Seychelle Dubois sat on the bathroom floor staring at the toilet for the second morning in a row. She felt like an idiot. “No, Savage, I’m not pregnant. And I’m not a secret drinker either.”
“What the hell is wrong? Should I call Steele? I want you to go see him.”
She pushed herself up, glaring at him. “I do not need to see a doctor. Do you remember the talk we had on privacy?” Stumbling over to the sink, Seychelle washed her face with cold water, rinsed out her mouth and then started the process of brushing her teeth.
Savin “Savage” Pajari continued to watch her in the mirror. He leaned one hip against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were arctic blue, so cold they made her shiver. It didn’t help that he wore a thin pair of drawstring pants, indicating he was going out to practice with his whip. She had been avoiding watching him the last couple of days because for some unexplained reason, just the sight and sound of it turned her on like nothing else in the world possibly could. That was the last thing she needed to know right now on top of everything else—that she was truly messed up in the head, or body, however one wanted to look at it.
“Seychelle, we did have a talk about privacy, and I told you how I felt about it when it came to my woman. Now fuckin’ tell me what’s going on.”
She took her time finishing with her teeth, rinsed her mouth multiple times and then turned to face him, leaning her butt against the sink, arms crossed to match his. “I’m having hideous nightmares. Really vivid nightmares. They make me sick.” She did her best not to make it an accusation, but she knew it came out like one. What was she accusing him of? He wasn’t in her nightmares.
Savage studied her face for a long time without speaking, those blue eyes burning like ice over her. He was gorgeous. That was half her problem. She could stare at him endlessly—forever. He had a body on him, all man, more muscles than was good for him, tattoos over scars and burns. He had the words Whip Master burned into his skin on his chest and Master of Pain burned into his back. The tats didn’t cover either burns, although she knew Ink, a brother in his club, had done his best with the beautiful artwork on him.
“You gonna stop there and make me ask or you goin’ tell me what these nightmares are about, angel? If they’re making you sick, they’re fucked the hell up.”
There was a warning in his voice, but no expression on his face, just those blue, blue eyes, cold as a glacier, telling her he wasn’t going to let it go.
They had agreed to have truth between them, but that really meant she told him the truth and he withheld things he didn’t want to talk about. They’d been together for months, and she loved him far too much. It wasn’t a good thing by any means.
“Last chance, Seychelle, start talking.”
“It was a nightmare, Savage. People have them.”
“Two fuckin’ nights in a row. The same nightmare. Bad enough that you puke in the toilet and you don’t want to tell me about it.”
That was a straight-up accusation. Worse, he was right. She didn’t want to tell him. That stance. Arms across his chest. Those eyes that wouldn’t let her look away no matter how much she wanted to. He’d given her space the day before because she’d asked him to. She’d been upset. Joseph Arnold, a stalker, had been sitting in her cottage waiting for her with a gun, and Savage thought she was upset about that. She had been, of course, but that wasn’t the only reason. There was a multitude of reasons she was questioning her sanity. Mostly, it had to do with herself, the things she was discovering she needed in her own sexual relationship, and that truly frightened her. She needed to come to terms with it.
There were just so many things coming at her so fast. She wasn’t a person who took things in fast. She just wanted everything to slow down so she could take a breath and assimilate everything at a much different pace than they were going.
“It isn’t me that is going to have the sore ass. I’m not asking again.”
She detested the little flare of dark excitement that sent heat to her sex. It didn’t matter how annoying she found it that he just stood there so casually. He was unmoving, those eyes of his holding her in place, probably seeing that flicker of reaction she couldn’t control, knowing blood pounded in her clit and her sex fluttered just at the thought of what he intended in spite of her absolute abhorrence of his intentions.
“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 which 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. Anyone 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.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be where she was—she did. She had come on board with her eyes open—sort of. Living in reality was always a far cry from being dreamily in love. “Let that be a lesson to you, Seychelle,” she whispered.
