I punched his thigh, earning a half-hearted protest in return.
“If you must know my secret, it’s the beard oil,” he said, his eyes still shining with self-satisfied amusement.
I wonder how his eyes would shine right before he buried himself in me.
This was getting out of control.
Ezra, either being totally clueless to my current arousal, or determined to make me implode, placed his hand on my left thigh and gave it a squeeze. “What about me?”
I pulled on my lip, trying my hardest to maintain some composure. “What, you want me to sniff you?”
“You sniffed Cole,” he said in a jokingly accusing tone.
Okay, so this is actually happening.
Rolling my eyes, I turned my body to him and leaned toward his neck, knowing his scent would be the strongest there.
“Mmm,” I hummed while I breathed him in with my eyes closed. “Something fresh, like pine and lavender.”
Satisfied with my answer, I sat back, noticing that Ezra’s hand was still firmly on my thigh and that his blue eyes seemed a shade darker than before.
My skin flashed hot, and when I whipped my head around to see what was taking Abel so long, I saw he was no longer looking for a movie. He was watching me and Ezra, his expression tight with something I couldn’t quite decipher.
I sucked in a breath and flicked my gaze to Silas in the other armchair. At once, I felt guilty for flirting with Ezra and Cole after I had just rejected Silas. What the hell was I doing? The last thing I wanted to do was create problems within the band. This morning, I had convinced myself that starting anything with the guitarist would only leave me hurt, but now I was thinking about his two friends in a manner that was decidedly more than just friendly. It must have been my buzz and their history—after all, a threesome was unlikely to lead to anything serious, but even still, imagining sleeping with both of them was something I had to put an end to.
I forced myself to study Silas’s expression. To my surprise, I didn’t see any anger or jealousy there. Instead, his brows were furrowed as if he was trying to figure something out as he watched the interaction between me and his fellow band members with his signature intensity.
I shivered involuntarily and gave Abel a pointed look. “What are we watching?”
12
ABEL
You.We’re watching you.
I tore my eyes away from Adeline and picked some comedy on Netflix before proceeding to completely ignore it.
Having her in my house was unsettling.
Having her in my head was even worse.
She’s my blood.
Those words had ricocheted through my skull like arrows ever since she’d told us about her parents. They’d speared through old memories, pinning them to the forefront of my mind.
In my experience, blood didn’t mean much. My father walked out on me and my mom when I was still in diapers, leaving her trying to wade through the depths of her addiction. She eventually drowned in a sea of needles and heroine, when I was nine.
My aunt didn’t want me. My grandparents were dead. I was tossed into the foster system, and saw more families where blood was often an excuse to do unspeakable things to each other.
It was kind of sad that her decision to selflessly support her younger sister had elevated her to a completely new level of goodness in my mind. It was hard to hate someone you thought was genuinely good.
Her feet tapped on the carpeted floor as she watched the movie. She was sandwiched between Cole and Ezra, and a faint blush still colored her cheeks. She looked gorgeous, even in the unflattering glow of the flatscreen TV that was playing a movie I was still ignoring.
She must know by now that she was commanding most of our attention whenever she was around. I knew the guys well enough to understand what the lingering looks and the whispered words when they thought I couldn’t hear were all about.
Adeline was penetrating their armor, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what they were planning, and I was too proud to ask. Cole and Ezra had been undressing her with their eyes for most of the night, seeming completely undeterred by each other’s obvious intentions. I knew they’d shared in the past, so I suppose that wouldn’t be too out of character, but I sure as hell hadn’t expected the lusty looks from Silas. Had they discussed some arrangement?
