Annihilation Road (29 page)

“I don’t understand what you mean. You say you used other women, but not your skills.”

“Anyone can use a fuckin’ whip, Seychelle. A few strikes, get the job done, shove your cock down their throat and get a little relief. That’s what I mean by not using my skills on any other woman. With you, I would want to actually put my marks on you. Patterns. I would lay awake every damn night thinking about it, craving it, wishing for one woman,
my
woman. You. You’re the only woman I crave to use my skills on. They’re considerable. The minute I laid eyes on you, I started putting in real time making certain I would never make a mistake.”

There was pride in his voice, and he couldn’t keep it out. Maybe there should have been shame, but he was long past that. He had come to terms with who he was, what he was, and now that he had accepted that he was going to claim her, he wasn’t going to apologize. He still expected her to tell him to go to hell and get out. What woman would stay after that confession? But she sat there in her favorite spot, just looking at him with her big blue eyes, making it impossible for him to tell what she was thinking.

“You’ve thought about this a lot.”

“Just about every fucking minute of the day since I met you.” He slid his palm up her thigh. “I look at your skin and know it’s mine.” He dropped his hand over his hard cock. “That’s arousing, Seychelle, just the thought of what I can do. What you would let me do. The tears that you give to me. They’re mine.” He’d said that before to her, but she never asked him what he meant. He’d stolen those tears more than once from her, and she hadn’t stopped him.

She took a deep breath. “I’m at my limit right now. I have to think about what you’ve said. I’d really like to take that ride with you.”

She would like the bike. That was a plus on his side. He nodded and slid off the bed. “Dress warm, baby. It’s cold on the highway at night.”

He watched her slide off the bed. The way she moved was poetry. More than her looks, it was the brightness shining out of her that got to him. He felt it when he was with her. He was dark and ugly inside. She was light and so damned good he had no business pulling her down to his level, but it didn’t matter. It really wasn’t a choice anymore, not now that he knew she existed, not now that he’d been with her for so many weeks and he knew she needed him. He would be careful with her, but at the same time, it was necessary to prepare her for the bad times—and there were always going to be bad times with him.

She went into the bathroom, and he waited a couple of minutes and then opened the door and leaned against the doorjamb. She looked startled, outraged and then resigned.

“Do you understand about privacy?” She didn’t even bother to get angry.

“I understand very little about it,” he admitted, uncaring about anyone else and their privacy. This was about conditioning. This was about slowly drawing her into his world.

“Great. I’ll explain it to you. Privacy is where a person is free from being observed by another person. In this case,
me shutting the door means don’t disturb me, I want to be alone.”

“Thanks for that explanation. In this case, I don’t really give a fuck. I wanted to tell you something.”

“What was so important you thought you would disturb my privacy?”

Now there was amusement in her voice. He liked that about her. She had a great sense of humor, and she was going to need it.

“Not certain you deserve to know.”

“Fine, don’t tell me. Just remember the definition of privacy.”

“I will, baby, if you promise to remember that you follow my rules.”

Her gaze met his across the room. “Do your rules include me not going to the bathroom by myself? Because, seriously, if you have a fetish that includes anything to do with the bathroom, that’s kind of a deal breaker for me right off the bat.”

“No fetish, babe. Just don’t like you closing doors on me.”

She studied his expression for a long time, so long he felt his heart begin to accelerate. “Are you going to lay out your rules for me, or do I have to guess at them?”

“I’ll lay them out, Seychelle. Because breaking them carries consequences, some pretty rough. It wouldn’t be fair to you if you didn’t know the rules ahead of time. I am Torpedo Ink, same as my brothers and Alena and Lana. There are rules to living in a club as well.”

“What happened to freedom, Savage? I thought clubs were all about freedom.”

“Just as society has bullshit rules, we have them too.”

She blinked and then laughed as she washed her hands in the sink. “At least you’re aware your rules are bullshit.”

“Yeah, they’re bullshit, but you still have to follow them. It’s the only way to keep me sane.” He waited until she
pulled on jeans and a sweater, then held out his hand. “Let’s go. You’re going to get a real taste of what freedom is.”

