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The headboard clacks, and Hannah pulls back, a smile twisting her lips, her glasses askew. “I can’t believe we broke the headboard.”
“Mmm. Let’s break the rest of it.” I undress her slowly, place her glasses on the bedside table, and then I ravish her with attention, taking my time as I trail kisses over her skin, and take her to new heights.
If she’d asked me for the bracelet back, I would have given it to her.
And I’m coming to realize that there isn’t much I wouldn’t give Hannah, if she asked for it.
Thirty-One
HANNAH
It’s been three straight days of sex and heaven and eating good food. Drinking wine. Spending time with a man I thought hated me at best or was indifferent to me at worse, and I have come out the other side, a changed woman.
I don’t know how that’s possible, but it is. The Hannah Taylor who arrived on the ranch was without hope. The one leaving it is seriously sore from another night of intense sex and also, completely satisfied.
“Yeah, that’s it. Remember what I said, let your momentum take you. Don’t punch from your shoulder, and you’ve got it.”
I take aim at Savage and do as I’m told. He’s wearing pads to catch my fists, and he gives me a grin of fierce pride as I land the punch.
“Fuck, Princess, you are really good at that. Well done.”
“Thanks,” I say with a grin.
We’re outside the ranch house together, with the blue sky above, the water finally having soaked into the ground or dried up, and the trees are swaying in a gentle summer breeze. I’m going to have to drive back into Heatstroke in a car that smells like a rotten vegetable patch.
“I should hit the road,” I say, biting the corner of my lip.
We discussed it last night over wine. I’m heading back into town today. The road is passable, and I still have work at the library for the next couple of weeks to get back to—and my plan to get the local schools involved in the reading program. I am not giving up on that before I leave.
Savage walks me back into the house. He grabs my bag for me and carries it through the hall, bare-chested, slightly sweaty from our training session.
I would stay and shower, but I’m afraid I’ll never leave if I do. Because I’ll want him to join me in the shower, and then we’ll end up having sex against the tiles, and I’ll stay another night.
I know, because I was meant to leave yesterday and that’s exactly what happened.
Savage stops at the front door, his hand on the knob. “Any time you want to come back,” he says. “You come back.”
“Oh really?” I bat my eyelashes at him dramatically. “You mean, the notorious loner Carter Savage doesn’t want to be left all alone on his ranch?”
Savage hooks a muscular arm around my waist and drags me to him. He kisses me so hard, my toes curl in my tennis shoes, and by the time he sets me down, I’m gasping for air.
“Not when it comes to you, Princess,” he says. “The rest of them can get out of my swamp.”
I laugh, but he silences me with another kiss, and my mirth turns into a moan. “Carter,” I whisper. “I’m never going to leave if we keep doing this.”
“That’s part of my evil plan,” he says, that deep voice sending a thrill through me. “Keep you here forever, like a princess trapped in a castle.”
“Except I want to be trapped with you.”
He kisses me again, pressing me against the wall, and we knock over a vase on a table in the entry hall.
I laugh against his mouth. “You had me this morning.”
He grunts. “Not enough of you.”
“You can stop by to bodyguard me tonight,” I whisper. “Or this afternoon. You know, whenever you’re free.”
“I’m free right now. Why don’t we go unpack your bag?” He sucks on my bottom lip, and my heart flutters. “You can stay here for a month.”
