Fox scoffed. “Sounds like Danny was lying to play nice.”
Jay stuck his tongue out at him. “Better to be nice than rude.”
“Can’t help it. We’ve got a bone to pick with you.” Fox leaned forward in his chair, holding up two fingers. “We’vetwicetried to convince Colin to come away on an island vacation with us. He has twice refused. You call him crying about beach camping, and he comes running with his swim trunks packed.”
“Leave me out of this,” Colin said, still not looking up from his drawing.
“Youarethis,” Dane told him.
Colin cocked his head. “That’s…sweet? Nonsense, but sweet.” He shrugged. “Carry on. But I’ll be ignoring you.”
Jay used Alexei’s shoulders to push himself up to standing so he could glare at the twins over Alexei’s head. “You’re just his mates. We’re hisfamily.Plus, knowing you two, you just wanted to get him to the beach to mount him in the sand. And Alexei and I have learned that you shouldnevermount someone in the sand. It getseverywhere, and it’s extremely abrasive.”
His declaration was met with silence, which as far as Eric was concerned, probably meant Jay had won his argument. Jay kept glaring at the twins for another long moment for good measure, then wagged a finger. “Plus, I’d be wary of private islands. Seth’s cousin Benny got wrapped up with a fae.” He narrowed his eyes at Fox. “Do you want to lose Colin to a fae??”
Fox just stared at him. “Who the fuck is Seth?”
With great effort, Eric kept his chuckle to himself. He closed his eyes again, letting the bickering wash over him. It was the soothing kind of bickering, the kind that people who knew eachother very well and were comfortable enough not to play polite all the time engaged in. There was no cruelty or meanness in it, no matter how grumpy the twins pretended to be.
“It’s alarming how content you are,” Wolfe murmured softly in his ear. “You should only ever be this docile with my cock inside of you.”
Eric’s eyes shot open quickly enough for him to see Danny twitch, but the other vampire was polite enough to pretend not to have heard.
Eric sat up, twisting around to catch Wolfe’s smirk.
“I want to dig a hole,” he said, speaking the thought out loud as soon as it came to him.
It was sort of gratifying to see Wolfe’s smirk fall into confusion. “I beg your pardon?” he asked mildly.
“Like a really big, really deep hole in the sand.”
“Because?”
“Dunno.” Eric shrugged. “Sounds fun.”
He watched Wolfe consider. Eric could literally see it on his face, the way Wolfe was pondering the image of Eric’s muscles straining with the effort of digging, his arms flexing and bulging in the sun.
Eric’s face grew hot, in a nice sort of way. He never felt as attractive as when he saw himself through Wolfe’s eyes. They were surrounded by half-naked, objectively beautiful men, and Wolfe never gave them so much as a glance, other than the occasional sneer. And while Eric knew there was nothingwrongwith looking, that rapt attention still soothed the twisted part of him that needed to be wanted beyond all reason.
Wolfe’s smirk returned, as if he was reading Eric’s mind. No doubt he was feeling it all through the bond. He gave a nod. “By all means, pet. Have at it.” He sat up, setting his financial report aside. “Let me change first though. Don’t start without me.”
“What are we doing?” Jay asked, halting whatever argument he and the twins had devolved into when he saw Eric and Wolfe get up from their lounger.
“Digging a hole in the sand,” Eric told him, mildly embarrassed to say it out loud.
Weirdly, it was Colin who set his drawing aside, standing up. “I’m in,” he said.
His mates immediately stood as well. Cute.
“Are we building something?” Jay asked, wading through the shallow end to climb out of the pool, Alexei following behind him. “Like a sand castle?”
“No,” Eric said, his cheeks getting kind of warm again. “Just…digging.”
Colin nodded solemnly at him, like that was exactly right.
Jamie and Luc arrived in that moment. Jamie held a bucket he’d found on the property, presumably with his pilfered shells inside. “What are we doing?” he asked.
“Digging a hole in the sand,” Colin told him. “A big one.”