She took his hand with only the briefest of hesitations. He pulled her into him. She was small, soft and all curves. He loved fitting her close to him.

“Where are we going?”

“Up the coast.” He swept his arm around her and walked her out to his bike. Just the sight of it settled him. The two things that mattered most in his world were coming together. He handed her gloves and then checked to make certain her jacket was very warm. He turned her so she was facing away from him, and he put his arms around her in order to zip the jacket all the way up.

“I’m going over the bike with you, babe, so don’t be nervous. You’re shaking.”

“I am a little nervous,” she admitted. “But mostly I’m excited.”

He showed her the foot pegs, folding and unfolding them, and explained how to get on and off. He explained how hot the pipes could get and to keep clear. He took her patiently through everything there was about being on a bike with him. He was a little astonished when she repeated everything back to him verbatim.

“I want your arms around my waist, Seychelle, at all times. When I lean, you just go with me. Not any further. Just exactly what I do. Like we’re making love. You got that, baby? You think you’re ready for this?”

She nodded. “Absolutely.”

Savage put Seychelle’s helmet on her, making certain it was snug. He made a mental note to buy her motorcycle gear.

She got on like a pro, swinging up behind him and settling close. Her arms circled his waist and then her hands pressed into his belly. He fuckin’ loved that. He hadn’t known what it would feel like, but it felt natural. Like she belonged.

Then they were flying down the road. Highway 1 was a perfect road for motorcycles. The curves were sweet, banking first one way and then the other. Some were wide and sweeping, while others were tight. There were switchbacks and then stretches of open road, all with the ocean on one side and the mountains rising on the other.

Savage had never allowed a woman on the back of his bike. He would have taken Lana or Alena, had they needed it, but they were his sisters. He’d grown up with them and he had known both since they were toddlers, but they had their own motorcycles. He’d been apprehensive about how he would feel with Seychelle on his bike, his one sanctuary.

She moved with him. The slightest shift in his body, and her body followed his. She was a natural rider. A natural passenger. She didn’t anticipate, she only moved when he did. To Savage, it felt as if they were one being, man, woman and machine. It was a little surreal and very sexy. He became aware of the heavy vibration of his ride. The pulsation moved through his body, taking him places he had never gone when she wasn’t with him.

As they roared down the highway, he knew the connection between them continued to grow. He felt it. That woman in her, reaching for him, adjusting to the road with him, draining that hot rage inside of him away, the way the bike and the open highway did. He dropped his hand over hers and pressed her palms deep into his belly. Over his jacket. His colors.

Savage had plenty of practice living in the moment. He chose to do that right then. Live in that moment with Seychelle and his bike. He let the wind take him. He wrapped his hand around her thigh possessively and settled back to let the machine move through the turns with the ease of long practice. His Night Rod Special was smooth and took every curve as if it weren’t there.

He heard the others coming up behind him long before they actually managed to catch up, although he’d been
going slow, mostly for Seychelle’s sake. He wanted her to get used to the way the bike reacted to every bend in the road. He wanted to get a feel for her moving with him. There was satisfaction in knowing she trusted him implicitly on the back of his bike. She would need that same trust in every aspect of their relationship.

He took her to his favorite place, where the bluff overlooked the ocean. It would give the others a chance to catch up before they hit the restaurant in Elk. He liked the food, as a rule. The place wasn’t Alena’s, but they had a good chef. He helped her dismount, knowing her legs would be shaky. She kept her hand on his shoulder for a few moments, steadying herself before she stepped away and carefully walked toward the edge.

“Don’t get too close,” he cautioned, coming up behind her and putting his arms around her waist. She leaned back against him, almost without thinking. “Love it when the sun goes down—you can see the water turning colors,” he added.

The bikes came up behind them. Four of them. He glanced over his shoulder to see Reaper helping Anya off his Harley-Davidson Fat Boy Softail. The paint was a dark burgundy, like dried blood. Dark black leather seat, black trim, black chrome, and there was an image of a scythe with a heart wrapped around it. His brother and his old lady. Anya, in such a short time, had become a sister to Savage. She was very accepting of everyone. She waited patiently while Reaper situated the bike, and then he slung his arm around her and walked her up beside Savage and Seychelle.