She couldn’t blame all of it on Savage or all the frightening things he brought to their relationship. She hadn’t realized the extent of the lure of mixing pain and pleasure. She’d been so attracted to him, to that darkness in him. The first time he’d spun her around in an alley, lifted the hem of her dress and smacked her bottom, she’d gotten so damp, reacting to him when no one had ever made her body come alive before. That had been a revelation—a bit confusing, actually.
She went home and immediately delved deeper into spankings and even floggers, but she didn’t really understand it. She had no idea why her body would respond to such a thing when no matter what she’d tried, she’d thought she was absolutely frigid. The deeper into his world Savage took her— and granted, it wasn’t very far, but she saw where they were going—the more alarmed she got. She was intrigued. Terrified, but intrigued. That wasn’t a good thing in her opinion.
In her mind, when she’d gotten together with Savage, she believed she would give herself to him and there would be that moment when she would have to “suffer” for him. He suffered for those he loved, and she would do it for him. She was very confused with the way she felt about pain and the effects on her body. She didn’t want to crave pain. Did she? Or did she crave Savage? She didn’t even know anymore what was right or wrong. She only knew that she loved him, and she had to find a way to come to terms with all the rest of it.
Savage stood looking at the array of tools he had lined up in his cabinet over the wooden drawers built along the wall next to the tall wooden cabinet where the jewelry he had for Seychelle was kept. She hadn’t even seen the majority of it. He had orders in to have so much more made for her. Now that he had her in his life, he was more than comfortable with his needs. He just had to get her to a place where she was accepting of their lifestyle.
He was a sadist in the bedroom, and he owned what he was. He had exhausted all the avenues open to him to change and knew there was no way for him to be anything but what he was. He needed to see his woman in pain in order to be aroused. He got off on that shit. Putting his handprints or his marks on her gorgeous ass aroused him. But the thought of using his floggers or whips, that was the ultimate for him—that would put steel in his cock like nothing else could. Her tears were his. Her ultimate pleasure was his, and he could give her pleasure like no one else ever could.
She had gone into their relationship fully aware. He had been careful to tell her what he was so there were no surprises on that score. He’d laid it out as plainly as possible, but talking about it wasn’t the same as experiencing it. He had been bringing her into his lifestyle faster than he wanted to. He knew that was frightening for her. She responded so beautifully though.
Her body was aroused with clamps. She loved nipple play. He loved it. They hadn’t gotten to the more exciting stuff for him, but they were getting there fast. She would both love that and hate it. She was coming to enjoy her spankings a little too much. She wasn’t altogether certain she liked the crop that much, but he doubted if she would care for very many of the straps, slappers and tawes he was looking at in his cupboard at the moment.
These were specialized tools, and he chose three tawes, one that would warm her little backside up properly. He would ask her questions and hope she would answer him without lying. She’d never lied to him, but she’d been considering it. The second tawes, also crafted in the rough-hewn center-split leather like the first, was slightly larger and delivered a more punishing strike. She would definitely feel it. The split leather wouldn’t feel anywhere near the same as the thicker crop he’d used on her. He’d ask again, and if she still didn’t answer him, there was the larger tawes, which she definitely wouldn’t enjoy. It was for a severe punishment. A lie. A holdout when there was no reason. He hoped—and doubted—it wouldn’t come to that.
Savage would lay it out for her like he always did. She would choose her own consequences. During a punishment she knew there was no calling out “red” for stop. Any other time during sex, she had that right. This was a different circumstance and one she’d agreed to when they first laid down the rules to their relationship.
He’d been somewhat lax about keeping the rules. He’d let them go, didn’t keep a guard on her like he should have all the time. It was his fucking fault that his woman was nearly gunned down by a madman. If Seychelle hadn’t kept her head and been so resourceful, he wouldn’t have gotten there in time. She had essentially gotten herself out of the cottage and was running when the club showed up to deal with Arnold, but it so easily could have gone the other way. All because he’d tried to be someone he wasn’t.
