by Brenda Novak
“I think you’re doing the right thing,” he said.
She didn’t reply. As much as she’d tried not to dwell on what Gordon had said when she’d been standing on the side of the road outside the moving van, bits and pieces of that conversation had been coming back to her all day.
“After nine years together, it must’ve been a hard decision to withdraw your support,” Gavin said, breaking into her thoughts.
It had been agonizing. If Gordon was guilty, she couldn’t help him get off. The police insisted he’d only hurt more women if she did. But if there was some way that he could be telling the truth, she didn’t want to see the father of her children spend a huge chunk of his life behind bars.
Maybe that was why she was drinking more than she should tonight.
No. She knew Gordon wasn’t the reason. It was Gavin. She wanted something from him she wasn’t sure she dared take, and drinking eased that anxiety.
She slid off the counter. She should send him home. Remove the temptation. But with her mother-in-law saying such terrible things, Savanna didn’t want to be alone. It didn’t matter that she could now lock the back door. Her sense of security had been shattered.
So she let Gavin top off her glass before emptying the bottle into his own. “Nothing about what’s happened has been easy,” she said.
Gavin gestured toward the hall. “Do the kids know what their father has done?”
She tried to keep her mind on the question, but the wine was hitting her hard, and she couldn’t help admiring the shape of Gavin’s lips. Besides her kids, and how much she loved them, he seemed to be the one bright spot in everything that’d happened the past two months. She liked him. She wanted him in a way she hadn’t wanted anyone else. She’d never seen better lips...
“Savanna?”
She blinked and lifted her gaze to his chocolate-colored eyes. “What?”
“Do the kids know what their father has done?”
“They do, but they don’t fully understand it,” she replied. “They’ve heard what people have said, that there were naked women involved and choking. In other words, they know their father has done something terrible, which was why Branson wouldn’t talk to Gordon when he happened to get through to me this morning.” She motioned for Gavin to follow her. But she didn’t turn toward the door. She turned toward the living room. “Let’s go in here. It’ll be more comfortable on the couch.”
She held her own glass while Gavin carried his, and they left the empty bottle. “You said Gordon ‘happened’ to get hold of you,” Gavin said as he trailed behind her. “You didn’t know it was him?”
Savanna explained as, crossing her legs underneath her, she sat on the couch, which was more the size of a love seat. She hadn’t brought the big couch. She hadn’t had room for it in the van. “So I had to take the phone from Alia,” she said as she finished the story. “I wish I’d hung up, though. All he wanted to do was mess with my mind.”
Had a chair been available, Gavin might’ve taken it. But there were boxes everywhere. Only the couch had been cleared off. “I’m sorry,” he said as he sat next to her. “For everything.”
She studied his handsome face—the closely trimmed beard, the thick hair, the kind eyes with long lashes. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to see if this was leading anywhere. She got the impression he believed she’d let him know if and when she was ready, and that was more enticing than anything else he could’ve done. “Your lips are amazing,” she said.
“My lips?” he repeated with a sexy half smile.
“All of you.”
“I’m flattered. But you’ve been through a lot. I don’t want to make that any worse.”
She ignored his response. “I’m glad I came to Silver Springs,” she said as she gazed around the room. “This house may not look like much, but it’s the escape I needed. Thank God for my parents. They were so good to me. I wish they were still around.”
“You’ve lost them both?”
“My mother and older brother were killed in the same accident that took my father’s life fourteen months ago. My younger brother, Reese, who’s in college to become a doctor in Oregon, is all I have left. And the kids, of course.”
“It’s been a rough year for you.”
She finished the last of her wine. “It’s been a rough nine years. That’s the weird thing. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t particularly happy. I just kept pushing forward, trying to make the most of the decisions I’d made. But now that Gordon is incarcerated, and the truth has come out, I’m wrecked but sort of relieved at the same time, if that makes any sense.”
“You’ve been released from a marriage that didn’t fulfill you.”
That was it. That explained the element of relief that occasionally surfaced despite everything—like when she’d seen the stars last night and experienced a sense of rebirth. “And now I’m wondering why anyone ever gets married.”
“Most people do it for love,” he pointed out.
“Love is what got me into trouble in the first place,” she grumbled. “As far as I’m concerned, love is overrated. Never again will I give a man that much power over my life. Not now that I understand you can never really know someone.”
“You’ll learn to love again,” he said gently.
“Not for a long time. Maybe never.”
“Your lesbian partner, when you find her, might take issue with that,” he teased.
She set her empty glass on a nearby box. “I’ve come to the conclusion that changing my sexual preference isn’t really an option.”
“That didn’t take long,” he joked.
“Thanks to you.”
He said nothing.
“You made me an offer at the creek,” she said. “Have you changed your mind?”
“No. I want what you want, Savanna. I’m just trying to be cautious. Relationships can get complicated.”
