“Yes, you did,” he agreed gently. Bog, she was beautiful in her righteous anger. She was working herself up. “Absolutely, you had every right to be pissed at Lana, Alena and Maestro. Czar too. For all I know, the whole fuckin’ club.” He leaned toward her, his eyes holding her captive. “But not at me. You were pissed, and you disrespected me in front of everyone.”
In the yellow light of the two lanterns and the crackling fire, he saw the flush spread up her neck and into her face. “I was just so angry with Lana. I did think of her as a friend, Savage.”
She looked at him, and he flinched inside at the hurt in her eyes. He wanted to shake Lana until her teeth rattled. “I know you did, baby. I’m sorry she hurt you. I’m certain she does consider you a friend. She separates things in her mind in a way she shouldn’t. We’re all damaged. That doesn’t give any of us the right to hurt others, and we can’t use it as an excuse, but that’s the reason she doesn’t get that what she said to you was wrong. Czar is setting her straight, and she’s going to feel like an utter ass.”
“That won’t make any difference to how she made me feel,” Seychelle pointed out. “Alena is supposed to be her sister. Pierce totally betrayed her. The things she said to me had to have struck a nerve with Alena too, but she didn’t even think of that. Not for a minute.”
Savage nodded. He rubbed his hand on his thigh, watching her try to move in the jeans. She was very uncomfortable after riding all day with the denim rubbing on her sore bottom. She was about to get a lot sorer. She knew it. He knew it. His cock really knew it. Most likely, so did her pussy. She squirmed a little, but she wasn’t quite ready to give either of them the outlet they needed.
He had no idea when he looked at her, like now, with the strange light shining on her, giving her hair a glow that always made him think of her as his angel, that he would actually feel a physical sensation of an emotion. Love welling up. It was stronger than the terrible rage that was always present in his belly. That well that was inside, churning, waiting for a way to burst its way out. Her love smothered it, just covered it like a blanket.
He experienced the emotion nearly like a panic attack, with his heart pounding and his mouth going dry. He felt a little light-headed. He didn’t understand why his fellow Torpedo Ink members couldn’t see she had changed his life completely. He’d been ready to drive off a fucking cliff. There was nothing for him. Nothing. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to find outlets or pursued ways to “cure” himself. He was intelligent. In the end, he accepted that he wasn’t going to live much longer. And then Seychelle had virtually saved his life and his sanity. She brought him laughter and even joy. She also found what was left of gentleness and tenderness. Both those emotions were growing in him. He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He was supposed to be a badass, but his woman had a way of turning that around.
“Baby, come here to me.” He said it softly. Letting her know it was time. She’d feel better. She would. A release of tension. Letting it all go. The anger and hurt. That slow buildup of sexual tension between the two of them. He would feel better as well.
She shook her head. Held up her hand as if he were moving toward her, not the other way around. “They were horrible to me. I really don’t like them.”
“I know they were, Seychelle. If you come here to me, you know I’ll make you feel better. I can’t do that when you’re all the way over there.”
“You’re going to punish me,” she repeated.
“Not for anything you said or did to any of them. You had every right to say whatever you wanted to, although I will say, you were wearing my ring and my jacket, and I’ll have to answer to Czar for your disrespect in front of the club. They would overlook it, but it was in public, which means another club might have overheard.”
Seychelle froze. “I don’t understand, Savage.”
“I’m responsible for anything you do, baby—you know that. We talked about that. Czar is president of Torpedo Ink. In public, especially around other clubs, he is always held in the highest regard. I don’t start a fistfight with him at a gas station, and you don’t call him out when we’re walking through the campsites, where other clubs can hear you. It’s no big deal. You didn’t say much, and if he chews me out, I’ll take the hit. He deserved it, and he knows it.”
She bit her lip and then raised her gaze once more to his. His heart stuttered in his chest. He loved her so much. “I should have taken you home, Seychelle. What happened with Czar was on me as much as it was on you.”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. I knew better.”
Seychelle regarded Savage in the flickering light thrown from the firepit. Her heart began to accelerate. Her mouth went dry. Her hands shook, and behind her eyes there was a curious burning sensation. He looked powerful, very intimidating as he sat there on the picnic table, his muscles moving subtly beneath his thin tee when he leaned toward her. His eyes were that pure glacier blue that made her heart pound and turned her blood to molten heat.
She had known better than to call out Czar as they walked through the other clubs’ campsites. She’d been so angry at all of them. The more they’d walked through the various clubs, the more the tension had risen in the members of Torpedo Ink. They’d hidden it well, but she’d felt it.
She realized she was the only woman who really couldn’t be considered a club member. She’d heard about Scarlet and Lissa and their skills as assassins. They could be fully patched members if they chose. They fought as one of them. They were treated as one of them. They had all the information as one of them, unlike Seychelle, who once again, just like the night she sang at the clubhouse, was clearly being used by the club but was uninformed.
With every step she took, she felt the danger increase—not to her, and surprisingly not to Alena, but to Savage. He knew it too. They all knew it. Every single member of the club. Yet he walked calmly like the sacrificial lamb, as if no one were going to try to kill him. They were all part of that club. She was the outsider. No matter how hard she tried to get close to him, no matter what she did for him, with him, Savage didn’t seem to trust her enough to confide in her. Just the people he surrounded himself with.
She had wanted to strike at them all, especially Czar. In that moment, she despised every single club member. Lana had pointed out that she wasn’t good enough to take care of Savage’s needs, and just like that, he had an image of a woman down on her knees, his cock in her mouth. She’d wanted to kick him hard in that particular portion of his anatomy. So yeah, she thought Czar deserved her snapping at him. Lana and Maestro deserved her contempt, and even Savage, now that she remembered what had been going through his mind.
She narrowed her eyes at him and remained a distance away, even though everything in her wanted to go to him. She was almost desperate to go.
“Angel, you’re going to feel so much better once we take care of this. You’re just dragging it out now.” He drew his thighs apart. “Seychelle. Babe. The only way to make this right is to come over here to me.”
“They all know someone here is going to try to kill you, Savage. They act like it doesn’t matter at all. They act like it doesn’t matter if you cheat on me. Nothing seems to get to them because it isn’t happening to them.” She paced in front of him, back and forth, the tension in her coiling tighter and tighter.