Crimes of Cupidity (Heart Hassle Book 3)

Our little gathering quickly disperses after Lex and Sev dropped the information bomb. I send them back to Cupidville, and the princess and her posse are holing up, strategizing. I’m alone with my guys, and we’re just sitting around quietly, all of us lost in thought.

My alpha is spread out on the rug, his tail wrapped around my ankles, and I’m leaning against Sylred’s shoulder where we’re resting on the chaise, while Evert is on my other side, his arm tucked behind my head.

When a knock sounds at the door, Ronak immediately jumps to his feet and stalks over to it. He reaches his hand out and starts batting at the handle over and over again.

Evert snorts and shoves him away. “Our alpha, bested by a fucking knob.”

Ronak hisses at him.

When Evert throws open the door, I look up to see a dozen sunflowers standing up at attention from a familiar earth sprite’s head.

“Mossie!”

I run forward, hip-checking Evert out of the way to greet her. My friend is in all her green, vined glory, her bright green eyes locking on me instantly and the sunflowers growing out of her scalp turn to face me.

“Emelle,” she beams. She shoves the silver tray laden with tea cups in Evert’s arms and envelops me in a hug. He rolls his eyes at her and sets it down on the table.

When we pull back, she keeps hold of my arms and gives me a once-over, as if to check that I’m okay. “Girl. I knew that pink didn’t look right,” she says, mentioning my previously dyed self. “You look much better like this.”

“Thanks. Your flowers look nicely pruned.”

Mossie runs a hand over the vines cascading down her back and gives her sunflowers a pat. “Thank you. I did just tend to them. I also added some new mulch to my scalp,” she says proudly.

“Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” I assure her. “How did things go with Blix?” I don’t mention my run-in with him when we broke out all the prisoners in the tower because, well, that might get awkward.

She waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, that water sprite,” she says with disdain. “We’re over. I’ve moved on.”

“Oh. Who’s the lucky fae?”

She shrugs a shoulder and makes her way further into the room. “His name is Dune. He’s an arid earth sprite,” she tells me, as if I should be super impressed by that.

“Oh. Awesome.”

She nods and sits down on the chaise, where I join her. “Mmmhmm. He grows cacti out of his head. He’s very refined.”

“Huh. That sounds…sharp.”

“Exactly. But, he doesn’t want to make things exclusive,” she says with a slight pout. “Anyway, you pretended to be a servant! And a noble! But all along, you’ve been a cupid. How did you not tell me?”

“Sorry. It was top secret stuff.”

“Apology accepted. You’re forgiven. Now,” she says, breezing past the conversation, still holding my hands. “Down to business. How many fae can you get to fall in love with me?”

“Uh, what?”

“How many?” she asks, her green eyes expectant.

“Oh, umm, there’s not really, like, a limit. I just—”

“Good!” she says, dropping my hands so that she can clap. She reaches into the bodice of her dress and pulls out a piece of paper from between her green boobs and hands it over to me. I open it and a little soil falls out onto my lap. It also smells like roses.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“That’s my list of fae. There’s no particular order. You can make any one of them fall in love with me first. Dune is going to get so jealous. That’ll teach him not to want exclusivity with me.”

I look at her long list of names and cringe. “Mossie…”

But her attention is already elsewhere. Particularly on my genfins. “So, these are your mates, huh? They’re super hot.” Her eyes land on Ronak where he’s sniffing the ficus in the corner of the room. “That one is naked.”

“Yeah…he won’t keep any clothes on right now. He just shreds them.”

“Hmm. Is he about to pee on that?” she asks, eyeing how he’s still sniffing intently at the potted plant.

I laugh nervously and run a hand through my hair. “What? No. Of course not.”

As soon as she turns her back on him, I wave my hands around wildly in his direction to get his attention. He looks up at me lazily. “Do. Not. Pee.” I mouth to him sternly.

He keeps his golden eyes locked onto me. Then he grabs his dilly whacker and…pees all over the bloody ficus.

I scrunch my nose. Unbelievable.

“As soon as I heard the rumors about the cupid, I just knew it was you,” Mossie says as she starts serving the tea she brought up. “I heard some of the brownies talking about defecting, so I knew I needed to leave with them. Luckily, one of them let me tag along, otherwise I’d still be stuck at the palace. I much prefer working here with the princess than that grimy old king. I’m so glad the princess wasn’t actually beheaded. She has such a nice head.”

Ignoring the pee puddle behind me, I sit back down on the chaise as she serves me some tea. “She does have a nice head,” I agree. “And I’m glad you’re here, too.”

“Well, there’s your tea. One of the servants insisted I bring it up to you. I guess you had a rough time at the rebel camp?”

“You could say that…”

Mossie passes tea cups to me and the guys and then straightens up. “I’d better get back down. Just call if you need me. Oh, and let me know when you’re ready to start on my love list!” With a happy wave, she turns and breezes out of the room, leaving me with a love list in one hand and a teacup in the other.

