He eased her through the powerful orgasm, soothing her with his voice. With his hands. With everything he was. He whispered he loved her against the small of her back. Kissed his way up her spine to her nape and then whispered he loved her there as well.
“Don’t ever think I don’t love you, Seychelle, or that I don’t know the sacrifice you’re making to be with me. I don’t want you to ever feel shame. I had to come to terms with what they made me into. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want this life for you, not at that cost.”
“I’m going to have moments of doubt, Savage.” She sounded sleepy. Exhausted. “Not of my commitment to you or to us, but of understanding why I can like what is happening to my body or how far I want to take it. You have to give me that. You can’t think, when it happens, that I’m pulling away from us. I told you I was in this with you.”
“You won’t sell your fucking house.” He knew he sounded like a sulky child.
She didn’t open her eyes, but she laughed. That laugh. That got to him every damn time. He slid up onto the bed as close to her as he could get, pulling her into his side, his arm tight around her waist. “Sleep for a little while. I’ll wake you up when you need to shower and get ready.”
He needed to find a couple of enemies of Torpedo Ink and spend time slicing them up just to find some balance. He didn’t even know who the hell he was anymore. She was making him soft inside. Either that or making him worse. He couldn’t be certain which it was, because he knew if anyone laid a hand on her, they were going to die a slow, agonizing death.
“Savage?”
“Right here, baby.” He tugged at her hair. Her voice sounded so damn drowsy. Sexy. Wrapping him up in something he’d never had.
“Stop thinking about torturing people. Think about kissing me. I want to go to sleep with that in my mind.”
There was that little hint of laughter in her voice again. Shit. Now she was making his fucking dick hard. Again. Not that it had ever relaxed. “Stop making me worry that someone is going to try to take you away from me.” He bit her shoulder and lay still, doing his best to think about kissing her without getting so hard he’d have to get himself off right there, all over those dark stripes that marked her as his.
“I had no idea the restaurant was so nice,” Seychelle said. “I’ve never actually been inside of it.”
“Why not?” Savage asked, guiding her around the tables in the dim lights like he knew the place intimately—which he did. Hell, he’d helped put it together for Alena. Master, Player, Maestro and Keys had done most of the plumbing, electrical and woodwork, but the rest of the members of Torpedo Ink had done the grunt work. The club was damn proud of it too. Proud of Alena. Crow 287 was a cut above most restaurants due to the fact that the main chef was a cut above most chefs.
“I mostly stayed in Sea Haven with my little group of seniors unless I was singing. It was always a bit of a risk to go anywhere for a prolonged length of time in public. And who would I go out to dinner with, Savage? Especially to a place as nice as this?”
She was wearing a beautiful turquoise dress, one that accented her glowing skin and brought out the color of her eyes. He knew she’d chosen the dress because her little bottom was too sore to have jeans rubbing tightly against it. After she’d showered, he’d rubbed numbing lotion into those stripes, giving her some relief, but the cane could cause muscles to ache deep inside, not just on the surface. He’d been careful not to put too much strength in his strikes, but she’d felt every one of them.
Seychelle hadn’t complained. Not once. She never did. She just looked at him with love in her eyes and, sometimes, that laughter that got him going. Other times it was the slight hint of a mixture of complete calm and the little chin lift that told him his little angel was going to give him trouble. She was going her own way regardless of how much trouble she might get into. He loved that about her too—unless her safety was in jeopardy.
He led her to the “back room,” which was really more of a space behind an arched doorway kept open most of the time. It was normally reserved for Torpedo Ink if they were going to meet together to eat. Sometimes Alena had smaller tables set up for locals who hadn’t been able to get in, or special parties. Czar was joining them with Blythe at Savage’s request. He’d asked Steele, the VP of Torpedo Ink, and Breezy, his wife, to come along as well. Not only did Seychelle deserve a nice outing, but so did Breezy and Blythe. Both had kids, and evenings out were rare.