The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill (16 page)

“I should go,” he said, after counting to a hundred and thinking of trees and sod and seedlings and anything but his disastrous feelings for Savannah.

“Me, too,” Savannah said, pushing the cards to the center of the table. She looked into the shadows where Katie was sound asleep on Margot’s king-size bed.

“Leave her,” Margot said. “No point in waking her now.”

Savannah nodded and stood. Realizing how loose her robe was, she tightened it, a blush on her creamy cheeks.

Sod. Rocks. Plants. Hard work.

He walked with her to the hallway, his blood still pounding, his mind crowded with thoughts of her, both imagined and real of her.

“Did you want to…” She stopped in front of the library where the baby grand gleamed in the moonlight. She turned toward him, so close he could smell her, so close he could see her pulse in her throat, and he lost control of his impulses. His feelings for her flooded the dam and he was powerless against them.

He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.

H
E EXPECTED A SLAP
,
a push, some kind of violent rejection, and he waited, absorbing the feel of her lips against his before she shoved him away.

But it didn’t come.

She was all taut and trembling muscle, then the heavens opened, a chorus of angels sang and she kissed him back.

Throwing her arms around his neck she knocked him backward and he collided with the wall. He hauled her close and high against his body, taking her weight in his arms, pressing her hard against every part of himself.

She arched her hips against his, her teeth bit into his lips and he growled, low and menacing, feeling so close to out of control he was freaked.

“Savannah,” he said, between long sucking bites at her mouth. Her lips tasted like honey and inside… He groaned, sinking into her. “We have to stop.”

“Why?” she sighed, reaching those beloved hands up his shirt and across the hard muscles of his stomach that jumped in appreciation.

More.
Oh, man, he wanted so much more with her. He wanted everything. He wanted to push her against the wall and eat her. He wanted to lay her out on a bed and cherish her, love her, and at the same time he wanted to bend her over a chair and make her scream as she came.

“It’s a now or never type thing,” he finally managed
to say, forcing himself not to shove his thigh between her legs.

She pulled back, her fingers still drawing little circles over his skin. Torture. She was killing him with those circles.

“I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you,” he said, watching the truth sink into those blue eyes, lighting them up from deep inside. “And, as much as I’d like to pretend I’ve got rock-solid control, I don’t. Not around you. So, we should stop.”

Her lips pursed and he had to put his hands against the wall or that robe would not live another day.

“I don’t want to stop,” she said. Those circles under his shirt grew and grew until one of her blunt nails raked across his nipple.

“I have to leave on Sunday,” he said. “I…can’t stay.”

I could come back,
he thought, but didn’t say.
One word from you and I would be back here like a boomerang.

“I know,” she said, her smile ghostly. “But I want this,” she whispered, leaning up to kiss him, her teeth taking a small bite out of his lip. “I want everything you have to give me. For however long I can have it.”

“Savannah,” he groaned, her name a plea. It occurred to him to ask if she was sure, but then her hand slid down the front of his pants.

Doesn’t get more sure than that.

He swept her up in his arms, feeling very Rhett Butler.

Using his foot, he bumped open the door to the sleeping porch.

As she slid down onto the bed like bourbon out of a bottle, the look in her eyes was a challenge and his blood pounded in response. Savannah wanted sex. And as she leaned backward and spread herself out against the faded,
soft sheets, her knees bent, her arms spread, the tie on her robe giving up the best of her secrets, he knew how she wanted it.

The same way he did.

Wild. Hot. Now.

He leaned down and pushed open her robe, revealing the perfection of her body. The tight curve of her breast, the taut belly, the gorgeous mystery at the apex of her thighs.

Her skin was silk under his hand, her nipples hard as he rolled them against his palm, pinched them, just enough that her eyes went hazy, her lips parted in a moan.

He licked her open mouth, toying with her lips, her tongue, until she pushed herself up and sealed her mouth to his.

Then the fun really started.

His clothes, barely touched by her long elegant hands, fell off his body until they were skin to skin. The electrical current between them could light up the Manor for months, years.

She was strong and her muscles held him tight, gripped him hard. A leg around his hip, an arm around his shoulders and it felt as though she might never let him go.

And that was so okay with him.

His erection brushed the liquid heat between her legs and they both gasped, arching hard into each other.

