Dark Kings

by Sadie Moss

  I decide to let it go. Standing around arguing won’t help us find this bookie, and the sooner we find him, the sooner we can get out of here.

  All around us are beautiful statues done up in erotic poses. I can’t help but inspect them a little. Some of the poses are slightly traumatizing, but the art itself is actually very well done. “This place is pretty high end, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah. Only the best for the likes of us. You should see what our other brother gets up to. I’m sure you know the one I’m talking about.” Phoenix winks at me. He’s rather charming when he’s winking and smiling at me instead of being all surly. “I’d love to see him work a number on you.”

  “So you’re saying you want to see Lust seducing me.”

  “You don’t have to sound so put out about it.”

  “If this is your way of flirting, I’m disappointed. I should’ve known that Sloth would get someone else to do his dirty work for him.”

  Phoenix bursts out into laughter as I pause in front of another statue. “You’ve got a mouth on you, babe. I like it.”

  Why is this statue’s mouth open? I tilt my head. Maybe the woman is supposed to be crying out in ecstasy.

  “Pity I don’t care about your approval,” I shoot back over my shoulder at him.

  It’s kind of a lie, because I do need the approval of the sins if I’m going to get them to trust me and be redeemed, but Phoenix seems to like it when I stand up to him and don’t take his crap. Sure enough, he laughs again as he wanders down the hallway.

  Pleased with myself, I lean closer to the statue—

  —and some kind of pink mist explodes out of the stone sculpture’s mouth, right in my face.

  Ew, what is that?

  It has a sickly sweet aroma, like when you spray Febreeze around a room to make it smell nice. I wave my hand in front of my face to dispel the mist, coughing.

  Phoenix is peering into a room up ahead, and I don’t think he noticed what happened.

  “C’mon, this way.” He gestures for me to follow him, and I hurry down the hall, scraping my tongue against my upper teeth as my cheeks flush with heat.

  Ugh, I really hope he didn’t see that. He’ll never let me live it down. What the heck was that stuff?

  Whatever it was, I hope it hasn’t messed with my angelic nature in any way. I only just got my wings back.

  “I think this is an employee area,” Phoenix notes, leading me into a back room of some kind. There’s a large bed, which isn’t surprising, but it doesn’t seem to be as decked-out as the other rooms. Perhaps this is where employees nap in between sessions?

  I’m feeling even warmer than before, and the heat in my cheeks starts to spread, sliding down my spine and pooling between my legs. My clothes feel itchy and too tight.

  Huh.

  “Ah, fuck. I think this is a dead end.” Phoenix tsks, then turns back to look at me.

  He really is handsome. Laidback, but in a charming way. I wonder what he looks like underneath his clothes—is he as perfectly chiseled as I remember? For the personification of Sloth, he sure is in great shape. The idea of getting my hands on him makes my mouth water, and suddenly, it’s all I can think about.

  “I have a question for you,” I say. “A personal question. Is that okay?”

  “Uh… sure?” Phoenix shrugs. Then he cocks his head. “Your pupils are really dilated. Is that an angel thing?”

  “No. So, you’re Sloth. But I saw a peek of your bedroom at your house, and you definitely have sex. So what’s that like? Do you just lie there and let everyone else always do the work?”

  Phoenix blinks at me a few times, like I’ve somehow turned purple and he can’t handle this new change in visual information. Which is hilarious. I start giggling, then I can’t quite seem to stop.

  “You… want to know about my sex life,” he says slowly. It could be a question, but his tone makes it sound more like a statement. Like he’s testing out the words to see if they can possibly make sense.

  “Yes.” My laugh dies away, and I nod, my breath coming a little faster. I want to know everything. I want him to describe it to me. To lay me down and whisper in my ear every dirty thing he does…

  “Okay, what the fuck is going on with you?” Phoenix takes me by the shoulders, trying to get a better look at my eyes.

  His touch burns me, but in a good way. I can feel heat spreading from where his bare skin meets mine, and I crave more. I want his hands everywhere—no, not everywhere. I want them on my breasts. Between my legs. Inside me.

