Page 35 of Beautiful Sinners

“I won’t. I’m sorry. You’re hurting me,” she wails.

Her plea only makes me increase the pressure.

“Syn, let her go,” Evan says, but I don’t take my eyes off the blonde.

I don’t want to hurt her, but I can’t seem to stop. Jealousy is in control of me right now, and I get mad at Hendrix for making me feel this way. I know where Constantine and Tristan stand when it comes to how they feel about me. They said they loved me. But Hendrix hasn’t said anything at all. Am I just another one of the ‘toys’ he likes to play with, and once he’s done with me, he’ll walk away? Have the years apart stolen away the boy who was my best friend and irreparably broken us completely?

I don’t know how much time goes by before I finally release the woman. I can feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on us. Remorse and shame batter my conscience as I watch huge crocodile tears stream down her face. I want to be a doctor, for God’s sake. Do no harm. It’s the main tenet of the Hippocratic oath.

When the woman rushes off with her arm clutched to her chest, I look down at my hand. At the blood I can still see that’s not really there.

“You jealous, firefly?” Hendrix says, grinning widely and sounding very pleased.

I glare down at him as my anger transfers from myself to him.

“Fuck you. You’re an asshole.”

I don’t want to be like this. Like Aoife used to be. Violent and unhinged when my anger gets out of control. I thought I was a monster because of how I looked, but there’s another monster lurking inside me. One I was forced to become as a child.

Hendrix is out of his seat and following me as I storm off.

“Admit it. Youarejealous.”

“Shut up.”

The back bedroom in the aft of the plane is small with little room for me to pace out my irritation and calm down. The king bed takes up most of the space, and a perfect Constantine indentation rumples the bedcovers where he’d been lying.

Hendrix blocks the doorway, so I can’t escape.

“Why are you mad at me? I didn’t do anything.”

I hurl the contempt I feel at him. “You didn’t tell her to stop. I’m not a complete idiot, Hendrix. I may have been a virgin until recently, but I know when a woman is offering something more than an in-flight beverage.”

The grin on his stupidly gorgeous face turns Cheshire. “Come here, Trouble.”

Even though hearing his childhood nickname for me makes me ridiculously happy, I balk at his audacity and have the urge to childishly stomp my foot.

“No. And stop smiling. This isn’t funny.”

“From where I’m standing, it kind of is.”

Sexy smirk cemented in place, he strides forward; I take a step back.

“I’m not them. I can never be them.”

My voice chokes up. I will never be beautiful. My scars will never fade, and no amount of skin grafts or plastic surgery will make them go away. The man with the constellations on his neck ruined me.

Hendrix stalks closer until my back bumps up against the curved cabin wall, and he towers over me.

“Who will you never be?”

Our gazes meet, the magnetic pull of him too strong for me to resist, but all I see are unwanted images of him with…

“Serena.” I can’t hold his intense blue stare, so I lower my eyes to his chest. “Or every other woman you’ve been with.”

I saw enough on his IG feed to know he has a type. Blonde. Skinny. Gorgeous. Huge boobs.

Lean but powerfully muscled arms cage me in, and then Hendrix is right there in front of me. The curve of his ribcage cuts into my torso. Every exhale of his warm breath tickles my forehead and cheeks, stirring the small hairs that have curled around my face. I soak in his body heat. His smell.Him.

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