Page 9 of Altered By Fire (Undercover Sinners 1)
My hands inch the fabric of Colt's Metallica shirt up higher, powerless to refuse Arsen's order, while he watches me like he wants to eat me for lunch.
"Arsen!" Hawke's voice cracks through the door like a whip and I startle, dropping my shirt. "Open this door immediately. That's an order."
My eyes wide, I meet Arsen's smoldering gaze, and he sighs.
"To be continued, angel." He winks at me lasciviously then unlocks the heavy wooden door and throws it open. "Hawke, so sorry. I didn't realize you needed the bathroom. Natalia and I were just … having a chat."
His wicked grin says he doesn't give a shit how weak that lie is, and my pussy clenches again in arousal. Fucking unhinged assholes are my weakness.
"Natalia, are you okay?" Hawke demands, pushing past Arsen's sexy tattooed body and taking my chin in his fingers.
"Yeah, fine," I croak as he turns my face side to side like he's checking for … what? Bruises?
Hawke peers at me with a deep frown on his beautiful face before nodding sharply.
"Very well. Mace, take Natalia back to the kitchen for breakfast. I need a word with Arsen." His tone brooks no arguments, and I feel my eyes widen even further.
Shit, is that even possible?
How the hell have I managed to end up here, in a church with five—five!—men who I’m at least eighty percent sure are not real priests? The fifth man of cloth standing beside Colt, lazily spinning a heavy looking handgun on his finger, has to be Weston.
He’s just as delicious as the other four … how is that even humanly possible?
Tall and broad-shouldered, his almond shaped eyes hint at an Asian heritage, while his bronze tan suggests something more exotic. His coffee-brown gaze is heavy on me, and my insides seem to liquefy.
"Come on," Mace says in his deep, quiet voice as he takes my elbow in one of his massive hands and leads me past the other four "priests" and back to the kitchen.
"Mace …" I start to say, but he shakes his head, holding out a chair for me to sit in at the table.
"Pancakes?" he offers, removing the smoking pan from the stovetop and dumping it in the sink. "That fucking unstable dick cooked quite a few before he, uh …" he trails off with a small, apologetic shrug, and places a huge stack of pancakes down on the table.
"They might be a bit cold now, but—" Mace starts to say, sitting opposite me, but is cut off by loud yelling in the hallway.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Hawke!" Arsen yells, and Hawke replies something too quiet for me to make out. There’s a pause, and then Arsen, I assume, barks a laugh.
"She's not as dumb as you think, Boss. I'm pretty sure she's figured out the whole fake-priest thing by now." He's making no attempt to keep his voice down, so I make no attempt to pretend I can't hear him and arch a brow at Mace.
"Ah," he hedges, "you should eat some of those. You're too thin."
"So you're not priests?" I ask aloud, “I thought maybe you were just, I don’t know, bad priests?” Chills trace down my spine as Mace turns a dark, heady gaze on me. The look he casts my way is almost … pitying? That's not good, right?
Arsen storms into the room, a fury of ink and muscles and male smugness that makes my stomach clench tight. Oh God. He yanks a chair out from the table, spins it around, and flops into it. Crossing his arms on the back, he leans his chin against it and stares at me.
"You are so fucking lucky you stumbled into this mess."
"This mess?" I ask as Arsen reaches out and takes the plate of pancakes, slapping several on my plate and then tossing it onto the table in front of me. The plate shivers for a moment before settling, and I raise an eyebrow.
"Leave her alone," Hawke says, moving into the room … dressed in Kevlar? Why is he wearing Kevlar and black cargo pants and … and so many guns? So, so, so many fucking guns. Holy shit. "It's not too late, Arsen, so keep your goddamn mouth shut."
"We're not priests at all and you know it, I know it, but the problem is, nobody else can know it." Arsen ignores what’s clearly an order, continuing to stare at me as he speaks. Hawke pauses next to him and leans down, nostrils flaring.
"I will knock you out if necessary," he growls, but the golden-haired psycho in front of him just twitches his lips into a crazy smile as his gaze slides off me and meets Hawke’s.
"I could kill you if I wanted," Arsen tells him with a casual air which totally freaks me the fuck out because, like, who says something like that to their friend? "It's only out of respect that I don't."
