‘Why did you wait so long?’ she murmured when he released her.
Because keeping her safe had been paramount. Because he had feared the dark forces inside him might express themselves in contemptuous energy. He should have known Savannah’s joyful innocence would defeat them. And now he felt nothing but the desire to cherish her, and to have one night; a night in which he would bring her the ultimate pleasure.
‘Ethan?’ she prompted, sensing his abstraction.
‘I haven’t forgotten you,’ he murmured, sweeping her into his arms.
Her clothes slipped away in sighs and smothered laughter, and Ethan’s kisses drove her remaining fears away as she clung to him, hidden from the world by the spread of his shoulders and the width of his chest. She wasn’t even sure how she’d come to be naked, only that she was. And she wasn’t embarrassed by that, because Ethan was there to take care of her, and everything he did or said made her strong. He hadn’t even touched her intimately, and yet every part of her was singing with awareness, and she only knew how it felt to soften and melt against him. She clung to him, asking—for what, she hardly knew. She had so much to discover. She had everything to learn.
Ethan carried her across the room to the bed and laid her down on it, where she rested with one arm above her head on a stack of pillows in an attitude of innocent seduction. The linen felt cool and crisp against her raging skin, and she was lost in an erotic haze when she noticed Ethan moving away. ‘You’re not leaving me?’ She sat up.
‘This is wrong.’
‘What do you mean, “wrong”?’ She was blissfully unaware of how nakedly provocative she was to him. ‘What’s wrong about it?’ Now her cheeks were on fire. ‘Do you still think I’m too young for you?’
‘Correct.’ Ethan sounded relieved that she had given him an out. ‘Get dressed, Savannah.’
Grabbing his arm, she pushed her face in front of his. ‘I won’t let you do this.’
‘You have no choice.’
‘No choice but to be humiliated?’ Her voice broke, but Ethan still shook himself free. As he stood looking down at her she thought he had never seemed more magnificent. Or more distant. ‘Why?’ She opened her arms. ‘Why?’ she repeated softly. ‘Why are you doing this to me, Ethan? Why bring me here at all?’
Because he had thought mistakenly that for one short night he could forget. But the seeds of doubt had been planted deep inside him when his stepfather had assured him in hospital that no one would ever want to look at him again. That message had been driven home when his mother had recoiled from her own child. Was he going to inflict that same horror on Savannah when she saw his others scars? Knowing they were the answer to finishing this, he turned his back so she could see them. The scars on his face were bad enough, but those on his back were truly horrific.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘If you expect me to exclaim in horror, you’ll be disappointed. These scars make no difference to the way I feel about you.’
‘No difference?’
‘They don’t change what I feel about you in here.’
Savannah’s hand rested over her heart. He tried dismissing that with a shrug, but she called him back.
‘The damage might be all that others see—but I see you, Ethan.’
‘Me?’ he mocked unkindly.
‘Your scars don’t change a thing for me, except that—’
‘Yes?’ he cut across her, certain now that he must have destroyed her argument.
‘They keep us apart,’ she finished softly.
Just when Ethan needed her to be strong, she was crying for him, and for what he had lost.
‘Dry your face and leave me, Savannah,’ he said harshly.
‘I’m not going anywhere. Your scars don’t frighten me.’
‘Then you haven’t looked at them properly,’ he assured her.
‘Oh, but I have,’ she argued, seeing inside him more clearly than she ever had before.
‘Look at me again,’ he suggested in a voice that broke her heart.
There was only one way past this. Kneeling up on the bed, she reached out while Ethan stood tensely, like a hostile stranger. But little by little the conviction in her eyes drew him to look at her, and she traced his scars with her fingertips, traced the tramlines that criss-crossed his back and which looked as if they had been carved by a serrated knife. She traced each one of them with her eyes and with her fingertips, until she reached his beloved face.
‘I revolt you,’ he said confidently. ‘You don’t need to pretend.’
‘I don’t need to be here at all,’ she pointed out. ‘Oh, Ethan, you couldn’t possibly revolt me. You amaze me.’ Ethan’s scars would always be a hideous reminder of the cruelty one human being could inflict on another, but they didn’t make one jot of difference to the way she felt about him.
‘How can I make love to you?’ Ethan demanded. ‘How?’ he repeated with the same passion Savannah had shown him, and when she didn’t reply he cupped her chin to make her look at him.
‘The usual way?’ she suggested softly, and because she loved him so much she risked the ghost of a smile. ‘Just don’t look to me for any pointers.’
Ethan thought her so cosseted and protected she couldn’t tolerate anything that wasn’t perfect, when nothing could be further from the truth, Savannah realised as he stripped off his clothes. ‘You think my world is all concerts and evening dresses, lace and perfume?’ She reached for his hand and laid her cheek against it. ‘I was brought up on a farm with straw in my hair, wearing dungarees, and that’s where I’ve always been happiest. I can take reality, Ethan, in rather large doses.’
‘So reality like this doesn’t trouble you?’ Ethan wiped one hand roughly down the scars on his chest.
‘Please don’t insult me.’ As she turned her face up she was aching with the need to wrench the demons out of him. Placing her palms against his chest, she kissed her way slowly across it.
‘Don’t,’ Ethan said, tensing, but she wouldn’t stop, and finally he dragged her to him.
Those scars, terrible though they were, didn’t even begin to scratch the edges of his power. Ethan was like a gladiator in some ancient etching, wounded but triumphant, and she was hard pressed to think of anything with more sex appeal than that. But inside his heart there was nothing, Savannah’s tender inner-self warned her. Yes, she answered back, Ethan’s heart was cold, but she had to hope that in time her love would warm him. ‘I want you,’ she murmured, staring up at him.
‘I want you too … more than you know.’ And that was true, Ethan realised as he teased Savannah with almost-kisses. She was tender and precious, young and vulnerable, and he would never hurt her. And maybe her innocence was the last hope he had to heal those scars he couldn’t reach.
‘So, are you coming to bed?’ she whispered. Holding his hand, she sank back on the pillows and threw back the covers. ‘Don’t be shy.’
He laughed. She was so funny and sweet. She had stripped herself bare for him in every way, proving she trusted him, and he would never betray that trust.
As Savannah snuggled lower in the bed, waiting for Ethan, knowing he might change his mind again at any moment, she started having fears on a more practical level. His size alone filled her with apprehension. He must have sensed it, for as he stretched out on the bed at her side he said, ‘I think you’re nervous.’
‘A little,’ she admitted, in a shaking voice that betrayed her true