Annihilation Road (41 page)

He didn’t want Seychelle to resent Alena, or to ever tell Seychelle that she would suffer physical pain because he took on Alena’s emotional pain. That would break Alena’s heart. That would totally break Alena. Damage her beyond repair. He had never wanted to put his fellow members of Torpedo Ink, his brothers and sisters, into anyone else’s hands—yet he had.

Seychelle was aware of one of his psychic talents—the one that made him feel worthwhile, worthy of living, when he was such a monster. He had spent so many years working on perfecting his ability, making his talent strong so he could help the others without their knowledge, the only real contribution he felt he could make that kept him human and showed them he loved them. They wouldn’t ever know—but he would.

“I thought it was so beautiful what you gave her. What you did for her, Savage.” She turned her head away from him, but not before he caught the sheen of tears. She blinked several times. “That’s real love. I felt it on the notes. I can feel emotion on the notes I sing. I know that sounds insane, but I can. You love her so much. And you took all that pain for her, and it came through with such love.” Her voice trembled, and she dashed at the tears on her face.

Savage wanted to gather her in his arms. He stepped closer to her, forcing her knees apart so he could wedge his hips between her legs, but he merely rested his palms on her thighs. Seychelle had something to say, and she took her time getting things out. He had to learn to let her say her piece.

“I loved you so much in that moment. I loved you so much it hurt, and I knew then, just knowing what you do, that I would have the courage to face that same thing for you, because I love you that much.” She turned her head and looked at him, her gaze perfectly steady. “It isn’t that I’m just physically attracted to you. I love who you are inside. I can see you. Sometimes I see you when you can’t. But I know I don’t know how to do the things that you’re going to need. Just feeling what you were doing, I realized there really is a time frame, and what if I’m not ready? Just like last time?” There was a little sob in her voice. “I couldn’t bear it if you went to someone else because I didn’t know what I was doing, Savage.”

He captured her face between his hands. “Baby, we’ve had this conversation. I told you, there will never be another woman for me. Never. It isn’t going to happen. You’re going to be all I ever need, and I’ll be the same for you. We’ll do this together.” He poured absolute conviction into his voice. Deliberately, he used his dominant tone, velvet over steel, low and certain. His thumb moved gently over her lips. “I don’t like that you don’t have confidence in me. Or yourself. Or us.”

“It’s the time frame. I don’t know how to learn the things you need faster, Savage. I’ve never even . . .” She broke off, her gaze dropping to his cock.

“You’re doing just fine, Seychelle. You let me worry about what you need to learn and when. As far as you taking my cock down your throat, if that’s what that bitch was taunting you with, the truth is, baby, I never took them any other way. I never used my own whips on them. It was too intimate. I never kissed them. I never put my marks, my patterns, on their backs or their fronts. I put stripes on them, and I fucked their
mouths. I got my release and got them off with my hand and I got the hell out. I told you I wasn’t a nice man.”

Savage bent his head and brushed kisses over her eyes and then her lips. Tender. Soft little kisses. He straightened and pushed back her hair. “You’re my woman. You’re the one I’m intimate with. To everyone else it might be a fucked-up kind of intimacy, but it’s ours. And every time I touch you, I’m saying I love you. No other woman can ever say that. I hope you feel it when I touch you, whether it’s with my hand or with my whip.”

He felt the little shiver that went through her body. He trailed one hand from her throat down the curves of her generous breasts to her nipples. “When I clamp you, or have my mouth or teeth on you, I hope you feel how much I love you, because I’m showing you.”

She nodded her head, but her fingers were plucking nervously at the hem of her shirt. He stilled them.

“Baby, you have to stop worrying that we aren’t going to be ready. I have you. Since the first day I met you I started getting you ready.” He caught her restless hand and pulled her fingers to his mouth, biting down until her eyes went wide. He sucked at the stinging flesh until her eyes went dark and her lips parted.

“You have?”

