Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Savannah
I could sit here with Thayer, joined in this room and on this chair as we explore every damn position, until the sun sets and I’m half-starving to death with hunger.
It feels so good, so right, to be with him like this.
I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.
We tore down our barriers. We told each other how we felt. We told each other what we feared.
And we made love anyway.
“Savannah,” he whispers. “Jesus, that was perfect.”
I lean in and kiss his stubbled cheek. “I’m having a hard time reconciling something,” I tell him with a teasing look.
“What’s that?” He brushes his hand along the back of my head, smoothing out my hair.
“If sex can be that good, why the hell don’t people have it more?”
I love the way he chuckles. “That’s a very good question. Maybe they do?”
I’m sex-drunk so I don’t feel like getting into the whole thing with stats and how many of my girlfriends think sex is overrated, so I only nod.
Sex is not overrated.
I lay my head on his chest. He sighs and holds me.
I close my eyes and commit this to memory.
Other people might see Thayer as rough and guarded, harsh and stern. I’m reminded of the way he tended to my wounds on his living room couch back in Paris. Sometimes, maybe those with the sternest exteriors have the softest hearts.
“Do we have to leave? I mean, there’s got to be a shower nearby, and I’m sure you’ve got people who could bring things like our clothes, a laptop, some food, maybe our chargers…”
“Hmm. Those are some very good points,” he says, clearly amused.
“We’d need some toiletries, you know. Like, I’m a bit intense about shaving my legs. Maybe some vitamins for stamina? And if I—oh. Oh God. Thayer!”
I sit up as alarm rings through me.
“What? What’s wrong?” His brows clash together in concern.
“My birth control. I didn’t take any birth control, Thayer. It’s back in Paris, too, and it’s been a few days now. Oh my God, what am I, a teenager? How? How could I forget it?”
“Savannah.”
“Yes?”
“Relax. The chances of you getting pregnant are slim.”
“But I don’t want slim. I want none. Zero. Zilch. Nada!”
When he doesn’t reply at first, I can’t help but wonder what’s on his mind.
“What? You look troubled or angry or serious about something.”
He looks away and doesn’t respond at first, but I press on. “Thayer, please, what is it?”
“We should’ve talked about this. I fucked up. I’m sorry, Savannah.”
“Hey, buddy, this isn’t on you. It’s on both of us. We both fucked up. We had things we should’ve talked about but didn’t, but in our defense—”
I wave my hand at this insane room of frosted glass.
“This is pretty hard to resist. One could easily get, let’s say, swept up in the romance of it all.”
Still, he clenches his jaw and lifts me off his lap. “It’s no excuse.”
And even though he makes a good point… even though I’m every bit as culpable as he is… even though I know I’m being irrational and maybe even silly, my mind begins to play tricks on me.
He doesn’t really love you.
He wishes he had birth control because he doesn’t want you to have his baby.
He regrets you.
My mind is sometimes a bitch.
Thayer, like everyone else in my life, maybe finds me too much. He owns this room, he’s master of this club, and he has the sexiest, most perfectly experienced and submissive women at his beck and call. Who am I to think I’m special to him? Any one of those women would’ve thrown themselves at him.
I’m young and inexperienced. Maybe he deserves someone who could be what he really needs.
“Come here,” he says, taking me by the hand, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. “Let’s get cleaned up.”
I didn’t see the door to the en suite bathroom, as it’s sleek and hidden, flush against the wall like the entry to a spaceship.
When he opens the door by pulling an embedded handle, I draw in a sharp breath.
Though it’s small—clearly only to be used for sex and the necessary cleaning up in the aftermath —it’s adorable, and thankfully not bordered in frosted glass.
No one wants to pee while staring at the pointy top of a pine tree.
An ivory claw-footed tub with a decanter of rose petals sits in the center of the room atop a hand-knotted silk rug.
The marble floor is warm beneath my feet, and when I reach out a hand to stroke the shelf of fluffy white towels, I find those are heated, too.
The shower’s constructed of sleek chrome and glass with a large, square shower head, beside a vanity complete with glass decanters of cotton products, pumps with soaps and lotions, and small hand towels.
The air smells like roses. Dimmed recessed lighting welcoming luxury and relaxation.
Thayer reaches for the handle on the tub when a low ringing sound vibrates in the other room. His phone? Thayer closes his eyes for the briefest moment before he curses under his breath. “I’ll have to take that. I’ll join you shortly.” And just like that, he’s gone.
