Sinners Consumed (Sinners Anonymous, #3)

by Somme Sketcher

“Since when did you start drinking vodka?” “Since you said you wouldn’t kiss me if I drank whiskey.”

“Put some clothes on, Penelope. My men are onboard and I don’t want to kill anyone else today.”

“What did Blake do?” “Pissed me off.” I swallow. “So you killed him.” His palm presses harder into my stomach, and his chin comes to rest on my shoulder. “He was eyeing something up that doesn’t belong to him.”

“I don’t belong to you, either.” A humorless smirk stretches his lips. “I don’t want you, Penelope.” Before his omission has time to sting, he brings his hand to my jaw and grips me there. “But I’m going to take you anyway, and then I’m going to ruin you.” I blink. “What?” “It’s only fair,” he says, tone devoid of emotion. An awful sense of dread creeps over the planes of my shoulders and squeezes the nape of my neck. “Why?” I breathe. He doesn’t miss a beat. “Because it’s only a matter of time before you ruin me.”

“Where are we going?” Although, my heart already knows. “My bedroom.” “Why?” I whisper. He shifts his forearms under my ass. “So I can fuck you, Penelope. Why else?”

In one swift motion, he sheds his shirt, balls it in a bloodied fist, and tosses it on the floor. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

“Do me a favor, Penelope,” he growls against my racing pulse. “Unless you’re moaning my name or sucking my dick, keep your fucking mouth shut.” Another tug on my bun, another crackle in my clit. “I’m so sick of the shit that comes out of it.”

I file the thought into a box labeled Questions for when Raphael Visconti doesn’t have his face buried in my pussy and drop my head against the pillow.

“I think…well, I don’t know. I think we’re fucking.” I use present, not past tense, because the suitcase sitting in the corner of the room suggests I’m going to be hanging around for a little while. Matt blinks. “You’re fucking Raphael Visconti.” “Can you stop saying his full name like that? Sounds like you want to fuck him too.” He ignores me. “You’re fucking Raphael Visconti on his mega yacht.” “Are you telling me or asking me?”

“Okay, now tell me that again, but closer this time.” I frown. “Huh?” Without breaking eye contact, he unbuckles his belt. The thawp of leather passing through loops makes me stiffer than the loudest crack of a hammer ever could. “Come over here and tell me you don’t want to fuck me,” he says quietly. Ice freezes my veins. When I glance to the door over Raphael’s broad shoulders, he laughs darkly. “Silly girl,” he rasps, gaze flashing with molten amusement. “Your eyes always give you away.”

My world is on fire, and I want to punish the girl who lit the match.

“Maybe say it louder?” “Maybe get a fucking hearing aid?”

I smile. She scowls.

“I don’t do this,” she blurts out, clambering to her feet. “Do what?” “Men.” “I don’t do men either.”

“All my other fuck buddies call me Penny.” Violence hits me like a lightning bolt. “And all your other fuck buddies will be six-feet-under if you mention them again.”

“You know where my brother is, Penelope?” “Have you tried Find My iPhone, Angelo?”

“He means, he gets why Rafe is obsessed with you now. You talk almost as much shit as he does.”

My breathing slows, but my heart picks up pace. “Jeez, what an ugly bookshelf,” Tayce mutters, following my gaze. Rory comes up beside me. “Are they the For Dummies books? Looks like the whole collection? I can’t imagine Rafe reading those.” “He doesn’t,” I whisper, my throat going thick. “Well, who does then?” I swallow. “Me.” In the silence, the wind roars. The grandfather clock ticks on the mantelpiece. My eyes trail the splintered wood, the hammer on the desk, and the Swedish instructions torn into two and dumped next to the trash can. Wren sighs and clutches her chest. “See, I told you he was a gentleman.”

Busted knuckles with a feather-light touch. Silky Italian wrapped around callous words. Slow licks, racing hearts. Sweet and sour, hot and cold; contradictions pull at my nerves in a game of tug and war. I hate that I love every second of it.

“Anyway, Rory did.” I pause. “How did you know I didn’t do it myself?” The expensive fabric of his slacks touches the backs of my thighs. “You can’t braid, Queenie.” I frown. “How do you know that?” He stills, then skims his nose up the curve of my throat, bringing his lips to my ear. “Apologies. I’m thinking of one of my other enemies with benefits.” Jealousy flashes behind my eyelids. I whip around to push him off, but he tightens his grip on my braid, yanking my head back until it rests below his collar pin. “I’ll have to thank my sister-in-law for giving me a leash.”

