The Darkest Pleasure Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I refuse to believe that.” Lying must have become second nature to her. Danika wasn’t sure God cared anymore, either. “Something wonderful could be days away.” Yeah. Right.
    “Well, my something wonderful was that the Bird Brothers sat in your section again.”
    “Who are you kidding? They smile at you as if you’re the Sugar Plum Fairy and they smirk at me as if I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. I have no idea what I did to them or why they keep coming back for more of me.” Second time they’d come in, she’d feared they meant to pull her back into the nightmare she’d just escaped. But they’d never revealed a monstrous side, so she’d eventually relaxed.
    Gilly laughed. “Want me to shank them for you?”
    “Now, Gilly, that would be a travesty. Shanking’s a felony and cuffs are so not a good look for you.”
    The girl’s smile slowly melted away. “Don’t I know it,” she muttered.
    Part of Danika wanted to tell her to go home; life with her mom couldn’t be this bad. The other part admitted that life with Gilly’s mom could indeed be much, much worse. The terrible things Danika had seen on these darkened streets, even in the short time she’d been here…women with deadened eyes selling their bodies. Beatings. Drug overdoses. Whatever Gilly’s mother had done to drive the teenager to the streets had to have been severe.
    Once, Danika had been able to delude herself into thinking the world was a safe and magnificent place, full of possibilities. Now, her eyes had been opened.
    “Are you going to class in the morning?” she asked, propelling them into a safer conversation. She’d only worked here a week, but every day of that week she and Gilly had taken self-defense lessons, learning how to kick, hit and yes, kill with lethal precision. Besides her family, those lessons were the only thing Danika lived for anymore.
    She would never be helpless again.
    Gilly sighed and faced her. Danika thought again that she looked too young and fresh to be leading such a life of drudgery. Dark, chin-length hair, as straight as a pin. Big brown eyes. Honey-kissed skin. Average height, curvy body. She was innocence mixed with haunted sensuality. Right now, she was the only friend Danika had.
    “My feet will loathe me forever, but yeah. I’m going. You?”
    “Absolutely.” Friends weren’t something she could afford these days, but Danika had taken one look at the sad, brave girl and felt an instant kinship with her.
    “Maybe we’ll overpower the instructor again. Now, that was fun.”
    A chuckle escaped her, the first in what seemed forever. “Maybe.”
    A bell rang, hacking through the cackle of voices that echoed across the diner. Another order was up. Neither of them moved, however.
    “Gotta tell you,” Gilly said, anchoring her hand on her hip. “When Charles told us to come at him, rage, like, took me over. I could have killed him and giggled about it later.”
    “Me, too.” Sadly, those words were not a lie.
    Picture me as your enemy and show me what you’ve learned so far. Attack me, Charles had said, and both of them had.
    He’d needed fifty-nine stitches before the night had ended. Fortunately, he’d been a good sport about it.
    Dark fury had consumed Danika as images of Aeron, Lucien and Reyes—she gulped. Reyes! —had fluttered through her mind. Her kidnappers, her tormentors. Men she should hate with every fiber of her being. Did hate. Except for one. Reyes. Stupid girl.
    Him, she dreamed about constantly. Waking, sleeping, didn’t matter. He was always on her mind, as if he’d been branded there.
    Sometimes he even defeated the creatures in her nightmares. He would attack them, they would fight violently, and blood would flow in rivers. Always afterward, he would come to Danika, injured and hurting. Without hesitation, she would take him in her arms. He would kiss her everywhere—slow, so slow—laving his tongue over her hollows and planes, each lick another