“We also called in sick.” Huston gave a pretend cough.
“Three naughty mates. Maybe you all need to be punished.” I paused. “But not today because my hole is sore. But you didn’t answer your brother, Tanner. Whatareyou doing?”
He was tapping away at a tablet. “I’m trying to schedule our alone time so we each get the same number of minutes per week. I want our relationships to be fair.”
I put a hand on his arm. “Don’t babe. We love one another. We’ll figure it out. Love isn’t about calculating minutes andhow long we spend together.”
He shrugged and tossed the tablet aside. “Okay. Maybe you’re right. But I am going to do more research on your so-called brother.”
Everyone groaned.
“No, this is important. Candrin is our mate and even if we don’t get his money or home back, we have to reveal the real Charles to the world and get him locked up.”
I’d be happy to live in this house with my mates forever, but space was limited. Could I dare to dream that I might return to my rightful home with all three? That would be amazing but I wouldn’t hold out hope.
28
TANNER
Why can’t we just be rich?
The mate-e-moon was over. It was time for us to all go back to work and I wasn’t happy about that. For so long I loved that my job had me flitting around and never really settling in anywhere. I always had a place to come back to—here, but it wasn’t home. Not really. Nowhere was and I kind of liked it that way.
Now that I had a mate, things were different. I wanted to be glued to this place. No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to be glued to my mate. He was sexy as fuck. I’d had a glimmer of doubt that I’d be able to handle sharing him, but it was all for nothing. I loved sharing him with my brothers,knowing that they too had someone amazing in their lives.
“Fuck this” Huston grumbled as he grabbed his shoes. “I think we should all get three months off to spend with our mate. It’s only fair.”
“You do know that it’s not a human custom to take three months off when you get married. Not sure how this is unfair.” Candrin stood there, his hair all disheveled. “It sucks though.”
He was right. It did. We needed to be independently wealthy so we could stay home all the time and give our mate orgasm after orgasm. Maybe I needed to play the lottery.
“It does.” Huston put on his now found shoes. “I don’t want to leave, but I also want to not get fired.”
“Does it make you feel better that I’ll be home tonight when you get here?” Candrin asked.
“Some.” He stood up straight and opened his arms. “A hug will help too.”
Our mate walked into his arms and I opted to give them privacy by looking back down at my phone where I had been looking up theweather.
A few minutes later Huston was out the door and Candrin was running up the stairs calling after Oberon. In theory, he should’ve been the first one out the door today, but he’d spent the morning hitting the snooze button and begging for five more minutes in bed with his mate. It was far from a productive way to start the day, but then again, I couldn’t blame him. Every minute spent with Candrin was made of gold.
The two of them came down a few minutes later, Candrin’s cheeks flushed, his boxers tented.
“Let me finish what I started,” Oberon grumbled in his ear. “You’ll be hard and unable to concentrate all day.”
“Naw, I got him.” I called over to them and Candrin’s rich laughter filled the room.
“You better. Can’t have our mate suffering,” Oberon called over the laughter.
I loved hearing our mate be carefree and laughter filled. His life had dealt him some real bullshit and seeing that it didn’t hold him down filled me with pride. Sure, I’d like to think my brothers and I had something to do with it and maybe we did. But our mate was strong and fierce and would’ve come out the other side the better for it regardless. Nothing couldkeep him down, not even the asshat who wormed his way into his father’s will. Candrin was stronger than all of that.
“Oh, I’ll take care of him. I promise.” I looked back to my phone as they reached the bottom of the stairs. They too would want a bit of privacy.
My brothers and I didn’t need to have exclusive Candrin time all the time. This wasn’t about that. It was about showing respect without making things awkward. I wasn’t a thousand percent sure I was accomplishing that, but I was giving it a good go.
The two of them kissed, the sounds of pleasure coming from my mate making my own nether region starting to wake up. I had promised to take care of Candrin and I’d meant it, but now all I could do was think about how.
Candrin had about an hour before he needed to get to work. Today was a short day for him due to a planned power outage in his building in the late afternoon. I still wished it was a no work day. The things we could do with an entire day.
