Free Annihilation Road by Christine Feehan Page B

didn’t remove his hand. She should have. Most women would have. Most women wouldn’t have let him crawl through their window and lie on the bed next to them. Those incredible blue eyes of hers moved over his face and then his body. She took her time, looking at the tattoos. Looking at his scars. The burns that were the most disturbing of all. He had a lot of them. He didn’t cover them up. He let her look her fill, and she did. She didn’t ask why he hadthe words Whip Master burned into his chest, but her gaze took it all in.
    She gave a little sigh. Regret? Maybe.
    “You’re hot as hell. And you just admitted to knowing dirty, sinful things. What girl wouldn’t be tempted? You’re scary dangerous-looking. Tatts. Muscles. A history of scary scars. Those eyes of yours. You look at a woman and she’s going to get hot. The thing is, honey, I know myself very well. You would eat me up and spit me out. I can’t take that kind of hurt, and I wouldn’t be able to separate my emotions from the wild, clearly awesome sex we’d have together.”
    She was so fucking honest she tore his heart out. He hadn’t met too many women who just put it out there. Every word she said felt like a brand sinking through his flesh right into bone. Her brand. Her name. His addiction, his craving for her wasn’t going to get better. They were both in trouble. He wrote his name on her thigh with his finger.
    “I didn’t come here for sex, Seychelle. I can pick up any bitch in a bar and get what I want. I came here because . . .” He trailed off.
    His hand went back to the long, pitted lacerations in her leg. The ones that were raised. So many. He felt his heart shift. His stomach did a slow roll. She stayed silent.
    “I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. If I do, I get nightmares. They’re bad,” he confessed. “I wake up fighting. It can be . . . dangerous.” What kind of pussy was he to tell her the truth when he wouldn’t even tell his brothers? He let go of her leg and lay back, staring at the fan on the ceiling.
    Her hand went to his head again. Her fingers drifted over his scalp. He counted his heartbeats there in the darkness. Felt the magic in her touch as her fingers began a deeper massage.
    “You came to me because you couldn’t sleep? I’m not certain how to take that. It could mean I’m the most boring woman you know.”
    “Take it as a compliment. I’m not the kind of man tothrow that shit out there very often. You’re restful. You chase the demons away.”
    Seychelle looked down at Savage as he closed his eyes. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did neither. He was the most beautiful—and damaged—man she’d ever met. He was absolutely gorgeous. He had the kind of physique a sculptor would go crazy over. Every line in his body was purely masculine. He had more muscles than she’d thought possible in a man, and she was so attracted to him it was a sin. But she knew better.
    He was everything she shouldn’t get near. Everything she was attracted to. Those scars. Those burns. Those terrible words someone had burned into his flesh permanently. Whip Master . He needed violence. He craved it in the way others might a drug. His world revolved around it. Worse, he had a darkness in him that she couldn’t even fathom, but she knew it was real and he was capable of things she couldn’t conceive of. She was drawn to that darkness like a moth to a flame, and she would burn up in his fire. She would. She had no protections against a man like Savage. She felt his loathing of himself and the demons that plagued him and she wanted to be the woman to bring him peace.
    Savage was the type of man she wouldn’t resist, and if she got too close, he would eventually take all of her. She knew she would want to sacrifice herself for him. Give him everything she was, and he would swallow her whole. Men like him couldn’t help themselves, they didn’t look after someone like her. They took and took