He smoothed her hair back and kissed her face. “I swear, baby, I didn’t mean to break my promise to you. I’ll get you out of here before anyone sees you.”
“I know you didn’t.” There was conviction in her voice.
Why she would believe him, he had no idea. He just counted himself lucky that she did, but he knew it wouldn’t matter in the long run. The lotion was beginning to do its job. She would remember later, and she would leave him. His angel. She took away the demons of his past just by being in his bed. Her laughter cleared out the ghosts, drove them away when they were too close.
Savage soaked strips of his shirt in the lotion and covered the worst of the stripes on her backside with them and then covered her with his sleeping bag. He found two heavy-duty painkillers in the first aid kit and gave them to her, even though she resisted taking them. It didn’t take him long to break camp, group texting Czar, Reaper, Destroyer and Maestro that he was leaving and taking one of the trucks. He added that he wanted them to bring his bike safely home.
Czar texted first. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of the problem.
Another brother will have to do it. Broke another promise to my old lady. Taking her home. She didn’t ask. I need to take her home. That should be all he should have to say—and it was.
Immediately, because they were his brothers, they offered to help. Destroyer brought the truck as close to the campsite as possible. Reaper packed Savage’s gear in the truck while Savage placed Seychelle carefully in the sleeping bag. She kept her eyes closed, but he could tell she was awake when he put her in the seat and buckled the seat belt.
“Watch Alena,” he warned his brothers.
“We’re packing up as well,” Czar said. “We did as much as we could for Plank and the others. We’ll see if the Diamondbacks still try to pin anything on Alena. If they do, I might take Plank out myself after all we’ve done for him.”
Savage understood. He nodded and slid behind the wheel. “Meet you back home. Take care of my bike for me.”
“Transporter and Mechanic will keep it safe,” Reaper assured him.
Savage set out on the road, putting on soft music in the hopes to lull Seychelle to sleep. The road was nowhere near as smooth as he would have liked, but the truck was in perfect shape and had a full tank of gas. He could make it home before morning easily without pushing it too hard. Still, with few people on the road, he made good time. The truck was a rocket if need be. His gut knotted more every time he glanced toward his woman.
She hadn’t said a single word of recrimination. Not one word. Her body, in spite of the lotion that should have numbed her and the pain pills, still shuddered occasionally. She had her fist pressed tight against her mouth. Her hair had spilled over her face, but he could see her cheeks were wet from her tears. She tried to turn her head away from him, but he refused to let her. He dropped one hand onto the top of her head, preventing movement, and slowed the truck.
His own eyes burned. Shit. For a moment, his vision blurred. That was all he fucking needed. To kill them both because he couldn’t see. He slowed the truck even more. He wasn’t holding it together. Where was his famous control? This wasn’t going to work. He thought he had it all with her, but it wasn’t going to work because he wasn’t doing this shit to her. He was taking her home, cleaning her up and then he’d take her back to Sea Haven. To her cottage. She loved that little house. He knew she was leaving him anyway. He’d had her in his life for months, and he wasn’t going back to living without her. He just couldn’t do that.
There was a gun in his boot. Another one in the glove compartment. Another hidden in the compartment between the seats. He had a spare in a holster under his arm. Once he had her safe, he didn’t need his bike to exit, driving it over a cliff. He just needed one of those guns. He fucking knew this was going to happen sooner or later. He’d known it all along. How could she really love him? It wasn’t possible.
Seychelle groaned as she shifted her weight in the sleeping bag, struggling to sit up.
“What the hell are you doing? Stop moving around.”
Deliberately, she looked at him, tear-wet face, spiky eyelashes dripping water, eyes swollen, her gorgeous face red and puffy from crying. Hell, she was still crying. Still silent, just like he ordered when they had sex. Her defiant little chin lifted and, looking him right in the eye, she released the safety belt. When she did, the sleeping bag slithered down her body and pooled around her waist.
He was forced to look back to the road to see where the fuck he was going before they wrecked. Fortunately, the road was straight. “Put your damn seat belt on, Seychelle.”
She didn’t answer him, and he glanced at her again. Her tits were jutting out, the welts from the thin branch showing very clearly over the curves. The thin band of his shirt was still plastered to her nipples, which meant at least the lotion was sticking there. But the sight of those dark stripes over her generous curves put so much steel in his fucking cock he had to adjust his jeans as he drove. He hated himself for that reaction.
He clenched his teeth, doing his best not to swear at her. He really wanted to swear at himself. He’d done this to her. She was sitting in the truck with a monster, and she knew it.
Except she was no longer sitting. She was up on her knees, her tits against the backrest. She pressed so hard as she leaned over, she flinched. His fucking cock noticed and jerked.
“Seychelle.” Savage poured a warning into his voice. Damn her, she just couldn’t sit still. What the hell was she doing? Didn’t she know every move she made was pure temptation to a man like him when her body was decorated like that?
She totally ignored him, just the way she did whenever she decided to do what she wanted. She turned completely on the seat, rising up again on her knees, heedless of the sleeping bag sliding down while she reached into the back seat to snag the bag closest to her. It was dark on the road, with only one or two cars coming their way. The headlights acted like a spotlight, because, as she bent over, her ass was pushed out, and those headlights landed precisely on the stripes crisscrossing the cheeks of her bottom. The stripes were thin, dark red, and angry-looking. They were sexy as hell. Gorgeous.
“Seychelle, I’m not playing around. Get back in that seat, right now.” He put a growl in his voice. Total command.
She hung over the seat, unzipping the bag and dragging out one of his shirts, ignoring his orders as if she didn’t hear them. The temptation to spank her ass was overwhelming.
“If you don’t turn around right now, I’m going to smack your ass, and it’s going to hurt like hell.” His cock hurt like hell. What difference did it make if he went that far? He’d already lost her.
She didn’t even look at him or act like he’d spoken to her. He waited, his heart accelerating, his mouth dry, the blood pounding through his cock. Before he could stop himself, adrenaline poured through his body, and he slammed his palm on her perfect round left cheek and then her right, over the long, thick welt that was darker than the others. She jumped and whipped around, her hand coming up like she might cover her bottom, but she didn’t.
She had his tee in her hand. “That really hurt, Savage.”
She gave him her long, spiky lashes. That pouty lower lip he liked to bite. Bog, he needed to pull over and kiss the hell out of her, tell her he needed her, and she could never leave him. She took away his past. Drove away his demons. Gave him laughter and taught him what fun was. She was his world.