  I’ve lived on Earth for thirty years, so I’ve definitely had moments of attraction to people. I’ve even entertained a few daydreams about characters I have crushes on from my favorite bands or TV shows. But I’ve never wanted anyone this badly before. I almost wonder, nonsensically, if I’m actually on fire and just haven’t noticed it yet—that’s how hot I feel.

  “Holy shit!” Phoenix blurts out. His pupils are dark now too, and huge. He still looks good though. Better than good. “Are you drugged? Goddammit. You’re drugged. You’re on some kind of lust thing.”

  My clothes feel way too tight. “It must’ve been the Febreeze,” I murmur. “I think I swallowed some of it.” I pull my shirt up and over my head.

  “Holy mother fuck,” Phoenix breathes out. He’s staring at my chest, and I feel a new rush of heat and pride that he’s looking at me like this. Like he wants to bury his face between my breasts. “Uh, yeah, sweetheart, you’d better fuckin’ put that back on right now.”

  “Why?” I undo my bra—another of the fancy, lacy ones Beckett got me—and drop it on the floor. Phoenix makes a choked noise, looking away with difficulty. “I’m just so hot, all over…”

  My pants are next. The fabric feels too tight and confining, so I shove them down my legs and kick them off along with my shoes. Phoenix looks back at me and groans again, staring at me like he’s transfixed.

  His gaze is everything in the world I need right now. The only thing that could be better is his touch. His lips. His hands. His teeth.

  “What do you see when you look at me?” I ask him, need curling through my belly. “Am I good enough for a sin?”

  I slide up to Phoenix, my hands moving up his chest. Oh, man, he’s so beautiful. So masculine and perfect. I should tell him that.

  So I do.

  “You’re so gorgeous. All of you are gorgeous. It’s weirdly unfair. Couldn’t even one of you have turned out unattractive?”

  “No such luck, I’m afraid,” Phoenix manages. He sounds strangled. “You really need to, uh, sit down. Fuckin’ hell, why don’t… why don’t you sit down right here…” He picks me up and sets me down on the bed. “…and I’ll go get you some water, okay, sweetheart? Does that sound good?”

  He tries to pull away, but I hold on to him so that he can’t. My arms wrap around him, refusing to let go.

  “No.” I shake my head, arching off the bed so that more of our bodies will touch. “I don’t want water. I want you to kiss me.”

  I want him to do a lot more than kiss me, to be honest. I want… I don’t even quite know what, but my body is screaming for it. Begging for it. This is a bad idea, maybe—but I can’t remember why it’s a bad idea. I want him so badly.

  As Phoenix reaches behind him, trying to grab my wrists and peel me away from his body, the door opens. Beckett and Remington walk in and stop dead in their tracks.

  “What,” Beckett says, his voice flat, “the fuck is this?”

  “She got dosed with something.” Phoenix sounds a bit panicked.

  “You can’t fuck her while she’s on lust dust.” Remington is usually the peacekeeper, but he actually looks pissed as he steps forward. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Trying to pry this horny sloth off me,” the man in my arms grunts. “Care to give me a fucking hand here?”

  I giggle, wrapping my legs around him and hooking my ankles above his firm ass. “I’m not Sloth. You are.”

  “Did
you let her eat something? Drink something?” Remington comes to stand next to the bed, his lips turning down in a frown.

  He’s got the most incredible looking lips. They look like they’d be just the right combination of firm and soft. And I bet he’d kiss me slow and deep. I bet kissing him would feel like being home.

  “Remington…” I unlatch my arms from Phoenix’s shoulder to reach for his brother, desperate to feel his lips on mine. “Please…”

  “Angel,” Beckett growls. His jaw clenches as he stalks over. “We need to get you out of here. Put your clothes on. Now.”

  “You’re so sexy when you’re in charge,” I blurt out.

  Oh, no, I did not mean to ever tell him that out loud.

