“We’re going to take one thing at a time, Seychelle, because this is important. I should have insisted on talking to you last night instead of letting it build up until it turned into something monstrous. I wasn’t laughing at you. I wouldn’t do that. I like that you have an innocence about you. I like that I can teach you things, especially when they’re things I want done my way. We have something special between us, our sexy-as-hell you-learn-dirty-sinful-lessons-from-me, and I love that. Was it amusing to me that you bought a how-to book on learning how to give your man a blow job? Hell yes. Did I think it was adorable as in I’m the luckiest man on the planet? Yes. That’s the fucking truth, angel.”
“Stop saying fuck and angel in the same sentence, Savage,” she whispered. “You’re going to go to hell if you keep that up.”
He didn’t dare look amused over that either, not if he wanted to get through this conversation. He tortured and killed men. Saying fuck and angel in the same sentence was hardly what was going to send him to hell.
“As for explaining to you what Shari meant, I hated sounding like a complete dick, which I would. I’ve already told you what I was before I met you. When my rage gets to a certain point, I have to have a release, which I achieve through fighting, doing specific things for the club, or in a sexual way, which is whipping the shit out of a woman and then fucking her face. It isn’t pretty, and she doesn’t get a whole hell of a lot out of it, although I get her off with my hand.”
“They must get something out of it if they keep wanting to come back for more.” She kept her face turned away from him, eyes on the fire, as if those flames could give her all the answers she sought.
“Very few women ever want a repeat with me. There are a few like Shari who get obsessed.”
“You mean like me.”
“Not like you. You love me, Seychelle. You see me. You know me and everything about me. Even shit like this, where I look like such a fucking dick, you still love me. I can feel it. I hate that I hurt you. I hate that we have misunderstandings. As for thinking for one second that I could use another woman if things go south, instead of you, that was a suggestion one of the members gave to me because he was worried about you. It passed through my mind because I’m afraid this could be bad and you’re not ready for me to be hard on you yet, but I know I couldn’t have another woman touch me. If you had kept your hand on me a second longer, you would have known that too.”
There was a long silence broken only by the sound of the crackling wood as it burned in the firepit. Savage kept his gaze fixed on Seychelle. None of this explained her visceral reaction to his command to suck his cock. That still didn’t make sense. There was no one around them. It wasn’t like she could plead he was deliberately trying to humiliate her.
“Baby,” he kept his voice velvet soft. Very low, but commanding. “You’re going to have to talk to me.”
“I think Brandon managed to use Shari to plant a suggestion in me.” Staring into the flames, she blurted it out without looking at him. “It took time to work, and you laughing helped to set it.”
Savage frowned, studying her averted face. She was back to trembling, the shaking so extreme, he was afraid she might fall out of the chair. “You’ll need to explain this to me, angel.”
“When we were at dinner and Eden clearly didn’t want to talk about her stepson, I realized she was afraid of him. Once I knew Brandon was her stepson, I started thinking about Tony and his brothers, whether or not they might have any psychic talents. The morning I ran into Tony in Sea Haven, he specifically said, I almost felt you could reach right into all of us and control our emotions. That’s how beautiful your voice is. That implies he knows about using a voice to control other people’s emotions.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” He kept his tone strictly neutral.
“I did tell you, just not specifically what he said. I believe you had all kinds of grievances against me at the time, and I wasn’t thinking too clearly. I certainly didn’t have as much information, and I could be way off now. I just don’t think I am.”
She sounded sad. Alone.
Savage wanted to pull her into his arms, but he couldn’t—not yet. “Keep talking, Seychelle. What kind of suggestion could Brandon have planted?” Twice she had indicated she thought she was responsible for someone trying to kill him. Was that why? He needed to know.