She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. I knew better.”
Seychelle regarded Savage in the flickering light thrown from the firepit. Her heart began to accelerate. Her mouth went dry. Her hands shook, and behind her eyes there was a curious burning sensation. He looked powerful, very intimidating as he sat there on the picnic table, his muscles moving subtly beneath his thin tee when he leaned toward her. His eyes were that pure glacier blue that made her heart pound and turned her blood to molten heat.
She had known better than to call out Czar as they walked through the other clubs’ campsites. She’d been so angry at all of them. The more they’d walked through the various clubs, the more the tension had risen in the members of Torpedo Ink. They’d hidden it well, but she’d felt it.
She realized she was the only woman who really couldn’t be considered a club member. She’d heard about Scarlet and Lissa and their skills as assassins. They could be fully patched members if they chose. They fought as one of them. They were treated as one of them. They had all the information as one of them, unlike Seychelle, who once again, just like the night she sang at the clubhouse, was clearly being used by the club but was uninformed.
With every step she took, she felt the danger increase—not to her, and surprisingly not to Alena, but to Savage. He knew it too. They all knew it. Every single member of the club. Yet he walked calmly like the sacrificial lamb, as if no one were going to try to kill him. They were all part of that club. She was the outsider. No matter how hard she tried to get close to him, no matter what she did for him, with him, Savage didn’t seem to trust her enough to confide in her. Just the people he surrounded himself with.
She had wanted to strike at them all, especially Czar. In that moment, she despised every single club member. Lana had pointed out that she wasn’t good enough to take care of Savage’s needs, and just like that, he had an image of a woman down on her knees, his cock in her mouth. She’d wanted to kick him hard in that particular portion of his anatomy. So yeah, she thought Czar deserved her snapping at him. Lana and Maestro deserved her contempt, and even Savage, now that she remembered what had been going through his mind.
She narrowed her eyes at him and remained a distance away, even though everything in her wanted to go to him. She was almost desperate to go.
“Angel, you’re going to feel so much better once we take care of this. You’re just dragging it out now.” He drew his thighs apart. “Seychelle. Babe. The only way to make this right is to come over here to me.”
“They all know someone here is going to try to kill you, Savage. They act like it doesn’t matter at all. They act like it doesn’t matter if you cheat on me. Nothing seems to get to them because it isn’t happening to them.” She paced in front of him, back and forth, the tension in her coiling tighter and tighter.
He remained silent, just watching her.
Did she need him to ground her? Sometimes when he was holding her firmly, giving her orders, she wasn’t thinking. Right now, her brain was all over the place, looping like mad. She wanted to throw things. At him. At his club. She honestly didn’t know what she wanted—or needed. Only that she hated that he could look so in control when he knew someone was going to try to kill him and she was a mess. Why was he always so in control?
Finally, he sighed. “Seychelle, come here.” He pointed to the spot between his legs.
He had that damn voice. Low. A kind of caress that brushed over her skin like the velvet rasp of his tongue. She shook her head, because her brain said no, even when her body said yes. She even took a step toward him, blood thundering in her ears, attempting to drown out the noise that refused to make any sense looping in her brain, making her want to yell at him.
“Baby, you’re only making this harder on yourself. You know you want to come here to me. You need me. It’s written all over your face. You have to do it, angel. I can’t do it for you. It’s always your choice, you know that.”
She took two more steps toward him before she stopped herself and considered, one hand pushing against her trembling lips.
She both hated and loved him for giving her a choice. She didn’t want to make decisions. She wanted to bury her head in the sand like an ostrich, not see what was right in front of her, because if she did, then she’d know why she was there. She didn’t want to be with Savage for that reason—to be used. She wanted to be with him because he loved her. Because she was part of him. Because he couldn’t bear to be away from her.