She lifted her chin. “Would you get on your bike and ride out of here with me if I asked you to go?” She gestured to the club members that were at their campfires in a semicircle around Savage and Seychelle, but giving them plenty of space.
“Yes. You know I’m needed here, so you would never ask me to leave without a good reason. So the answer is yes, Seychelle, if you asked me to take you out of here, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
That was not the answer she’d expected or even wanted to hear. She let him see despair clawing at her belly. “Saving your life isn’t considered a good reason, is it?”
He trailed a finger from her chin, down her throat, between her breasts to her belly button. “No, princess. I don’t die so easy, and we came here knowing someone was going to make their try.” He patted his lap. Lowered his voice so that he was the devil. Sin. Temptation. Her savior. “Come here, baby. Let me take care of you.”
She knew she was going to give in to him, not for him but for herself. She needed him. She needed to fly away from the thundering chaos in her head. She crawled up his body, using his arms to pull herself over him, and draped herself over his lap. He sat on the table, rather than the bench, so she found herself staring at the planks of wood that made up the tabletop. Her breasts floated free, the evening air tugging at her nipples. He rubbed her exposed cheeks and then pushed her thighs gently but firmly a hand’s width apart.
“You really broke a few of the rules we set up between us, didn’t you, baby?”
“Yes.” She had. She disliked his entire club, and she really hadn’t liked him very much. So she’d been deliberately as disrespectful as possible to him. She knew that would set his teeth on edge, but more, if anyone was watching, or cared, he would look as if he couldn’t control her—and Savage was all about control. “I disrespected you in public.”
The way his palm moved over her bare cheek felt delicious. The stripes from the cane hurt, but in a good way now, and the way he rubbed sent heat deep. A fist of pure desire formed in her belly.
“You chose to do that in public. Fought with me in public, didn’t you, Seychelle? And worse, disrespected the president of our club.”
“Your club,” she clarified.
“Our fucking club,” he stated clearly.
Goose bumps broke out all over her skin. She had chosen to do that. She would debate with him in public. Tease him. Argue points with him. But it was wholly against her nature to fight in public with him, especially with his club members around him. What had gotten into her? That was so unlike her. She would walk away before she would ever do something like that.
“Yes,” she whispered. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense to her anymore, with the exception of being with Savage, and that made absolutely no sense at all, yet right at that moment, he made the only sense to her. She needed him—needed this to ground her. That was how confused she was.
He rubbed her bare cheeks again. His knuckles slid between her legs, and a jolt of pure heat became a dark fist in the pit of her stomach. She knew she was slick. Already growing hot in anticipation. She had given up trying to figure out why she was the way she was. She only knew her body responded to the things Savage did to her.
Savage leaned over her, his mouth close to the nape of her neck. “I told you, and I meant it, that Czar deserved the things you said to him. I’ll take whatever he wants to dish out, not you. This is only for disrespecting me in public. Whatever you’re upset with me for, and I know there is something, we talk about in private.”
She sent him a smoldering look over her shoulder but didn’t dispute what he said. She’d agreed to his terms when they first got together. In any case, she needed to feel his hand on her.
“This is going to be intense because of the bruising from the cane. You can cry, but no screaming, Seychelle. If you need to take a break, you can slow it down, or stop it by giving me red or yellow. You get that, baby? I want you to know you can stop this.”
“It’s a punishment,” she said stubbornly. “You said there was no stopping a punishment.”
“We’re not alone, baby, and you took a severe punishment already. We’re being flexible here. So you can stop this if it gets to be too much. It’s your choice.”