Page 24 of Torn Souls

Oaklynn gives a small nod, accepting my brother’s words while her eyes fill with questions which have nothing to do with my brother’s assertion about her father. Knowing she feels the same way about him has me curious about what we don’t know about the man. She looks between us again before biting her lower lip. I almost let out a groan at how fucking sexy she is. The best part is she doesn’t realize just how tempting she is.

“Zolotse?” Oaklynn questions Maxim, her eyebrow arching with a clear challenge.

He smirks and leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his eyes intensely taking her in. “It means darling,” he says, his tone offhanded as if he’s the kind of man to bestow pet names without care.

He isn’t.

She nods again, accepting his translation without any fanfare. Her eyes track over to me, a question burning in her gaze. One I don’t answer.

“Yes,Solnishko?” I question her.

Oaklynn lowers her lashes, her cheeks heating slightly before she squares her shoulders and meets my eyes again. “What does it mean?”

“Little sun,” I answer, unable or unwilling to lie to our woman.

She hums in response and tries to hide how much she enjoys my name for her, but I can see it in the way her eyes twinkle. The way she doesn’t back down from any of us is refreshing. We’re used to people bending to our will, it’s something we expect, but our woman can’t be so easily swayed.

It sends a thrill down my spine.

“I say we give Chambers exactly what he wants,” Maxim offers up to the room and lounges back in his seat as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Oaklynn’s eyes snap over to him as she gasps, “What?” I smirk, unable to hide my reaction to how adorable she is. She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“If we’re going to do this then you have to be willing to go all in the same way I am,” I tell her cryptically. Her eyebrows pull together, confusion written all over her face. “There can be no reservations and no fear. I’m not interested in a marriage—,” I begin to tell her.

“Marriage,” she cuts me off with a shout of indignation.

I finish my sentence as if she didn’t interrupt me, “—of convenience. I’m not interested in commitment dictated by a contract.”

Her mouth drops open, and she blinks at me a few times. I can see the fight in her eyes. While it should turn me off, it only makes me want her more.

“Marriage,” she whispers softly, disbelieve coloring the word. She blinks and shakes her head, as if she’s trying to dislodge the thought.

“Yes,” I intone seriously, “marriage.” Her dark brown eyes meet my gaze, and I grin sinisterly. “All or nothing goes not only for me, but for my brothers as well.”

“What?” She gasps the word breathlessly.

She looks shocked, but her pupils dilate. While she might not want to admit it, she wants all of us.

The tension in the room, which had been easy to ignore before, is now almost suffocating. Without even realizing it, we all shift a little closer to our woman.

“Our woman is just that. Ours,” Huck’s voice is an octave lower than normal.

Oaklynn’s eyes shift to him and widen slightly. She swallows hard and links her fingers together on her lap. “I’m not sure what that means,” she whispers.

“Any woman I claim, any woman I marry, will belong to all of us,” I tell her as my hand makes a sweeping motion to encompass the men I trust with my life.

“That is,” she starts to say and shakes her head, clearly unsure of how to respond before she lands on, “different.”

Her face screws up in a slight grimace as if she knows that word doesn’t fully encompass what we’re asking of her. Maxim chokes out a laugh which has her narrowing her eyes at him.

“Sorry,” Maxim holds up his hands in surrender.

Silence descends on the room and the longer it holds, the more Oaklynn seems to squirm in her chair. When she winces, I sit up straighter and I’m not the only one.

“I think you have more to tell us,” Baker’s voice is strained.

Oaklynn glances at him and then looks down at her hands. She takes a deep breath but keeps her eyes averted as she speaks. “After we left dinner, father was angry. He felt disrespected because you didn’t give him an answer right away. He’s spent so long expecting to use me as a bargaining chip for his own success, but that had been taken away from him. Then he wasn’t able to close the deal with you immediately.”

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