Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,33

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.”

I paused, something like pain crossing his eyes. But then it was gone.

“After a while, you know you’ll never escape it,” he said, “so you can either keep fighting the ugly, or you can reinvent it.” He turned his eyes on me again. “The biggest difference between my father and me is I just didn’t care if anyone saw the blood on the walls.”

I couldn’t move for a moment.

Em…

I dropped my eyes and finished the design, scratching in the last of the color.

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “I’m nothing like my father. Or Taylor, or Damon Torrance. I don’t force or coerce.” He dropped his voice. “It’ll hurt you more if she wants it.”

Then he reached down, kneading his cock through his pants, and the needles in my hand shook for a moment as the temptation sat there in my gut.

I had Micah and Rory. Taylor could be controlled.

No one would touch Emory if I ended Aydin right here and now.

He laid there, watching me and waiting for it, giving me my chance—daring me, but…

Finally, he just smiled and sat up, taking a clean cloth from the table and patting the blood off his shoulder.

“Everything is part of a bigger plan,” he said. “Whether it’s God or fate or something else, I honestly believe that, Will.” He tossed the cloth and looked at me. “We were always going to be important to each other.”

I raised my eyes, unable to hide the scowl.

He grabbed the back of my neck, giving me his reassuring little pat, and then nodded to the black garbage bags I had sitting close by to wrap up