“You better have protection,” she whispered into his ear, licking the rim, biting the lobe and his brain went blank.

Protection?

Her fingertips danced over his erection, her thumb tracing circles around the head. “Condom?” she said.

He blinked, unable to tell whether she was speaking English.

“Matt?” She smiled, womanly and knowing.

“You’re killing me,” he breathed, closing his eyes when both her hands got in on the act.

“We’ll both be hurting if you don’t have a condom.”

Oh, right. A condom.

He kissed her hard and leaned up on his arms, reluctant to leave the stunning heat of her body. More so when her breasts were gilded in moonlight, the nipples dark and hard. He sucked one into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth.

“A condom!” she cried, pushing him away slightly. “Hurry.”

He leaped from the bed and found his kit bag, grateful he hadn’t emptied it since his ski trip with Pauline almost a year ago. He pulled out a ribbon of condoms and whirled back to the bed.

Man, she was beautiful. Long-limbed and naked, her eyes hot, her lips wet.

“You’re staring, Matt,” she murmured, her legs falling open slightly, an erotic invitation.

“I’m stunned, Savannah,” he said, suddenly humbled that all this was even happening.

I love you.
He caught the words in time, shoving away the impulse to tell her how he felt. It seemed wrong to do it now, as if all that he was feeling was tied to sex, which couldn’t be further from the truth. When he told her—if he told her—he wanted her to know it as the truth.

He’d come here looking for justice and found something better.

Salvation.

“You okay?” she asked, tilting her head. All that hair, silver in the moonlight, fell over her shoulder, and he couldn’t have walked away from her if he was on fire. There was simply no way.

“You’re a goddess,” he said. Her answering smile was
indulgent, doubtful, and he knew that she didn’t believe him. Didn’t see all of her own beauty.

“And you’re very far away.” She smiled. “Come back to bed.”

He crawled over her body, pressing kisses to her knees, blowing air into the damp curls between her thighs, licking her belly button.

“You don’t believe me?” he asked, stroking the hair from her face.

“About what?” she panted, arching herself against the leg he pressed between hers. He pushed harder against her and she groaned, grinding herself against him.

“That you’re a goddess.”

“I have nice hair,” she conceded.

Laughter gushed out of him. “You’re stunning. Every inch of you.”

“Matt.” She shook her head. Her modesty doubled his lust. She didn’t know. She had no idea.

I’m going to have to show her.

His blood pounded and his mouth watered at the thought.

Retracing his steps, he trailed his tongue along those stunning collarbones, kissed his way across her breasts. Found every rib with his lips.

A kiss on her belly button and he slid down, easing open her thighs.

“Matt,” she sighed, pushing her fingers into his hair, scratching and petting him as he made his way to her secret heart and settled in to make love to the damp, hot mystery that was Savannah O’Neill.

S
AVANNAH CALLED IN SICK
the next day for the first time since Katie had gotten the chicken pox when she was a year old.

“You can handle things there, Janice,” Savannah said.

“Well, sure I can,” Janice agreed. “I’m just surprised is all. You don’t sound too sick.”

“It’s a stomach thing,” Savannah said and shot Matt a dirty look while he pressed kisses to the trembling skin of her belly. His chuckle blew hot air across incredibly sensitive flesh.

“I…ah…gotta go, Janice. I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up Matt’s cell phone and glared at him, his rumpled hair so dark against her and the white sheets. His eyes so green, his smile so warm.

A knot of something hard and sad sat in her throat and she swallowed past it, not wanting sadness. Not now. Not until the moment Matt walked away. Until then, she wanted to absorb every single ounce and fleck of joy she could.

“You’re in trouble,” she told him, laughing as he tickled her belly button with his tongue. She kicked her leg over him and rolled him to his back.

The condoms, two fewer than before, were in reach and she tore another one from the strip.

“No,” Matt joked, palming her breasts. “Not that. Anything but that.”

She slid the condom on him, her fingers running over him until he groaned, his hands digging into her skin.

They were both covered in little bruises and marks, physical proof of how out of control they’d gotten last night.

Proof of how out of control she was.

This is going to hurt,
she told herself.
When he leaves it’s going to hurt like nothing ever has.

But she didn’t care. She’d take the pain later if it ensured the pleasure now. Because right now, she felt as though she’d die without the pleasure.

