King of Sloth (Kings of Sin, #4)

by Ana Huang

Nothing brightened my day more than riling Sloane up. She was so predictable in her responses and so spectacular in her anger, and I loved seeing her ice-queen façade melt long enough to reveal a glimpse of the real person underneath. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, I added it to the mental drawer where I collected all things Sloane.

Objectively, Sloane was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met. Blue eyes, long legs, symmetrical face…Michelangelo himself couldn’t have sculpted a better female form.

She’d obviously dressed with the intention of blending in, but she could no more blend into a crowd than a jewel could blend into mud.

“Yes, ma’am.” His cheeks dimpled. “I love a woman in charge.”

“You don’t know how I taste.” His smile took on a decidedly more wicked slant. “Not yet.”

Whenever I was drowning, she was my anchor in the storm.

And when he let out a tortured “fuck” and dipped his head, molding his mouth to mine, it didn’t even occur to me to pull away.

“Do I get a gold medal?” “For doing the bare minimum? No.”

“She said leave.” Xavier cut him off, his voice lethally soft.

“You don’t need to know who I am.” Xavier’s affable smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You do, however, need to take a hint. Sloane broke up with you, and you didn’t listen. She told you to leave, and you didn’t listen. That’s two strikes. I highly suggest you don’t make a third.”

“Because I want you.”

“I don’t want a kiss or a one-night stand,” he said. “I want you. I want to know you outside work. I want to take you on real dates. And I don’t know if it’ll work out in the end, but I want us to at least try.”

It happened so suddenly, I would’ve stumbled had I been standing.

I never thought I’d get so attached to someone I’d just met, but a ferocious wave of protectiveness swept over me as I returned her hug.

There was nothing sexier than a man who was good with children.

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t care how beautiful or famous someone is, Luna. None of them hold a candle to you.”

“Let me make a few things clear.” I spoke over him. “One, I would rather sleep with a leprosy-infected ogre before I ever let you touch me again. You are a disgusting, misogynist pig whose brain is inversely proportionate to the size of your giant ego, and you’re lucky I was too young when we met to know otherwise.

“News flash, Bentley, you’re not the sex god you think you are. Your technique is shit, and you couldn’t find a clit if the woman drew you a map and marked it with a giant X.”

I slumped against his leg, too exhausted to stand.

Damn.

“Perhaps try marriage counseling or therapy. I imagine being someone’s second choice is difficult, but you should be used to that by now. You seem to want only the things I’ve had first.”

“That was your first and final warning,” I said, my words quiet enough to reach only his ears. “Touch, talk, or even think about Sloane again, and I’ll make what Richard McEntire did to that ball boy with his tennis racket look like a walk in the fucking park. That includes any indirect contact. If you make her life difficult in any way, you’ll be blacklisted from New York society so fast, it’ll make your head spin.”

I loved her, totally and completely, and I’d be damned if I let anyone hurt her.

“That list of names I gave you? Those are some of the sharpest people in business. They believed in you enough to invest their time, money, and resources into the club, and they wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t think you were capable of pulling it off. So stop using your martyr act as an excuse and figure out how to finish what you started.”

“Luna is short for mi luna. My moon. Because no matter how dark the nights got, you were always there, shining so brightly that I always found my way through.”

“I’ve been falling in love with you day by day for years, and I didn’t even know it,” he said, his voice thick. “Well, now I know it.”

He made me feel everything when I’d thought I could feel nothing, and that realization led to an undeniable truth: I loved him, so much so that I couldn’t breathe, and I’d pushed him away because I knew love would only end in heartbreak.

Sometimes, the rom-coms got it right.

Sooooo, when is it my turn?