Page 3 of Sinful Restraint

The tequila I downed in the car did nothing to numb the hollow ache that was eating me from the inside out. My fingers curled tighter around my purse, and my nails pressed into the leather as we reached The Omega House—a place I’d been to before, but never without my brother being here.

Unless I was tipsier than I thought, it was much grander than I remembered with its red brick exterior and tall white columnsdecorating an expansive porch. The moment I stepped inside, I knew it wasn’t the liquor or the June heat playin’ tricks on me. A lot really had changed since I’d been here last.

“Fellas, she’s here!” Cruz bellowed after he escorted me inside, causing my anxiety to increase.

I wasn’t sure why I was so nervous. The guys assumed they knew the reason why I was here, but they didn’t. I currently held all the cards, they just didn’t know it yet. They were about to find out.

The air smelled good as hell, with hints of sandalwood, leather, and whiskey, as masculine as the men living here. Footsteps pounded right before Titan and Storm appeared in the grand foyer, standing beneath the gleam of a modern chandelier that didn’t quite belong in the bachelor pad but somehow, it worked.

“You’re just in time for dinner,” Storm stated, removing his fedora. “We made some upgrades to the house. Did you want a tour first?”

A tour?The last thing I needed was to be led around this house by three men who looked like they were plucked out of every woman’s fantasy with the scent of money, power, and seduction coming off them in waves. Even so, they were still lying about the most important thing to me right now … figuring out what happened to my brother.

Regardless, I nodded, knowing I had bad news to deliver and hoping the delay that the tour offered would help me sober up a bit. The place really did look fantastic. The colors were classic and warm, while the rich leather furniture, dark-stained wood, and white walls with pops of black and dark grey gave the whole place the air of an upscale gentleman’s lounge.

As I followed Storm, I couldn’t help but notice how Titan seemed to be observing me closely, waiting to see my reaction to all the updates they’d made. He stood the tallest, with his neatlygroomed goatee and that commanding presence that made you hold your breath when he was near. I literally had to remind myself to breath around him sometimes, his intensity intriguing and a puzzle I wouldn’t mind solving.

He had the kind of rich brown skin that stopped you in your tracks because it was seductively flawless and epitomized his Nigerian roots. Ever since I first met him, Titan had been a blend of strength and durability, his deep sense of pride in his ancestry present in how he carried himself.

“Our goal was to focus on the feng shui of the space,” Storm explained, not a hair out of place with his faded waves, as the sharp angles of his face lit up as he spoke with his easy confidence.

Honestly, Storm could have been talking about how to install a sprinkler system and I’d probably be listening intently because he was so introspective, it made mundane things sound interesting as hell.

It didn’t hurt that he was so nice to look at, my fingers itchin’ to touch his sexy five o’clock shadow, while his golden-brown complexion smoldered under the lights in the house.

Okay, Santari. No more tequila today.

“It wasn’t enough to just declutter,” Storm continued. “We needed to rearrange our furniture and layout of the house to promote positive energy and well-being.”

Cruz snorted, his broad chest and muscles flexing beneath his black tee that had been hiding underneath his suit jacket. “As you can tell, Storm took this konnichiwa stuff too seriously during the renovation.”

“Nigga, it’s called feng shui,” Storm corrected as Titan shook his head.

Cruz tossed his arms in the air. “That’s what I said! You had us sprinkling konnichiwa all up and through our house.”

Storm abruptly stopped walking and turned to Cruz. “Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice of arranging your life in a way that promotes balance and harmony in your environment,” he explained in a philosophical way that let us know he’d put on his professor hat. “Meanwhile, konnichiwa is how the Japanese say hello or good afternoon.”

Cruz shrugged. “They sound similar to me.”

Titan rubbed his temple and masked a sound that sounded a helluva lot like a laugh, causing Storm to raise an eyebrow at him.

Titan cleared his throat before saying, “Cruz, they literally don’t sound shit alike. They don’t even mean the same thing,” his words backing up Storm.

“They do to me,” Cruz argued.

“Because you’re uncultured,” Storm retorted.

“I know two languages now!” Cruz defended. “Do you know how hard it is to learn another language as an adult?”

“Yet, you still stay on bullshit,” Storm stated. “Knowing Spanish is great, but in this day and age, you need to acknowledge that your words are another weapon that sets us back several generations. Now is the time to evolve, not be ignorant.”

“Ignorant!” Cruz exclaimed. “Listen, I ain’t tryin’ to piss off any ancestors of any nationalities. And I damn sho’ don’t want to be hunted by any ghosts tryin’ to change the way I interpret things. All I know is that you got my personal spaces in this house so decked out with plants that encourage all this different shit, that it feels like my bedroom is a jungle. That palm that’s in there brings peace and prosperity. Then that snake plant for protection. The small citrus tree for clarity and happiness, even if that shit do smell good as hell. Then there’s the money plantandthe Chinese money plant because you know a muthafucka like me wants all the riches I can get my hands on.”

Storm rubbed his jaw. “Cruz, I literally told you that you didn’t have to put all of those plants in any personal spot of yours that you didn’t wish to have them at. I only wanted to enhance the energy of our shared spaces, not have you get duplicate plants and then complain when they start overgrowing.”

Cruz shrugged. “So what? Many grown ass men don’t have a green thumb.”

Titan shook his head again. Storm frowned. And I laughed, inwardly blaming it on the tequila like I was everything else.

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