Page 113 of Marrying the Savage

Instead, I press one more kiss to his arm, just below the blood.

His jaw tightens. I see it, and I feel powerful for exactly one second.

Then he moves. His good hand catches my waist and turns me, walking me backward until my hips hit the edge of the examination table. The impact is soft, padded leather against my body, but my breath still catches.

Damir steps between my knees before I can close them. “You follow me,” he says, voice low. “Disobey my men. Walk into my medical room. Put your mouth on my blood.”

I swallow. “It seemed hygienic at the time.”

His hand tightens at my waist. “Don’t joke.”

“Then stop saying things that make me nervous.”

His eyes lift to mine. For a second, something rough and exhausted moves across his face. Whatever happened at the warehouse has not left him. It’s there under his skin, in the tension of his shoulders, in the cold fury he’s barely holding back.

But when he looks at me, the fury changes shape. “You were worried,” he says.

“No.”

“Sofia.”

“I was curious.”

“You ran down the stairs.”

“I enjoy cardio.”

“You followed me past Mikhail.”

“I enjoy making him suffer.”

His mouth almost curves. “You licked blood from my arm.”

“I was assessing iron levels.”

That does it.

A laugh leaves him.

Quiet. Brief. Real enough to make my chest tighten.

Then his hand rises to my face, thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. “There is still some there,” he says.

My breath stops. “What?”

His thumb strokes slowly over my lower lip. “My blood.”

The words should be horrible.

They’re not. They’re intimate in a way that feels indecent.

He lowers his head.

I should move back, but there’s nowhere to go except the table, and anyway my hands have already betrayed me by resting against his bare chest. His skin is hot under my palms. His heart beats steady beneath one hand.

Steady. Alive.

I didn’t realize I needed proof until I feel it.