Total pages in book: 178
Estimated words: 163885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 656(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 656(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“It isn’t. In case you haven’t bothered to notice, I’m already carrying a few extra pounds.” She might as well point it out. He had sharp eyes. She couldn’t imagine that he hadn’t catalogued that fact. “If I eat at night, I’m going to just pack on more weight, Savage.”
“You have a perfect figure, Seychelle, and you have to know it. No man wants a fuckin’ stick in his bed. You’ve got great tits and an ass most men would kill for their woman to have. You need to eat. You want to go for a walk after we eat, just say so, I’m up for that. We can walk on the headlands. We do most nights anyway.”
Savage always threw out compliments so casually, as if they were facts and he was just stating them. He almost sounded annoyed, and he was getting more irritable as each day passed. He definitely wasn’t trying to flatter her.
“Nice of you to think so, Savage. I never thought about it that way. I guess I’ll eat the eggs and go for the walk with you.” She kept the challenge out of her voice. The last few nights he’d come, he’d just wanted to lie on the bed with her. The entire last week he’d gotten edgier.
She felt the difference in him when he got close to her. He felt more dangerous. His skin was hotter. His rage closer to the surface. His blue eyes actually had gone from being flat and cold to holding flames that burned with a fire she found she dreaded. That well of rage in him was growing, and it wasn’t good. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop it. She slowed it down. She soothed him. She sometimes made those flames fall back to smaller embers, but they flared right back up, burning hotter than ever the moment her hands were off him.
Seychelle was just a little nervous around him when before she hadn’t been at all. She felt the house was too small for him and he was a bit like a tiger in a cage, pacing restlessly, and she was his meal. The need for violence rode him hard. She could see it in him. Feel it on him. It was like a vicious animal alive in him, ripping at his insides, shredding his intestines with cruel, spiteful claws, demanding its pound of flesh.
The Whip Master. The Master of Pain. She didn’t dare touch him when he was like this, and yet everything she was demanded that she do so to ease that terrible need for violence. For hurting another human being. He looked at her with his blue eyes as if only she was right for him, and she not only wanted to be that woman for him, she needed to be.
“Honey, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” She held her breath, afraid he would. Afraid he wouldn’t. In spite of his abruptness, he treated her gently as a rule, but she didn’t know how he would be when he was like this, and there was a part of her that was afraid of finding out. She didn’t want to lose him, and yet she knew she didn’t dare grow any closer.
He glanced at her over his shoulder, his eyes meeting hers, and those blue flames leapt and burned, scorching her before he turned back to the eggs.
“Sometimes I can go through some pretty bad patches, baby, nothing I haven’t been through before. Just gets a little rough. That’s why I’m hanging around so much. Does it bother you, having me staying so long?”
He had been—not just nights, he’d been there mornings and even, a few times, into the afternoon. He didn’t talk much, just watched her play the guitar or walked with her on the headlands or into Sea Haven. She spent time visiting several elderly couples and two widows, bringing them groceries, and he went with her on her visits. Again, he didn’t say much, but he carried the groceries in and put them away.
At the home of Rebecca Jetspun, a widow, he’d gotten under the sink and repaired a leak while she’d visited. At the home of one of the couples, Dirk and Harriet Meadows, he did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen until it was sparkling while she sat and visited. Dirk had a hip replacement and was going through his therapy and not the best of company for his wife. Harriet was very glad to see Seychelle. Savage just shook his head when Harriet tried to pay him.
Penelope and Forest Potts needed extensive weeding done in their greenhouse. The couple had gotten sick and hadn’t been able to keep up with their vegetable garden. It was their food source. They canned for the winter. Savage took care of it while Seychelle visited with them and took down what they might need on her next visit.