Christine Feehan

Seychelle had whispered the words to him, kissing his throat, his neck, then pouring that love into him.  He felt it every time she touched him—when she looked at him.  He wasn’t giving that up because she was afraid.  He just had to figure out a way to help her through this adjustment period and still give her the real man and not some choir boy version.

 “I’ll never be that man, Angel.  I’m a fucking devil, not a choir boy, no matter how much I want to be for you.”  Sometimes he just watched her sleep because she was so beautiful, he had to make certain she was real.

Her laughter was muffled by the pillow, a low musical raining of golden notes that teased at his skin, feathering over his nerve endings until little electrical pulses beat in time to the music she created. 

“Are you having delusions, honey, or did some misguided soul, one of your many admirers, actually tell you that you were a choir boy?  I can rid you of that misconception right now.” Her little giggle came again, along with those notes spilling over his body.  He actually saw her laughter in golden notes.  He saw her music that way as well.  When he was a child, he’d been able to see people’s voices in colorful notes drifting around them, but that had been wiped out abruptly when all joy had been stomped out of him.

Seychelle turned her head toward him, her thick braid moving across the pillow as she looked over her shoulder at him.  Light came through the open window.  She refused to close the damn thing no matter what he said about security.  She liked it open and he liked the way the moonlight managed to shine perfectly on her.
           
Laughter was in her eyes, that totally relaxed look she got on her face whenever they were here in her home—her little cottage by the sea she loved so much.  He had tried to recreate a space on the bed in his master bedroom just like hers, but he’d failed.  She still wasn’t as relaxed, all tension gone, ready to tease him and play like they had for months before they made their relationship official, not in his master bedroom.
           
In retaliation, he nipped her hip and then soothed the sting with his tongue.  “I’ve been a fucking choir boy for an entire day.”  That laughter was killing him.  He loved the sound of it. 

“You can’t say choir boy and fuck in the same sentence and be a choir boy.”

She sounded all prim and school-marmy which made him smile.  His first reaction was to roll over so she was sprawled over the top of him and he had access to her bottom. That was his usual response when she teased him like this, but he didn’t want any bruising, not when he made up his mind to ease up and give her a few days to adjust.  He would always be a controlling bastard, wanting everything his way, and maybe taking one thing at a time was the best way to go.

“Babe, told you, I was going to hell.  Might as well do anything I want.  And that’s mild in comparison to all the things I think about saying and doing.”

Her laughter was contagious.  “You should have seen your face last night when the red hat ladies showed up at the bar to hear me sing.  All those darling ladies, Zyah’s grandmother leading the way.  She’s so cute, by the way.  I adore her and she adores you.  Obviously, the two of you have a past and she made it clear last night that you, Destroyer, Maestro and Player are her little darlings.”

“You’re going to get yourself in trouble if you bring that up,” he growled against her pristine skin, settling his teeth against her in warning.

She didn’t pay him in the least heed.  “Who knew you were so popular, Savage? All those sparkly hats and all of them wanting to dance with you.  I had more requests for songs. The other bikers in the bar last night were quite enthusiastic about making certain the right music was requested.  Everyone had ideas.  I even saw Jackson and Jonas slip in.  They were grinning from ear to ear and at first it looked as if they might have been there on official business.”

That did it.  At the mention of the cop, there was no way he was going to be a saint.  Savage rolled and took her with him, so that she sprawled over the top of him, her sore bare ass in the air, legs on either side of his hips. Her amazing blue eyes laughed right down into his causing his heart to perform some silly weird melting sensation.  He rubbed her bottom hoping she would consider that a threat.

“You didn’t tell me I had so many rivals for your affection. I went into that blind.  All those ladies giggling.  They brought cookies, Savage. There were plates of cookies with your name on them.”

If a man like him had the ability to blush, he might actually have done it when the Red Hat ladies marched in with their crazy purple and red hats and their wild clothing, as if each had tried to outdo the other in outlandish skirts and layered dusters.  Secretly, he applauded them for their carefree apparel and their insistence on living out their lives the way they chose.  If they wanted to go to a biker bar dressed in a cross between fairy godmothers and something out of Mid Summer’s Night’s Dream more power to them.

Ten of the Red Hat Women had shown up all bearing plates of cookies.  And then Zyah, Player’s wife.  She had come along to keep an eye on her grandmother. Anat Gamal, her grandmother, had unofficially adopted all of Torpedo Ink as her grandchildren. Savage wasn’t going to admit to his woman that he might really be one of the favorites because she would give him no end of grief over it.  She was already far too amused over how the evening had played out.

“I shared the cookies with you, you little monster,” he pointed out.  He kissed the hollow of her neck.  She always smelled so good, that wild strawberry fragrance that was just so subtle.

“You weren’t very generous with the bar.”

“They were snickering.”

“Because you wouldn’t dance. Those ladies wanted to dance.”

“I don’t dance.”

“You dance with me.”

“You’ve got something I want, baby.”

“What would that be?”