Savage Road (Torpedo Ink 7)

“I shouldn’t be punished because I choose not to talk to you about a nightmare I have, Savage. If I ask you about nightmares, you wouldn’t tell me if you didn’t want to.”

“I have them all the time, angel, or I used to until you came into my life. You want to know about them, you ask me. I’ll lay that shit out for you.”

Of course he’d say that now. Her fingers formed two tight fists in frustrations. Why couldn’t she just lie to him? Make something up? People did that all the time. She wasn’t a liar. She’d never been, but maybe this one time it would be okay.

She shrugged. Tried to look away. She couldn’t lie looking at him, for heaven’s sake.

“Damn good thing you’re just wearing that little robe, angel, and nothing else. Take it off, hang it on the hook inside the bathroom right by the shower and come on out here. I’ll be waiting for you, and the longer you make me wait, the more punishment I’m going to add on.”

He turned and walked away. Out of sight. He didn’t go sit on the end of their bed, where she might see him. He walked out of sight, which meant he might have gone over to the chair close to the spanking bench. She nearly groaned aloud. She could close and lock the bathroom door—except there were no locks on the bathroom door. Why? Because her man had a thing about privacy.

She didn’t have to go out there. She didn’t have to do what he said. She was a grown woman. She made her own choices. That was the bottom line, and Savage always made that very, very clear. Everything they did together was ultimately her choice. She walked over to the mirror and stared at herself. Her eyes were dilated. Her face flushed. Already she was breathing too fast.

Why was she like this? Why did she respond sexually to something painful? Her body craved whatever Savage did to her, even when her brain refused to want it. She knew he would never stop until she told him what he wanted to know. She didn’t want to tell him because what if she was right? What if the man in her nightmares was really Savage, and it was one more thing she was going to have to sort out? She was already at a breaking point.

Seychelle rinsed her face again with cold water, hoping to clear her mind. Savage was her choice. She had to sort through her problems fast. She was committed to him—to their life together. She wasn’t so committed to his club. To that life. She didn’t really understand it, and that was part of who he was. She needed that piece of him. He pulled her into it, then pushed her back out, and she resented it.

She took a deep breath, her lashes lifting so she found herself staring at herself in the mirror, realizing she’d just had a revelation. She didn’t resent the fact that Savage had a psychic gift that allowed him to take on the anger, the very real rage his brothers and sisters of Torpedo Ink felt that made him the way he was. She was actually proud of him for that. She resented that all of them shared deep secrets and he shut her out. At the same time, he expected her to use her gifts to aid them and him when the club needed those gifts. Where was the fairness in that?

Ordinarily, Seychelle would gladly help anyone in need. Especially Savage. Any one of Savage’s friends. But not like this, not when she was shut out and she was supposed to be his partner. He demanded 100 percent from her. He told her he was giving her 100 percent of him, but he wasn’t.

She pushed at the hair tumbling around her face. When she did, she noticed the ring on her left hand. How could she not? It was gorgeous. A rare fancy teal-blue diamond, surrounded by diamonds that appeared to be petals hugging her finger. The entire thing glittered every time she moved. It should have been ostentatious, but it wasn’t. It was simply beautiful. Savage had a way of knowing exactly what she would love.

He was trained to read body language. Every facial expression. Every single subtle hint, from elevated breathing to the parting of her lips. He knew her. And she was an open book anyway, even when she tried not to be. He had been trained from childhood in the arts of sex: giving, receiving, training one to do what he commanded, and he was very, very good at what he did. He had too many weapons to use against her, and she had fallen too fast to get her armor in place.