Annihilation Road (27 page)

Savage was more than happy to hear it. He’d put the bullet in his own fuckin’ head. But he had to clarify. Czar had to know this wasn’t going to be so black and white.

“I needed to hear that from you, Czar. I would never hit her like that. It’s never been about that, and I think you know it. I won’t tolerate her fuckin’ with the rules, she’ll be punished, but she’ll agree ahead of time what that is.”

Czar shrugged. “That’s between the two of you, and I’m not talking about that.”

“No, you’re talking about when I lose it and need to fuckin’ get off when my woman is carrying my shit. I’ve always been careful, you know that. Seychelle is mine. I would protect her with everything in me. What that means is, I’ll have her consent and I’ll always be careful never to go too far. If I fail, I’ll be the first one to go for the gun.”

He didn’t look at his brother. Not one single time. He’d been there. He’d been forced to watch. Then it continued in order to keep Reaper alive. So long. So many girls, and all the while someone had been making certain that he’d been
feeling great, that his cock was sucked or fucked and he was very happy. He hadn’t had a chance to ever be normal. He didn’t know how to be normal. He never would. Seychelle would pay the price and he would hate himself always. There was no way out for either of them now.

“I fuckin’ hate what they did to you,” Czar said. “There was no way to stop them, Savage. I didn’t know. Reaper didn’t know. Not at first, the first few years, and after, it was already too late. I’m sorry, brother. I’m fuckin’ sorry.”

Savage pressed his fingers tighter against his temples. “Wasn’t anyone’s fault. We all had it bad, but we got out. I’ll deal with it. I’ve always dealt with it.”

“She has to know ahead of time. Give me your word on that. I don’t care how you bring her in, how you make her yours, but you have to get her consent. Once she gives it and she’s in, we’ll back you all the way.”

“And you’ll have her back,” Savage clarified again. “Once I’ve claimed her and she’s mine, every single member, including my brother, has to have her back.” This time he looked at his brother. Reaper. His world before Torpedo Ink. His reason for becoming the way he was.

Reaper nodded and then abruptly turned and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

Czar looked down at his hands. “You get into trouble anytime, day or night, you come to me. You understand, Savage? You’ve always carried this alone, but now you have a woman. If she’s the right one, she’s worth everything, including your pride. You come to me if it gets too bad and you get worried for her.”

Savage pushed himself up and looked at his president, father, brother, all rolled into one. “I swear it on Torpedo Ink.” It was all he had to give. His word. He knew they took that as gold. He gave it that way.

He took his time riding back to Sea Haven, needing the cool wind in his face, blowing out the memories that clung too close. Pierce’s betrayal had brought them too close.
They all had liked the man, but they had to remember always, his entire loyalty was to his club and he had no room to be loyal to anyone outside of it. Neither did they. They were Torpedo Ink, and only those within their club could be trusted. It was a hard lesson for all of them.

He thanked Preacher and Ink and let them know he’d be riding the next day and he’d text them. He stood for a long time looking down at his woman. She looked small in the big bed. She wasn’t curled up but looked as if she’d fallen asleep on her back, her arms flung out, her legs stretched out in front of her. Her hair had not been put back into a braid, and all that thick, silky hair was over her pillow and around her face.

Savage took his time removing his motorcycle boots and then his clothes, all the while looking down at the woman he was irrevocably tying to him. He sat beside her for a long time, his hand on her leg, his gaze on her face.

“I’m sorry for this, baby. You have no idea how sorry I am, but I’m not going to make it another day without you. I can only tell you no one else will ever love or treasure you more. It won’t seem that way a lot of the time, but it’s the truth. You’ve crawled inside me, and without you, I can’t take this anymore. I just can’t do it. So, baby, you’re going to have to take it for me. It isn’t fair. It isn’t nice. In fact, it’s fuckin’ wrong, but I’ve got no choice, and that means you don’t either.”

He stretched out on the bed next to Seychelle, inhaling her scent, that special fragrance that clung to her skin and hair. The moment he turned on his side and laid his head on her belly, he wrapped his arm tightly around her hips. Holding her. Trying not to feel like he was a monster, but knowing he was. Knowing it was Seychelle who would take the terrible burden off of him long enough for him to breathe. To gather himself enough to let that terrible weight settle back on his shoulders.

