forehead against hers, wrapping my hand around her wrist so she couldn’t continue caressing me. Her eyes narrowed, objecting without words that I’d called a halt to the embrace, and it made my lips twitch.
Damn, did I like riling her up, seeing the passion that burned when she was worked up. I yearned to have all that energy and defiance and strength under my control again, working her until she broke apart, until I could hand her some of it back and let her do whatever she wanted to me.
“Is there a reason you slept here instead of your room? I waited for you there,” Sadie said, and the hurt and accusation in her tone hit me like a slap.
The idea she’d been in my bed, waiting for me, made me grow even harder beneath her. She felt my reaction, lips tilting upward. “You wouldn’t be having this problem”—she palmed me through my jeans— “if you’d done the reasonable thing and come to bed.”
“But then you wouldn’t have slept,” I grunted. My voice was raspy from lack of sleep as much as desire.
Her smile faded, and it was one more thing I hated in a growing pile. I wanted her always light and laughing. Sassy. Keeping me on my toes.
“It would have been less about sleep and more about the comfort we brought each other,” she said. “It would have given us both a moment of forgetfulness.”
In one swift movement that used all my waking strength, I set her on the desk and stepped between her legs. I lifted her chin and stared down at lips swollen from our kiss. With her black hair, blue eyes, and rosy lips, she was a Snow White remaking. Sweet but nowhere like the animated fairy tale. This woman was all badass Tomb Raider, holding men hostage and settling old debts. But both Snow White and Lara Croft had been wounded and betrayed. I had no intention of letting that happen to Sadie on my watch.
“We’re not getting lost in any kind of forgetfulness, Tennessee. You’re leaving today,” I told her.
She pushed my hand away from her chin, fire brewing inside her. “We’ve already had this discussion. I’m not going unless you go with me, and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”
I laughed darkly. “You’re wrong about that.”
“Look, Slick, unless you can tell me you’re leaving too, then I’m staying. Besides, I promised Lauren I’d help her with the wedding, and I don’t go back on my word without a very good reason.”
“Your word won’t mean anything if you’re dead.” When she went to respond, I cut her off, playing the one card I hoped would win me the game. “I need you to do this for me. Not only because I don’t want you anywhere near me when the shit hits the fan, but because I don’t want my daughter near it either. If you take Fallon with you, I can concentrate on what I need to do here, because I’ll know you’re both safe. Right now, I can barely think clearly over the top of my worry for the two of you.”
Her eyes filled with unexpected tears, and it tore into me but didn’t lessen my resolve. “The fact you’d trust me with her, the thing that is most precious to you…” She shook her head. “It means more to me than you can know. But she doesn’t want to leave you either.”
“She’s not the only thing that’s precious to me, Sadie,” I said, watching as her throat bobbed. “Fuck, I’m halfway in love with you.” I inhaled sharply. “No, I’m all the way in love with you. More in love with you than I’ve ever been with anything or anyone in my life. But I can’t offer you that love right now. I can’t offer you a damn thing until I’m sure I don’t have a target on my back that might hit you if it misses me.”
Her legs encircled my hips, heels pressing into my ass and pulling me tighter into her core. She wound her hands around my neck, tugging my face closer to hers. “I’ve never loved a man, Rafe Marquess. Never. But when a Hatley gives their heart to someone, it’s forever. I’ve done that. I’ve given you my heart. That also means, in typical Hatley fashion, I intend to face every damn thing while standing at your side. Both the good and the bad. You want to send Fallon away, fine. Send her off somewhere with half a dozen bodyguards protecting her, but do not ask me to walk away. It isn’t in my DNA, Slick. Asking me to do that is like asking me to cut my soul out of my body and leave it behind. It would kill me.”
Then, she crushed her lips to mine as if to stop me from arguing. Or maybe simply because she couldn’t stop from following up those powerful and moving words with action that was the same. Strong. Emotional. Commanding I be the one to give in. The one to let go.
And I was surprised by my desire to do just that.
To give her whatever the hell she wanted.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Sadie
GOOD WOMAN
Performed by Maren Morris
My heart was leaping and pounding, a wild horse ready to escape the confines of the corral and run free over the hills. Rafe loved me. I’d felt it yesterday, and he’d insinuated it, but we hadn’t said the words. To hear them, plain as day, was a heady drug. One I could easily get addicted to. I’d never get tired of hearing it. Feeling it. Wanting it. Wanting him.
I kissed him openly, no reservations, no holding back. I poured everything I was into it, feeling safe in handing him my heart. My soul. It didn’t solve our problems. If anything, it added hurdles to whatever happened next, but it still felt right giving it to him.
One thing was certain. I wouldn’t walk away from him when he had a gun pointed at him.
No way in hell.