He loved her so damn much he would have roped the moon and given it to her if he could have. What he did was let that fucker live the first time he’d turned up stalking Seychelle. Savage knew he should have killed him right then and thrown his body into the ocean or buried him in the forest somewhere deep where he never would have been found. Seychelle’s entire ordeal rested squarely on his shoulders because he hadn’t done what he was supposed to do—protect her. He was too busy worrying about her leaving him because he was asking her to accept too damn much in their relationship already.
He was who he really was. She had to know him, not some fucking choirboy he pretended to be. And he damn well wasn’t letting her go. She could learn to love all of him, even the not-so-nice parts. She might be afraid of what they did in the bedroom, but she fucking loved it. It was this part, having to answer to him that upset her. She didn’t like that his world had to be so controlled. She didn’t understand yet just how dangerous he could be if he didn’t have everything in place. That meant her—his everything. The center of his universe.
He wasn’t taking her bullshit anymore, and she might not realize it, but he was counting every fucking minute she was making him wait. He collected the three leather tawes and closed the cabinet and then crossed to the chair beside the spanking bench. He laid the three tawes out on the table, where she could see them when she came in. They were beautiful examples of Scottish craftsmanship. The leather was perfectly split just right, and each handle fit his palm exactly as he’d instructed.
He knew he had a well of rage in him, and this time it was dark and deep and ugly. He would have to be damn careful, because he wasn’t going to punish her for his sins. He was pissed at himself. Not at her. She deserved punishment, and he liked when he was stripping her bare and giving it to her. He’d told her how much he enjoyed it. It aroused him, and he made no secret of it. It aroused her as well, but this time there would be no satisfaction for her at the end of it. He’d asked her several times to tell him what was making her sick, given her every opportunity. His woman had a stubborn streak. Sweet as candy. A fuckin’ angel, but did what she wanted when she lifted that little chin of hers at him.
He would have smiled at that thought, but the way she had looked at him a few times worried him, especially when she’d said she’d had a nightmare. He’d been the one to interrogate that sick fuck Arnold, and he hadn’t been polite about it, but then, Savage was known for getting answers when he questioned his prey. He’d never failed the club. He hadn’t failed when he was first learning the techniques. He’d studied every poison. Every kind of weapon and where to insert knives to cause the most pain without killing. He studied anatomy, ways to lob off body parts without killing and ways to prolong life. At the club, he had cabinets with all kinds of tools and interesting oils and poisons he’d been taught to use from the time he was a young teen to extract the truth.
He was careful around Seychelle. He was too good at disassociating, far too good at it, and it made him a monster, lost him the humanity Czar, the president of Torpedo Ink, had fought so hard to keep in all of the club members. He had brought them to Sea Haven to give them a chance at life, but they were all so fucked up none of them really fit into society. They didn’t understand the rules. They had their own code, the one Czar had given them, and they stuck with that. But Savage . . . He shook his head. He still had a difficult time even with that.
His emotions seemed to come and go. He either felt nothing, or he was as cold as ice, or absolutely enraged. All three of those things were dangerous and would get people killed. Then there was his circle, the people he protected, those he rode with and cared for. His emotions for them were strong, and anyone threatening them should have been killed and buried the moment that threat was found to be real. Like fucking Joseph Arnold. Yeah, he needed to go back to his strict rules, where he knew the people he let into his life were always safe. That meant getting his stubborn, sassy, cute-as-hell, gorgeous, sexy woman under control.
She had that psychic gift of reading his mind when things were too vivid and close. He couldn’t go from an intense interrogation that might not raise the blood pressure of a sick fuck like him, but would stick in the corners of his dark soul, and come home to her where an angel like Seychelle could see. Who knew? But it happened. And it might have happened again.
