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“Let’s talk about how awful you look.”

Shoving his shoulder, I laugh. “Shut up!”

“No, really. There’s black war paint smeared down your cheek.” He wipes at it, and I roll into him.

“Leave it!”

In all our joking and laughter, something shifts between us.

Energy crackles, sparking like a firestorm.

He hovers his lips over mine, and our breathing mingles.

My head is fuzzy with the haze of my hangover, but also because he’s so close.

There’s this instant attraction I have to each of them; I haven’t understood it since I met them, and the minx living inside me wants to be reckless, but there’s a healthy dose of fear living inside my stomach, reminding me that they could hurt me beyond measure.

If I feel this way now, and I barely know any of them, it’s only going to grow and fester. It’s only going to become something more.

I don’t think I could survive having another trauma inside of me.

I’d die.

“Elias,” I breathe.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want, Sera. None of us will, but fuck I want you so bad.”

“Kiss her,” a voice at the end of the bed says, and Elias looks.

I don’t have to.

I know who it is.

He’s always lurking there, just beyond reach and reason, looming like a net of safety and a harbinger of something darker.

In Elias’s distraction, I delete the distance between us, crashing my lips to his as I had with Kyrin in the elevator.

Elias’s reaction is instant. He devours my mouth, lying me down on my back from my side, cupping my face in his massive hand, pressing into me.

His erection on my leg is evidence of how much he wants me.

It’s too much and not enough at the same time.

It’s like heaven warring with hell, and I’m on the front lines, fighting to survive.

When his hand sinks under the covers, he breaks our kiss and looks into my eyes.

The weight of his gaze is like he’s pleading with me for something I’ll willingly give him, but he still seeks approval.

This small gesture brings a tear to my cheek.

His brows knit at the sight of it, and I shake my head.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s not every day I try to touch a woman, and she cries.”

“Yeah, you bend them over and whip them until they do.” It’s out of my mouth before I can filter it, and my hand comes up to clamp over it. “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate of me to say. I’m hungover, and raw…”