Anya bumped his hip. “See you brought your girl to the best spot to watch the sunset.” She gave Seychelle a cheerful smile. “I love evenings on the coast. The sun always looks like it’s pouring gold into the sea.”

“Or flames,” Savage said, his mouth close to Seychelle’s ear.

“It is beautiful,” Seychelle agreed, giving Anya a quick, welcoming smile.

Her gaze went straight back to the sun. It appeared huge, a giant red-gold ball dropping fast from the sky, pouring colors into the water.

Preacher, Ink and Code had arrived with Reaper and Anya. They came up behind them, their gazes drawn to the colors streaking across the sky and turning the sea into a panorama of golds, reds and oranges, blazing as it sank into the water. It was a breathtaking sight, and Seychelle reacted, turning her face up to look at Savage over her shoulder.

“It’s always different, isn’t it?” she said to him.

Savage took advantage, one hand cupping Seychelle’s face to keep her there as he bent to brush his lips gently over hers. Coaxing. Seducing. His heart lurched, and he pulled back abruptly, love for her swamping him.

“It
is
always different,” Anya answered for him. “I love this coast. Sometimes it’s wild and turbulent, so stormy it looks like something out of a gothic novel, and then it’s like glass, smooth, brilliant and so calm it looks like you could walk on it.”

“Kind of like you,” Reaper said, his arm tightening around her neck.

She threw back her head and laughed. Seychelle laughed with her, and Savage found the sound spread out for him in the form of musical notes, floating out toward the sea and that amazing spinning ball of fire. The notes were golden, skipping through the air on the slight breeze. He often saw sounds as notes, and when he was young, he used to point them out to his brother and others, but no one else could see them. He’d learned to judge people by the colors of the notes. He hadn’t seen them in years—not until Seychelle brought them back in the form of gold.

Code nudged Savage. “Message came in for Czar. Plank wants another meet.”

Savage wanted time with Seychelle. As much as he could get. He sent Code a look that warned him to back off. He didn’t want to have to explain anything to do with the club before he clarified what she would be getting into if she chose to stay with him. And, God help them both, he needed her to stay.

“The sea does look like you could walk on it,” Preacher said. “Maybe we should toss Ink out there and see if he can.”

“Yeah, and I can, so then what would you do? Worship me as you should. As all the ladies do.”

Savage put his hands over Seychelle’s ears. “Don’t listen, babe, he’s full of shit.”

“I think all of you are,” Seychelle said, laughing, those golden notes floating out to sea.

Savage was captivated by her sound. He couldn’t help but laugh as well. It wasn’t a big laugh, because he was very rusty, but it was there. That soft, underlying note in her voice seemed to reach inside him and find an answering note in him.

Never once had he seen his own musical notes floating in the air. Not as a child. Not as a teen. Not even when he rode his bike or wore his colors. Now he could see them, plain as day, traveling with hers, interlocking her gold to his deeper antique silver. They linked together, melted into each other, blending colors so that they gleamed like flames as the sun plunged into the sea.

His breath caught in his throat. His chest hurt, as if a huge weight pressed down on him. His lungs burned for air. He couldn’t take his gaze from the spot where those notes sank with the blazing fire of the sun. Her notes were beautiful, like she was, inside and out. He had always thought, if he could see notes he created, they would be dark and ugly, but they hadn’t been.

His notes were darker than hers, and they didn’t skitter across the sky in the same joyful way hers had, but they were beautiful in their own way. And they overtook hers
and merged so that, joined, they appeared different, even more brilliant, although the colors were deeper, and took on the fiery colors that were falling into the sea. When they disappeared beneath the water, he stood, arms around her, transfixed, unable to move or even think.

“That was amazing,” Seychelle whispered, as in awe as he was, although he was certain it was the sunset and not the musical notes they shared.