“Shouldn’t have stormed out like a fuckin’ kid, baby. I didn’t know how to make this right and took the coward’s way out. I don’t know how couples do this. You have one of those books you’re always reading?” He ran his hand over the back of her head. Down that long fall of silky hair.
“I wish I did, honey.” Her voice was muffled. She didn’t look up.
His stomach dropped. Flipped. His heart clenched. “Oh hell, Seychelle. You’re not crying, are you? Baby, don’t do that. I mean it. You can’t cry.”
“You like me to cry.”
Oh Bog. She was crying. The real deal. He felt a little panicky. “No, it isn’t the same. Stop it. We’ll figure this out. Maybe not right away, but it will get done. We’re new at this shit.”
When she continued to cry, he picked her up and carried her to the chair so he could hold her on his lap. Cradling her to his chest, he just held her, cupping the back of her head, trying to soothe her with his body. Clearly, he wasn’t good with words.
After a few minutes she seemed to quiet, but he continued to hold her, rocking her gently, liking her in his arms. “This is my fault, baby. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I’ll figure it out, Seychelle. You just have to hang in there with me. I know it isn’t easy, but I swear, if you do, in the end, I’ll be worth it.”
He didn’t have a clue how he was going to make himself or their relationship worth it to her. She was the one doing all the giving, and he was the one doing all the taking.
“We’re supposed to be partners. Partners. You don’t leave me out, Savage. You don’t try to control my every move. I love my life, the people I visit, the places I go. They might not be anything to you or to anyone else, but they’re very important to me. They’re elderly people everyone overlooks, but I love them. I don’t want you to tell me I can’t go see them like I’m some child. Sea Haven is very small. Everyone knows everyone’s business. It’s not like if someone is mean to me you aren’t going to know about it in three seconds. And I’d text you. I did text you.”
He knew she was referring to her stalker. She had come home to her little cottage and he’d been inside.
“I was almost too late, Seychelle.” Just thinking about those minutes after he heard her voice asking Arnold why he had a gun in her home had his stomach in knots.
“What happened with Joseph Arnold wasn’t your fault or mine. He was sick.”
“Yes, he was. There are a lot of sick people out there, Seychelle,” he pointed out.
“I know, but it was a fluke that he attached himself to me.”
He sighed and kissed her neck. “You know that isn’t true. I want to agree with you, but you know it isn’t the truth, baby.” He kept his tone gentle. Pure velvet. This had to hurt worse than the punishment. She loved to sing. She had the voice of an angel, but that voice of hers was also her downfall.
She pushed her forehead against his chest. “I can switch how I sing. I tap into emotions and sing for particular people to help them, but I can find a way to stop that.”
“No, you can’t. You know you can’t any more than you can stop yourself from trying to heal someone who is really sick. You draw men to you, babe. You just do. And if you weren’t singing, you’d say hello on the street and one day you’d say hello to the wrong man and it would be someone like Arnold. He’d hear your voice and it would work its way inside him.”
“Is that why you’re with me? My voice? My body?”
His first reaction was to tease her and give her a sexual answer, but he caught the underlying note of despair in her voice. She didn’t want him to be with her for either reason.
“I love all of you, Seychelle Dubois. I fell so hard for everything you. You bring me sunlight. You taught me how to laugh. I didn’t have hope, and you gave that to me. I had no future and you gave me one. There’s a brightness in you, and you were generous enough to share that with me, knowing what I am and what I’ll always be.”
“Don’t, Savage,” she whispered, pushing her face into his throat.
“No, baby, I don’t have a lot to give you yet. I’m learning. But I can give you this: truth. I was all but dead inside. Just dark and gone, soulless. Then you came into my life and somehow you managed to bring me back to life. So, to answer your question, do I love your body? Hell yeah, I fuckin’ do. Does your voice get to me? You sing like a fuckin’ angel. I tell you that because it’s true. But more than those two things, it’s how you look at me and see the man inside that I can’t even see. You’re capable of loving that man when I didn’t believe there was anyone on the face of this earth that could love that monster.”
“Savage.”
He felt the wet of her tears again. Bog, he detested making her cry, but these were sweet tears for him. Loving tears, and he felt the difference. He was learning. He might be slow, but he was finding he was capable of learning because she mattered to him.
“I want that partnership with you, it’s just that keeping you safe has to be a priority. You have to understand and accept that. You can’t resent it any more than you can resent it when I pull you off the stage or out of a room if someone is too sick for you to be in the room with them. I’m protecting you. Shielding you. That was the promise I made to you, and you agreed to it, didn’t you, Seychelle?” He kept his tone low. Tried to state facts, not be a dictator.
“Yes. I just didn’t think in terms of having to answer to you every minute of the day for my time. It feels wrong, like I’m a child instead of a woman. Should I be doing the same for you? Shielding you from Torpedo Ink because you take on their anger? Their rage and pain?”
It took discipline to stay relaxed. He kept rocking her. Running his hand down the back of her scalp to soothe her while he considered what to say. He didn’t want her to ever blame the other members for what she would have to suffer on their behalf. Already she resented the club. He hadn’t expected that.
She had never indicated that she would blame them, even knowing that one of his psychic gifts was to take on the rage of his brothers and sisters so they could better function. He’d been doing it since he was a little kid, and it was automatic now. He doubted he could stop even if he wanted to.
He sighed and brushed his lips gently over her ear. “I know it has to be difficult to know that you’re the one who will ultimately be suffering for them …”
“No, Savage. You suffer for them. I take on pain for you. I do that for you, and I choose to do it. It’s my choice, just as it’s your choice what you do for them. I’m just asking you if I should be stepping in front of you.”
“Now you’re just throwing shit out there to make an argument that doesn’t even make sense, Seychelle, and you know it. Don’t do that. We have so much real shit to work through, we don’t need made-up issues. I’ll do my best to make it easy on you when you want to go places. One of the prospects will go if I can’t. Either Glitch or Hyde. If things are dicey, and I ask you to stay home, I’ll expect that you will. You have to trust me. I don’t want to have to explain myself. My woman should trust me.”