Page 88 of Obey

Fuck him anyway.

I push the sheets back and sit up. The floor is cool under my feet, and I’m already moving before I’ve decided anything. Halfway down the hall, I find the first door and stop. My hand closes around the knob and stays there.

I bite my lip as I think about what I’m about to do. This is wrong. He might be asleep.

But I stand there long enough that the decision makes itself. I ease the door open to see that it’s dark inside, except for the city light pressing through the curtains. Jace is in the middle of the bed, but he’s not alone.

Sheets twisted across three bodies. Elias’s arm thrown over him. Nate’s hand at his hip.

I didn’t think about this.

Of course, they would be in the same bed. They have a whole world that existed before me.

Feeling like an intruder, I start to back out. But of course, my hip catches something on the shelf, and it hits the floor with a crack that splits the quiet open.

Elias shoots up, his long blond hair falling across his face as he searches the dark. The sound that comes out of him is purely animal. He's breathing hard and wild, one hand already reaching protectively for Jace and Nate. It takes him a second to focus on me.

“Sloane?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Nate and Jace are awake by then too, both of them surfacing with the same slow, disoriented confusion.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” It comes out smaller than I intended, as my toes press into the carpet.

Elias’s eyes find mine in the dark, but they’re softer now, coaxing rather than hunting. “You can’t sleep.”

Not a question. I shake my head anyway.

There’s a beat of quiet, and then Jace’s mouth pulls into something slow and sleep-crooked. The sheets rustle as he lifts them off Elias. “Crawl in, Sugar.”

I cross the room and climb in, and Jace’s arm finds me before I’ve fully settled, drawing me into the warm slot between him and Nate.

The bed holds the smell of all three of them. Jace’s breath moves against my collarbone in a slow, unconscious rhythm. Behind me, Nate is a wall of warmth, his palm resting low on my stomach with the easy weight of someone who put it there without thinking and never reconsidered.

Then Jace shifts, unconscious and seeking, his thigh sliding between mine. Nate’s fingers flex once against my stomach. Just once. The tension that coils through me is immediate, almost mean in how fast it arrives.

I shut my eyes.

Don’t.

Don’t think about the inch between my mouth and Jace’s jaw. Don’t think about what Nate would do if I pushed back into him.

Desire doesn’t care what I think. It keeps building anyway.

My hand moves without permission, finding the landscape of ink across Jace’s chest: a crimson flower, a lick of golden flame shifting with each breath. My thumb traces the petal’s edge.

Jace stirs, voice thick with sleep. “Sugar… what are you doing?”

“Admiring the artwork,” I whisper. “At the office, you’re all… tailored.”

A low chuckle rumbles through him, then cuts off sharply when my fingers trail lower, following the taut line of his abdomen. His stomach tightens under my touch.

“Sloane.” My name is a warning, soft but strained.

“Hmm?” My fingertips trace the tattoo that curls over his hipbone, skimming the elastic band of his boxers. His hand closes around my wrist, not to stop me but to hold himself back.

“Nate and Elias…”

“Are dead asleep. They’ve been running on fumes all week.”