Page 32 of Tangled Lies
I sat on the bed and contemplated what was happening. The room was filled with his scent. I breathed it in. The swirling of anxiety, fear, and anger all seemed to calm for a single moment.
I could breathe for the first time that I could remember, and I wondered: Was this peace?
Now I had time to kill. Maybe I could learn about the room’s owner. The space was all dark wood and black. It was what I’d expect of Ronan.
The room was quiet too. I got up and looked around. There wasn’t much here. I moved to the floor to look under his bed. I rolled my eyes at the lack of even a single dust bunny. He was all control, that was clear.
Maybe I could snoop, but at the end of the day, maybe this was just meant to be me and my thoughts.
What could I offer that would make one of them want to keep me around?
I wasn’t a fool. The writing was on the wall. I fought for any chance I had to get away for years. But at the end of the day, I didn’t have access to money or anyone powerful enough to help me.
Was this my chance? They’d risked themselves for me, but who were they?
I laid down and played with the blanket, trying to relax. There might have been four dangerous strangers outside this room and they may not know it yet, but I was willing to sell them my soul as long as it was my choice.
“What the hell are you doing, Jett?” Knox asked.
I turned around at the new voices. When I saw Talon and Knox standing in Jett’s room, I tried to ignore the rush of, well it was something and I didn’t hate it. I tried to ignore the way my entire body heated at the idea of them all watching me.
“How about this one?” I asked. I’d been here for an entire day and no one was taking me back to my gilded cage. I looked at myself in the mirror. Even if this was a new cage, I liked it so much better. I liked the idea of three of the four of them being here just to watch me try on dresses. A strange and new sensation, a need, that I couldn’t quite figure out how to satisfy swarmed in my lower belly. Maybe I wouldn’t mind them touching me, and this time not just for the end result of pissing off my uncle.
I smoothed over the dress and tried to figure out my own mind. I tried to ignore just how beautiful these men were. Tall, muscular, personalities that boarded on scary. They were all perfectly scarred too. The tattoos decorating Knox’s chest, or at least from what I could see in the reflection of the mirror, seemed like another skin for him. Not that they all didn’t appear to have their own piercings and tattoos, his were just more.
I didn’t mean to, but I was licking my lips, unable to stop myself from watching their reflections. I should have been making the idea of lusting after all of them go away. But my overactive imagination didn’t care. What would it be like to have them all touching me?
I scoffed at myself in the mirror and tried to focus on the dresses. Touching me? Right. I couldn’t even throw myself at Ronan, let alone these other three.
I stretched, my body hating the damn couch, regardless of how soft the thing was and if it had been just one night.
“Well? Anyone have a thought? I’ve never picked out my own dresses for anything, let alone an auction.”
I stretched my shoulders before turning away from the mirror and back at my odd new captors. It was really hard to not laugh at the fact Jett was lying on his stomach on his bed watching me with a fascination that would have made me think he was a teenage boy rather than a man with knives and guns tucked away.
It was stranger yet to find myself wanting to laugh rather than cry or put back on a mask and hide myself away. I should have been hiding still. I should have been full of mistrust. Should was key, but I couldn’t seem to figure out how to feel that way. Not here.
“She’s modeling for me, go away. You want to go to that auction? She needs a dress. So, assholes. What do you think?” Jett pushed himself up and my mouth watered. The muscles of his arms flexed as he moved. He needed a shirt, but maybe I didn’t remind him of that.
At this point, where should I even look? There were three beautiful men here.
I wiped at my mouth absently.
“What? Are shirts against your religion, boys?” I asked.
Talon came a little closer, and I backed away just to be stopped by the balcony doors.
“Princess, there is no god. The only religion is between the sheets when you worship me,” Talon said.
My body tingled at the touch of his hands wrapping around my waist. I forgot how to breathe for a second. He took another step closer, and I had nowhere to go. His body pressed into mine.
“I’m certain a few hours in my bed could make you believe in heaven.”
After I caught my breath, I found the part of me that wanted to play this game and chuckled.
“That is the worst pickup line ever. Are you taking advice from Jett?”
Too bad when his finger traced down my jaw, chasing the neckline of the low-cut dress, I shivered. Bad pickup line or not, my body was onboard.
