Leopard 05 - Savage Nature

protest.
    “I’m heavy, baby,” he whispered. He brushed kisses over her chin, the corner of her mouth, her temple. “I don’t want to crush you.”
    “Don’t leave me,” she murmured.
    “It won’t ever happen, Saria. I’m very much in love with you. As soon as I have the strength, I’m putting you in bed.”
    “I could crawl,” she offered.
    “I don’t think that will be necessary. Just give me a minute to catch my breath.” He managed to get a hand up to rub the strands of her damp hair between his fingers. She always felt like silk to him. Her skin. Her hair. “Is it so damned hard to admit you love me?”
    Her lashes lifted and she stared at him with eyes wide with shock. “Of course not. I’m crazy about you. I just have never said that to anyone. Maybe Pauline—once. Recently. Never as a child. And I don’t think anyone ever said it to me.”
    He suppressed a groan and buried his face against her neck. He should have thought of that. Saying “I love you” had not been a drunken man’s priority. When he was sober enough, he taught her to survive, he hadn’t taught her how to love. Pauline, maybe, had fulfilled that role in Saria’s life, but she’d been careful of being too demonstrative in case Saria’s father had stopped the child from coming to see her. Drake hid a smile against her delicious skin. He doubted Saria’s father could have stopped her from doing anything she wanted to do.
    He pressed a kiss into her throat and lifted his head to look ather again. “I love you. I’m saying it to you. Over and over. And when we have children, both of us will be saying it to them.”
    “Okay.”
    She smiled, a slow, beautiful, Saria smile that made his heart stutter and his cock pulse with life in spite of how tired he was. She made him feel alive, in the moment, every second in her company. He kissed his way up her throat to her chin and then to the corners of her mouth. “You’re so beautiful, Saria,” he whispered before his mouth settled over hers. He meant the inside of her, her character, her soul, her heart. He wasn’t a man to give flowery speeches, but she inspired them.
    He sucked at her lower lip, and then licked along the seam of her lips until she opened her mouth to him. He blanketed her again, knowing he was in trouble with her. Addicted to her kisses, craving her body, loving her smile, what the hell chance did he have with her? She was going to wrap him around her finger and get every damn thing she wanted.
    He lifted his head and glared at her. “We’re getting married immediately. I want our child to know we were in love and wanted each other.”
    “Our child?” she echoed. “We have a long way to go before we have a child.”
    “ Immediately. If I’m going to spend my lifetime giving in to you on nearly every issue, I get this one.”
    She laughed and pushed at him. “You are crazy, Drake. You’re workin’ yourself into a fine snit for no reason. We’ll get married any time you want. I said yes, remember?”
    He forced his body to work. “Where’s the bedroom?”
    She looked around her with a slightly daze expression. “Over there. Tante Marie just left a few days ago, so the blankets are still fresh. She keeps them in that closet inside a plastic tub.”
    He eased his body from the couch, found he could stand and padded across the wooden floor to the room she indicated. “Why do you call her Tante Marie? Is she your aunt?”
    Saria propped her head on her hand. “In a manner of speaking. Every child called her Tante Marie. She’s the recognized local Traiteur —our healer. She’s very good too. Everyone goes to her, all up and down the swamp. The bayous. Even from town. If she can’t find the right plant to heal you, there isn’t one.”
    “And she lives here?” Drake tried to keep the shock from his voice. The cabin was very small and obviously old. Everything was very clean, but very rustic.
    “She grew up here, went away to nursing school, and like most of us, found she didn’t really want to be away. This is her family home and she’s comfortable in it. Every few months she leaves for a couple of weeks to visit her sister.”
    Drake spread the sheets on the bed and added pillows and a blanket before gathering Saria in his arms.
    She wrinkled her nose. “I’m all sweaty.”
    “I like you sweaty. It’s sexy.”
    She laughed and buried her face against his chest. “On you maybe.”
    He could feel her tongue sliding over his