He kissed her soft belly and then nuzzled her bare skin.
She wore a tank and nothing else. He ran his fingers through those soft blond curls that he was going to shave off. He wanted her completely bare, so he could see, and she could feel everything he did to her. Good things. Bad things. Dirty things. Things that would make her scream for him. Things that would made him so aroused and hard it wouldn’t matter that his cock was scarred and too tight to stretch properly. And she would give him her tears freely. Just as he took on the pain for his brothers and sisters, proving his love for them over and over, she would do it for him. The only person in the world who would give him unconditional love, she would do that for him.

He pressed another kiss into her soft skin. His canvas. His woman. He found he liked that. He’d never thought in terms of having a woman, but that something in her that called to him had found its way deep. Lying there in the dark, his head on her belly, his arm around her hips, he let himself breathe her in. Love welled up, swallowing the rage like it did every time he laid his head on her. Closing his eyes, he inhaled all the beauty that was Seychelle Dubois.

Seychelle woke with a fierce headache. Her mouth felt like cotton, dry and sour. She groaned and turned over, keeping her eyes shut tight in case the sun was blazing through the window. Silently, she sent up a prayer that there would be fog. Lots and lots of dense fog, so she could see if she dared open her eyes.

“Come on, baby, time to get up. You’ve slept the day away, when you weren’t throwing up.” There was amusement in the voice. “You could just possibly be the worst drinker on the planet.”

She knew that voice. She didn’t have to see him to know her worst nightmare was right there in her house. She vaguely remembered Savage putting her in the car and driving her home. She spread her fingers over her eyes and slowly opened them. He’d pulled the screens, thank heavens. Outside, the wind hit the windows and rattled them. Just the slight whistling noise reverberated through her head.

Even through her fingers, the room spun a little bit. Her
stomach lurched. Hastily, she closed her eyes. She remembered him holding her hair out of the way while she vomited. Worse, she remembered being on the floor of the bathroom. Why couldn’t she just have blacked out completely and never recalled a single detail?

It was even worse than the worst, if that was possible. He’d put her in the shower. He’d been in the shower with her. She’d been naked. Was she still naked? She dared to look down at her body. She was, thankfully, wearing one of her racer-back tanks. Oh God, she’d been all over him, touching him, stroking him. She hoped she hadn’t done more than that, but she might have.

“Come on, baby, you can’t hide forever. It’s time to face the music.”

“Why not?” She tested her voice. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t good last night.”

“I’m sure you’re right. You can’t drink worth shit.”

She forced herself to look at him. The moment she did, her heart did a funny little flip. He looked so invincible. So strong. He had roped muscles and not an ounce of fat. He had horrendous scars and burns, terrible burns, but on him, those scars just made him more attractive, as well as giving him the illusion of being indestructible.

She had the grace to look ashamed. “I know. I should never drink. Never. One, and I’m going under fast.”

“Was that your first time?”

“No. I tried another time and threw up like crazy on one drink.”

“You spent most of the night throwing up. It wasn’t pretty.”

She pushed back her hair, trying not to remember anything else, but she couldn’t stop herself from seeing another man’s face. “There was someone named Bill. Please tell me I didn’t do anything dumb.”

He shook his head. “Baby, you were going home with that man.”

“I wasn’t.” She was shocked. That couldn’t be true. That was more than dumb. Worse than dumb. She thought she might have talked to him. Flirted. Used her voice shamelessly. But going home with him? She groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“You were. I would have had to track your ass down and haul you home. Don’t know what I would have done to him, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. Let’s just not do that again. You understand me? You need to be with me on that one.”

She pushed her forehead into her palm. “I’m with you all the way on that one. I need to get dressed.”

“You need to let the aspirin do its work. I’m bringing you a little soup. Drink all the water. You’re dehydrated. When you drink alcohol, Seychelle, you have to stay hydrated.”

“I wasn’t really going home with him, was I?” She was a little horrified that he was telling the truth. Images were crowding in. She was fairly certain she was never drinking alcohol again, so he didn’t need to coach her on how it was done properly.

“Yeah, babe, you were. I didn’t let you, so we’ll call it a near miss.”

“Thanks, Savage. I don’t know what the hell got into me.” She was sincerely grateful to him.