Evert and Sylred blink at the door and then look at me. “Friend of yours?” Evert drawls.

“Yeah, that was Mossie. I tried to hook her up with a water sprite after she snuck me into the prison tower entrance. She liked his butt. The water sprite’s butt, I mean. I guess it didn’t work out. We also got drunk. We both like fairy wine. We drank a lot of wine.”

Evert grins, and I watch as Sylred starts cleaning Ronak’s mess with some towels.

I take a sip of the tea, and flavor explodes on my tongue. “Mmm,” I hum appreciatively. I then down the entire cup, not even caring that it burns off half my taste buds. Some things are just worth it.

Evert cocks a black brow as I try to fan off my tongue. “Good?”

I drop my hand and set the cup down. “Delicious. I’m sleepy.”

“Let’s get you to bed then.”

Seeing the look in his eye, I shake my head. “Uh uh. I really am sleepy. No sexy times.”

He laughs. “Sure.”

I cross my arms. “I’m serious. My puss pearl is clammed up for the night. My tuna pot pie is already put away in the Tupperware. This fun hatch is closed for business, Evert.”

He gives me a cocky look. “As if you could resist me.”

I scoff. “I can totally resist you. Look at me resisting you right now. I’m resisting the hell out of you, and I’m not even trying.”

To drive my point home, I yank off my dress and toss it at his face before sidestepping around his reaching arms. I hurry to the closet and shut myself inside. I stifle a giggle as he curses on the other side of the door, and I slip on some panties. After pulling my wings into my back, I put on a white night dress. When I’m decent again, I saunter out, totally nailing this resisting stuff, even when I see that Evert has stripped down to only a loose pair of pants hanging low on his waist.

“Nice nightie,” he says with a smirk, his blue eyes hot on my exposed skin.

“Thanks,” I say, trying not to ogle the yummy lines going from his abdomen to his nether region. I fail in that endeavor.

“How’s that resisting going?”

I hear the humor in his voice, and I force my eyes back up. “What?”

A lethal smile spreads across his face, and now he’s flashing his dimples at me, too. Realms have mercy on my poor little horny soul.

He starts to slowly prowl towards me. It’s a sexy prowl, too. “I said, are you done resisting me yet?”

“Yes. No. I mean…” Flustered, I shake my head to try to clear it. “Can you put a shirt on? Your V is distracting me.”

He laughs. “My what?”

I point at the offending muscles. “Your V. That shape from your abs to your naughty bits. It’s delicious and I can’t concentrate when you’re just flashing it around all willy nilly.”

Heat fills his blue eyes, and he crooks a finger at me. “Come here.”

I shake my head and race to the other side of the bed. “Nope. Nuh uh. Sleeping.” I hurry under the covers and pull them nearly up to my chin.

Sylred returns from wherever he disposed of the soiled cloth that he used to clean up Ronak’s pee, and he starts stripping for bed. Ronak’s already naked, so now I have three muscled and seriously hot genfins closing in on me. Why did I turn down sex? I can’t even remember now.

Evert slides into bed on one side, Sylred on the other, and Ronak once again lays down at my legs, his head laying right on top of my pelvis.

Evert rests a hand on my hip as he lays beside me, and even through the silky fabric of my nightgown, I can feel the heat coming from his palm. Sylred’s legs are tangled with mine, and Ronak starts purring, and the vibration shoots right to my core.

Like he knows I’m already breaking, Evert starts trailing his hand up my side, his finger barely grazing over some side boob action. I shoot up into a sitting position, my face flushed. “Okay! I get it! I suck at resisting! Give me sex.”

He starts laughing. Laughing! What a jerk.

“What’s funny?” I demand, crossing my arms in front of me.

He props his hands behind his head and leans back. “You couldn’t even last five minutes.”

“What did I miss?” Sylred asks, looking between us. “I always miss stuff when I’m cleaning up piss.”

“Scratch can’t get enough of us,” Evert explains with a smirk.

“You’re flashing your naked torsos at me!” I say hotly.

Evert’s dimples come out in full effect, and Sylred’s eyes crinkle with his own smile. “Our naked torsos?” he teases.

“Yes!” I feel all jittery from that tea, and it’s now sitting in my stomach, sloshing around. “You guys are laughing at me.”

“No one is laughing,” Sylred points out.

I point at their smiling faces. “The laughs are there. Right there. I can see them behind your quivering lips.”

“Don’t say quivering lips,” Evert drawls.

“I’ll say quivering lips as much as I like, thank you very much. And you think I can’t go without sex? I totally can. I mean it this time. I’m going to sleep. We’ve just had our first fight, and I can’t be bothered with you or your naked torsos.”

I slump back on the pillows, ignoring their chuckles completely by stuffing the pillow over my face. I fall asleep feeling horny and grumpy as hell.

Freaking genfins.