Zane blushed like he’d given him the biggest compliment. “I’m a mess.”
Asa’s next words came out like a snarl, like the sheer vulnerability of Zane had him shifting from human to animal. “I know. You look just how you look when I’ve been using you all night. Stalking you, chasing you, running you to ground, fucking you wherever you fall. It’s the sexiest thing in the world when you submit to me.”
Zane let out a broken laugh. “Good thing, ‘cause I’m apparently destined to be a marshmallow for the rest of my life.”
Asa chuckled, soft and genuine, a sound that didn’t belong in a man like him. He nuzzled Zane’s hair, breathing him in.“You’re my marshmallow, Lois. Sticky, sweet, and impossible to get rid of.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so,” Zane said, still not ready to stop splashing around in his pity pool.
“Untrue. Marshmallows are amazing…and versatile. You can do all kinds of things with marshmallows, and most people love them. There’s nothing wrong with being a marshmallow. If you were anyone else, then you wouldn’t be you.”
Zane snorted. “That last part made no sense.”
Asa tugged his costume to the side and bit down hard on untouched skin until Zane yelped. “Don’t sass me, Lois. You know the best part about marshmallows, Lois? You can eat them.”
He ran his tongue over the fresh indentations, then buried his face against Zane’s neck, biting and sucking with deliberate purpose, making Zane throb, hips kicking against his will. Nobody would miss the evidence of how they’d chosen to pass the night. Zane tipped his head, offering more. He wanted the last thing his mother ever saw to be him marked, a reminder that she hadn’t destroyed him, that someone still wanted him enough to leave proof.
“Fuck, you smell good,” Asa growled against his skin, nipping at his Adam’s apple before dipping his tongue into the hollow of his throat. “How do you expect me to behave when you smell like a literal dessert? I want to devour you.”
Zane let himself get lost in the feel of Asa’s mouth on his, his hips rolling against his, the way their breathing came faster. Zane’s tiny whimpers and Asa’s low growls. When Asa bit his shoulder once more, it was like it knocked loose the sentence that had been stuck in his throat for hours.
“Do you regret it?” Zane blurted, too suddenly to stop himself.
His face flushed. It was like he was on a mission to make sure he didn’t have an ounce of dignity left by sunrise. Maybe he should have just stuck with Felix.
“I’m a psychopath, Lois. I regret nothing. But what specifically are you referring to?”
“Marrying me?” he managed, voice barely above a whisper.
Asa huffed out a laugh that made Zane want to crawl inside himself. Before he could brace, he was flat on his back with Asa hovering over him, a solid shadow in the mouse hole’s half-light. Asa slipped a hand under the flowy pants of Zane’s costume, tracing the line of his thigh until he was squeezing his hip.
“You know you ask me that about once every two or three months, and the answer never changes. The only thing I regret is not marrying you sooner.”
Zane felt like someone had dropkicked his heart. Asa was so casually romantic, so devastatingly convicted in every choice he made.
“Even if I’m pathetic forever?”
Asa frowned. “Who are you calling pathetic? If anyone else dared say that about you, this would turn into a conjugal visit and we’d be having this conversation with a pane of glass between us. You’re not pathetic. You’re soft.”
Zane scoffed. “How is that different?”
“Nobody wants their kids to grow up hard, cruel, or worse, indifferent,” Asa said. “Avi and I, we’re the mistakes. Not you. Not Felix. You’re the reason Oscar and West will grow up knowing they have parents who love them. Avi and I have to be intentional about showing love.”
“You mean you have to fake it.”
Asa studied him. His eyes didn’t flash with anger or insult, just a quiet kind of patience Zane still wasn’t used to. “Do you think I’m faking this?”
Zane deflated, gaze darting away. “No. Not really. I just know it doesn’t feel the same for you.”
“But isn’t this better?” Asa asked softly.
Zane frowned. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, I wake up every day and choose to love you. I choose to love Felix. I choose to love the boys. I have to be intentional with my actions because this stuff doesn’t come easy to me. It’s the same with August. Would you say he doesn’t love Lucas? Or their kids?”
Zane gave a jerky shake of his head, fixating on the cartoonish chair leg of the tiny table beside them. “No.”
“Don’t we have an amazing life?” Asa asked.
