Page 51 of Lock Up the Darkness

“That won’t be enough. It was just a taste,” he told me. “Just a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound.” His lip curled up, giving it a twisted vibe. “That girl was made for the dark. She just doesn’t know it yet. Or, more like, she’s hiding from admitting it, even to herself.” He licked his lips. “And, fuck, Kill, I want us to be the ones to drag her into it, where she belongs, where she’s gonna thrive.”

“Us?”

“Hell, yeah. Why not?”

“We’ve never shared before. One after the other, sure. You taking Asher’s scraps when he gets into one of his sexually destructive phases, but never all on.”

His gaze dropped to my dick and he smirked. “Well, you’re clearly up for it.”

I adjusted my jeans, thankful I’d changed out of my boardshorts into jeans and a tee, so it wasn’t noticeable at a casual glance, just to Jonah’s way too invasive gaze.

“What do you say, Pretty?” he basically growled, salivating at the thought. “Wanna make her our plaything?”

The thought of it was doing things to me, no doubt. But this girl was another level. “She doesn’t have a submissive bone in her body.”

“You know better than most the lengths people will go to in order to make the pain stop.”

I couldn’t get into all of that right now. The last few weeks had been enough of a mind-fuck as it was.

I placed my glass down on the bar, then folded my arms across my chest and commented, “Ash is taking his sweet time in there.”

“He’s letting her clean up and take a beat.”

“Right. Being extra accommodating. Not like him at all. Especially when it comes to dealing with our enemies.”

“True. Normally, he would’ve dragged her down into the basement and started in on her.”

“Despite the way he’s approached it, the way he’s framed it to us, it’s clear now that he doesn’t see her as an enemy.”

“He’s trying to turn her?”

“He did all of this to disarm her. I think it’s more than turning her. He needs her for something.”

“What?”

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?”

Our eyes locked.

Now that tonight had happened and Ash’s plan had worked and yielded the results he’d wanted, now that she was here in our home, all the smoke and mirrors would dissolve.

He’d finally have to reveal his intent behind the whole thing.

It was more than bringing her to her knees.

Much more.

He wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for something that was trivial to him compared to the big-picture matters he always had his eye on first and foremost.

And I had a feeling that once it all came out, once we learned the truth of what he wanted from Aurora Blackthorn, nothing would ever be the same.

The door opened, making me and Jonah swing around right as Asher strolled in with Aurora in tow.

He shut the door behind him, then walked to her and draped his arm over the shoulder of her leather jacket as he faced us. “Meet our new very close friend, boys.”

What. The. Fuck?

13

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