She leaned into him, her face buried on his chest, so he couldn’t see her expression. Ordinarily he wouldn’t allow her to get away with that, but he didn’t want to see whether or not she agreed with him. She had to be willing to work things out. She felt so sad to him, as if they’d already lost.
“Let’s go inside, baby. Get comfortable. Find a place to talk.”
She stepped back and looked up at him, her eyes searching his face. He let her see him stripped naked. Raw. Vulnerable. It wasn’t a comfortable position for him, but if he was going to keep her, it was the only thing he could give her that might make her stay long enough to find a way to make it permanent.
Seychelle nodded and allowed him to take her hand. They went through the front door into the living room, and he took her straight to the coziest chairs in front of the stone fireplace. She curled up in one of the chairs facing the floor-to-ceiling window that gave them the sweeping view of the crashing waves.
“How are we going to fix this, Seychelle? Because we have to fix this.”
“Do you realize how much you’re asking of me, Savage? Did you even hear what Czar was saying to me? What he was implying? He wasn’t just saying that you might get killed, he was saying I could as well. It was a threat. A veiled one, but still a threat.”
What was he supposed to say to that? Seychelle was never going to be a threat to them, and she would never be put in that position because Savage would never allow it. “This is my fault. Czar was concerned.”
“Clearly. There’s so much more to your life than I ever understood, Savage. I just went into this relationship blind. I thought I had my eyes open, but I didn’t. I was already so in love and ready to give you anything that I didn’t stop to think who you are, what the club is, and I should have. You know me. You know everything about me. The same isn’t true about me with you. You asked me to give you my trust, and I did blindly. How is that possible now?”
Savage didn’t have an answer for that, because if she knew who he really was, she wouldn’t trust him. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. This was exactly what he’d feared.
“You always say you’re not a good man. I’ve heard you say that dozens of times. You even believe it, Savage.”
It was the fucking truth, but he wasn’t going to point that out to her, not now, not when he wanted to keep her and he was so close to losing her.
“I want you to tell me about your life. Your childhood. How you got the way you are. And what you’ve done that has made you not so nice and why people want to kill you. I want to know the real Savage. The man you’re very reluctant to show me. That man. Tell me about him. Tell me what you do for the club that can get us both killed.”
Savage closed his eyes. There it was. The one thing he’d been dreading all along.
Savage couldn’t sit still. He was out of his chair and pacing the length of the room, right in front of that wall of glass showing the wild, turbulent waves crashing just in their view. That matched his heart. The pounding of the blood rushing through his veins. Not hot. Cold as ice.
It all really came down to this moment. His life. Survive or die. Czar hadn’t been talking to Seychelle. He’d been talking to Savage. If he wanted this woman, if he really wanted to share his life with her, he had to share all of him with her. At the same time, Czar warned him not to let her in so far that if she knew too much and she didn’t accept him, she wouldn’t live through it. Walking that fine line was hell.
From the beginning, Savage had told himself he’d be all in. He’d give Seychelle 100 percent. Devote himself to her happiness, and he’d meant it. He had.
But this … Telling her the truth of who he was. The things he’d done. Give her those things and expect her to look at him with love and not revulsion … no. Already he had confessed to her that he needed sadistic sexual practices. He had to see her in pain in order to be sexually aroused. That was bad enough to have to admit to, but the rest of it, telling her how he’d become such a monster and then going on to give her even more of his fucked-up life. He’d have to admit to his many kills—so many—and the way he turned off his emotions. She would think he was a psycho. She’d leave him for certain. It was too much to ask anyone to accept.
He had to be careful. He’d already given her part of his past. She knew some of it. He could give her more. Talk about what happened to him. Talk about the assassination work for his government. He just needed to sidestep what he knew she couldn’t live with or handle right now. She was too overwhelmed. He’d work up to the worst—if he ever had to tell her.
Seychelle sat patiently while he paced back and forth like a feral animal. He felt like one. He could feel her eyes on him. Watching him. He glanced at her. Those eyes of hers. All blue. Serene. Not judging him. Seychelle never seemed to judge him. That brought him up short. He turned to face her. He judged himself. She didn’t judge him. He didn’t necessarily like the man he was. He didn’t even like the things he did. He thought they were necessary. No one stopped monsters. He had to do it because no one else did. That was the ugly truth. He accepted it and he did the job. He didn’t have to like it, he just did it. And those monsters needed to know what they did to those children they preyed on. How it felt before they left the world. Didn’t they? Scarlet had raised that question in his mind just recently. He always believed they should know.
He looked at Seychelle a long time. Drank her in. That beautiful, angelic face. Those little tiny scars no one else ever saw, but he did. They were his. She’d traded her life for his without hesitation. She’d given herself to him and she was more than willing to do so again, to walk through the fires of hell with him, live in hell, but he had to strip himself bare and let her see the real monster in order for her to agree.
“You’re shaking your head, Savage.” Her voice was gentle.
“Once I put this shit in your head, baby, there’s no getting it out.” He didn’t mean to, but he whispered the truth to her. He found himself on his knees in front of her, his arms around her thighs. “I tell you what you want to know, even a little bit, it never goes away. I don’t want that for you.”
Her blue eyes were steady, moving over his face with such love it made his heart ache. Her hand cupped the side of his face, her thumb sliding along his jaw just once, sending little darts of fire through him. Savage laid his head in her lap, finding her left leg with his hand. He needed the solace of the scars he could feel beneath the soft material. She’d sacrificed her perfect skin for him. Given him that. Maybe she could give him more. Maybe.
“You’re sure you want this, Seychelle? It could rip us apart. You knowing these things about me. They aren’t pretty. None of it’s pretty.”
“This is what can be the glue that holds us together for all time, Savage. You have to believe that. I have to know you inside and out. What and who you really are.”
“What if you despise that man? What then, baby?” He couldn’t look at her. Losing her was too close.
“What if I love you more than ever, Savage? What if you love me more than ever? What if our bond is so strong, so unbreakable, no one can ever tear us apart?”