He nodded. “It’s always been you.
Always.
Ask any of the others in the club. I’ve never looked at another woman and wanted to claim her for my own. I don’t necessarily think that makes you lucky, baby, but when I say I’m in a hundred percent, I mean it. I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. I’m loyal to you. I don’t want you to let someone like Shari shake your confidence.”

She leaned toward him and rested her forehead against his chest. “Alena’s pain was visceral. There was so much. I could feel the others and the rage they felt because this man was causing her pain. They couldn’t even feel how deep her emotion went, not like you. They couldn’t tell what you
were doing. I knew then that we were going to be on a very short timetable and it was going to be me slowing us down, causing you to carry that load much longer than necessary.”

His heart stuttered in his chest.
Bog
, every time he thought it was impossible to love her any more, she said or did something like that and he was overwhelmed with emotion for her. Swamped with it. So much he could barely breathe. He knew rage. He knew pain. He hadn’t known anything could be so good.

He caught the hair at the nape of her neck in his fist and pulled her head back so she was forced to meet his eyes. “We’re on exactly the right timetable, Seychelle. You let me worry about what you need to know. I’m the one teaching you. Understand?”

Those long lashes fluttered, putting resolution in his heart and knots in his gut. She did him in so easily.

“Yes. I just want you to know I’m with you, Savage. I think I could do better at home. I’m not so nervous.”

“Nervous is good. You should be nervous,” he pointed out. “Are you finished? Did we cover everything you needed to say to me? Everything you were worried about?” Reluctantly, he released her hair.

“I should be nervous?” she echoed.

“Answer me first. I want to know we took care of everything you were concerned with.”

Her eyes went wide. “Yes.” She slid off the railing and leaned against it.

He paced away from her, taking a breath. “Baby, I think I explained the rules to you, right? We went over them very carefully, and why they were in place. I’m the kind of man who needs to be in control at all times. It’s dangerous for me to be out of control. I have to be calm in every situation. I’ve never had problems with that before. My brothers say I have ice flowing in my veins.” He turned to face her and gave her a faint smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “The thought of you in danger throws me into a nightmare situation.”

Her brows drew together as if she had no idea where he was going with what he was saying, which only took him up a notch higher. He took a deep breath and let it out.

“Tell me, babe, what exactly were you doing when Doris and Campbell went to visit you? Mechanic sent me a video. You were playing both of them, using your voice on Doris to counteract his. And you were deliberately egging that bastard on, letting him see you weren’t falling for his shit.” Instead of looking at her as if her answer meant something, Savage stared at the turbulent waves crashing against the boulders and sea stacks.

“Brandon Campbell keeps visiting Doris, and he’s doing it on purpose as a threat to me.” Seychelle leaned over the railing, her body close to his. Her hair blew around her face, the thick strands of platinum-and-gold-colored hair covering her expression. “He’s telling me he can control Doris the way he did Sahara. I made certain to take Doris back and clear her mind so his stupid, pitiful voice doesn’t work on her.”

A surge of fear welled up like an eruption of a volcano, hot and massive, spewing adrenaline through his body, laced with a rage. Savage fought it down, although he had the urge to take one of her wrists and tie it to that column she was holding on to and then stretch her other arm to the other column. She needed a good lesson in making herself a target without her man to protect her.

“Did it occur to you that all he had to do was talk to Doris again when you weren’t around and make suggestions for her to harm herself?”

Seychelle turned around to face him, her back to the railing, that particular stance causing her breasts to thrust right at him. She looked inviting. Too inviting. She gave him a little smug smile. “He can try, but it won’t work. His little parlor trick of a voice doesn’t hold a candle to mine. Once I found his exact sequence of notes, I was able to counter it easily. He won’t be able to make suggestions to Doris or in any way influence her against me or anyone else.”

Savage couldn’t resist drawing a line with his fingertip from her chin down her throat between the valley of her breasts. She shivered, and her nipples grew into hard little pebbles for him. Her eyes went dark and remained steady on his.

“You wanted him to see that you took Sahara from him, didn’t you?”

