Page 24 of Ruined by My Ex’s Dad (Silver Fox Obsession #2)
She helped, lifting her hips, arms, allowing me to strip her with an efficiency that spoke of different urgency than our earlier times together.
When she was naked beneath me, I paused, taking in the sight of her—flushed skin, tousled hair, eyes dark with desire and something more vulnerable. Something that looked dangerously like the emotion I refused to name even in the privacy of my own thoughts.
"What do you see when you look at me like that?" she whispered, the question catching me off guard.
Truth hovered on my tongue—that I saw beauty, yes, but more significantly, possibility.
Connection.
A woman who challenged me, matched me, saw through the carefully constructed persona to the man beneath. A woman who terrified me precisely because she made me want things I'd convinced myself I didn't need.
Instead, I said, "You are miine," and claimed her mouth again before she could probe further.
I took my time undressing, watching her watch me, her eyes growing darker as each piece of clothing fell away.
By the time I stood naked before her, her breathing had grown ragged, her thighs pressing together as if seeking relief from the ache I recognized in my own body.
"Spread your legs," I commanded softly.
She complied without hesitation, opening herself to me with a trust that made something twist painfully in my chest. I should have been gentler after four days of silence, after the breach between us. Should have taken my time, rebuilt connection through careful attention.
Instead, I positioned myself between her thighs and thrust into her in one smooth motion, burying myself to the hilt.
She cried out, back arching off the bed, inner muscles clenching around me so tightly it bordered on pain. I held still, giving us both a moment to adjust to the intensity of the connection.
"Look at me," I demanded, echoing words from our first night together.
Her eyes opened, meeting mine with that direct gaze that had drawn me from the beginning.
No pretense, no evasion, just Savannah—vulnerable and strong simultaneously, yielding without surrendering.
"No more lies," I said, beginning to move inside her with deliberate, measured strokes. "Not between us. Not even when the truth is difficult. Not even when you think I can't handle it."
Her hands found my shoulders, nails digging into skin as she matched my rhythm. "No more lies," she agreed, voice breaking as I hit a spot that made her gasp.
"I swear."
I increased the pace, driving into her with a force that would have concerned me with any other woman. But Savannah met each thrust with equal intensity, her body rising to meet mine, taking everything I gave and demanding more.
"Harder," she urged, legs wrapping higher around my waist, changing the angle until I hit even deeper. "I need to feel you. All of you."
The request broke something in my control. I grasped her hips, lifting them slightly, and began to pound into her with abandon. The sound of skin against skin, of her increasingly desperate moans, of my own rough breathing filled the room.
"Mine," I growled against her neck, the word escaping before I could contain it. "Say it."
"Yours," she gasped, inner muscles beginning to flutter around me. "God, Lucas, I'm yours."
The submission in her voice, the surrender of her body, pushed me toward the edge of control. I slipped a hand between us, finding her center, circling with the precise pressure I'd learned she needed.
"Come for me," I demanded, feeling her tighten around me.
"Let go, little fox. Show me what's real between us."
The endearment—the first time I'd used it since before the hospital—seemed to trigger something in her. She shattered beneath me, around me, her release tearing my name from her throat in a cry that sent satisfaction surging through me.
Her inner muscles clamped down, pulsing around me in waves that threatened to drag me over with her.
I fought it, determined to watch every second of her pleasure, to memorize the vulnerability in her expression, the complete abandon that told me more than words ever could about what existed between us.
Only when her eyes opened, meeting mine with naked emotion, did I allow myself to follow. Three more hard thrusts and I buried myself deep, my release tearing through me with an intensity that bordered on painful.
For long moments afterward, we remained joined, breathing hard, bodies slick with sweat. I should have moved, should have given her space, should have maintained some semblance of the distance her betrayal warranted.
Instead, I found myself gathering her closer, rolling to my side and taking her with me, keeping us connected in the most intimate way possible.
"I'm sorry," she whispered against my chest, the words barely audible. "For lying. For complicating everything. For making you doubt what's between us."
I should have accepted the apology, should have offered forgiveness, should have begun the process of rebuilding what her deception had damaged. The words hovered on my tongue, ready to create the bridge we both needed.
But decades of maintained control, of emotional reservation, of keeping vulnerability carefully contained, couldn't be overcome so easily—even now, even with her.
"I know," I said instead, fingers tracing idle patterns on her back. Not forgiveness, not yet, but acknowledgment.
A starting point.
She seemed to understand, offering no further words, simply relaxing against me as our breathing steadied. The silence between us gradually shifted from tense to comfortable, the connection of our bodies communicating what neither of us seemed capable of articulating.
"Stay," I found myself saying as her eyes began to drift closed. Not a question, not quite a command. Something in between—a request, an invitation, a hope I hadn't intended to voice.
"For how long?" she asked, the question weighted with meaning beyond tonight.
I considered my response carefully, aware of the precipice we both stood upon.
The disciplined person in me warned caution, boundaries, limited exposure. The man—the part of me I'd suppressed for decades beneath ambition and control—wanted something else entirely.
"As long as this feels real," I said finally, the closest I could come to the truth I wasn't ready to acknowledge even to myself. "As long as what's between us matters more than what stands in our way."
She studied my face in the dim light, searching for something—reassurance, perhaps, or deeper commitment than I'd offered. Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her, because she nodded once, tucking herself more securely against me.
"Then I'll stay," she murmured, her lips brushing against my chest in a gesture so tender it ached. "For as long as you'll have me."
As she drifted into sleep, her breathing growing deep and even against me, I found myself confronting a truth I'd been avoiding since that first night at the wedding.
I was falling for Savannah Blake.
Not merely wanting her body, not merely enjoying her mind, not merely appreciating the challenge she represented.
But falling—the kind of emotional freefall I'd sworn never to experience again after Catherine's abandonment had nearly destroyed me.
The realization should have caused me to pull away, reinforce boundaries, reestablish the control that had defined my existence. Instead, I tightened my arms around her sleeping form, burying my face in her hair, breathing in the scent that had become as necessary as oxygen.
In that moment of unguarded honesty, I admitted what I couldn't yet say aloud: I would rather risk destruction with her than safety without her.
The recognition didn't bring peace, didn't resolve the complications still facing us, didn't erase the breach of trust that had occurred.
But it offered something I hadn't expected to find after four days of anger and betrayal.
A beginning. A possibility. A future worth fighting for.
Whether that future would bring healing or heartbreak remained to be seen. But tonight, with Savannah's heart beating steadily against mine, I allowed myself to hope for the former while preparing for the latter.
After all, control didn't mean avoiding risk. It meant calculating it, accepting it, managing it.
And Savannah Blake was a risk I was increasingly willing to take.