Well, not everything. His threat instincts remained on alert—but at the moment, there was nothing wrong inside or outside the cottage.
And his guns were on him.
God, he shouldn’t be doing this. She was a civilian; he was a bloodthirsty rogue fighter with no home, no bloodline, and no identity anymore. And yet he needed this like he was suffocating and she was his air.
They kept kissing, and even though his lust began to choke him, he wasn’t going to rush her—and wasn’t that a serious change of pace for him. For all his post-transition life, when the mood struck him and the female or woman was willing, he took care of business and then headed out.
With Mae? He wasn’t interested in this being over anytime soon—and even if he could have left the cottage, he was so very content to stay with her.
When she eased back, he hid his disappointment.
Except then she took things in a direction that was very appointment’ing.
If that was even a word.
With her soft, small hand, she took his palm from the side of her neck . . . and placed it on her breast.
• • •
Sahvage was the best kisser Mae had ever known. Which, considering she hadn’t kissed more than two males in her fifty years of life, probably didn’t sound like much. But holy . . . well, shit, honestly . . .
Was there really anything better than this?
The problem? For all his obvious arousal, he seemed to be stuck in a delicious neutral.
As their lips met and clung, and his tongue was a stunning penetration, as her body roared with heat, and so did his own, she sensed his powerful restraint . . . and waited for him to get exploring. Waited to do some exploring herself. And yet he stayed with the kissing.
So, yup, in a surge of uncharacteristic self-determination, she solved the issue of how far things were going to go by taking his palm and putting it where there was an ache she needed him to caress away. Kiss away. Suck away.
Mae gasped as the warmth of his hand transmitted through her fleece, her shirt, her bra. Sure as if she were naked.
“Is this okay?” he asked as he pulled back.
When she went to answer, he swept his thumb over her nipple—and didn’t that make her brain stop working right. In lieu of answering verbally, she arched forward and retook his lips as she pushed herself into his palm—and he got the point. He treated her to a stroking that made her pant into his mouth, and then he was slipping under things and finding her skin. As he went upward and stroked her ribs, she grabbed on to his shoulders.
Which were so big, she felt like she was trying to grip an oak trunk.
“Please,” she begged.
“What do you want?”
“Touch me . . .”
“Where.” He kissed up the side of her throat. “I want to hear you say it.”
“My . . . nipple . . . again . . .”
Now he was groaning, and with a surge, he pushed both of her bra cups up, her layers of clothing wedging under her arms. When one of his thumbs went exactly where she’d told him to go, she gasped again and needed to know what his mouth would be like there, his dark head down at her breasts, tasting her, marking her—
Sahvage pulled back so fast, her hands fell off of his shoulders and slapped into her lap. Confused, she looked down at her messed-up tops, the erect pink tips of her breasts peeking out from under the rolls of cotton and fleece.
Just as she was going to ask him what she’d done wrong, how she’d turned him off, he yanked her tops back into place and leaped away from her. Like maybe she’d become radioactive.
“What did I do?” she said in a voice that cracked.
The cellar door opened wide, and Tallah’s wrinkled face peered around the jamb. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Mae blinked. The old female had changed out of her housecoat, trading the blue and yellow flowers for a long red dress made of a lustrous material that was likely pure silk, given her background. She had also put on makeup, a subtle pink blush tinting her cheeks, her eyes emphasized with tasteful shadow, a red outline and gloss on her lips.
And her hair was down, the waves of white and gray flowing around her shoulders like a cape of sterling silver.
“No,” Sahvage said smoothly. “Not at all. Mae was just telling me how long you’ve been here and how often she’s come out to keep you company.”
Mae glanced in his direction. Somehow, in the nanosecond between when he’d yanked her fleece down and Tallah had made her presence known, he’d managed to pick up a teacup and the hand towel. With steady, lazy hands, he was pretending to dry that which was not wet.