Page 280 of A Matter of Time

He was so eloquent. I couldn’t keep from smiling.

“I’ll just tie you to the bed.”

“That’ll go over well with your superiors,” I muttered, rolling away from him onto my stomach and closing my eyes, my body getting heavy.

His hand slid down my spine, and before I could slip into sleep, his lips followed the same path, and then his teeth. A moan rose up out of me.

“I missed all this gold skin.”

I was so relaxed, so sated, so ready to sleep.

“I’m so sorry that Dane had to get a plastic surgeon to make sure there was no scar on your back from that fuckin’ bullet,” he said gruffly, his voice faltering for a moment as he rubbed over the spot where it would have been.

Out of the blue for me, but clearly, his mind had been clinging to the information I’d given him days ago. “Stop with that. Not your fault.”

“Oh make no mistake, that was all on me.”

“No,” I stated, hearing the conviction in my tone. “That was Dom, Dom and his greed. He took us, and everyone who died, down that path with him. And I wanted to keep that scar, to show you if you ever came back. It was a testament to my love. To my devotion.”

“I didn’t need a scar on you to remember that for the rest of my life.”

I grunted.

“What?”

“That’s what Dane said. He told me that if you came back, you wouldn’t need it.”

“He really is a very smart man.”

I murmured my agreement.

“And fuck me, I’m gonna hafta get him to like me all over again, and he wasn’t that crazy about me the first time.”

A chuckle rolled out of me; I couldn’t help it.

“Laugh it up, he’s gonna think you’ve lost your fuckin’ mind.”

“That’s par for the course.”

“Is that right?”

“You know it is,” I said because Sam knew all about me and Dane and how crazy I drove my brother and… “God,” I groaned as the realization hit me.

“Yep. I know all about you and your brother and all the important people in your life,” he said, kissing between my shoulder blades and then trailing down. “Nobody knows you like I do.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“You gonna stay here with me forever?”

I sighed deeply.

“Good,” he said, his hand sliding over my ass before his mouth closed on my right cheek.

“Stop.”

“Why?”

“’Cause you’re gonna kill me.”