The door flies open so suddenly I almost fall forward. She stands there in tiny sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt, her red hair a wild mess around her face, eyes blazing.
“What the actual fuck, Lucien?” she hisses. “It’s seven in the morning.”
I stare at her disheveled appearance, drinking in every detail. The way her sleep shorts ride up her thighs, how her nipples poke through the thin fabric of her oversized shirt. The knowledge that she’s not my sister makes my cock twitch with interest. I can have her now without the fucked-up complicationof shared blood. But she doesn’t know that, and I’m not about to tell her yet.
“Morning, Little Sinner,” I drawl, pushing past her into the room without waiting for an invitation. “And just be grateful I knocked instead of letting myself in. I am, after all, an upstanding gentleman of society.”
Seraphina scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Upstanding? You’re about as upstanding as a fucking cockroach. What the hell are you even doing here?”
“Wardrobe update,” I say simply, throwing open the closet door and surveying her things. “Can’t have my Chosen wearing the wrong uniform, now can I?”
I start pulling her standard St. Augustine uniforms from the hangers. One by one, I toss them onto the floor in a growing heap.
“What the fuck, Lucien!” Seraphina squawks, lunging forward to grab at a skirt I’m about to throw. “Those are expensive!”
“I know exactly how much they cost,” I say, yanking the skirt from her grasp and adding it to the pile. “I’ve bought plenty of them.”
Her face flushes with anger as she watches me methodically empty her closet. “Stop it! You can’t just come in here and?—“
“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” I cut her off, enjoying the way her chest heaves with indignation. “You know how it goes. Time for the Sinners special.”
I unzip the garment bag and pull out the first of the new uniforms—identical to her old ones at first glance, but with the subtle red accents that mark her as belonging to a Sinner. The devil’s in the details, quite literally.
I hang it up carefully, smoothing down the fabric with deliberate slowness. When I glance over my shoulder, Seraphinais watching me with narrowed eyes, her jaw clenched so tight I can see a muscle jumping in her cheek.
“I’m not wearing those,” she spits, crossing her arms over her chest.
I ignore her, hanging the first set in her now-empty closet. “You don’t have a choice.”
One by one, I hang the new uniforms, arranging them with meticulous care. Each time I glance over my shoulder, I catch her silently seething, her jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised her teeth don’t shatter.
“Red isn’t my color. It clashes with my hair.”
“If that was true you wouldn’t paint your lips red every fucking day so please don’t insult my intelligence,” I scoff, reaching out to trace my thumb over her bare bottom lip. She jerks her head away like I’ve burned her. “Also it wouldn’t fucking matter anyway, you know red is for us, the Sinners.”
The final thing I pull out is what I’ve been saving for last—two St. Augustine Basketball jerseys with my name and number on it. One a woman’s cut to match mine and the other modified into a dress.
“Look,” I say, holding them up with a smirk. “I even give you options. Wanna wear a skirt to my game, you can wear this one,” I say, shaking the jersey. “Wanna wear a dress, now you can.” I hold up the dress version, watching her face contort with rage. “You’ll look so pretty as my little basketball wifey.”
Something in Seraphina snaps. She lunges forward with a guttural scream that doesn’t even sound human, clawing at the jerseys in my hands.
“Get the FUCK out!” she shrieks, her face turning almost as red as her hair. “I am not your fucking WIFEY! I’m not wearing your name! I’m not your goddamn property! We can’t be anything.”
She rips the jersey dress from my hands and starts tearing at it, her fingers digging into the fabric as she tries to shred it apart. The sight of her losing control like this sends a jolt of satisfaction through me. This is what I want—to see her come undone, to break through that icy composure.
“You think this is cute?” she screams, throwing the mangled jersey at my chest. “You think I’m just going to parade around campus wearing your fucking name like some kind of trophy? I’d rather walk around NAKED!”
My cock stiffens at the thought, and I can’t help the dark laugh that escapes me. “That can be arranged too. And let’s not forget it’s your name also.”
She’s in my face now and something in me just fucking snaps. I back her up against the closet wall in three quick strides, pinning her there with my body, feeling every soft curve pressed against me. My hands slide into her hair, gripping those wild red strands tight enough to make her gasp.
“You want to know what’s cute?” I growl against her mouth. “The way you think you have a fucking choice in this.”
I crash my lips against hers, expecting her to claw at me like the wildcat she is. But instead, she goes completely limp in my arms, her mouth softening under mine, opening to me with a little whimper that shoots straight to my dick. I deepen the kiss, my tongue sliding against hers as I press her harder against the wall, my hands fisting in her hair.
Just as I’m thinking I’ve won, that I’ve finally broken through that wall of resistance, she bites down on my bottom lip. Hard. Fucking hard enough that I taste blood.
“Fuck!” I jerk back, touching my lip and looking at the smear of red on my fingertips. The coppery taste fills my mouth as I stare at her, both of us breathing hard.