Maybe we’ll have to take a raincheck on that tub.
I wonder if this is what it will be like if I’m his.
Will he always be on the lookout for the next danger?
Will there always be danger? Maybe I’ve let myself romanticize what it would be like being with Thayer.
Or maybe it’s that constant self-doubt I battle, the fear that I’ll be abandoned like everyone else in my life has done…
I dampen a washcloth to clean myself up and stare in the mirror in front of me. Rectangular with a frame accented in silver, it’s well-lit and huge. I stare at my short hair and run my fingertips through it. God, it looks so different. Cute, and I like it, but it’s… not me.
Not who I was, anyway. I don’t know if I’ve made peace with this yet.
I look at my body, clearly marked by Thayer. My breasts are swollen and heavy. I turn and look at my ass, also very much bearing his mark.
Who am I?
I look at the tub and decide I’ll take a bath in there some day, with rose petals and all. I help myself to the lotions and cleansers and freshen myself up, and a few minutes later, I leave.
Thayer’s fully dressed and on the phone, immersed in a conversation in such rapid French I can hardly keep up. Again, I feel out of place, like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t quite fit right. It’s as if my being here has disrupted the whole natural order of things.
Thayer stares at the wall while he talks, shakes his head, and gestures, but when he turns to give me a half glance, he freezes mid-sentence.
“I’ll call you back.”
There’s something in the way he looks at me that makes my heart leap into my throat. I’m not sure what it is, because it’s foreign to me.
No one has ever looked at me like that before.
“Everything okay?” I ask, as I tug on my clothes.
He shakes his head. “No, but it will be.” I don’t miss the ominous tone of his voice. I swallow.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
A muscle twitches in his jaw. “No. I want to pretend that there’s no danger, and that you’re safe here with me.”
A chill skates down my spine, and I give him a curious look. This isn’t like him. Even though we’ve only been together, like this, for a very short time, we’ve known each other for a while. Thayer isn’t the type to ignore reality.
“I’m not?”
In three steps, he’s in front of me. When he reaches me, he grabs me by the elbows and yanks me to his chest. My heart beats rapidly. When I place my hand on his chest, I feel the rapid beating of his heart in time with mine.
“You’ll never be safe with me, Savannah.”
I don’t reply. I’m not sure what to say, what he means. If I’m not safe with him, I’m not sure why Nicolette and Fabien arranged for me to come here, but I suspect he means something altogether different.
“What is it, Thayer? You can tell me.”
When he draws in a breath and releases it slowly, I see the weight he carries and the heaviness that bogs him down. I can’t imagine what it was like watching his father die, with his hands tied, knowing he couldn’t do anything to save him.
Does he fear he’ll lose me, too?
“They’ve found you out. I was afraid it would happen.”
A chilling wash of terror floods me. “They found me?” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “No, not yet, but they know you’re affiliated with us.
Lyam’s intercepted messages. It’s no secret that Fabien’s wife has a sister, and it was easy enough for them to track down your whereabouts.
” He blows out a breath. “We had a decoy sent back to America posing as you. She was shot and killed last night.”
I blink, trying to process this. It’s as if he’s speaking a language I don’t know.
“You had… a decoy… sent to America,” I whisper.
He nods. “An actress who was supposed to divert their attention from you. It was a whim of Lyam’s and he did it as an afterthought. We had no idea they had actually discovered your identity until we found her dead.”
Someone is dead because of me. I know I had nothing to do with it and didn’t even know she’d been hired, but I can’t get it out of my mind.
Someone died because of me.
“Oh, God. Does Nicolette know?”
“Yes.”
I cringe, knowing exactly how my sister will respond. She won’t like this at all. Hell, I don’t like it. I hate it.
“Who was it?” I ask, unable to forget that someone died pretending to be me.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s not the point.”
“I care.”
He gives me a little shake and gnashes his teeth together. “She knew what the job was. She knew the risks. She took them anyway.”
Do I know what the job is? Do I know the risks?
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
“So where does that leave us?” Will he send me away from here?
“That’s a good question. Lyam’s on his way, and we’ll have a conference call with Fabien. We’re heading into the main club area. You’re going to see things you haven’t seen before, and it’s important that you take them in stride.”
“Alright.” I sound even less assured than I feel.
Someone knocks at the door. A minute later, Thayer lets Lyam in.
I stifle a scream.
Lyam’s got a long, thick snake wrapped around his neck like a scarf.