“I wish I could have taken Sahara completely from him. I tried. If I’d had more time with her, I could have. But she is safe, as long as her parents can keep her away, and then time will do the rest. He had so much time to ruin her. To get in her head. He’s evil, Savage.”

“Exactly, Seychelle.” He held out his hand to her. She took it immediately. No hesitation. “He was in the bar. Watching you.”

“I saw him. I suspect he’s influencing Shari. I was trying to figure that out when she was talking to me outside.”

Savage’s gut knotted even more. “Did it occur to you that he’s a vindictive little shit and that he’s likely to come after you?” He stepped inside the house and took her with him.

“I’m not susceptible to his voice, and other than that, he’s a coward, Savage. He doesn’t really have any other weapons.”

“He’s a vindictive shit,” he repeated and took her straight to the master bedroom.

The master suite was everything Savage could possibly want. He would have bought the house for that alone. He had wanted a room with a lot of space, one where he could see the ocean from nearly every angle. If not the wild sea, then the woods surrounding the privacy of the courtyard off the master suite. The bedroom, sitting room and master bath had everything he could possibly want and more.

The bedroom was enormous, the walls a textured seaweed in a muted sage color. The ceilings were high, with those same beams running throughout the house. The wood floor gleamed, but he had thick rugs in various places, including in front of the long in-wall gas fireplace. A padded bench was placed near the bed, carved from a dark cherrywood, the cover a deep royal-blue leather.

Three long curved stairs led down to the sitting area, another huge space where the walls of glass gave such a view of the sea. A royal-blue leather divan was placed facing inward, the head toward the window, foot toward the center of the room. A post rose from the floor at the head
of the divan with several metal rings attached. There were two shorter posts on either side with rings at the end. A wide railing made of the same cherrywood as the spanking bench was curved around one bank of windows, the same thick royal-blue leather over the top of it.

There were so many little touches for him, so many discoveries for his woman. He couldn’t wait to show them all to Seychelle. She was exhausted, and they had to get certain things out of the way before she could go to bed.

“We talked about the things that upset you, baby. I listened to every word. It’s very important that you pay close attention to me now.”

Her head went up alertly, sensing she was on dangerous ground.

“I told you not to leave the bar and the safety of the club members, Seychelle. Do you recall me saying that to you?” He kept his voice very low. A whisper of command. He saw the shiver go through her.

She bit her lower lip and nodded, avoiding his eyes.

“I require an answer, and look at me when you do.” He poured steel into that. When he did, his cock responded. His body knew what was coming. He was already getting aroused just by being in the room with his woman and his personal toys.

“Yes.”

“You had to have realized I would have come to you immediately if I wasn’t still working. By going outside, where two obsessed Diamondbacks followed you—as well as Brandon Campbell and Joseph Arnold, who was in the bushes taking pictures of you—you divided my attention. Instead of doing the job I was supposed to do, I found myself worrying about my woman. If for some reason Alena was targeted and I had to protect her, I might have been too slow, and she could have gotten killed.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “I’m sorry, Savage. I just
stepped outside for the fresh air. I’ve never gone that long without a break.”

“You could have stepped into one of the back rooms. Fatei wasn’t happy, and he must have expressed that to you.” He could tell by her face that the man had. “You don’t get to ignore or override whoever I put on you to look after you like that, Seychelle. They’re there to protect you while I’m working.” He kept his voice controlled.

Seychelle didn’t pull away from him or slow down at all when he took her to the side of the bed. She had to know what was coming. They’d been there before. He’d warned her that the next time, he wasn’t going to be quite so nice about it. His cock throbbed and ached with the strain of anticipation. Outside, the roar of the pounding sea added to the fierce, hot blood rushing through his veins.

“It wasn’t fair to ignore Fatei when he was just following my orders. You put him in a bad situation. If the Diamondbacks had insisted on coming after you, he would have had to defend you, and what do you think would have happened then?”

“I’m sorry, Savage. I didn’t think about any of that. I’ll apologize to him.”

