Bound by what? “You can take your honor and shove it in a small, dark place.” She shook her head. “Violence doesn’t make it better.”
“I didn’t go for vengeance.” Connor took a sip of his beer and then sighed. “He jumped me. Got a few shots in before I laid him out.”
She stared disbelievingly at his perfect face. “Oh yeah, because that’s some black eye you’ve got there.”
“You want to see what I got?” He challenged her.
Suddenly she was nervous. But she couldn’t look away from his eyes.
“Come ‘round here and see.” He dared her to deny him.
But she couldn’t. She wanted to know.
Slowly she walked around the bar and over to the stool where he perched awkwardly.
He lifted the bottom of his tee. Shadows darkened the skin around his ribs, large purplish bruises. So many. She winced at the raw graze streaking down his side.
“He came at me from behind. Like the coward he is. Got a few kicks in before I could get to my feet and take him out.” He let go of the shirt and it dropped down.
But the bruises were imprinted on her brain.
“Where is he now?” It was pathetic, but she whispered. Her blood had run cold at the sight of the purple contusions covering his skin.
“In custody. They also got to check the closed circuit cameras from the street. Saw him with your drink bottle. They have the evidence they need to get him. For attacking me. And you.”
Relief was so strong, but it was swamped by an anger so extreme her knees shook. And she couldn’t dare speak.
“Self-defense,” he said. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel some satisfaction in knocking him out.” He lifted his beer and took a slow, deliberate sip before putting the bottle back on the wood. “I’ve never been as angry as I was when I saw you drugged like that. So yeah, part of me enjoyed taking him down. Like me less now?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to.
She wanted to touch his wounds. Caress them. Ease the aches away with gentle kisses.
He looked at her. “Doesn’t the knight get a reward from the princess, for his bravery?”
Freaking mind-reader. “Thuggery.”
“Just told you it was self-defense.”
“Just told me you enjoyed it.” She was the one employing all self-defensive measures now.
“I can’t bear thinking about what could have happened to you,” he muttered.
“Don’t.” She stepped close—unable to resist—and pressed her fingers to his mouth. “I don’t need your nightmares as well.”
“As well?” His frown deepened. “Savannah...”
“Don’t.” She dropped her hand.
But he stood and caught her fingers with his. “I wasn’t going to come here tonight. Told myself I should stay away until tomorrow. Daylight.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re dangerous.”
“Little old me?” She tried to joke. “You think I grow fangs when the moon appears?”
“Dangerous,” he repeated. “And so desirable you distract me.” His expression hardened. “Two separate issues. So perhaps we treat them separately.”
Separately? “Is that possible?”
“Definitely. Danger first.”
“Why am I dangerous?” Just this second she was struggling to remember why she was here.
“You’re the one who came looking for me.” he reminded her quietly. “What’s the mud?”
She paused, surprised.
“Don’t I have a right to know what you have on me?”
“You’ve read my father’s letters.”
“An illegible tirade from an inexperienced investor who didn’t do his duty. Have you read them?”
She shook her head. But she could imagine. She knew her father had his faults. But he’d been vulnerable. “Your father—”
“And by extension me?”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “Your father sells a dream to people who can never achieve it. For so much money. He preys on vulnerable people. He stands up there doing his speeches, making out like he’s the ‘Oracle of Summerhill’ or something. Don’t you have enough money?”
“So you came here to see if it’s all true?”
She nodded. “I want to see if it’s as amazing and perfect as it appears in the ‘be like me’ seminars he charges a fortune for. He makes it sound like it’s this magical place where nothing goes wrong… where it’s perfect. And that anyone can achieve it.”
“But you don’t think that’s true?”
“Of course it’s not. It’s a fairytale.”
He leaned closer, so close she could feel the strength emanating from him. Wounded warrior or not. “So you’re not a believer in the happy-ever-after, then?”
“No.”
“And you don’t think Summerhill can possibly be all that?”
She shook her head.
“Come to the Lodge tomorrow. You can ask me anything, see anything. Access all areas.”
“Why would you do that?”
“As I’ve already said, I have nothing to hide,” he answered. “Do you? Anything you’re not telling me?”
She shook her head. Nothing that was relevant.
“I think we can get this cleared up pretty quickly,” he said. “My father loves giving after dinner speeches…”
“And being paid lots of money to do so.”
“But that’s not illegal. Everyone knows you should get professional advice. No one is going to give a damn about some guy who made some poor investment decisions. That’s not my father’s fault.”
That was the point. No one did give a damn. That’s what made it so wrong.
“Come see it properly for yourself. Then judge.”
She did want to see it. From a personal angle and a professional one. For so long her father had held it up as the ultimate.
“I think you’re going to be disappointed. Because Summerhill is everything my father says it is.”
“Okay. I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Then that just leaves the desire,” he ran his finger across her w
rist. “Don’t try to deny it.”
No. And maybe if she could get the desire out of the way, she could concentrate on the real issue. But she didn’t trust him. “You think I’ll say yes to you now in thanks? Reward the weary warrior?”
He winced. “So tough. Are you really unfazed by what happened?”
Of course she wasn’t. “I don’t think about it.”
He looked disbelieving. “How do you stop yourself from thinking about it?”
“I think about other things.”
“Such as?”
She hesitated. Remembered his outrageous tease with the ice last night. And decided to push play. “You.”
“How you’re going to make me pay?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I think about you. Naked. Chained to my bed.”
He drew in a deep breath. “I can see how thinking about that might be better.” He leaned his head from side to side, stretching his muscles. “I can work with the idea, but I vote for silk cords over steel chains.”
She shook her head. “I like the fantasy better than reality.”
“Just thinking is enough?” His eyebrows skyrocketed.
She shrugged.
“The reality is better. We both know this.”
“Connor?” Footsteps sounded, coming nearer.
“Go away Luca. I’m seducing your bartender.”
“Savannah?”
“Go away Luca. I’m turning down this customer.”
Luca laughed. “Good luck with that.” Footsteps sounded, retreating. “Both of you.”
“You slept with me to try to disarm me,” she said to Connor as soon as she was sure Luca had left.
“Not true and as you rightly pointed out this morning, it wouldn’t work anyway,” he said. “Your thirst for vengeance aside, you want me. And I want you. There’s no denying the chemistry. You make out you’re teasing, but you know you mean it.”
“You only wanted once,” she reminded him.
“I changed my mind.”
“It was the chains, wasn’t it.”
“No. I’d changed my mind the second you left my car the other night. It wasn’t enough. I want more.”
“More sex.”
“Absolutely more sex. Lots more. We have ourselves a situation, Savannah. If you don’t face a situation and resolve it. It can become an obsession.”