“I’m afraid so,” she said, using her best librarian
voice and his eyes flared. “You’ve been very bad, Matt Woods.”

“Yeah?” He groaned and she slid down on him, until she could feel him in her heart. He rocked upward, and she moaned, sitting back on him, her thoughts scattering. “How bad can you be, Savannah?” he asked, his voice like honey.

She leaned down over him, her breasts against his hot chest, her tongue licking at his mouth. “Put on your glasses,” she said. “And I’ll show you.”

“Y
OU CALLING IN SICK AGAIN
?” Margot asked on Friday, as they waited for the coffee to brew.

Savannah nodded and cleared her throat, careful not to look at Margot, or let her look too closely at her. “Stomach thing,” she said, cupping her coffee mug to her chest like a secret.

“That’s a whole week.”

“It’s a bad stomach thing,” she said, biting out the words. She knew down to the minute how much time she had left with Matt.

Matt chose that moment to step out of the sleeping porch carrying his thermos, looking to her like a man who’d been gorging on sex.

“Morning,” he said into the silence.

“Matt,” Margot said knowingly, her eyes sliding to Savannah.

Savannah yanked the coffeepot free, spilling coffee over her hand.

“Hello, Savannah,” Matt said, his voice rich with laughter as though he knew she was ready to die from embarrassment. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, patted her waist and headed out the door to the back courtyard, whistling as he went.

“Seems to me,” Margot said, taking the pot from Savannah’s death grip, “you have a Matt thing.”

“I have a…” Savannah paused, not sure how to finish that sentence.
Heartache coming? Hole in my head?
“None of your business.”

“I was right, wasn’t I?” Margot asked, leaning one hip against the counter. “You like him.”

Savannah didn’t say anything. Of course she liked him, an idiot could see that. An idiot could probably see that she was dangerously close to being in love with him.

“You told Katie about her father?” Margot asked.

“I did. It was time—she’d started to think that Matt was her father.” Margot’s jaw dropped open. “I know.” Savannah managed to laugh a little. “But with me never telling her anything, she started to answer her own questions. Matt got caught in the crossfire.”

“He’s very good with her,” Margot said.

Savannah lifted her eyes to see Matt and Katie in the back courtyard. He was carrying a huge, burlap-wrapped bundle, every muscle straining against his shirt.

Katie leaped and danced around him like a muddy, tangle-haired butterfly.

“That man is good for you,” Margot whispered. “That man is good for both of you. You’re changing because of him.”

It was true. More than true. There were parts of herself she didn’t recognize. Every morning she looked in the mirror expecting to see that she’d become a redhead, or grown a third eye, or something dramatic that would match the utter transformation happening in her heart.

“It doesn’t matter,” Savannah said, tears in the back of her throat, “whether I like him or not. Whether he’s good for us or not. Whether I’m changing or whatever. He has to leave on Sunday.”

“You could go with him.”

“Please,” she scoffed.

“You think he won’t ask? That man looks at you like you’ve buttered his bread.”

“I have,” she snapped. “But that doesn’t mean anything. You know that better than anyone.”

Margot arched an eyebrow. “Don’t be catty,” she said. “He looks at you like you matter. Like you’re important to him.”

Savannah took small sips of air, feeling as though the whole world was just too tight. In bed with him, his arm around her waist, his breath on her neck, anything seemed possible. It seemed possible that he might stay. That he might love her.

But when she got out of bed and walked around the house where her family had left her, a space opened up in her chest and doubt settled in. Reality fell around her like a hailstorm.

“He came here for his father and he’s staying out of guilt for having lied,” she said, not entirely convinced of that but unsure of what she should believe. “He’s got me all wrapped up in this building collapse thing.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“I do,” she said emphatically, convincing herself at the same time. “He’ll leave here, get back to his life and forget all about me.”

“Well, of course he will if you let him go without a fight.”

“A fight?” Savannah asked, laughing at the truly ridiculous idea. “How?”

“Go with him,” Margot said, grabbing Savannah’s arms and giving her a little shake. “There’s a world out there. A big one. And instead of looking at it through your computer, you should try to experience some of it.”

The back door creaked open and Matt stuck his head in, his smile so pure it stabbed right through her. “Hate to break up the conversation, but Katie is getting anxious to get this fountain in place.”