Page 28 of Angel I Am Not

Nick grunted, not so discreetly adjusting himself before walking away. I frowned and wrapped my arms around my chest. “Did he not like it? I thought—”

Luc snorted, shaking his head as he pushed me back into the dressing room. “Hey, no, he loved it.”

“But—”

“It’s a little sexier than I thought it would be. God, your ass looks fantastic in this shit. We’re getting it. All of them. No need to try on the others. Go ahead and change back so we can move onto the next store. Maybe shoes? Yeah, shoes.” He was rambling, his eyes firmly planted on my face.

“But I didn’t try on the others.”

“Ari, believe me when I say that if you try on the others, one or both of us is going to end up fucking you up against the wall. The dress is perfect, alright?”

Heat bled into my cheeks as I finally got what he meant.

“Now, change before I make good on my threat.”

He wasn’t giving me a good reason to move but I did want to finish my latte before all the whipped cream melted. It was one of the only reasons that I slipped back into the room and changed back into my original dress.

Being objectified wasn’t my idea of a good time, but this didn’t feel like that. They looked at me like I was allowed to know I looked good, like wanting to touch me wasn’t something I needed to be ashamed of. It made me feel attractive, wanted, and chosen.

I hurried up and handed off the clothes to Luc, scouring the area for Nick. I found him by the checkout counter, the demon grabbing me for a tongue-licking kiss and rocking his hips obscenely against mine. The full length of his arousal pressed against my belly as he kissed me like he was still pissed off that the dress had affected him in the first place.

“If I hadn’t believed you were Temptation before, I do now.”

Luc stole me away from Nick before he could try anything, shaking his head as he looked between us. “And this is why I’m worried about what happens when Dante starts sending you to the others.”

I clutched my drink closer. “Can we not ruin shopping with that nightmare yet?”

Nick snorted. “Wait until she finds out one of them is literally Gluttony.”

I slowly lowered my drink. “There’s a Gluttony?”

Luc shot Nick a look. “We were specifically not ruining shopping.”

“Right.” I took another aggressive sip of my frappe. “We’re coming back to that.”

“Unfortunately,” Luc muttered.

“Next stop is shoes. If I see her in another piece of clothing, I’m going to bust in my pants like a goddamn teenager.”

Satan

The weekend passed in a blur between shopping, movie nights, and a shitload of sex. I didn’t hate her anymore but I fucking wished I did. It would have made all this shit easier. Three days stuffed between our dorm and the mall with the most off-the-wall sex I’d had in years had definitely made it harder to come to terms with what she now meant to me.

I had never wanted a mate. I didn’t believe I needed one because, with a mate, there were rules. Rules that Ari was only beginning to learn.

Sometimes hell had more rules than heaven when it came to partners. Sure, we didn’t get married but mates were for life. Through thick and thin. They were forever. Ignoring a bond didn’t make it go away. Distance only sharpened the pull until being away from your mate started to feel wrong, and resisting the need for them made it worse.

With Temptation as our mate, that was the part that scared me. I was Wrath. Luc was Pride. Ari made everything already inside us stronger. When things were good, apparently that meant three days of fucking, eating, shopping, and watching Ari scream at reality television. When things weren’t good, I didn’t particularly want to find out what happened when Wrath got into a real fight with the one person my essence had decided mattered more than anything else.

Worse, Ari was such a sweet girl wrapped up in a hard exterior. Life had made her tough, but underneath all the snark and those cheeky comments, she still gave a shit. She wanted things to be fair. She worried about hurting people who had spent years hurting her. Then she’d turn around and find some new way to catch us unaware so we’d fuck that tight pussy until she passed out.

I didn’t understand what Dante was thinking, not that he had answered his phone since he had handed us the impossibility except for Luc’s one call. What should have been one day had turned into three and I knew Dante had planned it like that. If she truly was connected to all seven of us, a week was barely enough time for the bonds with just the two of us to settle.

Taking a deep breath, I shook my head to rid myself of all the heavy thoughts, looking around to see where Ari and Luc were while they finished getting ready. It had been a blessing that Ari had been dropped off on a Friday afternoon but now it was time to blend in again.

We caught Ari up on a few of the human norms such as how to utilize the internet and even her own mobile device. She had happily obliged, as long as we provided her with a chai latte, extra whipped cream and chocolate chips. She was easily pleased and I was beginning to really like the way her silver eyes lit up when she got excited about something. Watching her during one of the few downtimes we had had this weekend, her eyes widening at the TV as images passed over it had been exhilarating.

Yesterday, she’d spent ten straight minutes arguing with some woman on a reality show like the human could hear her through the screen, then looked genuinely offended when I laughed.