Page 17 of Gilded Gods

“She doesn’t have to hide shit from me,” I tell them. “I think we should make a no-clothing rule for when we’re in the house.”

“We’re not here for Ophelia,” Apollo reminds me, lowering his voice. “Keep your eyes on the prize, Ares.”

“I like the idea of taking Ophelia from Belen,” Atlas says, tapping a charcoal pencil on his knee. “He won’t have anyone or anything left by the time we’re done with him.”

“I also like this idea,” I say.

Apollo snorts. “Of course you do. When do you not think with your dick?”

“This isn’t about my dick,” I shoot back. “I want revenge as badly as you do.”

Our dad was Belen’s right-hand man until they had a falling out over money. Dad was the financial manager for the clubs when someone pointed out that funds were missing.

It wasn’t our dad.

He wasn’t a criminal like Belen but a deep thinker like Apollo. Someone set him up to take the fall, and our family went down with him. Mom divorced him six months after the scandal. She was so embarrassed she couldn’t stand to be attached to a man who brought shame to us.

Our dad tried to prove his innocence. He even begged Mom to speak to Belen’s wife since they were best friends. Seven months ago, Dad was murdered while walking to his car outside Olympus—Ophelia’s club.

Anger washes over me as I ball my hand into a fist on my lap. I want to hurt Belen for what he did to us. Atlas snaps my thoughts back to reality when he taps the drawing pencil against the sketchbook.

“What have you been drawing all night?” I hold out my palm, wiggling my fingers. “Hand it over.”

Atlas lifts the book from his lap and shows me a sketch of Ophelia. She looks like an old-school pinup girl with big tits falling out of a corset and high-waisted panties partially covering her stomach. Thighs spread, she leans forward with her hands on her knees, staring back at me with a sexy smile.

He sees her the way I see her.

I can tell Apollo does, too.

“She’s mine.” I snarl at my brothers. “So back off.”

“We’re in this together,” Apollo interjects. “Since when do you not like to share?”

The twins are used to sharing everything. But I never had to share with anyone, not until four years ago when Apollo came home from college a shell of himself.

He asked me to do something I never expected. Then he asked the same of Atlas. We couldn’t say no after what he had been through. So if Ophelia wants one of us, she will get all three of us.

ChapterTen

OPHELIA

In the middleof the night, I wake up to the bed shifting beneath me. It’s dark inside the room. The blackout curtains are pulled tight to block out the moonlight. But I can feelhimmove, feelhimbreathing on my neck.

I know without looking that Ares is in bed behind me, trailing his long fingers up my right side. His hand cups my ass over my shorts, exploring my body as if he owns me.

“Get your hand off my ass, Ares.” I elbow him in the chest, but his hand stays on my body. “After what you said about me to your brothers, you don’t get to touch me.”

His words from earlier still linger in my mind. I have been called fat more times than I can count. I’ve felt used and not good enough. And I don’t need my new stepbrother to tell me that.

“What did I say?” Ares growls in my ear, a low rumble that sends a shiver down my arms.

I bite my lip and play dead, hoping he will leave my room if I don’t respond. But that doesn’t work with Ares.

He shakes my arm. “What did I say?”

This time, his voice is deeper and more demanding.

“You said I have a fat ass,” I mutter, embarrassed to say it aloud.

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