Page 24 of Savage Protector

“There’s a difference between knowing what’s right and wrong and being capable of acting on it.” Moonlight traced his profile when he angled himself toward me. My heart couldn’t take much more, but the sudden rush of heat in my core was a real problem. There I was telling myself to stop making Mom’s mistakes while I was basically drooling over the man in front of me. “I knew it was right to keep you away from him, obviously. That’s not the problem.”

The pause he took almost killed me—he had me hanging on his every word, every move.

“It’s what I’m wrestling with day to day, sometimes minute to minute,” he confessed in a voice dangerously close to a growl. “I have to wonder how much of me is what I’ve learned and how much was born in me.”

For the hundredth time, I remembered the beating he handed out in the employee parking lot. It felt like so long ago, like another girl had laid there on the ground and watched him land blow after blow. There was definitely something unhinged about him that night.

Now, I understood. He was letting go of whatever constraints he’d placed on himself, maybe for the first time in forever. That would explain how satisfied he seemed when he stood above that man and stared down at him. He felt good. Strangely enough, looking back, I felt good about it. What does that say about me? What kind of person am I? For once, somebody got what was coming to them, and I was lucky enough to witness it.

It was crazy how an opinion could change with time. But then my opinion of Grayson had changed too. All it took was getting to know him a little.

And wanting him the way I did. God help me.

“Does it matter that I think you’re a good person?” I ventured in a soft voice.

“What else are you going to say?” he asked with a snort that made me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. “We’re trapped together. You depend on me. Of course, you’re going to tell me I’m good.”

“You’re not being fair to yourself.” What was it about him that made me so determined to prove him wrong? He was no child. He could think for himself without any help from me.

So why did I lean closer? Instead of slapping at him, punching him, I touched a hand to his shoulder, hesitant, unsure. I may as well have been touching a warm statue. He didn’t twitch a muscle.

Until he did, his head snapping to the side so he could glare at me in the darkness. “You shouldn’t do that,” he warned, his deep voice making me shiver.

“Touch you?” I asked. So why didn’t I take my hand away? If he shook me off, I wouldn’t have fought it.

Only he didn’t. He remained still, even when I pressed my fingers against the unyielding muscle under his warm, smooth skin.

“Scarlet…” There was something almost desperate in the word. Like a strong, deadly current under the surface of a beautiful body of water. Powerful enough to sweep me away if I were brave enough to wade out. Or stupid enough.

When I didn’t move, he closed a hand around mine. A hand with so much power behind it, yet his touch was soft—a caress. “I don’t think you understand. You are what makes me fight what’s in me, sometimes minute to minute. The last thing you need is a man like me getting in the way of starting a new life.”

The idea curdled my blood the way it had when he first mentioned it—starting fresh with a new name. “I don’t understand what one thing has to do with another,” I insisted, trembling with need, swept up in the breathlessness of the moment, the feeling we were standing together at the edge of a cliff.

“I’ll have to understand for both of us, then.” But he didn’t get up, did he? No, he leaned in, and I would swear my heart stopped beating when his other hand cupped my cheek. Yes, my soul sang. Finally.

“And there you were, saying you didn’t want to make another mistake,” he whispered, his breath warm when it hit my face.

My head snapped back, my heart sinking as his words hit home. “Are you serious?” I pulled my hand away, wiping it on the blanket like that would do anything to erase the memory of touching him. “How could you say that? I opened up to you, and you threw it in my face.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” He drove his fist into the mattress with a grunt. “Goddammit. I’m trying to help you.”

“Oh, is that what you were going for?” I scoffed. “Helping me by reminding me of the shit choices I’ve made?”

“What part of this do you not understand?” All at once, his hands were on me, cupping my shoulders, shaking me like he did before. Then, he was trying to wake me up. Was that what he was doing now? “I am the last thing you need. Dominic and I might wear different masks, but so much of us is the same. I am fucking killing myself to keep my hands off you. All that darkness. You saw what I’m capable of. I’m trying like hell to keep you away from it, and you insist on… on…”

The last thing I heard was a groan before he pulled me in hard enough that our mouths crashed together, and the whole world tilted on its axis.

My gasp was lost against him, my helpless body stiffening in surprise that quickly melted under the heat that exploded in my core and wiped everything else away. I could taste the mouthwash that lingered on his firm lips as I drank in one kiss after another, desperate to take all I could get after craving this for days. Maybe from the moment I set eyes on him. I now had what I wanted, and I would savor every second.

One of his hands left my shoulder and cupped the back of my head, sinking into my hair, holding me in place while his tongue thrust into my mouth and set my blood on fire. I let him take control, not that I had a choice. Not that I wanted to. Not now, alone with him on this bed, with his bare skin under my hands once I clung to him.

When he pushed me back, I went with it, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him down on top of me. My back arched as he settled his weight over me—my body was that needy for contact with his. His chest brushed my hardening nipples until they were ready to tear through my tank top, and the sensation made me whimper and part my thighs, silently begging him to ease the ache he had started.

And through it all, he kissed me, his tongue probing my mouth while his hardening dick pressed against my thigh. Fresh heat tightened my core and made me move against him, hooking a leg around his body to pull him closer while my fingers ran through his hair. “Fuck,” he grunted once the kiss broke, his lips grazing my chin before sliding down my throat. “Oh fuck. What are you doing to me?”

What was I doing to him? He was the one doing this to me, making me need him. If it was a mistake, I didn’t care. I wanted to feel, touch, explore, and listen to his deep, primal grunts in time with his insistent grinding against my leg. So big. My pussy clenched in anticipation.

My heart dropped again once he went still, then pushed himself off me, cursing under his breath until he was on his feet. “Dammit,” he spat as I sat up, dazed, my head spinning. I wasn’t ready for it to be over yet. We had hardly started.