20 Ariuk
Ariuk
There was no orgy. Again.
There was, however, a whole lot of posturing between three demons who had apparently decided that arguing about Dante was more important than the fact that I was stretched across the couch with my thighs squeezed together and enough frustration humming beneath my skin to make me want to bite somebody.
Zel had spent the last ten minutes pacing the same strip of carpet while Luc tried to reason with him and Nick periodically made everything worse.
“He did lie,” Nick said from against the wall.
Luc shot him a glare. “Stop fucking helping.”
“I’m not helping. I’m pointing out that he’s right about that part.”
Zel turned at the end of another lap. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank him,” Luc snapped. “Neither one of you is listening to what I’m actually saying.”
It was incredibly rude, especially after Luc had very clearly promised me an orgy in that alley.
A few days ago, I had been trying to figure out how to become a slightly better angel after Uriel supposedly lost his mind and challenged God.
Now I was Temptation, whatever the fuck that meant, living with demons, possibly bonded to seven of them, and trying not to interrupt a serious conversation by asking whether anyone planned on making good on the sex they had teased me with all night.
Heaven had spent twenty-eight years teaching me to suppress anything that felt too good, and apparently my response to freedom was to swing violently in the other direction. I was still deciding whether that counted as personal growth.
“Would you just listen to me?” Luc finally snapped, and my attention shifted immediately because Luc shouting was never a good sign.
He usually held himself together until the pressure had somewhere else to go, and I had already seen what happened when that control broke.
“We cannot just march downstairs and demand Dante explain himself. You already know what he does when he doesn’t want to answer. ”
Zel stopped pacing and turned toward him, dragging both hands through his hair before letting them fall against his sides.
“He talks around the question until you forget what you asked. I noticed.” When Luc asked why they were still having the argument, Zel’s jaw tightened before his gaze slid toward me.
The agitation around him felt different from Nick’s anger.
Nick burned hot and immediate, every irritation looking for something to hit.
Zel’s frustration was heavier, almost restless, like one answer only created another question he couldn’t stop reaching for.
“Dante sent me looking for impossibilities. Then you two show up with one, and she’s fucking Temptation.
He knew something. Maybe not everything, but enough. ”
Luc crossed his arms. “And yelling at him is going to magically make him honest?”
“No, but doing nothing isn’t scratching the itch either.
” Zel looked at Nick for half a second before his attention settled back on me.
“That’s the part people never understand.
Everyone hears Gluttony and thinks food, sex, drinking too much, whatever.
It isn’t that simple. I get one good thing and immediately want to know what the next one feels like.
One drink becomes five because maybe the fifth tastes different.
One touch becomes another because now I know what that patch of skin feels like and I want the rest.”
Nick leaned against the wall, studying him with a look somewhere between curiosity and amusement. “Sounds exhausting.”
“It fucking is.” Zel barely spared him another glance.
His eyes dropped to the way my legs had shifted closer together and his mouth curved just enough to make heat crawl up my spine.
“I smelled her in that alley and one breath wasn’t enough.
Then I touched her and wanted more skin.
I spent the whole walk back thinking about what she tastes like, and now I’m sitting here pretending I give a shit about Dante when she’s ten feet away from me. ”
I sat forward before I could stop myself, and Luc noticed immediately because of course he did. Nick’s grin widened, but Zel was the one whose expression changed completely when my thighs pressed tighter together.
“This conversation has become significantly more interesting,” I admitted.
Luc pinched the bridge of his nose while Nick snorted beside him.
Zel crossed the room slowly, gaze fixed on my mouth before drifting lower.
“You want to know what the problem is, Angel?” I should have objected to the nickname, but I nodded instead.
He stopped between my knees and leaned down just enough that his breath brushed my lips.
“If I put my mouth on you, I already know one taste isn’t going to be enough. ”
My pussy clenched so hard I nearly saw stars. “Come again?”
That finally made him smile. I caught the front of his shirt and tugged him the last few inches closer, widening my knees around his hips. “Then stop talking about it.”
His eyes darkened as he looked down at my hand fisted in his shirt, then back at me. “Angel.”
“You keep saying that like it’s going to scare me.”
