Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
It was kind of cool, I guess. I figured they’d find me, and never doubted they’d look, at least, even if it did take them forever.
Unfortunately, none of it was necessary. I knew exactly what I was doing, and even though it pissed me off, I couldn’t blame them for doubting that I was in control.
The stairs creaked, and I heard a voice behind me as someone entered my room. “Can you finish it?” Aydin asked.
I glanced over my shoulder, seeing him stand at the top of the stairs leading into my attic room. He walked over, carrying his shirt in his hand and holding my eyes like a snake.
Always like a snake, coiled for the kill, and when it struck, you didn’t even know what had happened until it was over.
I nodded, pulling off my T-shirt and tossing it on my bed. I grabbed my kit and joined him at the leather bench I had sitting against the wall.
Setting his shirt down, he laid on the bench and tucked the other arm under his head as I poured the rest of the black ink I’d siphoned into a small dish.
I sat down and picked up the needles I’d tied to a pencil and dipped it in the ink. I approached him, leaning down to his right shoulder.
“So, what should I do with her?” he asked.
I faltered for a moment but then pressed the three-needle tool into him, breaking the skin as the ink seeped immediately into the wound.
I didn’t answer, because I knew better than to answer.
“You didn’t help her,” he mused, unfazed by the pain. “She clearly expected you to.”
I pressed again and again, redipping the needles into the ink every few moments as I tattooed the final line and colored it in.
His chest rose and fell in steady breaths, not missing a beat. I had some professional ink on my body, but a lot of mine was homemade like this, and I knew well it hurt.
Like Damon, though, it was the pain or it was nothing with Aydin.
“She’s a fighter,” he said.
He gazed up at the vaulted ceiling of my little hideaway that I’d moved into after my first night here. The white rooms and white rugs and white everything chilled me downstairs. I wanted my space, and I wanted it dark.
Plus, the windows opened up onto the roof up here. I liked the view.
“I love that about her,” he continued. “As long as she doesn’t hang herself with what little rope that I’m giving her. Did you notice that?” He looked at me. “It was like she didn’t actually realize the gravity of her situation. Trapped, with no way to survive if she leaves, and with five men who want to have the kind of fun we’ve been deprived of for so long, that a simple matter of money can make go away if she complains.”
I clenched my teeth, pressing the needles in hard. His muscle jerked under my hand, but still, he stayed fixed on me.
“What was her name again?” he asked softly. “Emory?”
My arms burned until I realized every muscle in my body was tensed. I forced the lump down my throat.
“Those eyes…” he murmured. “Brown with flecks of gold. They’re beautiful. I wonder what they look like staring down at you in the heat of it.”
I stared so hard at his shoulder and the design he’d instructed I tattoo that I was surprised his skin didn’t catch fire.
“How do I make her come?” he asked, watching me.
I tightened my hold on the instrument.
“Some women need a thumb on the clit when you’re inside them, you know?” he taunted. “Does she like men to do that to her?”
I gritted my teeth, punching a hole in his skin and hearing the little pop. He hissed under his breath but then smiled, pleased he’d gotten to me.
“Our fathers didn’t send us here to learn how to behave, Will. They would enjoy her, too, with or without her permission.” He paused and then continued. “They sent us here as punishment for not being more mindful of discretion. To learn how to not be sloppy,” he explained.
My father didn’t send me here. I didn’t understand how any father could send his child to a place like this, because one thing would be for certain if they ever got out: Blood isn’t love, and love is the only thing that begets loyalty.
I looked at Aydin, who now stared at the ceiling again. In my time here, I’d figured out Micah, Rory, and even Taylor, but Aydin…
He’d been here the longest, and by this point, he might’ve come too far to go back anymore.
“When I was twenty, I was at a resort wedding,” he told me, a faraway look in his eyes, “and I watched one of my father’s business associates drug his own wife, lay her down on a bed, and back away as he let my father climb on top of her and fuck her to seal a deal.”