He wanted to lighten the moment, help soothe her, distract her just a little to allow her to calm enough to talk to him. She was really on edge.
She stepped out of the dress and stood for a moment in just her low heels and panties. “I really made a mistake with Brandon, Savage. It might have been me that caused all the trouble.” She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes dark with pain. With fear. “I could be the one that made them come after you.”
He ran his hand down her back, that beautiful, silken back. There was possession in his touch. Comfort. “Get ready for bed, baby,” he reiterated. “I can assure you, no one in other clubs needs much of an excuse to want to kill me. You take on too much. Give that to me. I’ve told you before, you hand over those things to me and I’ll take care of them for you.”
She bent to slide her shoes off before walking to the master bath. He couldn’t take his eyes from her. She didn’t pull the door closed, which pleased him. Her natural inclination was to not only close the door but lock it. She was trying to do the things that made him comfortable. He didn’t like closed doors, and he couldn’t tolerate locked ones—which is why she couldn’t have even locked that door if she’d wanted to. In turn, he gave her time alone in the bathroom before barging in. It was a compromise he could live with and hoped she could as well.
When he finished brushing his teeth, she was already in bed, looking smaller than usual, her back to the headboard, hair in that messy knot that always got him right in his heart. Her face was scrubbed free of all makeup, not that she ever wore much. He padded to the bed barefoot and naked, watching her gaze stray to his cock. She definitely liked his cock. She could so easily center an ache there, especially now, when she wore those stripes on her skin.
He put a knee on the bed and crawled up to her, dragged her legs straight by her ankles, wrapped his arms around her hips and laid his head on her belly the way he had so many times before. It was one of his favorite places. Immediately, her hands dropped to his scalp and began that slow, soothing massage he loved. No one ever put their hands on him. He had been astonished that first time when she’d touched him, and his skin hadn’t reacted adversely to the feeling of flesh against his. Instead, there were sparks. Embers flying. Flames licking over him.
“You’re safe, baby. Just tell me whatever it is. Give it to me.” He murmured it to her, rubbed his scruff along her belly and kissed the slight pink marks.
“This is going to sound crazy, but it’s a theory.”
There was hesitation in her voice. She had good instincts. Really good instincts. Savage wasn’t going to put anything she said down to hysteria or craziness.
“I’m listening.” He drew circles on her hip with the pads of his fingers, deliberately soothing her. She was used to their interaction in bed when they talked. Already the tension was leaving her body.
“Brandon knew from the first time he ever heard me talk to him, when he asked me out and I turned him down, that I had the same talent he had. He tried to use his voice on me to make me go out with him, and I countered him. I thought he was sleazy and just used his voice to get dates with women who didn’t want to go out with him. It occurred to me that maybe he even took it further and made women want to have sex with him. That seemed a real possibility. Then I found out about Sahara from Doris, and what she said about her didn’t add up for me, especially since I’d already encountered Brandon.”
Savage remained silent while her fingers moved over his scalp and down to his neck. He had bulging muscles everywhere. He was a big man with a lot of bulk, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her fingers were strong when she dug into the knots, slowly easing the tension in him.
“He recognized I was a threat to him—or maybe I’d be of use to him—long before I did. Then you took an interest in me. You’re Torpedo Ink. His half brothers are Diamondback. Savage, he isn’t Diamondback. That says something right there. A man like him would want to be. He’s arrogant. Truly vain. Very entitled.”
Savage turned that over and over in his mind. She was right about Brandon. The man was vindictive and cunning. He would be furious that his brothers were accepted into the largest badass club in the U.S. and overseas, but he couldn’t get in. He had to have tried. If he tried and was turned down …
“The Diamondbacks didn’t accept him into the club for a reason. He has four half brothers in that club, so it would stand to reason he would get in easy. A man like Brandon would be royally pissed to be told no. And he’d look for a way to get back at them.” There was speculation in his voice.
“He would,” she agreed. “He would need an edge. Suppose his talent is stronger than Tony’s. Or Leonardo’s. Or all his other brothers, if they have any talent. It’s possible to steal a talent, Savage. It can be done.”
“How would that be possible?” Savage kept any alarm from his voice. There was alarm enough in Seychelle’s voice. In her body language.
“Bending and twisting voices isn’t that difficult, Savage. I can do it. It’s gathering strands of pitches, much like a musician takes the various sounds he hears and puts them together to form a song. Brandon’s talent may not be as strong as mine, but if he managed to steal his brother’s or even several of his brothers’ talent, should some of the others have it as well, he could become quite powerful.”
“There was a man we ran into,” Savage admitted. “The international president of the Swords club. He was pretty fuckin’ powerful, and it was a few voices that brought him down in the end. Voices.” He repeated the word softly. “So I’m in his way because I’m standing in front of you.”
He didn’t move his head from her belly, but he turned it, settling his chin on her soft skin, feeling the firm muscles contracting with the weight.
Seychelle bit her lip, eyes worried. “If he thinks he could command me, take my voice, take my talent away from me and use it for his own, then yes, I think he’d go so far as try to get rid of you. He could wreck the chapter of the Diamondbacks his brothers are in. If he managed to get in another chapter, he could do the same thing and continue to do so over and over for as long as he could control it.”
Savage breathed a little easier. Control. That wasn’t Brandon’s strong suit. “This entire thing that the Diamondbacks are worried about could be Brandon stirring up trouble because he didn’t get into their club. That’s really what you’re saying. If he’s doing the same thing, talking to someone in the Venomous club, using his voice to persuade them to keep going after the Diamondbacks, he’s going to start a war. Maybe that’s his ultimate goal.”
She nodded. “And he probably either put out the hit on you himself, which I doubt, or he persuaded someone else to do it. I hate that I’m responsible, Savage. I really hate it.”
He loathed that she sounded like she might cry. It made him want to go find the fucker right then and show him why he’d earned the name Savage. Instead, he kept his voice gentle. They had no proof of anything. It was all speculation.
“You’re not responsible. I told you, Seychelle, everyone other than you pretty much wants me dead. I’m used to it, and I don’t much give a damn. I’m still alive. Brandon Campbell is a cunning little weasel. If you’re right, then he’s contracted with someone in the clubs. Code will find out who is coming after me. It isn’t open-ended, baby. He got a specific hit man. We’ll find him. In any case, we could be way off.”