Page 52 of Locke

He turned away, fuming as he paced back and forth, growling, “She’s done something to me, Jem. I want to go back in there and fuck her black and blue.”

“And you have. That’s just what good sex does. We can find another girl, a prettier girl—”

“I don’t want another girl,” he curtly interrupted. “I want that little fucking prey in my bed, Jem. Tell me how to have her!”

But even as he asked it, he knew what the answer was going to be.

Jem sighed long and slow. “By letting her go first.”

He stopped dead-still, shutting his eyes as that possessive feeling roared inside him. He needed an icy shower. No, he needed that fucking girl to slap at his face, to growl curses into his ear as she resisted him. When she broke—when the resistance snapped and warm surrender flooded in, there was never a more pleasurable feeling.

“You don’t want this, Max,” Jem warned him just then. “You’re thinking with your cock. When she’s gone, when it’s just you and the clarity returns to you, you’re going to realize the bullet you dodged. You don’t want to be shackled by a woman. It’s like asking for trouble. And caring for a good woman hurts worse than when they hurt you because when this girl hurts you—and she will fucking hurt you—it’ll be coming from someone you trusted.”

Jem was right.

Locke knew he was.

And yet…

Locke exhaled a long breath. “My mother told me that we sense danger. That the gift of fear is real, and I felt it when I went to that hole. My senses were screaming for me to stop. The signs were all around me, but I went through with it instead.” He shut his eyes a moment, remembering every step he took into that black chasm. “When I saw her…standing in the club, long before she had even noticed me, I…felt the same fear, Jem. I’ve been feeling it ever since. And I feel it strongest when I’m touching her, and she’s touching me back. Just…hot fear. And like that hole, I’m sensing now that she will be another mistake, and that letting her go might mean I’m saving myself from another death.”

And yet…

Panic.

Cold panic ripped through him.

Jem cut the gap between them, eyeing Locke cautiously as he stopped before him. His hand rose slowly to settle on Locke’s shoulder. Their first real connection since they were children. It took Jem a lot of effort to look this man straight in the eye without the sorrow present. But he managed it. And then he spoke in a broken voice, “Let me help you, Max. Tell me what I gotta do to help you. I ain’t going anywhere. Not anymore. You’re my brother. Let me prove myself to you, so you always have someone to turn to.”

Sixteen

Kali

I woke up to a man standing over me.

A man I didn’t know.

My heart jumped as I sat up, shuffling back in horror to press my back against the cold headboard. The man was tall, broad and muscled. He wore a plaid jacket and jeans, and he had a dark cap on. His face…His face unnerved me the most because he looked angry.

I looked around, my heart stampeding now as I searched for Locke.

“Get up,” the man told me then. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

My vision went blurry. My head felt light. Breaths turned to panicked gasps as I asked, “Did he send you to kill me?”

It made sense.

Locke could have played with me that entire time.

Maybe he did this often.

Kidnapped girls, fucked them to oblivion and then had them killed.

Tears sprung to my eyes as I realized I’d fallen for it. That I thought we had needed each other.

“Fucking relax,” the man growled, irritably. “I ain’t gonna fucking kill you.”

“Locke—”

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