Savage Royals: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance(57)

I blushed so hard I was sure he could feel the heat coming off me, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he dropped a chaste kiss on my cheek and turned around, striding over to the bed as he tugged his shirt off. The other Princes followed suit, tearing their gazes away from me after another uncomfortable moment of staring.

My cheeks, already warm from their intense scrutiny, warmed even more as I watched them.

Fucking hell.

These boys were way too damn hot for their own good. They were all wearing board shorts slung low on their hips, and without their shirts on, they looked so good I couldn’t help but stare. Cole was the biggest, only narrowly beating out Finn. Mason and Elijah were both leaner but cut, with those sexy V’s at their hips disappearing beneath their shorts. They all looked like they belonged in California and nowhere else.

I was staring at them worse than they’d stared at me, and I had to work to force my eyelids to blink, tearing my gaze away. I was about to step toward the door when Elijah turned around, and I got a good look at the tattoo on his back. I’d known he had one, but I’d only ever seen it from a distance before, never close enough to tell what it was.

“Holy shit…” I breathed, stepping closer.

It was the image of a man kneeling, his head bowed so his features were obscured. Huge dark wings sprouted from his back, placed in such a way that they almost looked like they could’ve been sprouting from Elijah’s back instead. A few black feathers drifted down below the wings.

“Oh. Yeah.” Elijah caught my awed gaze and shrugged lightly. “My mom and dad almost fucking disowned me when I got this. Worth it, though.”

“Oh my God. It definitely was. Can I…?”

“Sure.”

He turned around, and I stepped closer, drawn to the raw emotion in the image. It had to mean something to him—the image covered his whole back, and it didn’t seem like the kind of thing someone would just get on a whim. Asking about it felt too personal though, so I just traced the image with my fingertip, trying to absorb the emotions in the ink. His stiffened under my touch, and I saw goosebumps rise on his skin as his breathing picked up.

Mason cleared his throat impatiently, and I shook my head to clear it, pulling my hand back.

“It’s… it’s really beautiful, Elijah. I love it.”

“He’s not the only one with tattoos, you know,” Cole grumbled, and I laughed.

“All right, all right,” Mason said, his keen gaze taking in the three of us. For some reason, I got the sense he didn’t love the looks both Cole and Elijah—and Finn—were giving me. Is he… jealous? “Enough fucking around. Let’s go.”

Mason led us back through the house toward the kitchen. We grabbed drinks, and the guys smoked as we hung out. Elijah offered me a shotgun hit, but I declined. After the car ride up and the weird tension in the bedroom, my body still felt too on edge, turned on and sensitive, and I didn’t think I could handle him touching me without doing something stupid.

After a while, we trailed behind a bunch of other people to the back side of the mansion. The lawn was massive, and a small lake shimmered in the sun, too perfect to be natural. I was pretty sure it was man-made, and it was gorgeous. A path made of broad, flat stones led through the lake to a small island in the center. It wasn’t very deep either, and when I dipped my toe in, the water was the perfect temperature.

Lounge chairs were arrayed around the pond and in shady spots across the sweeping, green yard. We settled into a cluster of them a little distance from the water, soaking up the afternoon sun as we relaxed and drank.

This is paradise.

“God, I’m so fucking bored,” Adena whined, and I peeled my eyes open to see her flop onto one of the empty chairs nearby. Her usual posse followed her, sinking into open chairs around us.

Her bikini was bright red and so small her boobs were practically falling out of it. Her skin was tan, her nails manicured, and her hair perfectly styled. She looked like she belonged here, and the curl of her lip when she glanced at me made it clear she thought I didn’t.

“Mason.” She threw the cap of her beer bottle at him, and he glanced her way, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I’m bored. Aren’t you bored?”

“No.”

The one-word answer was curt, and her lips pressed together in annoyance. Whatever their on again, off again thing was, it’d obviously been off again lately, since in the whole time I’d been hanging out with the Princes this semester, I hadn’t seen Adena and Mason together much at all.

Rising from her lounge chair, she padded over to him, leaning over so far her boobs were practically in his face. “God. You used to be so much more fun. You’ve really gotten boring in your old age.”

Her words were both caustic and seductive, like cruelty was her own personal brand of messed-up foreplay, and I watched something flare in his eyes as he sat up a little straighter. A sting of jealousy pinched me, but I shoved it down. Mason wasn’t mine. He could do whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted.

And was this the sort of thing he was into? Had their relationship just been one long hate fuck?

Ugh.

“What do you want to do then?” he asked.

A triumphant smile spread across her face, and she pursed her lips, pretending to consider it. Then she rose fluidly, swaying her hips as she stepped back. “I know. Why don’t the girls put on a little show for you guys? We’ll go out to those stones on the lake, strike a pose, and you all can decide which one of us is the hottest.”