The Darkest Pleasure by Gena Showalter Read Free Book Online Page A

lifted his Sig Sauer, checked the twenty-round, chrome-plated magazine. Full. Checked the chamber. One already loaded. Good.
    “Going to find her, guns blazing?”
    “If necessary.” Reyes pocketed three other rubber-flooredmagazines and a box of .45s. There were daggers already strapped to his ankles and throwing stars attached to his belt.
    “You don’t know where to go.”
    “That won’t stop me. I will find her.”
    Lucien sighed, loud and long. “I can flash you to her. You can be with her, saving her, in seconds.”
    Saving her. An admission of the danger she was in or a trick? He anchored the gun at his back and flattened his palms on the velvet-lined table, head bowed. For a long while he remained silent, weighing his options. Waste time searching for Danika or free Aeron, who could already taste her blood in his mouth?
    Neither appealed to him.
    Reyes sighed, the sound an echo of Lucien’s. His king-size bed lay sprawled at his left side, spacious and rumpled. He’d imagined Danika there every night since meeting her, blond hair tumbling, naked body glistening with desire. Nipples pearled, desperate for his tongue. Legs spread, core wet.
    Sometimes, though, the fantasy was replaced by his greatest fear, an image of blood and death. Danika’s throat cut, her naked body painted crimson…motionless. The likelihood of that fear coming true would increase upon Aeron’s release. You knew you could not hold him prisoner forever . Release him, save her and then protect her.
    Protecting her would mean keeping her with him rather than walking away from her as planned. That would increase her contact with the death-hungry Aeron, but it would also increase her contact with Reyes. Dangerous though it was, the thought was as sultry and heady as a lover’s caress might be—if Reyes had been able to find pleasure in softness.
    To have Danika here…to hold her…Her angel face flashed through his mind. Wide green eyes that had looked at him with a range of emotions: fear, hope, hate—and desire? Small, pert nose. Lush pink lips that cursed him to everlasting hell whilesilently promising the sweetest rapture. Delicate body deliciously curved and ripe for a man’s touch.
    He closed his eyes, his nostrils suddenly filled with her scent. Stormy nights and innocence, sugar sweetness edged with something a little dark…perilous. His brow furrowed. Dark? Perilous? She had been neither of those things before.
    “Give me your hand,” Lucien said, suddenly in front of him, warm breath beating over Reyes’s cheeks.
    Reyes blinked in surprise as he faced his friend. He trusted this man, respected him, yet he had disappointed him over and over in the past few days. Though he didn’t know what Lucien planned, he offered his hand without reservation.
    Without dragging his swirling eyes from Reyes’s gaze, Lucien wrapped his fingers around Reyes’s.
    At the moment of contact, a lightning spear slammed through his entire body. Every muscle he possessed clenched and unclenched as though hooked to a generator, volts of pure, electrical power pumping through his bloodstream. Heat slithered around him, a python holding on to a meal, tightening more and more until he could no longer breathe. Felt so good, the pain. He squeezed his lids shut, savoring. His demon purred.
    His mind blackened for several heartbeats, a dark shroud covering every corner. Then pinpricks of light formed, growing…growing…An image winked into place, not yet cohesive. Just an outline. And then, suddenly, he could see Danika lying on a bed just as he’d imagined all these weeks. Except she wasn’t a fair goddess spread and waiting for his pleasure. She was shackled to the bed, her once-pale hair cut and dyed.
    She was trembling. Tear streaks had dried on her cheeks, and she’d nibbled on her lower lip so forcefully that tiny droplets of blood had beaded. In that moment, rage was like another demon inside him. Danika was a woman meant for pleasure and