“Then there’s Shari. You continually put yourself in a position of having to deal with her. I told you we would get rid of her, but you said it wasn’t a problem. You could have gone back into the bar, but you didn’t. You deliberately decided to confront her. Again, Fatei tried, very gently, to get you to go into the bar . . .”

Her chin went up and her eyes flashed fire at him. “I refuse to retreat in front of that woman. She would gloat and think I was afraid of her.”

He caught her chin, deliberately clamping down hard between his finger and thumb. “Perhaps you do need to be a little more afraid of me than I thought. Better that than put every member of our club in danger. Shari is nothing at all, and you know it. That isn’t the real reason you decided to
confront her. This was about Brandon Campbell. Once again, you were putting yourself in harm’s way. You stay away from Campbell. You ignore Shari. Do you understand me? She won’t be welcome in our bar, but if she comes around you again, you walk away without even looking at her.”

His eyes refused to allow hers to look away. He held her gaze until her defiance melted and she nodded.

“Good.” He leaned down and took her mouth. Gently. Tenderly. Loving her.
Bog
, love swamped him, wrapped him up until he felt as if he were drowning in it. She rained fire on him. In him. The flames rushed through his veins. His palms shaped her face when he lifted his head.

“I really did find this house some time ago but passed on it. What was the point, when I didn’t have anyone that I could share it with? I was so damn sure I would never have anyone. I thought the house would just mock me if I kept it empty. When you came back from your trip that scared the shit out of me, I ended up calling the agent, took one look, imagined you here with me and had to have it.”

One hand slid from her cheek to her throat, just lying across it to feel her heartbeat to see if it was going as crazy as his. “You’re going to strip and put your clothes on the end table and then stand right there and wait for me. I’m going to give you another lesson in sinful, dirty sex. Tomorrow, when you’re not so tired, maybe I’ll teach you to crave the fire, baby.”

She pressed her lips together and a shiver went through her body, but she didn’t hesitate. She unbuttoned the little shells on her blouse and let the garment slip from her shoulders, folding it carefully and placing it on the end table before reaching behind her and unhooking her bra, spilling her tits out. They were firm and round with those perfect nipples, drawing his instant attention. She was tormenting him almost beyond his control.

His breath caught in his lungs and just stayed there at the erotic sight of her. “Keep stripping, baby.”

Seychelle’s hands dropped to the waistband of her jeans, and she slowly opened them and began peeling them off her hips, taking her panties with them.

His hands moved up her ribs, fingers tracing each one, finding the path to the undersides of her breasts. “Love the shape of you. I can wrap leather around your tit so nicely. One stroke. One easy curl. Do you have any idea what that would feel like? Or on your gorgeous ass? I can write my name. Lay the sun on your back.”

Seychelle reacted with goose bumps forming on her body. Her legs moved restlessly.

He swept his hand over her bare mound. “Right here, I would mark you with my initials.” His fingers traveled lower to feather over her clit and her entrance, already slick with heat and her golden liquid cream. Yeah, she wanted what he did. He took her hand and pressed it over the thick bulge stretching the material of his jeans. “Just the thought of it makes me harder than hell.”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, her eyes on his, never looking away. “How do you do that, Savage?” Her voice was low, intrigued, already husky with need. “Make me want you so much I can barely think.”

“I can teach you to love the feel of fire. Do you want to try tomorrow? It’s early. Advanced. We can go easy, try something else. Something with just a different type of leather.” He almost couldn’t breathe waiting for her answer. He
needed
now. That fast, she’d seduced him into needing the whip. Made him want. Lust. Fuck, he couldn’t lie to himself. He was desperate to have his partner fully in his world, but she had to consent, she had to want it. “With the crop. Keep building you up to it.”

He bent his head and took her left tit into his mouth, pulling strong, loving the weight of it, the softness, the way she instantly cradled his head. His tongue slid over her nipple and teased and rolled with expert care. He lifted his gaze to hers and then let go. “Anything I do to you, I’m
worshipping you. Not just your body, Seychelle. You. I want you to feel it. Do you?”