“You were scared. Running. You didn’t want to face the inevitable, and I can’t really blame you. You made a few mistakes, baby, and we’re going to have to address them, but that’s after you’re not hungover.”

“I slept all day—how can I be hungover?”

“First, I think you’re allergic to alcohol, and second, you didn’t sleep all day. It doesn’t look sunny because it’s so overcast, but it isn’t that late. I’m going to take you for a ride this evening to get you out in the fresh air. You’ll have to dress warm.”

Her heart did that funny twist, and this time her stomach engaged, doing a full flip. There was a part of her that hoped he was right and she really was allergic to alcohol.
Still, she doubted that she could blame her bad behavior on that. She decided to focus on his offer. A ride on his bike. That could be just plain awesome.

“A ride? On your motorcycle?” She loved the idea.

“Yeah. That would be the ride, Seychelle. You have to learn to trust me, and there’s no better way than on the back of my bike.”

Now her heart was accelerating right into the danger zone. “Savage, I need you to tell me what we’re doing here. Because you’ve never really shown a lot of interest in me . . . um . . . sexually. I thought you wanted a friendship. That was difficult enough for me to try to explain.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, reached across her and snagged the bottle of water. “Drink this now. Who are you trying to explain our friendship to?”

“Me.” She drank because he sat there watching her, very closely, those blue eyes like twin flames just burning into her. She’d never met anyone who could focus completely the way he did. He never once took his eyes off her.

“You have difficulty explaining our friendship to you?”

Put like that, with that little hint of male amusement, it made her head want to explode. She sounded like an idiot. Exasperated, she drank more water. “Yes. What’s going on? It isn’t like you’re looking at me for . . .” She broke off, unsure what she wanted to say.

“I’m looking at you like you’re my everything, which you are. You just don’t know it yet, and you’re scared to death of me.”

She shook her head before she could stop herself. What was the use, anyway? There was something about him that made her want to give him the truth, even if it left her stripped bare. “I’m not so much afraid of you as what you’ll do to me. There is no way I can be with you and not get hurt. Really hurt. That cut-to-the-bone kind of hurt. I don’t want that. You already shredded my heart, and I can’t go there again. I just can’t. Knowing you’re going to be with
other women so you can satisfy some dark craving I can’t . . .” She broke off, shaking her head.

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.

“You have to learn to trust me, and that trust has to be so strong that you know you can tell me anything. I’ll listen to you, Seychelle. I’ll hear you and we’ll talk it out. The two of us. We’ll work through the problems together and it will be all right.”

“But it won’t. I tried to tell you about those other women in the bar last night. How they couldn’t keep their eyes off you. The way they made me feel. But you just dismissed my feelings as if they didn’t count.”

He was silent for a long time, his gaze moving over her face, his fingers moving on her calf. “I shouldn’t have done that, Seychelle. In all honesty, I couldn’t have identified those women to you. I don’t know their names. They mean absolutely nothing to me. I know that makes me sound like a dick, but it’s the truth, and we have to have truth between us. The only woman who matters to me is you. I didn’t see anyone else last night. So yeah, I did dismiss what I considered unimportant. I shouldn’t have. Just because they
weren’t important to me didn’t mean they weren’t important to you.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She hadn’t expected him to admit he was wrong. Savage didn’t seem the type of man to ever say he was wrong. She liked that he had.

His palm slid up and down her leg. His touch was mesmerizing. The heat he generated slipped through her pores into her bloodstream. Even the sight of his hand on her bare leg was almost hypnotizing.

“You’re the only woman who matters to me. I don’t want another woman sexually, Seychelle. I want you. I wanted you when I left you this last time. The idea of another woman touching me was abhorrent to me. Quite frankly, it disgusted me.”

She knew he was telling the truth. She’d shared that moment with him when he’d picked her up on Doris’s porch and she felt his distaste of the woman. “I don’t understand why you went to her, Savage. You knew I would have done anything for you.”

His hand slid behind her knee, making her breath catch. “I couldn’t get you ready in time, baby. I can get you there, but it takes time. That’s something we have to talk about. Things I need. Things you have to go into our relationship knowing, with your eyes wide open. I want you to ask questions if you don’t understand something. You need to know this isn’t going to be easy, but I swear to you, I’ll never let you down. Never.”