Page 49 of Bad Men

Next to him, Nero was pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, but I could just make out the slight tremors in his shoulders.

“Oh my God,” he breathed, splaying his long fingers and peering out at me through them. “Mia.”

I spread my arms out in helplessness. “I asked them nicely and they said no.”

“Wait, you asked them?” Davien sobered just enough to ask. “What did you ask?”

I bit my bottom lip. “If I could take their place. They said no, and they were not nice about it.”

“Fuck me!” Davien panted in between fits.

Nero pushed to his feet and moved towards me, lips quirked up on one side. Without breaking eye contact, he hooked a finger into the slight gap between my breasts and the sheets and yanked me to him. His strong hands slid around my waist, pinning me to his chest.

“If you had come to us that night…” he trailed off with a skim of his lips along the curve between my neck and shoulder. “In that dress, and offered yourself…”

I held my breath, waiting for his answer, but he was distracted by the pulsing vein at my throat. “Would you have said yes?” I prompted.

Both men laughed.

“No,” they said as one.

“Not a chance,” Davien added.

My shoulders stooped. “But you just said…”

Nero lifted his head and peered down at me with hazel eyes hooded by heavy lashes and amusement. “If you had come to us that night, we would have been extremely tempted, but we would have taken you home.”

“But … why?”

“Because you were still barely legal,” Davien answered for him.

“I was eighteen,” I shot back. “Fully legal in nearly every part of the world.”

Davien snorted. “A week. You were eighteen for a week and we could smell the innocence on you from a mile away.”

I frowned. “My what?”

“We don’t sleep with virgins,” Nero explained. “Ever. It’s one of the rules. We don’t mess around with that.”

I thought about everything we’d done together in the last few days and raised a brow. “You didn’t have a problem with my innocence on the train.”

“As I recall, we tried,” Davien piped in. “You were very persuasive.”

“But that night at the party…” Nero pulled in a hard breath. “It wasn’t just your innocence. Your house is on our route. We stay away from girls we collect from.”

“Another rule?”

Nero nodded. “It’s messy.”

“You have a lot of rules,” I whispered, falling upwards into Nero’s endless gaze.

“It’s what keeps us alive,” he murmured.

“Putting that aside,” Davien interjected. “I want to hear more about how you locked two fairies in the bathroom.”

I winced, having hoped he’d let it go. “That’s where they went when they left you guys in the room,” I muttered. “There was a line and they were talking about how excited they were and how fun it was going to be.” I paused to roll my eyes, still feeling the lingering prickles of annoyance years later. “I asked if I could take their place. They said no. So, I waited until they’d gone in and…” I hesitated, not sure how much of it I should tell them without sounding like an absolute lunatic.

“Go on,” Davien urged, amusement bright in the quirk of his lips.

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