“I’m not asking for a relationship. That’s not what I need from you. I just need you to hold me, to help me forget my regular life for a little while.”
She could see his chest rising and falling rapidly, felt her own breathing grow short. “But I live next door. That pretty much means we’ll have some type of relationship. And I think you might need a friend more than a lover.”
This was why he remained friends with the women he dated, she realized. He put that first. “We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
He chuckled at her bold pronouncement. “You’re not helping me walk out of here.”
“Because I don’t want you to walk out. I’m too curious.”
“About...”
She lowered her voice until it was barely audible. “What you’d feel like inside me...”
His nostrils flared as his gaze moved over her. “And tomorrow?”
“We won’t owe each other anything.”
“You won’t be embarrassed or reluctant to see me...”
“Not at all. We’ll be friends and neighbors again. This is for one night and one night only. A simple and quick escape.” She’d never dreamed she’d consider something like this, ever want something like this. But she’d never dreamed she’d find herself in her current situation, either.
“Aren’t you worried about your kids waking up?” he asked. “Should we go to my place?”
“I can’t leave them—even to go next door. We’ll lock the door and be quiet. Really quiet.”
He stood and offered her a sexy smile along with his hand. “Then you’d better not scream too loud when I make you come.”
10
Gavin sat on Savanna’s bed, which he’d put together when he helped her move in. “Take off your clothes,” he said.
A sudden wave of self-consciousness caused Savanna to hesitate. “This is how you’d like to start?” she ask
ed nervously.
“Why not? I want to watch.”
Even after three glasses of wine, she wasn’t sure she had the nerve to strip down on her own. She preferred he do the honors—and that it happen in the dark, so she wouldn’t feel quite so exposed. She started across the floor, but he got up to intercept her. “What are you doing?”
“Turning off the light.”
“Because...”
“Because I have some imperfections I don’t want you to see.” Like the stretch mark that’d appeared on her lower right abdomen when she was pregnant with Alia...
“I’m not worried about your imperfections,” he whispered. “That’s not what I’m looking for. If we have only one night, I want to remember every detail. That’s all. Let me see you. Let go of your fear and inhibition and just...act on what you feel.”
It was unusual that she felt anything. She was grateful if only for that. With Gordon, sex had become as monotonous as vacuuming the floor. But it was the exact opposite with Gavin. She was so excited she could barely breathe. “I know it sounds strange, since I’ve been married for nine years, but...I’m not used to having a man look at me the way you’re looking at me right now,” she told him. “I mean...it feels like you actually see me. And that leaves me nowhere to hide.”
He caught her face between his hands. “I do see you. And I like what I see. You don’t need to hide from me. So come on, Savanna, show me more.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to let go of her worries, to embrace the buzz the wine had given her as well as the pleasure of desiring a man who desired her in return. Even if Gavin wasn’t as impressed with her body as she wanted him to be—which was partly what was hanging her up; no one had seen her after she’d had her children except Gordon—what did it matter? This was only for one night. And then it would be over. She had nothing to worry about. She’d cared so much about everything for so long. Now she was exhausted in a way she couldn’t even describe and refused to care about anything except getting lost in this moment.
“There you go,” he murmured as she pulled her shirt over her head, revealing the sheer black bra underneath.
When he backed up to look at her, and she saw the effect she had on him—the highly focused expression and proof of his arousal farther down—she grew confident enough to smile as she unhooked her bra.
“That’s the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen.” His gaze shifted to what she’d revealed, and he added, “Damn, you’re gorgeous!”
Encouraged, she started to undo her jeans, but he couldn’t seem to keep from touching her any longer. Closing the distance between them, he ran his knuckles down her bare arms before lowering his mouth to hers.
His lips felt every bit as good as Savanna had hoped. So did his hands. They moved up her back as he parted her lips and found her tongue.
She wasn’t sure if she was the one who moaned or he did, but when he cupped her breasts, her knees nearly gave out on her. “This feels completely new,” she said. “As if I haven’t been touched in years.”
“You obviously haven’t been touched in the right way,” he said.
There was a reverence in how he treated her that made her feel valued, important. He gave her the impression he felt lucky to have this opportunity and respected her as an individual, another person with the right to make choices and decisions of her own. After they were married, Gordon had so often treated her as an object, one that existed solely to make his life easier. The stark difference between the two men bolstered her belief that Gordon had to be guilty of attacking those women, and that came as a relief. After the excuses he’d given her this morning, her confidence had begun to flag, and those terrible questions she tended to ask herself—Am I the one at fault here? Could I or should I have done more?—had started eating at her again.
She leaned back as Gavin’s mouth moved down her neck. All the nerves below her stomach seemed to be drawing into a tight knot, creating a minibomb of energy that felt ready to explode. And he hadn’t even taken off his clothes yet.
