Page 45 of Beautiful Sinners

“So much damn trouble,” he mutters, but he’s also smiling.

“Be patient. I want to take my time,” I tell them and glide fingertips under Hendrix’s shirt to explore the muscled ridges that make up his six-pack.

I let my hands feast on how smooth his skin feels, his abdominals and chest warm and solid. Hendrix doesn’t have any chest hair, and I find that I like it as much as I like the soft hair that covers Constantine’s chest.

As I move my hands higher up Hendrix’s body, the fabric of his shirt bunches. Once I get to his shoulders, he places his arms above his head so I can take his shirt off.

I giggle when I can’t get his shirt farther than his elbows, and it becomes stuck over his face.

“A little help. You’re too tall.”

He does that sexy thing only guys know how to do where he reaches behind him and pulls his shirt off by the collar. My heart rate accelerates when his bare chest is finally exposed. I’ve had the pleasure of watching him walk around the house without a shirt on, but this time is different. More intimate. Because he’s mine now. I can touch, taste, and look to my heart’s content.

“Stay right where you are,” I tell him and go to Tristan. “Hi.”

Tristan tips my face up and kisses me sweetly. “Be kind. I’m not as sexy as Hen with his god-like blond good looks.”

I dissolve into suppressed laughter at his playfulness. “I think you’re incredibly sexy, Mister Amato.”

Midnight falls over his whiskey irises, and I make a mental note that he likes it when I call him mister.

I give Tristan the same slow ministrations as I did Hendrix before stepping in front of Constantine.

“May I?” I ask.

I melt under his black gaze filled with so much need as he intently watches me carefully undress him. His torso is a collage of colors from the beating he took… for me. He let them hurt him because Aleksei held a gun to my head. I kiss each and every bruise as I work his shirt up and off.

The melancholy of my question can be heard when I ask the ‘what if’ that’s been bothering me all day. “Do you ever wonder what could have been if Papa never took me away?”

“Every second of every fucking day for the past ten years, Red.”

We were robbed of so much, and I don’t ever want to take another second I have with them for granted.

Once I’m done, I admire the three stunning men before me. Constantine is broad in the chest and big everywhere. Hendrix is leaner, his muscles more delineated, while Tristan has a streamlined swimmer’s body of strong, wide shoulders that taper to a trim waist.

“God, the three of you take my damn breath away.”

Tristan’s hands compress into tight fists. “You know it’s becoming almost impossible for me not to fuck you right now.”

I slowly drag my eyes up his long, thick legs, over his hard cock straining to break free from his pants, and across his torso until I stop on his pouty, full lips. “But you won’t because you promised to be good.”

My core pulsates at the guttural sound he makes, similar to a low growl.

“Hen promised. I didn’t.”

“Doesn’t matter. He implied the ‘royal we’ when he agreed.”

I relish Tristan’s laugh when it breaks free. Over the last week, I’ve stored away into memory every laugh and smile they’ve given me, each one treasured.

Needing to touch them, I begin with Constantine, tracing the outline of the red and black inked images that start at his fingers and decorate his entire body up to his neck. Upon closer inspection, I recognize the words interwoven into the tattoos as a mix of languages, some written in Portuguese and some in Latin likeOmnis Magna Potestas Ex Sanguine Et Morte Nascitur.All great power is born of blood and death. It’s the dictum of the Society.

Sliding my hand over his shoulder to his spine, his tanned skin breaks out in goose flesh as I circle to his back.

“You and Hendrix have angels.”

“You’re our angel,” Constantine says.

At first, it doesn’t click, but when I see the detail of the angel that spans his entire back, I realize he’s being literal. The angelisme.

---