Page 16 of Lock Up the Darkness

“Am I?” Asher challenged. “So, if I hadn’t called at that moment, you wouldn’t have freed your cock and had her choking on it right there in that alcove? On fucking campus where anybody could’ve walked by and witnessed the golden boy giving in to his true base desires?”

Base desires? Only he could’ve phrased it like that.

Kill stepped back and I dropped my arm, watching him shove a hand through his floppy hair. “She got under my skin, all right?”

“The new, uninitiated ones always challenge us in the beginning. It’s part of the process.”

“Before we train them to bow to us,” I cut in.

“Precisely,” Asher agreed.

“It wasn’t just that. She was… she saw me.”

“Saw you?” Asher queried.

“Into me, past the façade.”

Dark intrigue shone in Asher’s eyes.

And something else I couldn’t get a handle on.

He knew something, he didn’t even seem that taken aback, or worried. But the guy really did always have his reasons, good reasons, so if he wasn’t looking to tell us the whole deal yet, I accepted that.

“It’s like she was trying to unravel me right there and then,” Kill went on in a haunted tone. “Like she could.”

“And you wanted to punish her for that?” I asked.

“I will punish her.” He looked to Asher. “She broke a rule. She was belligerent and defiant. She still needs a lesson, in spite of whatever the hell else seems to be off the table when it comes to her.”

Asher gave a nod. “A lesson does need to be taught. At the lowest threshold.” When Kill moved to protest, to argue his case some more, Asher held up a hand, a crooked smile gracing his lips. “For now.”

It took Kill a moment, but then he ground out, “Fine.”

“Besides,” Asher said, gesturing around at the aftermath of one hell of a fuck session all over the salon. “Jonah already had to clean up one of your recent messes. We can’t afford another slipup.”

“Then something needs to change.”

“All in good time,” Asher told him, reaching out and grasping his shoulder. Hard. “You trust me, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Kill tensed and honestly, Asher’s dark tone and the stone cold look in his eyes had me doing the same. It wasn’t really a question he was asking, it was absolutely non-negotiable. He was really testing if Kill was gonna make the very dangerous mistake of challenging him.

I saw Kill’s throat work as Asher still held him tight by his shoulder, then drew his thumb across his bottom lip, back and forth in a deceptively safe, sensual motion.

He dipped inside, sliding along his tongue, and the eroticism of it had my cock rock hard again in a second. Fuck me.

In the next beat, he added two fingers into the mix, and drove deep.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

It had Kill gagging and spluttering.

And then he wrenched them out, making my boy gasp for breath.

“Well?” Asher rumbled.

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