Dark Kings (Feathers and Fate #1) - Sadie Moss Page 0,57

on me, I mean.

As if the color wasn’t bad enough, it’s eye-catching in another way too. The entire dress is made of finely detailed lace with a slit up the leg, the kind that’s only visible if I walk or stand a certain way. The fact that the lace is covering my skin but is also revealing a lot, making it both coy and sexy, demure and provocative, feels like a study in contradictions that a model would have a lot of fun pulling off.

But I am definitely not a model.

I strike a few poses in the mirror, but I just feel ridiculous and awkward.

Darn it. I don’t feel right in this at all. I don’t look sexy, I look dumb. What am I supposed to do here?

A snort comes from behind me, and I freeze, my stomach falling all the way to the floor. Oh no.

Turning around, I see that none other than Ford is standing in the room, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. We’re all supposed to dress up for this mission, but he hasn’t changed yet. He’s wearing dark jeans that hug the thick muscles of his legs and a plain white t-shirt that stretches indecently over his chest. He looks annoyed at me.

“Um, can we just pretend you didn’t see that?” I shift uncomfortably, smoothing down the dress.

“What, that I didn’t see you trying to act all provocative and looking like you’re fuckin’ constipated instead?” He grins, a feral stretch of his lips. “Not a chance.”

His words actually sting, and I hate that. He’s been a jerk to me more times than I can count since I met him, but there’s something different in his words this time. As if they’re not coming from his Wrath. They’re just coming from him.

“You’re a jerk. You know that?”

“Yeah, I’ve been told. Actually, that’s one of the nicer things I’ve been called.” He walks closer, stepping around me, examining me. “I gotta admit, I don’t see how you can be so good at seducing my brothers if you’re also this fuckin’ ridiculous.”

The anger burning in my chest flares brighter, and I glare at him. “I’m not seducing anyone! I was hit by that—that stuff, and they were trying to help me get it out of my system.”

He makes a noise low in his throat, almost a laugh, and I clench my hands into fists.

“You know what?” I blurt. “I’m glad you weren’t in that room with us. At least the others have been nice to me about it. The whole thing was awkward and strange and embarrassing”—and hot—“but at least they took care of me! They didn’t try to make me feel bad for something that was out of my control, and they haven’t kept bringing it up like you are. Even Beckett was nice about it, and he’s almost as big of a jerk as you are!”

My chest is heaving, my whole body trembling with anger. I’m at least a foot shorter than this man, and after being chased around the living room and pinned like a bug beneath him, I know I’m no match for him physically.

But I kind of want to hit him.

Just one good punch. Just to wipe that look off his face.

Ford puts his hands on his hips, narrowing his eyes at me. He’s so intense, his gaze dragging up and down my body as if he could burn away the lace with his eyes alone. Or maybe he wants to burn away more than that, to peel away my outside layers and see all the way down to my heart.

“Someone sent you to seduce us,” he announces finally, certainty coloring his voice. “It’s the only goddamn explanation.”

“No, it’s not,” I grit out through clenched teeth. Because there’s another explanation, and that explanation is that I’m trying to redeem you all. “Nobody sent me to seduce you or your brothers.”

And that is technically true. In fact, I’m pretty sure Anderson would be horrified to learn about what I did with the other sins. Not that I’m going to ask him for his opinion on that. If I can manage it, my angelic boss is never going to hear about that whole… thing at the club.

Ford lunges again, the same sudden burst of movement as last night when he chased me around the apartment—and the next thing I know, I’m pinned against the wall.

I yelp, shoving against his hold. “Let me go!”

But he doesn’t. His entire muscular body is pressed against