  But it’s too late. He already knows. His green eyes burn with that preternatural glow as he gazes down at me. He’s so commanding and powerful, the others will listen to him. He’ll make them understand.

  “Please, Beck,” I whisper, unconsciously shortening his name as I lick my lips. “Please. I need this so much.”

  Greed stares at me like he’s a ravenous wolf and I’m a delicious sheep. For a moment, he’s totally silent. Totally still. Like one of those statues out in the hallway, only less dirty and impossibly more beautiful.

  “If I understand lust potions correctly,” he finally says, his voice a rasp, “the quickest way to take care of this will be to get her off.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Remington looks up at him sharply.

  “When am I ever not serious?” Beckett’s still staring at me.

  I shiver and spread my legs. My panties are damp, I think. I can feel something like a heartbeat pulsing in my core, and I feel swollen and empty all at once. I’m dying. I’m stranded in the desert, and these three men are the water I need.

  “Angel. Will you let us help you?”

  Beckett’s voice is like sandpaper. He hasn’t looked away from me once since he and Remington walked in. None of them have.

  My fingers are brushing over Remington’s broad shoulder, and my legs are still wrapped around Phoenix’s waist. My wings are spread out beneath me, and I don’t know when they came out, but they feel just as sensitive and needy as the rest of me.

  I fall into Beckett’s emerald gaze as I nod once. I want him. I want them all so badly I’m shaking with it.

  “Please,” I whisper. “Beck, please.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Trinity

  Who knew that begging Greed would actually work?

  The whole nature of his sin is about keeping things from others, keeping more for yourself.

  Then again, it’s also about taking what you want.

  And maybe, for once, Beckett and I want the exact same thing.

  He stands rigid and unmoving beside the bed for one more moment, and in that short space of time, I can feel the others waiting on his response, tension and need thrumming in the air.

  And maybe it’s just the lust dust that’s sliding through my veins like the purest aphrodisiac, but I don’t think the desire is coming just from me.

  It’s pouring from all three of the men around me too, creating a feedback loop that only ratchets my own arousal higher.

  I want them. So badly.

  And they want me too.

  That thought makes my core clench involuntarily, a soft moan falling from my lips.

  And that’s the sound that finally breaks Beckett’s resistance.

  “Fucking hell,” he mutters, and the next thing I know, he’s crawling onto the bed with us, his emerald eyes burning.

  “Yeah. We’re definitely going to hell for this.” Remington’s voice is rough, but he captures the hand that was stroking his face and turns it over, pressing a kiss to my palm.

  It’s a little touch, a gesture that’s almost more tender than sexy.

  But it sends heat racing over my skin, lighting up my nerve endings like a bolt of lightning striking dry brush.

  I whimper, arching off the bed as his lips move across my hand with little kisses and bites, and when he draws my fingertip into his warm, wet mouth, I clamp my legs around Phoenix’s waist, grinding against the hardness I can feel trapped between us.

  “Oh, shit,” Sloth groans, his hips thrusting against mine as his head drops. He’s holding himself up with his hands on the mattress on either side of me, and when I tug at his shirt with my free hand, he moves his arms, letting me pull it over his head.

  Then he drapes his body over mine, his bare chest meeting my flushed, sensitive breasts as our hips keep moving, undulating against each other. Every time his hardness presses against the spot at the apex of my thighs, something warm and wonderful spreads through my body, pushing me closer and closer to the thing I need.

  “Nix!”

  The word is a gasp.

  A breath.

  A plea.

  Then three things happen at once.

  Remington bites down on my finger, his tongue swirling over the tip of it in a wild, hungry pattern just as Phoenix buries his face in the crook of my neck and sucks hard on the skin there. At the same instant, my gaze locks on Beckett, who isn’t even touching me, just watching with a look of such abject desire on his face that it’s too much for me to bear.

  Pleasure spikes inside me. My eyes flare wide as an orgasm crashes through me like a raging river, and I can’t look away from those bright green irises as my mouth opens on a sound I’ve never made before in my entire existence.

  I get why the woman in the kitchen sounded like she was crying now, why she sobbed out her release with hiccupping, gasping noises.