“It’s not supposed to.”
“Good.” I pulled him the last few inches and kissed him.
He surprised me by not meeting me with the same frantic energy that had been building in the room.
His mouth settled against mine slowly, almost experimentally, like he wanted to know exactly what the first kiss felt like before deciding what came next.
His tongue traced mine once, then he pulled back just far enough to breathe against my lips before kissing me again.
The third time lasted longer, his hand sliding along my thigh while the other settled against my waist, and by the fourth I understood what he was doing.
Gluttony kissed exactly the way he did everything else.
One wasn’t enough when he could have another version of the same thing.
His mouth wandered from mine to the corner of my lips, then along my jaw before returning as if he had decided my mouth was still his favorite.
Each kiss felt different, his tongue dragging across my lower lip before he sucked it between his teeth just enough to make me moan.
Zel stilled at the sound, and when he kissed me again there was unmistakable satisfaction in the way his fingers tightened on my thigh.
Movement sounded behind him. Zel broke the kiss and turned his head just enough to find Nick halfway across the room, and a low growl rolled through his chest.
“Stay where you are.”
Nick’s brows shot up. “Excuse me?”
Zel shifted his body more fully between us, one hand remaining possessively against my waist. “This feast is mine.”
Something deep in the statement went straight between my legs.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Luc muttered from near the wall.
Zel glanced at him. “Problem?”
“You’ve known her for a few hours and you’re already refusing to share.”
“Correct.”
Nick stared at him like he couldn’t decide whether the territorial bullshit was funny or worth challenging. “You realize she’s our mate too.”
“I’m aware.” Zel looked back down at me, his thumb stroking once along my side. “You’ve had her. Tonight I get to.”
The word mine came out quieter the next time, breathed near my cheek as he kissed along my jaw.
It didn’t feel like he was claiming ownership of me over Luc and Nick.
It felt like he had finally found something he wanted to savor and was absolutely unwilling to let anyone reach across his plate before he was finished.
Nick took one deliberately annoying step forward, and Zel’s growl deepened.
I started laughing. “You’re all ridiculous.”
Three sets of eyes landed on me at once, and I grinned because apparently I had become the sane person in the room. “You’re posturing over who gets to touch me first like I’m not sitting right here.”
Luc’s attention shifted from Zel to me. “Do you want us to intervene?”
I looked at Zel, at the hunger written all over his face and the way his fingers flexed against my hip. “Nope.”
“Selfish fucking bastard,” Nick muttered as he backed off, though the obvious bulge in his pants made it clear he was still getting something out of the situation.
Zel glanced over his shoulder. “You’ll survive.”
“Easy for you to say when you’re the one about to put your face between her legs.”
Luc caught Nick by the shoulder before he could drift forward again. “She said she wants him.”
“I heard her.” Nick adjusted himself without an ounce of shame before dropping onto the couch beside Luc. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about waiting.”
Luc sat beside him with considerably more dignity, which would have been more convincing if his hand hadn’t moved discreetly over the front of his pants.
Zel followed my gaze and smiled. “Like an audience?”
“Maybe.”
“Good. They can watch.”
He kissed me again while his hands slid beneath the hem of my dress, palms warm against my thighs as he worked the fabric upward.
He didn’t tear anything or yank it off in a frenzy.
He made me lift my arms, dragged it over my head, and tossed it aside before unclasping my bra and letting the straps slide slowly down my arms. When I was bare from the waist up, he stopped and looked.
His gaze traveled over my breasts, stomach, ribs, the dark skin beneath his hands, and the attention was somehow hotter than being thrown against a wall.
He cupped both breasts, thumbs dragging lazily across my nipples until they tightened beneath his touch.
When my breath hitched, he repeated the movement with more pressure and watched the reaction closely.
“Really?” I asked, already breathing harder.
“They tightened.” His thumb circled one again, slower this time, and my back arched before I could stop it. Zel’s mouth curved. “There. That.”
“You’re watching me.”
Zel’s thumb passed over my nipple again. “Yeah.”
“Not my tits. Me.”
His gaze finally lifted to mine. “Your tits are fucking fantastic too.”