He’d showered multiple times and changed his clothes and burned his interrogation clothes before he’d gone home to Seychelle. He’d had breakfast with another brother, Ice, and his old lady, Soleil, allowing more time to pass and putting other things in his mind. He’d showered again at home before going to bed. He’d taken every precaution, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t slipped inside his soul.
He sat in the cool leather of the chair, looking at the various views he had from that one spot. The two armchairs were set close, facing the long fireplace built into the wall itself. It was a good twelve feet long and when turned on could flicker low, providing small tongues of orange or red flames, or leaping, rolling red-hot scorching blazes. The curve below the fireplace provided the long bank of handcrafted wooden drawers made by his brothers specifically for his whips and floggers. Fortunately, they were able to fit them into the room with few modifications. The tall jewelry cabinet they’d made for him fit nicely in the corner.
The woodworkers, Master, Player, Maestro and Keys, four of his brothers from Torpedo Ink, also made the rectangular, thinner cabinet housing his straps, slappers and tawes. In all honesty, they made cabinets in all shapes and sizes as they talked music and just messed around together in the shop. One would come up with a design and they’d put it together. If someone wanted it, they could just go get it. Savage had scored several beautiful cabinets that way. He’d needed them and found them at the shop.
Movement caught his eye and his woman emerged from the master bath. Her hair always seemed a little bit wild, as if no matter what she did to try to tame it, there was no way it would fall in line. It was gold and platinum mixed together, streaks of light honey, thick, flowing down her back like a waterfall in waves.
Her eyes were a spectacular blue, like teal, deep and intense, stealing his breath if he looked too long, so that he had the feeling of falling, of drowning, and who the hell gave a fuck if he did, because just look at her. She had a woman’s figure. She had tits. Nice round woman’s flesh. Nipples he could see, could touch and play with. She had the kind of hips that cradled a man and an ass that invited a man to play. He fucking loved her body. He loved her skin. Smooth and soft, and it marked beautifully for him.
She walked, shoulders straight, back straight, chin up, hips and ass swaying, straight to the spanking bench. She stood, back to him, waiting his orders. She could make his scarred cock stretch like no one could, just at the thought of what he was about to do to that sweet little ass and pussy.
He kept his relaxed position and dropped his hand to the first of the tawes, which was a bit smaller. “This is a tawes, Seychelle. It will warm your ass and get you ready for your punishment. I’ll warn you, this is a cut above what you’ve felt before. It may not look like much, but it delivers. You will feel it.”
Her gaze slid to him, and he caught the lift of her eyebrow. His cock jerked hard. She didn’t intend to tell him. She was definitely challenging him. He flashed her a grin. He indicated for her to lay over the bench. She did, presenting her ass to him without hesitation. He got up and, using a lazy, silent prowl, came up behind her, put one hand on the small of her back and kicked her left foot out wide.
“You know how to present your ass to me.” He bent down and fit a cuff around her ankle to hold her in place.
She frowned and looked over his shoulder. He’d never used any tie she couldn’t get out of. He’d always asked her first. They’d talked over everything. He’d told her up front punishments were different. Safe words were off the table. He was solely in charge, and she’d agreed. She might cry foul eventually, but he knew her well enough to know she was stubborn as hell and he would have to do something a lot worse than this to get her to run from him.
He cuffed her left ankle and then did the same with each wrist. He pulled a scrunchie from his pocket, gathered her hair and secured it into a messy knot. Some would escape, but she couldn’t hide from him the way he knew she wanted to use her hair to do.
“Now I think we’re ready. You look beautiful as always, Seychelle.” He curved his palm around the back of her neck gently to give her courage, something he couldn’t help doing with her, then ran his finger down her spine as he walked around her again and picked up the tawes.
Already his body was anticipating this. He could feel himself sinking into that place of a sexual rush, a sexual high, and he hadn’t even gotten started. It was in his mind, his blood already hot. He rubbed her bottom. Cupped her pussy. Teased her pussy lips. Flicked her clit with tawes, letting her feel the leather.