“Martin O’Hare was found dead in Clam Lake.” It doesn’t sound like my voice. It’s too calm, too at-odds with the violent pulse in my throat. While my eyes are glued on the screen, my attention is tethered to Rafe as he moves from behind the sofa over to the bar cart. In silence, he pours a vodka. “Really?” The clink of ice cubes rattles my bones. “That’s not where I left him.”

“That reminds me, I brought you back a souvenir.” My shoulders tense. Rafe disappears from view, and when he approaches the back of the sofa and drops a small box onto my lap, I stare down at it. And then I scream. I jump up, roll over the coffee table, and stagger toward the door. “You’re sick,” I choke out, stumbling backward. I’ve seen this type of shit in films. A horse’s head in a bed. A skull on a bookshelf. A fucking finger in a ring box.

“Actually, yeah. I killed him for you too.” “Why?” “Didn’t like the idea of another man putting his hands around your throat,” he says dryly. I grit my teeth, digging my nails into my palms. “I set fire to his casino.” “Semantics.”

The fucking tattoo. In the storm of dead men and key rings, I’d forgotten all about it. How could I? It’s a big red heart with the name Raphael swirled through the middle of it. A ragged exhale slips from his lips and dances up my spine. “Is this a joke?” “Tayce…” I swallow. “It’s temporary.” Foil crinkles, latex snaps. “How very fitting,” he says quietly, before plunging into me without warning.

“Thank you,” I whisper. I don’t specify what for. For shielding me from the storm, for killing Martin O’Hare. For giving me the two most ridiculous orgasms of my life. For the fucking key ring. But the thunder is loud; my acknowledgment is quiet.

As I reach to remove it, her hand shoots out and grabs my wrist. “I’m saving that for later.” My gaze slides up to the one eye she’s opened. “I swerved to miss a deer earlier, and you didn’t stop snoring, not even for a second. But the moment I come for your food, you’re suddenly on high alert?”

She pushes herself upright and blinks at the church beyond the windshield. “What’s this? A flying visit to repent for your sins?” I run my fingers through her hair, before tucking all the loose strands behind her ear. “No, I’m conducting an experiment.” She cocks a suspicious brow. “I’m going to throw you inside and see if you catch fire.” Her laugh is croaky. “If I burn in the flames of hell, you’ll burn with me.” Don’t I know it.

Fate has won, and rock bottom feels solid under my wingtips. Just as Fate promised to give me all the success in the world, it also gave me my doom card. The Queen of Hearts brought me to my knees, and I can’t find it in me to care. Maybe it’s because when I’m on my knees, she sits on my tongue.

This won’t last forever. And then what? I’ll have to pick myself up from the ashes and start afresh.

“Forget about Dante. I don’t need you for that. But I do need you.” Angelo’s hand squeezes the nape of my neck. “Make a plan, brother. And then come back to me.”

“What are we celebrating?” “Me losing four million dollars in a racehorse investment.” “Is that my fault?” “Of course.”

“Fuck,” he hisses, letting my arms fall. “Did you just bite me?” I look at him seriously. “You know what they say. Eat the rich.”

“What I’d pay Tayce to ink it on you permanently.” There’s a sarcastic retort about my next enemy-with-benefits probably not being happy about that somewhere at the back of my mind, but it doesn’t come to fruition. Instead, I thread my fingers through the back of his hair and pull his face into my chest. My tattoo. Us. I don’t want to think about temporary things right now.

“And what would I lose?” I swallow. “If…we got married?” Christ, even in a hypothetical situation, those words taste weird in my mouth. He slides into me, but halts then holds himself there. Stops teasing my clit. Still and silent, he nods. I breathe out shakily. “You’d lose half your shit when I take it from you in the divorce.” He stares at me for a moment, before grinding out a laugh of disbelief. “I suddenly remembered why I prefer your head buried in a pillow when we fuck,” he growls, “You talk too much.”

“My brothers and I have decided we’ll give him until the New Year to make an appearance before we implement a plan and take Cove over.” Bitter humor fills me. Decided makes it sound like we had a civilized discussion, when really, we barked at each other in rapid-fire Italian in his office for twenty minutes. He wanted to take it over immediately, while I wanted to give my best friend the benefit of the doubt and wait a few weeks. He threw a snow globe at my head, I hurled it back with a better aim, and we settled on January 1.

