Page 29 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
"Now is that any way to talk in a church?" a voice asks, snapping my eyes up to the heavy wood beams in the vaulted ceiling. Arsen is sitting on one of them, and I'm still too fucked-up to puzzle out why. Instead, I just squint and do my best to push myself up to my feet.
"I need some water," I groan, because I've got the worst of both worlds: dry mouth from the pot and a hangover from all that booze.
"Water? Is that really what you need?" he asks, sliding off the edge of the beam and hanging briefly from it for a moment before he drops to his feet in front of me. Arsen's ice-blue eyes take me in from head to toe, and it's only when I see the fire in his gaze that I realize I'm naked. When did that happen? "Because I might have something else you're interested in."
He reaches out and grabs my hand, putting my palm on his bare chest. He's not wearing anything but a pair of black sweatpants, his tattoos blue-gray and brilliant in the moonlight. My sluggish brain catches on the designs and just flat-out refuses to let go. Underneath my hand, I can hear his heart beating.
"You have a heart," I say, and he raises a single brow at me.
"Do I now?" he asks, sliding my hand over to the peaked point of his nipple. "I guess I needed something inside of me to pump all that blood to my cock. Lord knows it's not useful for much else."
I don't have a lot of inhibitions on a normal day, so when I'm high and slightly hungover? I end up pinching and teasing Arsen's nipple, drawing this ragged sound from his throat.
"I need water," I repeat again after moment, pushing past him and heading for the door. I stumble down the stairs and he follows after me. When I get to the bottom, I find one of the guys' robes lying across the small table near the coffee maker and pick it up, slinging it over my shoulders.
In the kitchen, I find a chipped coffee mug and fill it three times over with cool water from the tap, gasping as I lean over the old farmhouse sink and try not to throw up. Why didn't I just stick to the pot? The pot never makes me sick like this.
When I finally do stand up and turn around, I find Arsen leaning against the larger table, his arms crossed over his chest as he watches me like I'm one of the most fascinating things he's ever seen. And when I say things, I mean things. He doesn't look at me like I'm a woman or even a person. I try not to take it personally; he looks at his fellow team members like that, too.
"Can I help you with something?" I finally ask, leaning my ass against the counter and breathing in the smell of the robes I just borrowed. They have the faintest whiff of pot and something else, this musky male scent that reminds of … Weston? Not like I've spent more than two seconds with the guy, but when I close my eyes and breathe in that smell, he's the one that first comes to mind.
"Something?" Arsen asks, lighting up a cigarette right there in the kitchen. "I thought you wanted to fuck? I waited for Hawke to go to bed and then climbed out my window and into yours." He shrugs his broad shoulders, silver-gray smoke drifting around his face as he watches me through the haze, like a lion stalking its prey. "I hate your family and everything they stand for. So, by association, I hate you, too. If I didn't think Hawke would kill me, I might kill you instead. As things stand, I'd rather we just screwed each other."
He says it so matter-of-fact. Like he’s talking about drinking tea instead of coffee. He’d rather coffee, but he’d settle for tea.
I continue to sip my water, the long dark sleeves of the robes falling over my hands as I gaze across the chipped rim over to Arsen and his pretty boy face. He's too beautiful to be so crazy, too damaged to be gorgeous. And yet, I find that I can't look away.
"Okay," I say after a moment, setting my drink aside.
Arsen raises a single brow at me, but he doesn't stop smoking his cigarette, holding it between two inked fingers as I take a step closer to him. He's so still for so long that I start to wonder if the pot's still messing with my brain.
In the blink of an eye though, he's tossing his smoke into the sink and grabbing me, shoving me face first over the surface of the table and pushing the robes up around my bare hips. No words pass between us as Arsen shoves his sweats down and then finds my opening with the slick tip of his cock.
