Page 86 of Lock Up the Darkness

“Jonah wouldn’t tell me every detail because he’s addicted to your dick, but I know you when you’re in that space, when you step inside that ring, so I’m betting it was gonna go a whole lot further than that until she stabbed you right back!”

“It was imperative I took it as far as possible.”

“Bull. You’re just trying to excuse that bloodlust of yours and the fact you unleashed it on her, somebody who you vowed you’d protect in exchange for her help. Help, by the way, to free us all! You almost fucked that up and almost ended her in one shot all because you couldn’t keep your psychotic tendencies checked!”

He put down his cup on the kitchen counter, then stepped up to me with a limp he couldn’t quite hide—at least Aurora had paid him back in kind for that stabbing.

He swept his hand near my neck, doing his fancy flourishes, and a moment later, a flip knife was in his hand. My flip knife.

“How did you—”

“How did I know?” he scoffed as he tossed it across the counter out of my reach. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve come prepared for a confrontation with me.”

“I wouldn’t have used it.”

“Just insurance, was it?”

“Yes.”

“Against an injured man?” he challenged. “Sure,” he said, before I could answer. Then he got back to the topic at hand, telling me, “If I’d intended to kill her, she’d be buried six-feet deep right now and you’d be on your knees at her gravesite crying like the little bitch you’ve clearly become over her.”

I shoved my hands into his chest and he stumbled against the counter with a grunt.

“Watch yourself.”

I was there in his space in the next second, squeezing his left side, right on his wound. He lurched and slapped his hand down on the counter for stability.

“No, you watch yourself right now.”

“She’s under your skin. Be very careful.”

“And she’s not under yours?”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“Jonah told me about your fuck session with him that you had her walk in on, the show you put on for her. He was so excited about it that he couldn’t shut up about it, so I got all the details there. You never let anybody see you like that. You wanted her to see, you wanted to prove to yourself that the way would be open for you to bring that with her, that she could meet you on that level.”

“And she can.” He shoved my hand away from his side and gritted his teeth, taking a moment to fight past the pain, before going on, “Do you want me to make you watch as I tear into her and make her scream for me? As she gives me her tears and still only begs me for more? As I take her first with my cock, before you get the chance to, as I claim every inch of her, body and mind?” He grasped my chin and even though he was a couple of inches shorter, it was still like he was looking down on me, that larger than life ominous presence of his looming threateningly. His eyes were dark and hooded at the same time as he growled, “Would it sicken you, or get you off watching her being owned by me?”

I glared steadily back at him. But I couldn’t shove down his words in time and it had me reacting. Just a flinch, but it was more than enough for him to read me.

A twisted smirk formed on his face. “That’s right, it’s both. So stop fucking lying to yourself.” He shoved me back, then pulled his phone from the pocket of his Armani blazer. I watched as he grabbed something from the front pocket of his jeans too, a sleek tiny black device that he then slotted into his phone.

He spun the screen to show me a recording he was readying to play. “This is why I pushed her and took things so far the other day.”

I frowned, wondering what he was getting at, when he played the recording, and two voices rang out. The first I recognized easily as his father’s. “Who’s the second voice?”

“Revenant. Lance Carlyle. Aurora’s father.”

I listened carefully as it sounded through the kitchen.

“Had enough yet, Lan?”

“You know you’re wasting your time.”

“Everybody breaks.”

“Not everybody.”

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