Page 101 of Darkness of Mine

My breath shudders out of me. I lift my hand up to brush my palm against his beard. “Why do you seeeverything?”

He shakes his head. “Not everything. Just you. I see you, Freya, because I am never not watching you.”

With the man’s ability to hack practically anything, that could very well be true.

Which should probably worry me more than it does.

The door opens with a soft click and Eli comes inside holding a glass of water. “What did I miss?” he asks.

Oz doesn’t move from his position above me, and I try not to get distracted by the way his biceps bulge from holding himself up.

“Freya was just about to tell me what’s going on inside her pretty little head.” His lips tilt up. “But now she’s got a bit side-tracked checking me out.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks and I snap my eyes back to his amused ones.

Oz gives my neck a squeeze. “Come on, Mo Leannan, time to come clean.”

Fuck. He’s not going to give up. My gaze shifts to Eli because I don’t want to see Oz’s reaction to what I say next. “I’m not scared of seeing Zach again,” I tell him, “I’m scared of what I might do to him.” The confession hangs in the room, the darkness of the words I can’t quite bring myself to say, thick and heavy. After a moment I get up the nerve to look at Oz.

He nods once then draws back.

For one god-awful second I think he’s done with me, that he’s horrified by the monster my father made. Then he picks me up and shifts us till his back is against the headboard and I’m straddling his lap.

“Eli, come here.”

Eli puts the glass down on the bedside table and climbs onto the bed. He winds my braid around his fist and tugs till I’m looking at him.

Oz’s thumbs rub along the bare skin between my shirt and pants. “Do you think any less of Eli because he killed your father?”

I try to shake my head, but Eli’s grasp holds me steady. I sigh. “No. Of course not.”

“Then why are you holding yourself to different standards?”

I roll my eyes. “It’s not the same. Eli wasn’t raised to be a killer.”

Oz leans forward, his breath hot against my ear. “You know, onlybratsroll their eyes.”

“Then maybe you should punish me,River,” I snark, tugging my braid free from Eli to glower at Oz.

Laughter bursts out of him and my stomach flips at how beautiful he is with his head tipped back, a smile radiating across his face.

Eli’s hands circle my waist, and he pulls me off Oz. “Famous last words, Kitty Kat.”

Then he turns to Oz. “How do you want her?”

Oz’s laughter dies down, a deadly smile on his lips as he lifts my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Cuffed to the bed. On her back.”

“Oz…” His name comes out breathy as I squeeze my thighs together.

“And cut her shirt off,” he adds, and I don’t know why them talkingaboutme is so fucking hot.

Eli maneuvers me into position and the cuffs click around my wrists, anchoring me to the headboard. I could fight but I don’t want to. I need this. Need to feel the bite of pain and the heady arousal that comes with it. Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me out of my own head.

Eli’s blade flashes in the light from the lamp as he slices through my shirt and bra, and I look away before thoughts of how exactly I want to use that knife on Zach flood my mind.

“Hey,” Eli says, drawing my gaze back to him with the flat side of the knife against my cheek.

My heart races at having the blade against my skin and my breasts heave.