Savage took his time, was meticulous in washing her before stretching out beside her on his belly, his hands framing her face. “I will love you, Seychelle, more than any other man in this world can possibly love you. I swear that to you. At the end of our days, you’ll never be sorry you took a chance with me.”
He meant every single word of that promise. Her smile was slow in coming, but it lit her face and then her eyes, taking his heart. She traced the lines cut deep in his face.
“I love you, Savage. I’ll stick with you. Just take your time with me.”
He wished they had all the time in the world and he didn’t have to worry about how his mind was so fucked up, but she already knew. “I’ll do my best, baby.” He rolled over, slid down in the bed and laid his head on her belly. His favorite place to sleep.
“Just so you know, I’m throwing those books in the garbage,” Seychelle declared, her hand on Savage’s head, fingers massaging his scalp. “They are no help at all. If they have one huge lie, maybe everything is a lie.”
He tilted his head to look up at her. “What kind of books have you been reading?”
Her blue eyes shifted away from his, long lashes sweeping down. “This and that. Self-help. That kind of thing.”
He turned onto his stomach so he could look up at her easily. “What are you trying to learn, babe?” It was a demand.
She started laughing. Little golden notes rose in a musical symphony all around, forcing him to turn back so he could watch them dance their way to the ceiling. He loved that. She could make his life like those musical notes. Floating. Drifting. Happy.
“I don’t know that much about sex, Savage. I went to the bar with the idea that we’d get together, and I didn’t want to disappoint you, so I read as much as I could. I was already on birth control, which, by the way, you should have asked me before we did anything.”
“I already knew you were. I’ve been here for a few months now. It’s not exactly a huge bathroom. You keep it in the top drawer. Why the hell are you on birth control when you weren’t sleeping with anyone?”
“I intended to sleep with tons of men. Tons of them. I didn’t think I had long to live, and I wanted to experience everything. I was going to be a wild woman. But then I started meeting them and I didn’t exactly like them enough to get all sinful and dirty with them.”
It was his turn to laugh. He was shocked when silver notes rose to the ceiling, floating up in a glittering musical display. A lump rose in his throat, and he turned back over and tightened his arm around her hips. “I don’t know whether to turn you over my knee or just kiss you until you can’t think straight and won’t ever consider that again.”
“After what we did together, I don’t think I’ll be considering other men, Savage.”
He rolled, caught her waist, flipped her over him to bring her onto his lap and swatted her hard on her bottom, then put her back into the same position so he could pillow his head on her belly. She let out a squeal of protest when he smacked her hard, but only glared at him.
“That’s not a proper answer, Seychelle. The proper answer would be, ‘I will never, ever, under any circumstances consider going off with other men, Savage. The possibility won’t enter my mind.’？”
“Is that what I should have said?”
Laughter spilled sassy little notes toward the ceiling to catch up with his silver ones, wrapping around them, intertwining like the rose sculpture she loved so much. Someday he was going to have Lissa make some kind of sculpture representing the two of them. Something beautiful she would treasure.
“That’s what you should have said. Go to sleep, you little demon. You aren’t going to be getting much sleep tonight, so be warned.”
FOURTEEN
“I don’t really understand what a run is,” Seychelle said to Lana. “Would you explain it to me? Savage is so sweet, and he’s kind of spoiled me rotten the last two weeks. Some things he explains very succinctly, and for other things I think he expects I can just read his mind. He brought up the run and said we’d be going in a few weeks, that it was important, but he didn’t really say what it was.”
She looked around the clubhouse curiously. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but not this very neat, comfortable, large space. This was the common room they all shared and mostly congregated in. The chairs were the most relaxing furniture she’d ever sat in. She wouldn’t mind trying to fit a couple of them in her Mini Cooper and making a getaway for her cottage.