Page 92 of Bred

Hot, smart and compassionate, what a guy.

"You met Paul outside, but I didn't get a chance to introduce you properly. Paul Reed-Smith is a priest. Don't worry," Lucas added quickly. "He's not a very good priest."

Paul snorted. "I'm an excellent priest, I just don't agree with all that celibacy shit. And a bunch of other things the Church teaches."

"Like I said, not a very good priest." Lucas grinned. "Paul is going to Hell along with the rest of us."

Paul shrugged. "I worship in my own way. That won't go unnoticed after I pass. At least I don't worship money like some people I could mention." He gave Lucas a meaningful, if teasing, look.

Lucas actually flipped him off. "A priest who frequents my strip club and my brothel is—"

"Living his best life as the good Lord wanted," Paul finished for him.

"Sounds like the way to be," Bray said. He stepped over to me and lightly touched my lower arm with his fingertips. "What’s a beautiful girl like you doing with a reprobate like Lucas? And Paul for that matter. You know they'll both lead you astray, right?"

"Maybe she wants to be led astray," Lucas said before I could respond. "For your information, I'm helping her to forget some bad shit that happened. That seemed to have worked. For a while at least."

I offered him a watery smile, grateful he hadn't gone into detail. Although, none of that seemed to matter anymore. It wasn't like Michael and I were married or anything. Or even dating for very long. What seemed like the end of the world an hour or two ago seemed like a very small deal now.

"Good choice," Paul said. "Give us a chance and you won't remember your own name."

Holy shit. Wait, was that the wrong thing to think? He was a priest after all. Oh, fuck it,holy shit.

I cleared my throat, uncertain how to respond to that.

"Um." Apparently I had already forgotten how to speak. Were these guys suggesting what Ithoughtthey were suggesting? I'd barely fucked one guy, let alone three.

"Paul is very forward as you can see," Bray said. "He'll also fuck anything with a pulse."

"Is a pulse a requirement?" Lucas grinned.

"Yes it is," Paul said. "Like I said, living my best life." To me he said, "Ignore them, they're just jealous. Why don't we sit? You can tell me about yourself." He gestured to a couch off to one side of the room. It was the kind that could be cleaned by wiping it down.

I had a feeling it got wiped down a lot.

"There's not much to tell," I said, but I sat anyway. Paul sat on one side of me and Bray on the other. Lucas pulled over a chair and turned it around backwards before straddling it.

My heart raced like crazy. What was I doing in the back room at a strip club with three hot guys? Me, who was basically the mouse to everyone who knew me.

"Do you have any family?" Paul asked. "Brothers? Sisters?"

"There's seven of us," I said. "Four older and two younger. And three step siblings."

"Let me guess, the middle children got forgotten?" Paul asked gently.

"Yeah," I admitted. "I wasn't the oldest, the youngest or the loudest." I was the quiet one in a corner with a book. That suited me fine most of the time, unless I needed something. Then I learned to fend for myself.

"You deserve to be noticed." Paul stroked the back of his knuckles down my cheek, featherlight but somehow still intimate.

"You're so cute when you blush," Lucas said softly.

That made me blushed even harder.

Paul leaned in to brush his lips over mine. "You taste good."

Fortunately, I didn't really believe in Hell. If I did, kissing a priest was probably top of the list of things they would send me there. Unless he was right and whatever deities who might be out there wanted us to enjoy our lives.

Either way, I didn't pull away from him. If anything, I leaned in closer.