“You like that, baby?” He patted her pussy with it gently. “We’ll see how well you like it, when we’re done.”
He struck her without warning, using a little muscle, because honestly, this little thing hardly gave much of a sting in his opinion, but she jumped and then settled. He peppered her bottom with the tawes, lighting her up on both cheeks, and then the backs of her thighs. He was right about his woman. Her pussy glistened; her clit was inflamed. Her ass was marked, but she didn’t make a sound. After several minutes, he stopped and picked up the second tawes.
“Okay, baby, we’re at the main event. What are you being punished for, Seychelle?”
“Because my man loves this shit and wants an excuse to use his fun little toys on me.”
He rubbed the marks, his cock swelling to alarming proportions. Bog, she was killing him, challenging him like this. He fucking loved it. His hand slipped over the curve of her red bottom, fingers dipping into the heat of her pussy. She was so hot and greedy, her silken sheath tried to suck his fingers deep.
“So needy, baby. You want more, don’t you? That is exactly the answer that will buy you more. I’ll ask again, why are you being punished?”
“Because my man is being a total asshole right now?”
He patted her ass, smiled and let loose with the medium tawes. Her breath hissed out, and two thin lines that looked like they could welt appeared on her left cheek. Savage rained down more strokes, letting himself enjoy the way her skin bounced, taking the thinner split leather, that terrible bite, and smacked her over and over.
She jerked and moved her bottom, as if trying to get away, but there was nowhere for her to run. He stopped with the vertical stripes and rubbed them with the heel of his hand and then his fingernails. He had spent time on those stripes, taking them from the tops of her buttocks to the sweet curve and then down the backs of her thighs. The tawes was a more moderate punishment, especially if you used it the way he had, careful of his woman, but he still had made sure she felt every stroke he’d laid on her.
“You want to tell me why you’re lying over that bench with your gorgeous ass in the air and your pussy on display for me to punish, Seychelle?”
A quiet little sob escaped, and then she sniffed. “You asked me a question and I refused to answer you.”
“That’s right. Would you like to answer it now?” Deliberately, Savage continued to rub her sore bottom to keep it inflamed, but he gently circled her clit and then strummed it and flicked. When her body shuddered, he bent and used his tongue, stroking caresses and then devouring the liquid spilling from her. He wanted to keep her on edge, mix pleasure and pain until her body didn’t know one from the other, until she needed them together to get that explosive rush.
He’d promised to train her, and he used every opportunity, even their punishments. He straightened and tapped her back with the tawes to remind her to answer him immediately. He had to get control back, not necessarily of her. He had to get his control back before he got her, or a member of his club, killed.
“I had a damn nightmare, Savage. I barely remember it. It was all jumbled up. Monsters chasing me in the forest or something silly like that.” Seychelle’s voice was a barely heard whisper, her tone not matching the defiance of her statement.
Adrenaline mixed with the dark sexual needs rushed through his veins like a freight train. Like a drug he was addicted to. “You are fucking lying to me, Seychelle.” He kept his tone velvet soft. Low. In total command of her. “You just fucked up big-time, and I told you what would happen.”
He peppered her ass with the tawes, this time putting more muscle into it until she was sobbing, really crying this time. He stalked over to the table, dropped the medium instrument and lifted the large one. He would have to be a little more careful—no—a lot more careful. This one could make a grown man cry. In the right hands it could deliver a blow that would go right through skin and muscle and jar the entire body with a streak of pain so severe it could incapacitate a man and leave him babbling and begging. Savage knew, because when he’d been training, he’d done that very thing multiple times. Of course, he’d been supposed to back then. He’d been thirteen years old and learning how to use all sorts of tools of the trade.
“I cannot believe you fucking lied to me.” He bent his head down to snarl the accusation in her ear as he stalked around her, tracking the end of the much longer leather down her spine, causing goose bumps to rise all over her body. Yeah, she was getting it now.