He studied her face for a long moment. “Seychelle, we would need to be a partnership. I can never be out of control. When I’m at my worst, at that point, you need to be in total control, and it won’t be easy for you. I don’t want to ever break your skin. That’s going too far. If I were to do that, you’d have to stop us. There can’t ever be permanent marks on you. Not ever. I don’t do that shit to you. Everything between us is consensual at all times. You agree, I agree. That’s the way it has to be.”
“How do you know you won’t cross the line, Savage, outside of sex? What if you’re so angry with me you beat me? That could happen.”
“You’re not understanding me, baby. I swear on my life, I could never beat you in anger. I’m not that man. When I start getting bad, and it’s a cycle I can’t prevent, and I know I’m going to need certain things during sex, I fight it. I go to the club in San Francisco and beat the hell out of anyone challenging me to a fight. That sometimes helps. You help me already. I feel peace when I’m with you. It’s the only time.”
“How do you know I’ll be enough for you when those other women weren’t?”
“Someone I don’t give a shit about can help a little, but you . . . you’re different, Seychelle. When I’m with you, it’s like you have the potential of taking it all away for a very long time. You can’t know what a rare gift you give to me.”
That was such bullshit. She was so much more than that to him. She had found her way inside of him. They’d been together now for months. They had the R word. Relationship. He wanted to laugh when he thought about it. That was so not him, but he knew he wanted to wake up every morning for the rest of his life with her lying next to him. He wanted to go to bed with her in his arms. Yeah, she gave him peace, but this thing between them was so much more than he was conveying to her.
“How do you know I can do that for you?”
He pressed a kiss to her belly. “I know. I know you’re mine. That for the first time in my life I want a woman to belong to me. I want to see my marks on her skin. I want to see her tears for me on her face and know she’s willing to give them to me. I know you can do that for me. My body responds to you by itself without me ordering it to respond, just at the thought of my marks on you. I have to order my cock to work any other time.” That was all true. He needed to use his whips on her. He never thought he’d be able to have someone who would love him enough to take on his pain the way he took on the pain for those he loved. He hadn’t believed there was a woman alive who would think he was worth it.
“That rage inside you. What happened to you? You weren’t born that way. I can feel the other side of you. Gentle. Sweet. Even kind. Tell me what happened to you.”
That was the last thing he wanted to do, but he knew he had no choice. Not if he was going to keep her. He’d promised himself he’d go in a hundred percent if she did. He was being honest, and he knew he was giving her the worst possible side of him, but he had to if he was going to lay out the bad and hope his good could make her want to stay.
“You feel the demon just as strong as you feel that other side of me. I need you to have the kind of courage it will take to face that monster when he emerges, and he will. There are times I can’t stop him. The small stuff, the consequences, they hold him at bay. The fight club. The rides late at night. The sex will help. All of it. But he’ll come out eventually, and you’re going to have to face him. You’re going to have to trust me, especially when he’s out.”
“You said you crave those things. All the time?”
This was another one of those telling moments. Having to admit out loud to the woman he wanted to spend his life with that he was so fucked up he liked to see his marks on her before he fucked her, all the time. Every time. He rested his head on her belly again, needing to feel her peace. The way she soothed him.
“Savage?”
She dropped her hand to his head, her fingers doing the slow massage that sent peace easing the knots in his belly. He didn’t want her to stop. He didn’t want her to ask any more questions. He just wanted her to say she would hand herself over to him. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even logical.
“Answer me, honey,” she said softly. “You’ve gone this far. I need to know.”
“When I have sex, yes. It arouses me. But finding you, knowing you would give yourself to me willingly, let me mark your skin, take a strap to you or cane you, do that for me, really participate and get off with me because you actually can love me . . .” He stopped himself. “That’s the ultimate, Seychelle. That’s the fucking dream.”