The music flowed through him, a soft, intimate melody, and he could hear the lyrics building in his mind. His music never lied to him. If it told him she was real, she was. The longer he played, the more he felt her wrapping herself around his soul. It was a frightening sensation for him, and yet he didn’t stop playing. He needed to feel her close to him. Imagine her in the house, turning it into a real home. Imagine her waiting for him at the door. Giving him her angelic smile. Giving him whatever he asked for.
He acknowledged to himself he’d never had the same feeling for another human being. He wasn’t a coward. If she had the courage to face him, to answer personal questions and go that far out of her comfort zone for him, he couldn’t do less for her.
He’d vowed never to pursue a woman or trust one outside the club, and he had good reason, but he realized he wasn’t willing to give Zelie up. Not without a fight. That was the bottom line. He needed to see her again. He had to know if there was any chance at all for him to have a real relationship with her. The idea of cutting her out of his life so abruptly without even giving them a chance was unacceptable to him.
“Where does that leave us?” he murmured aloud.
He played for another five minutes without stopping, listening carefully to the perfectly pitched notes telling him he was on the right track. He waited for the answers, the music freeing his mind as his fingers flew over the ivory keys.
Maestro had a very important job to do. He couldn’t blow it by placing Azelie in danger. That meant he couldn’t tell her what he was doing. If he was going to work at a real relationship, he would have to tell her after they got the information needed and he knew she couldn’t possibly be held accountable by Billows. He didn’t have to play her. He could be real, himself, and hope everything worked out between them. The moment the mission was accomplished, he would come clean.
Azelie would like that he helped find trafficking victims. She would understand why he didn’t tell her what he was there for. She might not like that he had initially approached her because he was on the job, but once he explained that the attraction was very real and he wanted, even needed, a continuing relationship with her, he was certain she would be understanding.
Once he made up his mind that he was going to pursue her and do his best to tie her to him, he swung around on the piano bench, blinking to try to clear the memories from his brain. The moment he stopped the flow of music, his past tried to crowd in. The betrayals. The tortures. The rapes. The very ugly deaths. Every girl, every woman, starting with his mother and aunt, had betrayed him.
He hadn’t known anything else. Without Czar, Keys and Steele, he would never have survived those early days. The psychological torture was far worse than any of the physical tortures he had been subjected to during his childhood and teenage years. He didn’t want those doors opened to his past, not when he had found a woman who might actually be someone amazing and compatible with a man like him.
He locked the house and went to his Harley. He wasn’t that surprised to see Savage sitting on his 2015 Night Rod Special. The motorcycle was all black with dull gunmetal-gray trim, blacked-out chrome and the image of a dripping gray skull. It had one more adornment that Maestro—and all the other club members—had thought he would remove. For his birthday, the Red Hat ladies, a group of older women, had gotten Ice to make them a form of a hat in rubies and diamonds. They had no idea those gems were the real deal, but they’d had Mechanic and Transporter weld the hat onto the bike. No one thought Savage would take the prank so well, let alone keep the gleaming hat on his stark bike.
The prank had been played on him by Jackson Deveau, a deputy sheriff. He’d made the suggestion to the women. Not understanding that no one touched a man’s bike, they had happily made Savage an honorary member of their club. For some unknown reason, Savage had allowed the decoration to stay. He was used to it now, and it would have looked strange not to have the embellishment on his bike.
“Keys let me know you had come home for the night,” Savage greeted. “Just checking to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it, although you should be home with Seychelle. If I had a woman, I wouldn’t be away from her if I could help it.”
Savage shrugged. “Seychelle worries. She worries, I take care of it. As soon as she heard you’d driven to Caspar tonight and would have to turn around and head back to San Francisco, she was afraid something was wrong. She wanted me to check on you as much as I needed to. Heard the music. You have a gift, Maestro.”
Maestro threw his leg over his bike to straddle it. The moment he did, he felt familiar peace slipping over him. “I can lose myself in music. I don’t always feel the passage of time.”
“Haven’t heard that song before. You played it over and over, adding to it.”
“I was writing a new piece.” He hesitated, but Savage had managed to find happiness, and he was a sadist when it came to sex. He also was controlling and had no problem punishing his woman if she disobeyed him. She did so often, but never over safety issues. Maestro thought she might like those punishments just a little too much. When Savage and Seychelle were together, the chemistry between them was electric. He wanted that for himself.
Savage just sat on his bike, seemingly in no hurry to rush away. He didn’t probe, just waited to see if Maestro was going to talk.
“I had a difficult time believing Seychelle would stay,” Maestro admitted. “I made life hard for you by giving you the wrong advice. She took the things I said to her wrong, but I shouldn’t have said them.”
