Crimes of Cupidity (Heart Hassle Book 3)

When we make it back to the den, I clean myself up in the tub, only to get into bed where Evert and Ronak pounce on me. Laughing, I make them lay back so that I can kneel between them on the bed. With them flat on their backs, I pull their cocks free and begin to stroke…only to realize that sandlady dust covers my palms.

“Crap!”

It’s too late. Their eyes close, their heads flop to the side, and with cocks still stiff and pointing skyward, they fall deeply asleep.

From the other side of Evert, Sylred laughs. “Really? Again?”

I shake my head at my hands like I’m conveying how disappointed I am in their actions. “I was just trying to give a couple handies. This stupid dust is such a cockblocker.”

Sylred lays back, the smile still playing around his lips and making the crinkles around his eyes form. “Maybe you should start wearing gloves to bed.”

“I don’t need…Actually, that’s a good idea.”

“Mmmhmm.”

Bending his elbow, he tucks his arm under his head and closes his eyes.

“You’re just gonna go to sleep?” I ask, still kneeling beside Erection One and Erection Two. “What about them?”

“Their dicks will go down eventually.”

I sigh and look at the poor, unused erections. I really gotta get a handle on this sleep dust stuff. I reach down and pull up the sheet to awkwardly cover them. The sheet pokes up and stretches between them like a sporting net.

“Such a waste,” I mumble to myself. “I promise I’ll try to be better,” I say to the passed out genfins and their erections. It sounds weird to make promises to penises, but they’ve earned it, since this is the fourth time I’ve done this to them.

Taking me by surprise, Sylred suddenly sits up and pulls me forward with a grip on my chin. He plants a sweet kiss on my lips.

“You are perfect,” he says.

I smile and wave off the compliment, but he uses his hold to force me to look at him. “I mean it, Emelle,” he says, and the sound of my name rolling off his tongue makes my breath catch. “Ronak and Evert aren’t good with words, but I thought you should know. You are everything to us. And your lamassu, too.”

I swallow hard, not letting the happy tears that formed fall. “You four are everything to me,” I whisper, my heart fluttering when he rubs his thumb across my bottom lip.

With one last sweet kiss, he releases me and lays back down, throwing an arm over his eyes. He falls asleep shortly after, while I’m still hearing the echo of his words, wondering how the hell I got so lucky.

Realizing that Okot has still not come inside, I slip out of bed, careful not to wake Ronak, and pad across the bedroom. I find my lamassu outside in the garden, sitting on the bench and watching the stars. Just like I knew he would be.

I sit down beside him, my skin chilled against the cool night air. He automatically raises his arm and tucks me into his side, enveloping me in his warmth as I burrow closer to him.

We watch the night sky for a while in silence, just like we’ve done every night this week. But this time, Okot actually starts to talk.

“I felt you before I even knew you existed.”

Startled, I turn my face to look at him. The hard planes of his face are softened in the moonlight, and his nose piercing glints silver.

“What do you mean?”

“Lamassus have a very strong bond to their mates. Arguably the strongest mate bonds of all fae. So it’s not uncommon for us to have a sense of our mates, even before we meet them.”

Listening to the low timbre of his voice makes me want to curl up inside of his words and live there forever.

“But I felt your bond always, and it was strong. Stronger than what was normal, even for lamassus,” he explains, looking down at me.

“What did it feel like?” I ask, my voice caught in a whisper.

He brings his hand up to his chest and taps two fingers against him. “Like a heartbeat.” He drums his fingers against his skin, in the same cadence as his heart. I can’t look away, and I’m hanging off of his every word.

“Then I was sent to you. The moment you opened the door, that heartbeat of a bond that had always beat right alongside my own heart suddenly snapped. I smelled your scent, and the air around you was…home. The tapping of the bond settled, and then matched with the beating of your heart, and I knew that this bond was something more. Something far deeper than any other of my kind has ever experienced.”

He gathers me in his arms and pulls me onto his lap, cradling me against him so that his heart is pressed to my ear. I close my damp eyes and listen to the soft drum of his heart, and it’s the sweetest lullaby I’ve ever heard.

“When I called you my beloved from that first moment I met you, it was because I meant it. You are the most beloved thing to me that has ever existed, and I am in constant awe that you crossed realms and Veils to get to me.”

I pick up my head at his reverential words and let my forehead rest against his. His hands tremble slightly as he circles my waist, and the love he feels for me is so strong in this moment, that it makes my own body tremble with the force of it.

“I’d cross a thousand realms and go through a thousand more Veils for you, Okot.”

I mean every word.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

Leaning back, I look into his eyes and slowly shake my head. His expression falls with shame, but I hold steady. “No. Because there’s nothing to forgive. And you and I? We’re gonna move on from that now, lamassu. No more holding back. No more hating yourself. No more shame. It. Wasn’t. You,” I say firmly, my hands gripping his shirt.

“My heart is yours, my beloved. It always has been.”

A smile spreads across my face. “Good. Because you’ve been carrying mine all along.”

He kisses me tenderly, our heartbeats drumming as one. “Let’s go to bed.”

He carries me inside we climb into the giant bed together, me settling in the middle. As soon as I do, all four of my mates seek me out, even in their sleep, and their limbs tangle around me.

And as I’m here, surrounded by them and their touches, I realize that this is it. This is my perfect love, made up of all five of us, and its worth is inestimable.

I will love them with my entire heart, body, and soul, for as long as I live…and even after that.

Because love? It really is the greatest thing you can ever have.

Trust me. I’m a cupid.

The End