The girl is fused to me—every fucking part of me. I don’t know how I’m going to cut her out when the time comes. How can I make a plan for the future when I can’t see past the length of my dick, especially when Penny’s on the end of it?

“I’ve done something awful, please don’t hate me.” My grip tightens on the knife handle. “What?” I growl. The covers crumple at her feet as she scurries up to the headboard. “Say you won’t hate me first.” I glare at her. “Penny,” I warn. She sighs, drops her attention to my shoes, and fingers her lucky necklace. “I found a cheat code on some dodgy website for Mario Kart. But instead of adjusting my score, it just deleted yours. All your trophies, too.” She glances up at my stony expression. “I’m sorry, okay! I know I said I wouldn’t swindle anymore but I just couldn’t resist. You’re always so smug about being better at it than me. I just…” She scowls. “It makes me want to bite you.”

“You don’t hate me?” I smile sadly into her crown. “Of course I hate you; we’re enemies with benefits, remember?” She pauses. “But no more than usual, right?” “No more than usual, Queenie.”

“Nico?” “Uh-huh?” I turn to him. “You taught her to swindle, didn’t you?” He pauses for the longest time, eggnog halfway to lips. “Depends.” “On?” His expression turns thoughtful. “How much it’s going to hurt when you swing for my jaw. I’ve never seen you hit anyone, so I can’t gauge it.” He pauses. “But I’ve heard you do that now.”

He eyes my vodka and shakes his head. “When you start drinking like a Russian, even though you own a seventeen-percent stake in one of the fastest-growing whiskey companies in the world.” Meeting my eyes again, he adds, “That’s how you know.”

My shoulder connects with Anna’s more aggressively than necessary as I slide in beside Rafe. I put a possessive hand on his chest, and when his hand slides around my hip and brings me closer to him, a warm satisfaction runs south. I turn my attention to Anna. “Mine,” I say sweetly. “Now, fuck off.”

Maybe it’s only because the heels I’m wearing are a couple inches taller than usual and all this height is giving me new confidence, but I curl my finger around his collar pin and yank him toward me. “Call another woman darling again, and she’ll die crossing the road.” It echoes what he said to me after I gave him a lap dance in his car. Guess that’s why he raises a brow and searches my eyes for humor. When he doesn’t find it, he nods, a small amount of satisfaction leaking through. “If that’s what you want, Queenie,” he says quietly.

“I don’t care how lucky you think you are,” he murmurs. “To me, you’re the unluckiest girl in the world.” Instinct pulls me away from him, but he only tightens his grip on my neck. “But you’re also the prettiest. The funniest. The fucking rudest. You’ve ruined my life but I’m not strong enough to stop you.”

“Go back to her,” I whisper. “Go back to the fortune teller and ask her to reverse it or something.”

“I can’t. You’re not the only one who likes to start fires, Queenie.”

Beside me, Penny shudders. I put a hand on her thigh. “Don’t worry, Queenie, we’ll get burgers on the way home.” She flashes me her signature grin. “No need.” Before I can ask why, Rory places a nut roast in front of her. “Here you go Pen,” she sings, before sauntering off. Penny winks at me. “I told her I was a vegetarian.”

“WebMD says I’ve got about three hours until food poisoning kicks in.” He glances at his watch. Runs fingers through his hair. “I’m on borrowed time.” My laugh comes out in a puff of condensation. “You ate half the fucking bird.” He cuts me a sideways glare. “She was sitting right next to me. It’s all right for you; I saw you scrape all of yours into Penny’s purse.” “Yeah, now I’ve ruined it. Apparently, only a Birkin as a replacement will do.” My brother frowns. “I don’t know what that is.” “Mm. You better hope your wife doesn’t, either.”

Tayce calls someone a dickhead—probably Benny—and a loud laugh permeates the brickwork and squeezes my shoulders. Warms my fucking chest. I’d know that laugh anywhere. I slide the cigar inside my bittersweet smile. It’s a hollow feeling, loving the sound of something and knowing that one day soon I’ll never hear it again.

I stare at Tor Visconti through a haze of cigar smoke. He stares back. “Can you get food poisoning from mashed potatoes?” I ask Angelo blankly. “Because I must be fucking hallucinating.”

I splash my face with icy water and try to wash the thought away. Fuck other men; I don’t care about them, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about Rafe.