Page 83 of Savagely Yours
Like hell, would I leave.
But I could curl up on the couch—somehow—or spread out on the floor. That way, she would be able to revel in the unobstructed air flow.
“Once we’re on our own, you’ll have to teach me how to do these.” I curled a twist around my finger. “I think the ends would mess me up more than anything, though. There’s no braid or rubber band,” I leaned closer, “so I’m not sure how they stay locked in like that.”
She turned her head, and I used the opportunity to kiss her cheek and dab the sweat from the other side of her face.
“Honestly, I’m struggling with something,” I continued. “I want to leave Totten. I really do. But then, on nights like tonight, if we’re out there…how would I keep you cool? I can keep you safe, yeah, but what about comfortable? Do I take you away from this and put you in an environment where you have to worry about enemies attacking fromallsides? Isn’t that selfish?”
I dried the sweat collecting on her neck, but it was futile. The minute I removed the towel, more moisture formed. Totten had the capacity to supply electricity to all of the buildings throughout the night, but only Woodhaven was spared a power curfew. Juniper was allowed to use the electricity until midnight, but on nights like these, it wasn’t enough. It appeared that even spring had left with the fall of humanity.
“Do you remember Gimli?” Thankfully, Larke was in a deep sleep, and I needed her to be as I was about to give this woman more corn than had ever been produced in Iowa. “He’s one of the dwarves in The Lord of the Rings. The warrior one, super strong. But it’s okay if you don’t remember. I’m just happy you managed to stay awake while I read it to you.”
Needing a moment to motivate myself for what I would say next, I kissed her damp temple, cheek, and the line of her jaw.
“Before I hit my growth spurt, a lot of people underestimated me because of my size, just like Gimli. Obviously, genetics corrected that.” I flexed the fingers on my left hand. “But I still have some of that insecurity inside me, I think. I never want to not measure up for you. You make me fight harder to do whatever I need to do to make you happy. And I’m not ashamed to say that my world revolves around you, around keeping you safe. I’m actually kind of proud of it, honestly. I get the pleasure of protecting a woman like you. Then the fact that you love me? It blows my fucking mind.”
I kissed the dip between her shoulder blades. At the moment, I was kissing her for my own benefit. In a second, I would kiss her in hopes of waking her up and finding home between her legs.
“I’ve never had that,” I whispered, my lips grazing her skin. “Yeah, I have Mae and my brothers, but that’s different. They’re family. But Larke, you saw something inside me that made you go, ‘Yep, he’s who I want,’ and I don’t have the words for what that does to me, how it makes me feel. At one point in my life, nobody wanted me. Now, I’m here with someone who wants me above all others. Somebody who chose me.”
She sighed with a roll of her hips.
My dick went from standby to semi-erect.
But then she settled, breathing deeply, gripping and releasing the thin sheet covering the mattress.
“Larke, I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
I went to continue my trail of kisses—I knew where my lips and tongue needed to be to wake her up—but something slid outside the front door.
I raised my head.
The sliding noise sounded again, and a ping followed, like metal striking metal, punctuated by a low groan. Then what appeared to be the rustle of a key fiddling near a lock came next.
Oh, good.
One of them found the key.
Took them long enough.
I gave Larke’s hip a reassuring squeeze, walked over to detach a knife from my uniform vest, and waited by the door.
The handle turned.
The door pushed in.
A head appeared.
I grabbed the intruder by the hair, dragged them inside, and shoved the blade through the narrow notch just above the clavicle and right below the subclavian artery. It wasn’t intended to be a lethal blow—for now—but I knew, from experience, that it hurt like hell.
“Cerner, why the fuck are you breaking into Tapley’s place in the middle of the night?” I asked, my voice low and steady.
He groaned, his face pulled so tight that it looked like he had lockjaw. “I was looking for you. I knew you’d be here. I knocked and no one answered.”
“So you decided to just come on in?”
“I know how it looks, but I was looking for you. I was on my way back from Neal’s place, and there’s some information that I thought you would like to know, but,” he gestured to his arm, “I don’t know if I feel forthcoming anymore.”
