Savage carried her to the wide chair in front of the large window overlooking the view of the ocean. Waves rushed toward the bluffs, a turbulent wall of dark blue water, pounding them. White spray rose into the night sky like diamond drops—or crystal tears. He had a warm throw on the back of the chair, and he wrapped it around both of them and settled into the chair, Seychelle on his lap, cuddling her protectively.
He smoothed his hand over her hair and rocked her gently until the storm of tears passed. All the while he dropped little kisses on top of her head and along her temples. For a long time, he kept his eyes closed, his heart aching. She was his angel, giving him a miracle he never thought he’d have. He’d come to terms with what he was and what he needed, but he hadn’t thought how he’d feel when he actually loved someone. Really loved them.
“I’m so fucking proud of you, Seychelle,” he murmured. “I love you. Those words can’t even convey to you how much I feel for you. I know what gift you’re giving me, and I can only tell you how much I’ll always treasure you.” There was no real way to say what was in his heart. The ache that was there. The regret. The deep need that he knew would only grow.
He wasn’t a fucking poet, although he wrote in a secret journal for her, and he hoped someday he’d have the courage to give it to her. Maybe. Because she had such courage, and she deserved anything he could give her. Her sobs faded to soft little hiccups, and he caught up the bottle of water he’d put next to the chair earlier, in preparation.
“You need to hydrate, Seychelle. Drink just a little for me.” He coaxed her; he didn’t command her. He kept nuzzling her neck, alternating between kissing her soft skin and tasting with his tongue while her hair tumbled wildly around his face, the silken strands reminding him how fragile she was.
She took the bottle, her hand trembling. He sat her straighter on his lap and helped her, making certain not a drop spilled on her but that she drank quite a bit before he put the bottle back on the end table. He pushed her hair back so he could tip her face up to his.
“Look at me, baby. I need to know you’re back with me.” He kept possession of her chin, his thumb sliding along her cheek gently while his palm framed her jaw. Her bone structure felt delicate in his hand. “That’s it. Look right at me.” Her pupils were dilated, and she still looked a little dazed, but her eyelashes fluttered a few times and she focused on him.
“I’m okay, Savage. That was . . . intense. I didn’t expect it to be like that.” She laid her head back on his shoulder.
He bunched her hair in his fist. “We have to talk about it, Seychelle. Now, and again when you’ve rested. I need to know if at any time you were going to tell me to stop. You have to be honest with me.”
She was silent, and then she nodded. “Just once, after you took off the first clamp and we started to move again. The chain on the second one was swinging. The clamp tightened and it felt like it pulled so much. It was painful. Too painful.” Her voice was muffled by his shoulder.
Savage couldn’t tell if she was beginning to cry again. He tugged on her hair until she tilted her head up, her blue eyes meeting his. There was that liquid in them that made his cock stir. “Why didn’t you tell me to stop?”
She frowned. “There was so much pain, and it radiated out and down to my . . . sex, and then the pain turned scorching hot, and you were moving so hard and fast. The vibrator was going crazy. My bottom was on fire. Everything came together, and I couldn’t tell what was happening to my body, only that I was hot and needed you desperately.”
“Did you like it?”
Her frown deepened. Her fingers on his arm dug into his muscle. “I don’t think like is the word I’d use. I think it’s addicting. This time I came so much harder than last time.”
He let his breath out. She had recognized that her body wanted the things he had been slowly introducing to her. Each time he made love to her or fucked her hard, he had to have some level of this kind of interaction, and he’d done different things to coax her body into accepting them.
“It’s also a little terrifying, Savage. I was so scared of why my body responds to this kind of sex when I never really responded to other men. Why, when I bent over that bench, was I already getting hot and slick at what you were going to do, and what you would do after? I think about you teaching me to take you in my mouth. You haven’t done that yet. I don’t know why, but I know it’s going to be a lesson that might be scary and yet my body reacts the same way. I think about the ultimate end, what you’re going to need, and that’s the most terrifying of all, and yet I’m so hot I can’t sleep sometimes. What’s wrong with me, Savage?”