Page 10

Savannah comes around a corner just as I close the front door behind me. She stops up short, hand to her heart like I scared the shit out of her. Then she says, "Holy hell in a hand basket! What in the world…"

Her mouth drops open.

That's when I laugh. Because I had actually forgotten that I left this house lookin' like an outlaw biker and came back lookin' like a nepo cowboy.

She circles me slow, like I'm a horse she's thinkin' about buyin', and I stand there and let her do it. Boots to hat, back around again. She's shakin' her head the whole time, lips pressed together like she's tryin' not to laugh or cry, can't tell which.

"I can't believe my eyes," she says, and her voice does that thing where it goes soft and wrecked at the same time. "Legion Kane."

"Still me under here," I say. "Just got a shave and some new clothes. It's not a miracle."

"Feels like one." She steps in close, gets her fingers up in my hair before I can stop her, and I feel her go still. The fade's tight on the sides, longer up top, and I watch it land on her—the loss of it. She pouts, an actual pout. Her luscious bottom lip stuck out in a way that makes me want to bite it.

"You cut it," she says, mournful, like I killed somethin'.

"Barber cut it. I just sat there."

"I loved your hair." She's still got her hands in it, workin' her fingers through like she's checkin' if it's really shorter or if she's dreamin'. "It was you. All wild and don't-give-a-shit."

"Hair grows back, Savannah Rose."

She don't answer that. She just looks at me a beat longer, eyes draggin' down from my face to the collar of that stiff new shirt, down further to the boots that needed to be paid for in cash for reasons I still don't understand, and somethin' shifts in her whole body.

She grabs my jacket in both fists, then leans in slow. My hands find her hips, thumbs pressin' into the fabric of that ridiculous, beautiful dress she's got on.

Her mouth touches mine. Soft, with no rush to it. The kiss is the kind of quiet that makes a man forget he ever had a war goin' on inside him.

Then she tilts her head, brings her lips to my ear, and her voice drops down to somethin' low and wicked.

"You know," she says, breath hot against my ear, "you've always been beautiful to me. Even filthy. Even bleedin'. Even smellin' like a garage and cigarettes."

Her hand slides down my chest, slow, palm flat, feelin' the stiff new shirt like it's somethin' foreign to her, and I let her go where she's goin' because I already know.

"But this—" She gets to my belt and cups me right through the denim, and my whole body locks up on her, hips wantin' to push forward into her palm. "This is somethin' else, Legion Kane. You clean up and I about lose my mind."

"Savannah—"

"I want you to fuck me on the stairs," she says, plain as askin' for coffee. "Right there. Where anybody could walk by."

Blood's already leavin' my brain, goin' straight down to where her hand is workin' me through my jeans, slow drag of her palm, and I gotta grit my teeth to get words out at all.

"Can't." I catch her wrist, more for my own sanity than to stop her. "Got plans, Savannah Rose. We got places⁠—"

"Later." She's already undoin' my belt buckle, quick fingers, like she's done it a thousand times, because she has. "Whatever it is, it can wait."

"Woman—"

The button pops. Her hand slides inside my jeans, wraps around my cock, skin on skin, and I make a sound I'm not proud of.

"Fuck," I mutter, forehead droppin' to hers. "You don't fight fair."

"Never have." She strokes me slow, thumb draggin' over the tip, and I know I'm done. I was done the second she touched me.

I don't say nothin' else. I just scoop her up, one arm under her knees, and she laughs, surprised, arms goin' around my neck like she trusts me not to drop her—which I never would, not her, not ever.

I carry her into the library and set her down in front of the leather couch.

"Bend over," I tell her, voice rough, and she does it without a single word of sass, which tells me exactly how bad she wants this too.