The bikes came up behind them. Four of them. He glanced over his shoulder to see Reaper helping Anya off his Harley-Davidson Fat Boy Softail. The paint was a dark burgundy, like dried blood. Dark black leather seat, black trim, black chrome, and there was an image of a scythe with a heart wrapped around it. His brother and his old lady. Anya, in such a short time, had become a sister to Savage. She was very accepting of everyone. She waited patiently while Reaper situated the bike, and then he slung his arm around her and walked her up beside Savage and Seychelle.
Anya bumped his hip. “See you brought your girl to the best spot to watch the sunset.” She gave Seychelle a cheerful smile. “I love evenings on the coast. The sun always looks like it’s pouring gold into the sea.”
“Or flames,” Savage said, his mouth close to Seychelle’s ear.
“It is beautiful,” Seychelle agreed, giving Anya a quick, welcoming smile.
Her gaze went straight back to the sun. It appeared huge, a giant red-gold ball dropping fast from the sky, pouring colors into the water.
Preacher, Ink and Code had arrived with Reaper and Anya. They came up behind them, their gazes drawn to the colors streaking across the sky and turning the sea into a panorama of golds, reds and oranges, blazing as it sank into the water. It was a breathtaking sight, and Seychelle reacted, turning her face up to look at Savage over her shoulder.
“It’s always different, isn’t it?” she said to him.
Savage took advantage, one hand cupping Seychelle’s face to keep her there as he bent to brush his lips gently over hers. Coaxing. Seducing. His heart lurched, and he pulled back abruptly, love for her swamping him.
“It is always different,” Anya answered for him. “I love this coast. Sometimes it’s wild and turbulent, so stormy it looks like something out of a gothic novel, and then it’s like glass, smooth, brilliant and so calm it looks like you could walk on it.”
“Kind of like you,” Reaper said, his arm tightening around her neck.
She threw back her head and laughed. Seychelle laughed with her, and Savage found the sound spread out for him in the form of musical notes, floating out toward the sea and that amazing spinning ball of fire. The notes were golden, skipping through the air on the slight breeze. He often saw sounds as notes, and when he was young, he used to point them out to his brother and others, but no one else could see them. He’d learned to judge people by the colors of the notes. He hadn’t seen them in years—not until Seychelle brought them back in the form of gold.
Code nudged Savage. “Message came in for Czar. Plank wants another meet.”
Savage wanted time with Seychelle. As much as he could get. He sent Code a look that warned him to back off. He didn’t want to have to explain anything to do with the club before he clarified what she would be getting into if she chose to stay with him. And, God help them both, he needed her to stay.
“The sea does look like you could walk on it,” Preacher said. “Maybe we should toss Ink out there and see if he can.”
“Yeah, and I can, so then what would you do? Worship me as you should. As all the ladies do.”
Savage put his hands over Seychelle’s ears. “Don’t listen, babe, he’s full of shit.”
“I think all of you are,” Seychelle said, laughing, those golden notes floating out to sea.
Savage was captivated by her sound. He couldn’t help but laugh as well. It wasn’t a big laugh, because he was very rusty, but it was there. That soft, underlying note in her voice seemed to reach inside him and find an answering note in him.
Never once had he seen his own musical notes floating in the air. Not as a child. Not as a teen. Not even when he rode his bike or wore his colors. Now he could see them, plain as day, traveling with hers, interlocking her gold to his deeper antique silver. They linked together, melted into each other, blending colors so that they gleamed like flames as the sun plunged into the sea.
His breath caught in his throat. His chest hurt, as if a huge weight pressed down on him. His lungs burned for air. He couldn’t take his gaze from the spot where those notes sank with the blazing fire of the sun. Her notes were beautiful, like she was, inside and out. He had always thought, if he could see notes he created, they would be dark and ugly, but they hadn’t been.
His notes were darker than hers, and they didn’t skitter across the sky in the same joyful way hers had, but they were beautiful in their own way. And they overtook hers and merged so that, joined, they appeared different, even more brilliant, although the colors were deeper, and took on the fiery colors that were falling into the sea. When they disappeared beneath the water, he stood, arms around her, transfixed, unable to move or even think.