CHAPTER 42 ROHAN
ROHAN
When they got back to the bayou, Rohan went yet again to check on the Grayson sisters, and the moment he crossed the threshold of the shack, he found himself slammed back against the wall.
“We have to quit meeting like this,” Rohan quipped.
“You have to stop,” Savannah said.
“Stop checking on you?” Rohan leaned his head forward enough to whisper directly into her ear.
“Stop making plans in which there’s a role for you to play?
Plans that will take you exactly where you want to go?
” He looked down at the hands digging into his shoulders, harder by the second.
“You’re the one who’s touching me, rule breaker—but certainly, say the word, and I will stop. ”
Cut me loose. End this. Push me away once and for all.
Savannah dropped her hands from his shoulders but didn’t pull back even a fraction of an inch. “You’re finally ready to go to England, and you need an accomplice.”
“It doesn’t have to be you.” Before, Rohan had confined that sentiment to his thoughts.
This time, he murmured it directly into her ear, less a whisper than an invocation.
He could see her pulse in her neck. He could feel it, could imagine exactly how the rhythmic beat and her soft skin would feel beneath his lips.
It doesn’t have to be you.
“Yes,” Savannah said, “it does.” She pushed him back again, slowly but none-too-gently, spreading his arms, pinning him like a specimen to a board.
It was a good thing that Brady Daniels had not bothered to so much as climb the ladder, a good thing that Gigi Grayson was apparently a very heavy sleeper, and that Knox Landry was somewhere outside.
Rohan leaned his head back, offering up his own neck, wondering if the winter girl could see and feel his pulse the way he’d felt hers. Lips met skin—her lips, his skin. Then his and hers. She went in for the kind of kiss that wasn’t delicate—or merciful—in the least.
“No biting,” Rohan murmured. “Unless the other person really deserves it.”
“You always deserve it.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“New rule.” Now it was Savannah’s turn to speak directly into Rohan’s ear. “I can touch you.”
Rohan smiled—with teeth. “You drive a hard bargain.”
Savannah trailed her fingers up his arm, along the top of his shoulder, up his neck, and then she pushed his face roughly to the side, moving his lips away from hers—away from her. “You have a plan.”
Right now, Rohan was nothing but plans. “What would make you think that?”
“You always have a plan.” She seemed to be reminding herself of that. Clever girl. Clever, brutal, merciless winter girl.
“A private jet will be waiting for us at dawn.” Rohan’s voice entered a lower register. “There’ll be a six-hour time difference to contend with between here and England, so we’ll need to make haste. We’ll fly into a private airstrip just outside of London.”
“Define we.”
“Plural noun. You and me.” Rohan paused. “The scholar, who now finds himself entirely amenable to coming with us.”
Savannah processed that. She did not ask why Brady was amenable—or where he and Rohan had been. Instead, she cut straight to the heart of the matter. “If Brady’s on board, we don’t need Gigi. And now that she’s said no, she should be safe enough if we leave her here.”
Rohan glanced briefly toward the bed. “Little sister won’t be pleased to be left behind.”
“I’ll call Grayson,” Savannah said. Even saying her Hawthorne half-brother’s name seemed to be a bitter pill for her to swallow—though perhaps, Rohan noted, not as bitter as it once had been. “He can see to it that she’s taken care of. Alisa can have Knox take her home.”
“As you wish.” Rohan allowed his gaze to go to Savannah’s lips, then to the place on her neck where he could still see the beating of her pulse. “But a word of advice, love, your sister will be your biggest weakness, wherever she is. Always.”
And you will be mine. Rohan had no business thinking those words or anything like them, but there was no unthinking them, no denying the truth that he had checked on Savannah four times this night.
And her body was so very warm.
Rohan knew better. He’d known better from the start. I have to stop. But there were moments in life when one had to choose: The guaranteed payoff or the risk? The long game or the short one?
There were moments in life—brief, finite, delectable moments—to let it all ride.