Page 58 of Gilded Locks

But she did fear him. Unlike the others, Ash knew how to get inside of her psyche. “You’re…different. You weren’t mean to me like the others. You’re patient.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Stone has patience. He just uses it like a weapon. Hunter...” Ash shrugged. “Hunter doesn’t believe in patience. He believes in now.”

Was he actually opening up to her? The more she knew about them, about what made them tick, the more likely she was to survive them. “And what do you believe?”

“I believe in watching. Your body language tells me everything I need to know.”

“That’s very clinical.”

“No. Clinical is Stone counting your breaths to calculate exactly when you’ll shatter. This is reverence. I won’t be satisfied with obedience alone. I want your trust.”

She lowered her gaze. She could never trust them. The moment she did, she’d be lost. They wanted to hurt her family. She couldn’t overlook that, no matter how horrible Jordan was, they would always share DNA. Therefore, they would always resent her for her sibling’s crimes.

“You’re overthinking again.”

“I’m not a doll who can just lay here?—”

His hand covered her mouth. “That sass is what got you in trouble earlier.”

Something hardened inside of her. She bit his hand and he ripped it away, hissing out a swear in Russian.

He examined the bite mark and threw his head back, laughing with true amusement. “She has teeth!”

“And I bite.”

His grin turned smoldering. “So I’ve learned.” He surprised her with another mind bending kiss that left her off balance. He didn’t fully pull away, as he whispered over her mouth, “One day, you’ll trust me enough to take you apart, because you’ll learn how incredible it can feel when we’re broken into pieces. How freeing.”

“I’ll never?—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “You will, because you’ll believe with all you are that I will put you back together after. You will learn to trust me, printessa.”

“Stone didn’t?—”

“Stone is Stone. I am Ash.” He cupped her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone. “I like learning which pieces fit where. Which ones make you gasp. Which ones make you beg.” His voice dropped, honey over gravel. “I like finding the sharp edges you didn’t know you had.”

“That sounds...”

“Dangerous?” He smiled, and there it was, that flash of something predatory beneath the gentle exterior. “We’re all dangerous, printessa. I’m just better at hiding it.”

Which made him the riskiest one of all. At least with Hunter she knew what she might be getting. And Stone had shown his true colors. But Ash was a mystery in many ways, curious but gentle, demanding but patient.

“Always thinking.” His hands slid down to her throat, not squeezing, just resting. Possessing. “When Stone pushes you, it’s because he needs your submission. When Hunter takes you, he’ll demand your surrender. But when I touch you?”

Her pulse hammered against his palms. “What do you need?”

“Your trust.” He leaned down, lips brushing her ear. “Complete. Absolute. The kind that lets you close your eyes and know I’ll catch you. The kind that lets you say yes without knowing what you’re agreeing to.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Yes.” He pulled back to meet her gaze. “It should be. I’m just as broken as the rest of them. But we all fracture in different ways.” His smile was slow, wicked, nothing like the gentle giant facade he wore so well. His hands tightened just slightly on her throat, enough that her eyes widened and her breath quickened.

“I’m broken too,” she confessed.

“No, you’re only bruised. A woman who doesn’t know her own limits yet. But I can enlighten you.” His lips traced her throat, settling on her hammering pulse. “And I’m going to. Slowly. Carefully. Until you understand exactly what your body can do.”

He lifted her hand and gently kissed her palm. Only then did it occur to her that she wasn’t prying him off of her. She’d kept her hands exactly where he commanded her to put them.

Ash traced his tongue over the fading welts marking her palms. “Did it hurt?”