She wanted to be the one to satisfy his darker cravings but was too terrified to do more than fantasize. She didn’t even know exactly what he really wanted or needed, only that every time she caught glimpses, they made her body come alive in ways she hadn’t known it could.
He was silent for a long time, those eyes of his drifting possessively over her face and down her body. She had one leg out from under the sheets. Her scarred leg. The pits went from her ankle all the way up the side of her leg to the top of her thigh, where gravel had dug deep. His gaze fell on that, and immediately he circled her ankle with his hand and began to move his palm up her leg. Even his touch was possessive. Every time he did that, rubbed with his palm, she felt he was claiming her.
She wanted him to deny that he would hurt her. She needed him to say it, although she wouldn’t have believed him. The rage in him was violent and barely contained. It beat at her, and eventually, she had to open up and allow it in, allow her peace to surround him and slowly absorb the brutal needs in him.
“There aren’t going to be other women,” he said quietly. “And you’ll learn to be what I need.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. I’ll teach you.”
“You aren’t telling me I won’t get hurt,” she pointed out.
“I want to tell you that won’t happen, Seychelle, but there always has to be truth between us. You have to learn that I’ll always tell you the truth no matter what, no matter how much it might hurt or scare you, and I’ll know that you’ll do the same for me. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Hit the bathroom while I get you some soup.”
She wanted the bathroom break, especially to brush her teeth, but her stomach lurched at the idea of eating. “I’ll be right back, but nothing to eat yet.”
She hurried, her heart racing. At least they were going to talk things out. She had no problems being straight with him, telling him how she felt, but he had to accept that she couldn’t be with him, not when he needed to be with other women—and he did, no matter what he said now.
She even believed him when he said she was his everything. He came back to her over and over. He suffered just the way she had, all those nights outside her window. She’d felt it when they’d breathed together with a wall separating them.
Those women in the bar. The way they’d fixated on him. She couldn’t take that, not knowing he would go back to them and give them what he would never give her. She wasn’t the type of woman to share. She didn’t know about the other women who were with the men in the Torpedo Ink club, but she knew, emotionally, she just wasn’t built that way.
She sighed and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d tried being without him. That hadn’t worked so well. She’d thought she could be with him. That hadn’t worked either. She looked pale and strained. Her hair was a mess. She vaguely remembered Savage holding her braid to keep it off her face when she was puking nonstop. Great. Lovely. She sighed again. There was no use hiding. She might as well get it over with.
Seychelle went back into her bedroom, climbing up onto the bed, scooting up to her favorite place, back to the headboard, where she felt a little safer as she faced him. He looked . . . invincible. So tough. Scary even. Sexy as hell. Always her choice, and she didn’t even know why, but she wasn’t going to be that woman, pushed into something she knew wouldn’t work because she was so in love. She had spent the last month acting like her life was over, moping over a man who preferred other women sexually, and her for what? Sleeping? She had to get her tough on and stand up for herself.
Savage sat on the edge of the bed, shaping her ankle with his palm the way he always did, as if he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. His touch was gentle. The pads of his fingers moved over her skin in small strokes. Like caresses. Like sin. Like the promise of something she could never have with him.
“You’ve got your chin up, babe. I know what that means. You’re spoiling for a fight.” His eyes turned bluer than ever. “We’re not fighting here. We’re going to do this thing. You and me, Seychelle. There’s going to be a you and me.”
She shook her head, her heart beating too hard. Hoping. Afraid to hope. Afraid of being hurt again. “I don’t see how. I just don’t see how it can work. I want it to work more than anything, but how can it?” She kept her gaze fixed on his face. His eyes. The way they moved over her face. Her body. Taking her in. So much for her resolve. He melted it away just by the way he looked at her.