Page 26 of Crave Me

I opened up the first, noting the timestamp was from today, my gut twisting as I took in Bastian bound in a dark room looking gaunt and in bad shape.

I braced myself as I opened the second, the timestamp also from today. I choked as I took in Caleb bound naked to a bed passed out and covered in various fluids, being abused by two sex toys.

Caspian: You sick motherfucker!

Blocked ID: Like I said, I’ll give you some time to mull over my demand. Don’t take too long, though. You’ve now seen what your boys are enduring. Wouldn’t want their continued suffering to be your fault directly. I’d imagine that would be hard to live with.

It took everything I had not to haul my phone across the room and watch it decimate.

I put it down and gripped my desk, fighting to get a handle on my rage and a whole lot of unruly emotions threatening to take me over.

Focus.

Focus on the mission.

So much for contacting that psychopath once all of this was done in order not to further complicate matters.

It had to be now.

But not just for the reason Caleb had reached out to him.

I needed a ringer.

And Asher Monroe was most definitely it.

7

~Caspian~

An obscure jewelry store.

Not a place you’d expect to find a man like him.

His reputation certainly didn’t account for that, but as I’d learned from Caleb’s intimate association with him, there was more to him than met the eye.

There were layers beneath that extremely hard outer shell. Caleb wouldn’t have been able to connect with him if that wasn’t the case. He needed to be able to feel something more than mere sexual pleasure when he was fucking. He wasn’t like me. Or how I had been before I’d agreed to give up my subs at Obscura.

I quietly and discreetly walked into the little store.

And there he was up at the counter talking with the owner.

I peered closer as he explained a sketched design he’d apparently created himself.

Wow. It was an edgy layered chain necklace with three black gem roses at the center of each chain with the initials, AM, KC, JK—one on each heart.

“She likes black,” Asher told the owner, a lean and small man with a shock of white hair, peering at the design through his thickly rimmed glasses. “Like me,” Asher said, smiling.

Smiling? Wow again.

And he certainly did favor the black-on-black look. His appearance right now was a testament to that. Clad in designer black jeans, with a matching dress shirt and a leather jacket over the top that all blended well with his silky black hair, short on the sides and tousled on top with a whole lot of product to pull off that look.

“I can absolutely create this for you, Asher. It’s stunning.”

“And it’ll be one of a kind.”

“She’s one lucky woman.”

“It’s the other way around, believe me.”

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