“I was at fault, Maestro,” Savage corrected. “Not you. I was in the relationship with her, and I didn’t act like it. Unfortunately, I’d never been in a relationship. I didn’t know what to do to fix things between us. In the end, I turned to Czar and Blythe. I also encouraged her to talk to her friends if she was concerned about the nature of our relationship.”
“Her friends?” Maestro asked.
“She’s very close friends with a lot of the women in the Red Hat Society. I don’t want her to ever feel alone. We have a unique relationship, one that can be hard on not just her body but her mind. I learned to listen to her. To hear what she needed or wanted. It took a while for me to get it, but she’s the most important person in my life. She sacrifices a lot for me. I want to make certain that she knows she’s loved.”
“How do you do that?” Maestro asked. “I don’t have a clue.”
“It took time for me to hear her. She needed to feel she was my partner. She doesn’t ask about club business, but I know she worries if I’m gone, so I make certain Czar fills her in on my status, so she knows I’m alive and unhurt.”
“How do you find the balance of control and giving her freedom?” Maestro asked the question whose answer most eluded him.
“I think the thing I learned about being in a relationship that was the most helpful was that it is important, even essential, to communicate clearly. I made certain Seychelle knew what she was getting into every step of the way. I told her about myself, what happened to me and why I am the way I am. I told her it wasn’t going to change. I needed a certain type of sex, and I would enjoy her fucking up, so I would have the excuse to punish her. I also explained what kinds of control I needed to have in my life to stay sane.”
Maestro winced. He didn’t spill his guts to anyone, let alone a woman. He wanted her to follow him blindly. “Don’t know if I can do that,” he admitted.
Savage shrugged. “I wouldn’t have been able to talk to another woman the way I do her. I realized almost from the first time that I met her that Seychelle was the one woman I wanted, even needed, in my life. I was willing to do whatever it took to keep her with me. I fucked up several times and was lucky enough that she stuck it out. If you aren’t willing to give her everything, she isn’t the one for you, Maestro.”
Maestro continued to sit on his Harley, the familiar leather seat creaking when he shifted his weight. Of everyone in the club, Savage was most like him. He needed control to survive and to keep everyone around him safe. Not only had Seychelle accepted that control, but she seemed to thrive in the relationship. There was no doubt that she loved Savage. It was in everything she said and did as well as in the expression on her face. She didn’t try to hide the way she felt about her man.
“I want Azelie,” Maestro declared. “It’s difficult to believe we stand a chance, but I know if there’s one woman I want to be with, it’s her. I keep looking for something wrong, waiting for the betrayal. I’ll always be testing her. Controlling every move in our relationship. What woman can live with that?”
Savage gave him a humorless smile. “Don’t you think I asked myself the same thing a million times? Before I met her, I’d already been preparing to take a ride over the cliff. I knew eventually I’d hurt someone. I have cycles—you’ve seen them. When I’m bad, I need Seychelle to ride those out with me. Trust me, Maestro, the things I do to her aren’t for the faint of heart. Fortunately, I’m able to work with her so she gets off on it—eventually. Whatever you’re asking of Azelie is not ever going to be as bad as what I’ve asked of Seychelle.”
Maestro knew Savage told the strict truth about his sexual needs. He was aware of the things Savage needed in a relationship. Maestro was a natural dominant, and he enjoyed various kinks when it came to sex, but hurting his partner wasn’t something he needed to get off. He might use a flogger or a whip, but again, it was more of a control issue, asking his woman to do something she would be uncomfortable with just to please him. How fucked up was that? Still, even knowing it was wrong, he was aware he would demand and enjoy it if his woman was willing to please him when he asked for bondage. He would need confirmation of her devotion on a daily basis. Was that any better than the things Savage needed?
“You have to make up your mind if you want her, Maestro,” Savage reiterated. “If you do, you not only have to walk a fine line with this mission, but you’ll have to talk to her. Open up about your past and let her know why you’re so fucked up.”
Yeah, that was the one thing he wasn’t certain he could do. Yet Savage had. Absinthe, one of his Torpedo Ink brothers, had to ask his woman to play roles; kitten, librarian, all sorts of fucked-up things, and she did it for him because he’d told her the worst of his childhood. Ice was an exhibitionist. Storm got off on being a voyeur. Ice was married to a wonderful woman. Maestro was certain Ice had told her what he’d been through. Storm was still single, but Reaper, Savage’s birth brother, had Anya. It had been a real shit-storm with Reaper making mistakes, thanks to the rest of them giving him very poor direction.