“Your skin is so soft,” he said. “I’ve never touched anyone this soft.”
When his beard tickled her breast, she almost laughed. She remembered wondering what kissing him would be like. Now she knew. She could definitely feel his facial hair—on her lips and on her body. But she liked it, liked him. The deliberate way he kissed her. The confident and yet sensual way he touched her. She couldn’t regret inviting him over.
His mouth settled over one of her nipples and that proved the end of clear thought. Everything melted into sensation and instinct took over. As she rubbed her pelvis against him, he responded by squeezing her ass and finding her mouth again.
It took some self-restraint to break away. But before this went any further, she had to ask him a question. “Do you have birth control? Because I stopped taking the pill...”
Looking slightly dazed, he lifted his head. “I grabbed a couple of condoms when I went home.”
“A couple?”
“Okay, three. Since tonight’s all we have, I didn’t want to be caught shorthanded.”
“Sounds as if we’re going to make the most of our time together.”
He gave her a devilish grin. “We’re definitely going to do that.”
She liked the conviction in that statement, the license it gave her to cut loose and enjoy his body without reservation or restraint. Pulling the tie from his hair, she let her hands delve into the silky thickness, even buried her face in it. “Your hair smells nice,” she said.
“You’re easy to please,” he joked. “It’s time a man took better care of you.”
“I can tell I’m in good hands now. I bet there aren’t many men who know how to make love like you do.” She could tell he was surprised by the generosity of the compliment, but she meant it. Maybe he could tell. Maybe that was why her words seemed to stoke the fire of his excitement, making it burn that much hotter and brighter. She loved the purposeful glint in his eyes as he started to undo her pants.
She dragged his mouth back to hers and kissed him deeply, hungrily and far more passionately than she’d ever kissed anyone else. She was letting loose, letting herself forget the concerns that had been weighing on her so heavily. “Just tasting and touching you. It’s so good. Maybe it’ll be enough,” she told him.
“I hope not,” he said with a hoarse laugh.
She laughed, too. “You’re right. Forget I said that. When are you going to get rid of your clothes?”
“After the lights go off.”
She could tell he was joking. “Funny,” she said. “But the lights are staying on. It’s my turn to see you.”
He went back to her jeans instead. “I was hoping to take it slow, but—” his hand slid inside her panties, and she felt his fingers seek and find the place where she was most sensitive “—I’m not capable of it right now. I’m dying to have you. So to hell with slow. We’ll go slow next time, okay?”
“Or the time after that,” she said, her voice barely audible as he pressed a finger inside her. She caught her breath at the pleasure that simple act brought, but it was the raw desire on his face as he added a second finger that triggered an even more powerful response. She’d never felt such primal need. And the tautness of his body, the rigidity of every muscle, told her she wasn’t alone. She could tell he was trying to be gentle instead of completely unleashing, and that built her excitement, too. The apparent difficulty of that struggle made her feel powerful in her femininity.
“Good thing you brought three condoms,” she told him. “I think we’re going to need them.”
He didn’t even crack a smile. He seemed to understand that she wasn’t joking. “We don’t have to stop at three. I can always go back for more,” he said, and removed his hand long enough to yank off his shirt and pull her onto the bed.
* * *
&nb
sp; Gavin felt guilty for what he was doing. He wasn’t back with Heather, and he hadn’t promised Savanna anything more than this one night. She was the one who’d made that stipulation. And yet he knew he was operating in a gray area, that he shouldn’t be feeling what he was feeling toward his new neighbor when his old girlfriend could be pregnant with his child. His wanting someone else didn’t seem fair to Heather, even though she’d obviously been sleeping with Scott the past two months.
Still, with all the uncertainty in his life right now, he was being foolish to complicate the situation. That was why he’d tried to talk himself into leaving Savanna’s house before he could wind up in her bed. He just hadn’t been able to follow through. And he couldn’t entirely regret that decision, not when he finally entered her, not while he moved inside her. He loved the way she responded to his touch, the way she stared up at him and met each thrust with a look of wonder on her face, as if she was only now discovering how enjoyable sex could be, and how close it could make two people feel.
She deserved far more than she’d received from the man who’d been responsible for loving her so far. Not only had Gordon betrayed her in the most painful and humiliating way possible, he’d starved her of the nurturing all humans needed. Gavin hated him for that as much as the rest of it. Maybe she was confused because she wanted to believe the father of her children when he proclaimed his innocence, but Gavin had little doubt Gordon was indeed the rapist the police believed he was. The physical evidence was overwhelming. They’d tied him to one of the victims. He had a job that gave him the freedom to be out and about on his own. And they’d found zip ties, a knife and a mask in his locked shed! Even his extreme selfishness didn’t speak well of him. How could the man who’d attacked those women be anyone else?