She wanted him to deny that he would hurt her. She needed him to say it, although she wouldn’t have believed him. The rage in him was violent and barely contained. It beat at her, and eventually, she had to open up and allow it in, allow her peace to surround him and slowly absorb the brutal needs in him.
“There aren’t going to be other women,” he said quietly. “And you’ll learn to be what I need.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. I’ll teach you.”
“You aren’t telling me I won’t get hurt,” she pointed out.
“I want to tell you that won’t happen, Seychelle, but there always has to be truth between us. You have to learn that I’ll always tell you the truth no matter what, no matter how much it might hurt or scare you, and I’ll know that you’ll do the same for me. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Hit the bathroom while I get you some soup.”
She wanted the bathroom break, especially to brush her teeth, but her stomach lurched at the idea of eating. “I’ll be right back, but nothing to eat yet.”
She hurried, her heart racing. At least they were going to talk things out. She had no problems being straight with him, telling him how she felt, but he had to accept that she couldn’t be with him, not when he needed to be with other women—and he did, no matter what he said now.
She even believed him when he said she was his everything. He came back to her over and over. He suffered just the way she had, all those nights outside her window. She’d felt it when they’d breathed together with a wall separating them.
Those women in the bar. The way they’d fixated on him. She couldn’t take that, not knowing he would go back to them and give them what he would never give her. She wasn’t the type of woman to share. She didn’t know about the other women who were with the men in the Torpedo Ink club, but she knew, emotionally, she just wasn’t built that way.
She sighed and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d tried being without him. That hadn’t worked so well. She’d thought she could be with him. That hadn’t worked either. She looked pale and strained. Her hair was a mess. She vaguely remembered Savage holding her braid to keep it off her face when she was puking nonstop. Great. Lovely. She sighed again. There was no use hiding. She might as well get it over with.
Seychelle went back into her bedroom, climbing up onto the bed, scooting up to her favorite place, back to the headboard, where she felt a little safer as she faced him. He looked . . . invincible. So tough. Scary even. Sexy as hell. Always her choice, and she didn’t even know why, but she wasn’t going to be that woman, pushed into something she knew wouldn’t work because she was so in love. She had spent the last month acting like her life was over, moping over a man who preferred other women sexually, and her for what? Sleeping? She had to get her tough on and stand up for herself.
Savage sat on the edge of the bed, shaping her ankle with his palm the way he always did, as if he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. His touch was gentle. The pads of his fingers moved over her skin in small strokes. Like caresses. Like sin. Like the promise of something she could never have with him.
“You’ve got your chin up, babe. I know what that means. You’re spoiling for a fight.” His eyes turned bluer than ever. “We’re not fighting here. We’re going to do this thing. You and me, Seychelle. There’s going to be a you and me.”
She shook her head, her heart beating too hard. Hoping. Afraid to hope. Afraid of being hurt again. “I don’t see how. I just don’t see how it can work. I want it to work more than anything, but how can it?” She kept her gaze fixed on his face. His eyes. The way they moved over her face. Her body. Taking her in. So much for her resolve. He melted it away just by the way he looked at her.
“You have to learn to trust me, and that trust has to be so strong that you know you can tell me anything. I’ll listen to you, Seychelle. I’ll hear you and we’ll talk it out. The two of us. We’ll work through the problems together and it will be all right.”
“But it won’t. I tried to tell you about those other women in the bar last night. How they couldn’t keep their eyes off you. The way they made me feel. But you just dismissed my feelings as if they didn’t count.”