He immediately hit the button to roll her window down, letting the cold night air into the truck. She was still shivering. He zipped his jeans up slowly. Carefully. Now he just wanted to hold her. Take care of her. He didn’t like her color. It was way off.
“I made you a promise that we wouldn’t do anything like that with the others around, and I fucking broke that promise to you.”
“Your intention was to give me one of my little porn flicks, and we were away from everyone.”
“Yeah, and I got out of control. I didn’t even know I was out of control. And you didn’t fucking stop me.” He tried not to put accusation in his voice, but he knew it was there.
“Savage, you don’t even realize what you did, do you? I was the one in control the entire time, not you. When I indicated through body language, deliberately, I might add, that the tree was hurting my nipples, you immediately cushioned them with your palms. The backs of your hands are all scraped up from keeping me from hitting the bark when you were fucking me. When I said yellow, you didn’t slow down, you stopped. I said yellow because I knew you were at the edge of your control and that when we were home and you were going to have to really let your demons go, I needed to know I could stop what was happening. I needed to know I could control the situation.”
Shit, she had known all along that he was losing his mind when he was swinging that switch and decorating her sweet body. His woman. Not too much got by her. She had her fingers covering her mouth now. Brows together in a frown.
“You fucking tested me.”
“Do I look stupid to you? Of course I did. That was the closest you were ever going to get to being the real thing without being there. I had to know I could take it and that you would respond if I said stop. What I didn’t realize was that even when you’re close to being out of control, you still protect me. You do look out for me.”
Savage found himself speechless. Seychelle. His angel. She was driving his demons away. “Do you really believe you can love me just the way I am?”
He wished his voice didn’t sound so fucking choked up, like some pussy about to cry. He wasn’t a man who gave in to emotions like this. He took care of her after shit went down between them. She deserved the care after what he’d dished out to her, not the other way around.
Seychelle didn’t answer him for a long time. He reached for her hand and pressed her fingers into his thigh, needing the connection.
“I love you more with every breath I take, Savage. Just like you are. I’ve never asked you to change. Just grow. I want you to see me the same way I see you. I thought tonight, for the first time, you did. You try to avoid emotions. I’m very emotional. I need to hear those reassurances. I guess you do as well.”
Did he? Hell yes, he did. He felt for a long time that Seychelle was just out of his reach. He was always going to think that, because who would ever believe a woman like her could love a man like him? It didn’t make sense. He tried to twist it around in his mind and make it fit, but it didn’t. Sometimes in the middle of the night, he woke up and just stared at her, trying to comprehend how she was in his life, in his bed, how she could possibly look at him, let alone have genuine feelings for him.
She knew everything about him now. What he was. What he did. His many flaws. He had shown her too soon, without getting her body ready, what kind of sick fuck she was tying herself to, and he’d done it while breaking a promise to her. No matter how much he loved her, no matter how many good things he did for her, there would always be this—his cock hard as fucking steel to see the stripes he put on her body. There was no getting around that. No running from it. No changing it.
Did he believe her that she loved him? That she would stay? He knew she was his angel. She believed she loved him. But how long could a woman face his kind of monster and love him through it? Fuck it. He was going to believe the fairy tale because he had to. He needed her desperately just to breathe.
“All right, baby. Tell me what you want right now.”
She caught the handle to the door of the truck, shoving, and pressed a little desperately. “I think the pain pill made me sick, Savage, just like alcohol. I’m going to throw up. I can’t get out of the sleeping bag. You’re going to have to forget all about sex and help me.”
Then his woman was puking her guts out, just as she had when she’d had a couple of drinks. He was out of the truck and around the hood to pull her out of the cab and help her so she wasn’t trapped in the bag. He got her to the side of the road, away from any prying eyes. Eventually, he texted Steele and then Preacher. Preacher texted Hannah Drake Harrington in the hopes of having something to help by the time Savage got Seychelle back to their home.
“We’ve got company, baby,” Savage said. “A whole slew of company. I’m going to fire up the grill. Looks like they’ll be staying for dinner, since they invited themselves right at the dinner hour.”
Doris Fendris pushed her way right past Savage and marched out onto the large octagon-shaped deck that was a little more secluded than the front deck. The solid redwood deck with its firepit and carved railing overlooked the ocean, jutting out closer to the ravine and bluffs. Thankfully, there were several chairs, as behind Doris came Inez; Eden Ravard; Marie Darden, another close friend; and even more women.
“Don’t worry, Savage, we brought drinks,” Doris called out as she bent to kiss Seychelle on the cheek. “Don’t get up, dear. Hannah told us you were sick. Something about an allergic reaction to a pain pill. That’s so terrible.”
“She can’t drink worth shit either, Doris,” Savage announced. “She’s allergic to alcohol as well, so don’t offer her a drink, even if she begs. She thinks she can drink one of those ridiculous frou-frou drinks you’re always making.” He winked at Seychelle, brushed the top of her head with a kiss and gave Doris his stone face.
Doris sputtered, looking outraged. “Frou-frou drinks?” she echoed.
“Is that true, Seychelle?” Eden asked. She laid a hand on Seychelle’s wrist. “How awful for you to be allergic to alcohol.”
“We don’t know for certain that I’m allergic to alcohol,” Seychelle said. “I’ve only tried it a couple of times. Both times I was horribly sick. Maybe I just haven’t built up a tolerance.”
Her phone began to play “Wrong Side of Heaven” by Five Finger Death Punch. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced down. You looking to get in trouble at your own party? You are not drinking tonight. Bog, you make me crazy sometimes.
Seychelle did her best to smother the laughter and sent him a series of laughing emojis interspersed with cocktail glasses.
“I don’t make frou-frou drinks, Savage,” Doris declared indignantly, following Savage across the deck to the barbecue, where he was pulling off the cover and opening the lid.
“Doris. They’re pink. You make pink, girly drinks and you know it. Just own that shit.” Savage ran a large wire brush over the grill a few times.
Seychelle’s phone vibrated this time because she had the good sense not to let it blare at her every few seconds. There were hand-spanking-the-bare-butt emojis, half a dozen of them running across her screen. She glanced up at him to see him diligently working on the grill. How did he do that?