“And I won’t know where you are?”
“If there’s trouble, you’ll be at the clubhouse, or you can stay with Blythe if Czar thinks you’ll be safer there. I’ll have someone watching out for you.”
“That isn’t what I asked you.” Seychelle’s gaze was steady on his face. Unflinching.
He wanted to smile. She could never say she lacked courage. The woman would stand up to him, and that was a good thing. He respected that in her. He wanted a partner. “No, babe, you won’t know where I am, but you can text me and I’ll answer as soon as I can. If you’re worried, you can text Czar. He’ll know where I am and if I’m safe. Because I have enemies, it’s best we always have a bag ready to go at a moment’s notice. Your travel papers, money, although that isn’t necessary—Code will fix up papers, and I have enough money. But anything important to you should be ready to go at a moment’s notice. If we do ever have to leave fast, we travel light.”
“That’s easy, Savage. My mother’s hairbrush and the rose sculpture. My parents were cremated. That was what they wanted. Neither could travel much, so they asked if their ashes could be scattered at sea. I took care of that, but I kept enough to have a glassblower make that sculpture for me. My mother loved roses, and I do too. Their ashes are in the sculpture. That’s why it’s so bright when it’s lit up. So, if we ever have to go fast, grab those two things for me if I’m not with you.”
She’d be with him. She hadn’t even flinched at the idea of having to make a fast getaway. She hadn’t inquired why they might have to make a run for it. Bog, every minute, he was falling more in love with her.
Savage rubbed his chin on her soft belly. “I think about sex all the time. Since I laid eyes on you, it’s been every minute, night and day. When I want you, however I want you, I expect to have you. No other man is ever going to touch you. I don’t share. They may see us, because at the parties we’ll go to, sex is everywhere. We prefer the others around because we’ve always been safer . . .”
She shook her head, drawing back from him, and when he looked up at her, he could see the utter rejection, the absolute abhorrence. “No. Absolutely not. If you’re going to do things to me that are scary and painful and then turn them into something I get off on, I’m not having anyone watch. That’s either private between the two of us, or it is never going to happen between us. I mean that, Savage. I’m terrified and out of my element as it is. The things you know and want, I can’t conceive of. I would be humiliated to have anyone else know I not only let you do those things to me, but I want them, if I ever get to that place.”
He turned his head so he could rest his chin on her belly, just above her mound. That scent of wild strawberries clinging to her was driving him mad. “That’s your bottom line? Sex is okay at parties as long as I don’t cross that line?”
He knew that line would begin to blur for both of them, but she had a point. There would be added intimacy if they kept their proclivities solely between the two of them. He wasn’t an exhibitionist. He didn’t care if others watched or not. It was about Seychelle and her body, his canvas, his private playground. He would worship her forever.
“I just couldn’t do that.”
“What are we talking here? At the events, the runs and parties, I can keep us in the shadows, where no one else can really see, but you know I’m going to have to have some of the easier things we’ll do. Nipple clamps? My hand? A switch? A crop? Something simple like that? I want to have your fuckin’ body, baby, and I have to be aroused. I’m not just using you to get off.”
“Those things are simple?”
“Yeah, baby, very simple—you’ll be loving them by the end of the week.” His body was already hard and aching with the images of teaching her. “We’ll have to figure out what we can do at parties that you find acceptable, so we don’t cross any lines.”
“I want to try things first before we make any rules. Right now, I don’t even know if I can do any of this.”
That was reasonable. More than reasonable. “Tell me you’ll stay with me. Always, Seychelle. Tell me you can live with me just the way I am. No one in your life will ever need you more. You can make me happy.”