She nodded. “Last night when you woke me a million times, each time, each way, fast, slow, it didn’t matter, it felt like worshipping.”

He had been worshipping her. He kissed her chin. That little chin she liked to stick out at him sometimes. “I’m glad you felt it, baby. I do worship you. That’s not ever going to be a secret, not to anyone who knows me. That’s why it’s so important that you stick close to me. I’ve got enemies, Seychelle. Torpedo Ink has enemies, but I personally have them too.”

“You told me. I understand. I’m not going to go back on my word. You’ll know where I am, and if you say I need to stick close, I will.”

“You gotta learn that lesson, baby. Not just pay lip service to it. I tell you to stay put, you have to do it.”

Savage cupped her breasts, his thumbs strumming her nipples. He loved them. The color, the way they stood out. The way she shivered for him and pushed into his hand. He tugged. Rolled. Pinched and then bit down just a little harder with his fingers and thumbs, watching her eyes darken. Watching the way the breath rushed from her lungs. He let go and leaned his head down to soothe the sting with his tongue.

“If something ever happens to me, Seychelle, you stick with Torpedo Ink. You have to let them watch over you. What you’re learning. This thing we’re doing together. It won’t go away. You understand that, right?” He lapped at her right breast while he kneaded her left one, then took it into his mouth, still gently. Tenderly.

“You told me.”

He lifted his head. “Telling you isn’t you understanding.” She was right. They were going to run out of time if he didn’t get down to business and work her body up to accepting what she could handle. There was so much. So
many things. Depending on how bad it was, the level he got to when the monster emerged, he needed her body to get used to mixing pain and pleasure, because when that time came, she would need the training desperately.

“You’re absolutely certain, Seychelle?” He needed for her to give her consent. She had to be a willing participant. That was what made it all the more exciting to him—that Seychelle
wanted
to give herself to him, to allow him to whip her when she knew it would cause her pain and yet bring her multiple orgasms. Her dilemma. How long would she hold on for him? How long would she wait before she said
enough
? She’d never once stopped the hard spankings with his hands. Or the leather belt. The strap. Or the clamps. But he’d been relatively gentle.

“I’m certain.”

“I have a little surprise for you. I know how much you love clamps.” He tugged on her nipples. “You have the perfect nipples for them. I love your tits so damn much. They’re perfect for jewelry. You were made for me. For everything I love and need. Stay right here. Don’t move.”

He waited until she complied before he went to the dresser and removed a pair of black drawstring pants. Shedding his clothes, he donned just the black pants. They gave him more room and were far more comfortable. There was a tall wooden cabinet built into the wall against the window. He pulled open the top drawer and selected a long black box. He carried it back to her.

“Ice is a jeweler—a rather famous one. When I said he was making a ring for you, I wasn’t kidding around. He made these clamps at my request as well. I have several different ones for you, but these are beautiful, and I think they go with my mood right now.” He lifted them out of the box to show her.

Seychelle’s eyes went wide and then dark with arousal. She definitely had a thing with clamps, although he didn’t think she would fall in love with this set right away. They
were beautiful. The clips were heavy pieces of teardrop black metal, ornate and inlaid with sparkling teardrop gems.

“These are clover clamps. These aren’t adjustable, baby, they just pinch down on your nipples the way I pinch them or bite them, a steady, relentless pressure.” As he talked to her, he stroked her left breast, his cock going so hot he thought it might burst into flames. “The pressure is steady at all times, or increases when the chain is pulled or there are weights on the clip. See, I can add weights in the form of these beautiful gems Ice created.”

He lifted the various chains of diamonds and sapphires and emeralds out of the box so he could hold them up. They swung invitingly. “You’ll look so beautiful with jewelry on. And when it comes off, it will be such a rush. You’ll want to scream for me to fuck you. But we have one rule, don’t we? You never scream. You can give me your tears. Those are mine and I want them, but you don’t scream, not unless you’re coming, and you don’t do that until I tell you it’s the right time.”