Page 46 of Beautiful Sinners

I rush behind Hendrix to look at his. I love how her wings are outstretched like she’s about to take flight. “The timepiece,” I say, remembering the clock on his left side I got a glimpse of when we were sparring at the gym. “Counting down the minutes until I see you again,” I mumble as I read the words that slam into me like a bolt from the blue. It’s about me as well, just like the clover on the underside of his wrist.

I go back and forth between Constantine and Hendrix, finding more and more images that represent me. They’re covered in them. Covered inme. Holy shit.

I briskly wipe away the tears that wet my face when I come to stand behind Tristan. Other than the tattoo of his sister’s favorite flower on his upper left chest, the only marks crisscrossing his skin are the ugly scars of abuse his father left.

With my arms wrapped around him, I press my lips to every single line that scores his back. His chest shudders as he inhales a shaky breath.

“I couldn’t put you on me,” he quietly states. “Doing so would mean that I accepted that you were really gone, and I wasn’t ready to let you go.”

Goddamn these men and the tumult of emotions they wrest out of me so easily. Not many people are lucky enough to find their soulmate. Somehow, for some incomprehensible reason, I was given three. The Society has it all wrong. Great power isn’t born of blood and death. Everlasting love is.

Reaching between them, I grip Constantine and Tristan’s forefingers in one hand while taking Hendrix’s in the other.

“I have another odd request.”

I get three varying degrees of arched eyebrows and curious, cocked heads.

“I want to hold you while we sleep,” I say, pulling them with me as I step backward to the side of the bed.

“You want to hold us?” Hendrix asks.

I nod, nibbling my lower lip. It’s dumb, but yeah.

When the backs of my knees hit the high mattress, I let go and get situated in the middle, then gesture for them to join me. Without another word spoken, Constantine and Tristan lie down on either side of me. Tristan’s hand threads its way into my hair, his head on my breast. Constantine pushes his large body flush with my side and snugly nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck. Hendrix crawls between my legs, using my stomach as a pillow. It’s a bizarre tangram of bodies that should be uncomfortable as hell with the way I’m splayed, but it’s not. I’ve got my guys. I’m at peace. I’m whole.

With the lights still on because no one makes a move to get up and turn them off, I close my eyes and begin to softly sing “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral” until my voice fades away, and I fall asleep.

CHAPTER 16

Air that smells like powdered donuts puffs across my forehead and drags me out of a deep slumber that I don’t want to leave. It takes effort, but I’m able to force my eyelids to spread apart and…

“Jesus!” I yelp when the biggest doe-like chocolate brown eyes stare upside down at me.

“What?” Hendrix exclaims from somewhere in the room.

Did he get out of bed last night and sleep on the floor?

Constantine and Tristan raise their heads from where they had been mashed into the sides of my neck.

“What the fuck?”

A tiny girl with the cutest chestnut-brown corkscrew curls scowls down at a still half-asleep Tristan. “You said a bad word.”

Hendrix’s blond head pops up over the footboard. “What the hell is a kid doing in here?”

The girl points her little cherubic finger at him. “Dat’s a bad word, too. Give me five dollars,” she says, but her l’s sound like w’s. It’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.

“What the fuck for?” Hendrix grumbles and pulls himself off the floor.

“Ten dollars.” But she holds up six fingers.

“Bite me, kid.”

“Hendrix!” I admonish.

Tristan jackknives into a sitting position, but I can’t move because my hair is pinned under the girl, who has decided to stand on my pillow while leaning against the headboard.

“Don’t mind him. He’s allergic to children,” Tristan tells her and lifts her up so I can move.

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