  Because it’s that much.

  That overwhelming.

  It feels like I might be dying, and also like it might be the first moment I’ve ever truly been alive.

  “Oh… oh, please…”

  The pleasure keeps coming, and I keep moaning. Phoenix keeps grinding against me, and Remington keeps sucking on my finger. And through all of it, Beckett keeps watching.

  There’s a bulge straining at his pants, pressing against the fabric of his expensive suit, and the sight of it does almost as much to me as the feel of Phoenix’s hardness pressing against my core, dragging out the last shuddery waves of my orgasm.

  For a second, my body goes limp.

  For a second, the ache deep inside of me goes away.

  But the fire burning through my veins is still raging, and I rock against Phoenix again, still needing—needing something.

  “More,” I manage to get out, one hand clutching at Nix’s back, fingernails digging into his warm, perfect skin. The other is still occupied by Remi’s mouth, but when he releases my finger with a wet pop, I groan in frustration.

  “More. Please…”

  “Shit.” Remi sounds almost pained, and his fingers thread through mine, gripping tightly. “She’s not done, Beck. Whatever this is, she got a good fucking dose of it.”

  “Goddammit. Yeah, she did.” Nix releases my neck, licking away the sting from where he sucked hard on my skin. Then he draws back a little, his hips still pressing into mine, giving me friction where the ache is building up inside me again. “We’ve got you, doll. Okay? You’re gonna be all right.”

  “You’re not fucking her.”

  Beck’s voice is hard, and the tone of it is so surprising that I yank my attention from the other two men to stare up at him again. His expression is hard, and it’s not quite greed I see on his face. I can’t tell what it is.

  “Dude, I know.” Nix rolls his eyes, then grimaces when I press my ankles against his ass, urging him to roll his hips harder. “She’s making it hard as hell, but I’m not Sawyer, for fuck’s sake.”

  Lust.

  I think they’re talking about their brother, Lust, and for a wild moment, I wish he were here. Maybe he would give me what I need so badly. Maybe he wouldn’t hold himself back like these men all are for reasons I can’t quite understand right now.

  Another whimper escapes my lips, and I rock against every one of Ni
x’s thrusts. There’s a promise in each one of them, a hint of something incredible and wonderful and perfect.

  But his pants are in the damn way.

  My panties, soaked as they are, are in the damn way.

  Why are any of us still wearing clothes?

  It strikes me suddenly that we shouldn’t be, and I reach between us, grabbing for Nix’s pants and fumbling with the button at his waistband.

  “Shit,” he curses, pulling away from me like I’ve burned him. As I get a better look at his face, I can see that his cheeks are a little flushed, his messy blond hair more tousled than usual from my fingers.

  He looks like he’s coming apart, unraveling.

  And I love it.

  I reach for him again, but he’s gripping my legs and unwinding them from his waist, slipping away from me—and with Remi still holding on tightly to my other hand, I can’t grab him fast enough to pull him back.

  A sound that really is almost a sob tears from my throat as vicious disappointment cuts through me.

  I want…

  No, I need…

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs as he crouches on the bed beside me. He tugs his full bottom lip between his teeth, shaking his head. “I want to. Fuck almighty, I want to. But I can’t.”

  “Hold her. Help her ride it out.”

  The deep voice on my other side has moved, and I realize as I look over that Beck is shifting position on the bed, settling himself between my legs instead of beside me.

  He’s so big.

  Seeing his broad shoulders between my legs, the way they have to spread so much to accommodate him, makes me feel small and fragile.

  Breakable.

  His fingertips slide up my thighs, smooth and warm, leaving trails of fire in their wake. When he hooks my panties and tugs them off, I lift my legs to help him, reaching out desperately with my free hand for something to hold on to.

  Nix’s large fingers close around mine, and he grips my hand just as tightly as Remi is as Beck spreads my legs again.

  My panties were wet. I know it because now that I’m completely naked, I can feel the same slick arousal that soaked the fabric smearing over my thighs.