Page 75 of Beautiful Sinners

CHAPTER 26

Phantom tingles coax me out of the dream I was having. I was surrounded by a sky full of stars, anxiously searching for the pattern I know now belongs to the man who took everything from me and destroyed my life.

Awareness kicks in slowly when I blink my eyes open. Dewy early morning light paints the room a soft, pale yellow. I’m lying on my stomach, my face smushed into the pillow. Lips coast along my left shoulder, and I smile into the pillowcase.

Constantine kisses his way down the burns on my arm. The nerve endings have long been dead, but I swear I feel him.

“What time is it?” I ask when I notice Tristan and Hendrix aren’t in bed with us.

He pauses at my elbow. “Seven.”

Hendrix must be making breakfast, and Tristan must be… I listen for running water coming from the bathroom but don’t hear anything.

Pushing up onto my elbows, I search the floor for a pallet and find none.

Rolling to face Constantine, I ask, “Did Hendrix sleep in the bed all night?”

He loops an arm over me and pulls me close until our noses touch. “He did.”

I play with the coarse stubble along his jaw. He’d look sexy as sin with a short beard.

“Nightmares?”

“No.”

Hearing that Hendrix slept through the rest of the night makes me absurdly happy.

“You interrupted me,” Constantine says, his voice huskier than usual.

Muscles I didn’t know existed protest when he rolls me back over, then continues where he left off.

Desire blossoms as he lightly kisses along the fine lines of where the man plunged his knife into my side. Constantine is a hardened man. Unemotive, stoic—brutal and deadly when necessary. He was forced to become what the Society demanded. After all the ugliness he survived, there shouldn’t be a scrap of love or softness left in him, so it makes it that much more special when he lets me see it. Shows me in the gentleness of his touch and tells me with his broken voice that he loves me.

“That feels so good,” I moan deliriously when his strong fingers dig into the muscles of my legs.

He kneads the tightness until the tension releases and I’m a blissed-out husk made of goo.

“I could get used to wake-up massages. Your hands should be classified as the ninth wonder of the modern world.”

“Just my hands?” he teases.

He shifts to reach my other leg, and his morning erection prods my outer thigh.

Embarrassment comes swiftly when I realize that he watched me have sex with Tristan and Hendrix and didn’t join us, then I literally fell asleep in his arms right after.

“I feel awful about last night.” I correct myself when his hand stills. “That came out wrong. Nothing about last night was awful. Last night was amazing. What I meant…” I hate when my thoughts and my tongue misalign, and I can’t say what I really mean. “It’s just that you didn’t… I mean, we didn’t—you know,” I finish on a whisper.

I feel his smile curve on my spine when he kisses up the valley of my lower lumbar. “Last night was about you and them.”

“But—” I try to lift up but flop back down like a useless wet noodle when his thumbs press into my trapezius muscles near my shoulder blades.

“No buts. It was your time to be with them. Don’t ever feel guilty about that. And don’t ever be afraid to put us in our places if we demand too much from you or if you just want some time to yourself.”

He positions my arms above my head and massages his way down each one to my fingertips while his mouth gets busy licking and kissing me everywhere, leaving me in a state of Zen but also incredibly turned on.

“I’m still unsure about how a relationship between all of us will work.”

He covers me with his body, his mouth on the tendon at the base of my neck, and my very sore pussy perks right the hell up.

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