Maestro was guilty of giving poor counsel to Savage. He probably had given the worst advice of all of them. He had even given Steele crap advice, and Breezy was as sweet and accommodating as any woman could be. Maestro tended to view all women as egotistical rebels, unable to obey when their safety was a concern just because they wanted to prove that they were equal to a man. Protecting his woman shouldn’t mean he didn’t see her as an equal. They had different strengths. Everyone had different strengths.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he admitted. “I do know I want her in my life. I’m going to think about the things you’ve said, Savage, before I contact her. I blew it with her last night. Everything was so perfect, too perfect. I kept waiting for the stab in the back. When she tried to give back the earrings, I panicked. I swear, I can face bullets any fucking day of the week, but looking at her earnest expression and hearing her say she didn’t care about things, she just wanted to spend time with me, I lost it.”
“Let’s head into Sea Haven. Hannah Drake Harrington opens her tea shop early. We can grab coffee and something to eat. You can’t drive back to San Francisco without getting coffee in you. You’ve been up all night.”
Maestro agreed and started up his Harley-Davidson Iron 883. Savage’s Night Rod Special roared to life. The two took off, riding along the coastal highway toward Sea Haven. Once again, peace settled over him, the early morning fog enfolding him like a gray blanket. The sun shot through the fog, sending streaks of orange-red light over the water in a dazzling display. The wind played with the surface of the water, sending white foam and diamonds into the air and over the bluffs.
Maestro tried to keep his thoughts away from Zelie, but it was impossible. He had no idea why she had made such an impression on him. Why he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. Why he couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing her again. He knew he should cut off all contact with her. He might not be a sexual sadist, but he had flaws. Damage. It was very real and lasting. He wasn’t a man who would put up with his woman defying him. Like with Savage, there would be consequences, punishments. He knew most women would never put up with a man like him. Not long-term. The worst was, he would enjoy those punishments a little too much because it meant she cared enough about him to give him the things he needed.
He wasn’t like Savage and Reaper, men who women sympathized with. Their scars were physical and the trauma to them so deep they never failed to garner the attention of women. It wasn’t as if Maestro hadn’t been physically tortured or raped, but his trauma was far more psychological. Unseen. The scars were there, just not as noticeable. He was softer inside. He was a musician, an artist with a poet’s soul. It embarrassed him that he wasn’t as tough as he thought he should be. Sorbacov seemed to have had a gift for knowing what would harm each child the most. He had been able to see into Maestro when others, to this day, couldn’t.
He wasn’t upset with his Torpedo Ink brothers and sisters. He’d developed a tough shell. He’d had to in order to survive. If anyone saw into him, it was Czar. The others took what he said and did at face value. Unless it was Keys. Keys seemed to read him, to see into his bullshit performances.
Comparing himself to Reaper and Savage all the time made him come up short. It wasn’t as if he ever shirked his duties. He was an assassin, and there was no hesitation when he killed, but the kills haunted him. The victims, no matter how deserving of death, visited him at night.
How did he explain himself to a woman like Azelie without sounding like a pathetic loser when he really was a monster? Sorbacov specialized in creating monsters. Maestro knew he could explode into violence easily. It had become second nature, no matter that the instincts hadn’t been natural to him.
The town of Sea Haven was very quiet so early in the morning. The street was mostly empty, and they had no trouble finding parking directly in front of the tea shop called the Floating Hat. The sign was a hat made of wood. The name Floating Hat was intriguing, but other than the cups that looked like hats in the windows, and the bells shaped like hats on the door, the shop had nothing at all to do with hats.
The Floating Hat was not only a tea shop but an organic bath and lotion shop. With bay windows on either side of the door facing the street, when one first looked, the shop appeared to be on the small side. The shop was really quite spacious, spreading out behind the bay windows and going back the whole depth of the building. Behind the counter, there was at least one more room and another exit.
One window held the intriguing hat-shaped cups, an assortment of teas and stacked caddies of delicious-looking scones and pastries. The other window held lotions and bath products. The division was the same in the shop, with products for sale on one side and tables and chairs, as well as a few booths, on the other side. Most tables were for two to four people, but there was one larger table that could handle at least six. The tables were a distance apart from the other half of the store, creating a feeling of openness.
Savage pulled open the door to the shop, setting the hat-shaped bells chiming, announcing their presence. A woman looked up from the counter and Maestro recognized her immediately. She sometimes worked at the roadhouse bar. She was learning bartending from Anya and Preacher.
“Sabelia,” Maestro greeted while Savage nodded at her.
The woman was tiny, like a little pixie—or a woodland fairy—with her wealth of shiny black hair and eyes that should have been too big for her face. When he’d first met her, she never smiled, and with her long black hair and small features, at times she appeared witchy to him. Now, seeing her smiling and hearing the welcome in her voice, he understood that she knew she had a safe home with Hannah and Torpedo Ink. He realized that had changed Sabelia, giving her happiness and perhaps some peace. That showed in her laughter and lighter expression.
“Anywhere is fine.” Sabelia motioned toward the tables. She sent Savage a wry smile. “I know you’re not fond of tea. Do you want your usual coffee?”
