“I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. If I do, I get nightmares. They’re bad,” he confessed. “I wake up fighting. It can be . . . dangerous.” What kind of pussy was he to tell her the truth when he wouldn’t even tell his brothers? He let go of her leg and lay back, staring at the fan on the ceiling.
Her hand went to his head again. Her fingers drifted over his scalp. He counted his heartbeats there in the darkness. Felt the magic in her touch as her fingers began a deeper massage.
“You came to me because you couldn’t sleep? I’m not certain how to take that. It could mean I’m the most boring woman you know.”
“Take it as a compliment. I’m not the kind of man to throw that shit out there very often. You’re restful. You chase the demons away.”
Seychelle looked down at Savage as he closed his eyes. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did neither. He was the most beautiful—and damaged—man she’d ever met. He was absolutely gorgeous. He had the kind of physique a sculptor would go crazy over. Every line in his body was purely masculine. He had more muscles than she’d thought possible in a man, and she was so attracted to him it was a sin. But she knew better.
He was everything she shouldn’t get near. Everything she was attracted to. Those scars. Those burns. Those terrible words someone had burned into his flesh permanently. Whip Master. He needed violence. He craved it in the way others might a drug. His world revolved around it. Worse, he had a darkness in him that she couldn’t even fathom, but she knew it was real and he was capable of things she couldn’t conceive of. She was drawn to that darkness like a moth to a flame, and she would burn up in his fire. She would. She had no protections against a man like Savage. She felt his loathing of himself and the demons that plagued him and she wanted to be the woman to bring him peace.
Savage was the type of man she wouldn’t resist, and if she got too close, he would eventually take all of her. She knew she would want to sacrifice herself for him. Give him everything she was, and he would swallow her whole. Men like him couldn’t help themselves, they didn’t look after someone like her. They took and took until there was nothing left.
Savage . . . She sighed and scooted closer to him, so she could use both hands to massage his head. She’d learned to do a scalp massage when she was ten years old from a professional masseuse, so she could massage her father’s head when he was in pain.
“Baby, you don’t have to do that,” Savage said without opening his eyes. “Just lying next to you makes it better.”
Her heart lurched. That was bad. Really, really bad. He wasn’t there because he thought she was beautiful. Or because he was so attracted, he just had to have her. He could lie in bed next to her and not reach for her, which really was an insult because Savage was the most sexual man she’d ever encountered. He radiated sex, and not just sex, but carnal, sinful, wicked sex, the way he radiated pain and rage. His kind of sex was something she’d dreamt of, fantasized about, was scared of and knew was not for her. She was too . . . tame. He was too wild.
He wanted to be with her for purely platonic reasons—she brought him peace. That was her gift and her curse. She had hoped he wouldn’t feel it—that what worked for some, didn’t work on him. It wasn’t like she didn’t have men flirting outrageously all the time. She sang in bars. That would naturally follow. Aside from the fact that she was maybe—okay, very—curvy, she was good-looking if she wasn’t being critical of herself. She just didn’t react to men the way she should. She craved . . . something she couldn’t name. She needed something darker. Something someone like Savage might offer, just not quite so intense.
“You’ve gone quiet on me, Seychelle. I’m not sure what to think about that.”
Looking down at him, she could see those ultra-long lashes. No man who looked as scary as he did should have his lashes. “I’m thinking.”
He sighed and started to turn his head upward, so he could see her. She held his head still. “Don’t move. Just lay there. You’re disturbing my sleep, so I should get to do whatever I want with you.”
His mouth curved into a smile, but she couldn’t see his eyes, so she couldn’t tell if it was real. She doubted it. Savage wasn’t a man given to smiles.
“I crawl through your window, take off most of my clothes, get in bed with you and all you want to do is rub my head?”
“You are bald. It’s possible I could get three wishes to come true.”