But then again, maybe he was being insensitive—every Darvrokian here had been speaking English for less than a week. It could have been a linguistic screw-up. Even Al, who had been living on Earth for quite some time, struggled with syntax. What sounded like presumptuousness was probably just the language barrier.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” he said as Titan took his hand.
Their palms met, and Titan squeezed.
It wasn’t that his grip was painful. A good handshake was firm and confident—a little squeezing was to be expected. Ezra wouldn’t have thought twice about a handshake like that.
But this one had his breath catching in his throat.
Titan’s handshake was purposeful.
Commanding. Possessive.
It was the kind of handshake that claimed what it gripped with a silent, “Mine.”
“I hear many things that are good about you, Ambassador Ezra,” Titan said, still holding his hand—and was it Ezra’s imagination or were his eyes turning an even darker shade of pink? “You, of course, must have heard many good things about me.”
That snapped Ezra out of it.
His faith that the language barrier was the sticking point in their conversation wavered. “Actually, I haven’t heard much about you at all.”
He omitted the part where all the things he had heard had been negative.
A frown flickered onto Titan’s face, as though he couldn’t believe that Ezra really hadn’t heard about him. Ezra wasn’t sure why it was all that surprising, given that Al had about a million siblings and twice as many cousins, but Titan seemed genuinely rattled.
“Then I will teach you the good things about me,” Titan assured him, and fucking hell, he still hadn’t dropped his hand. It was starting to feel indecent. “I give you assurance that there are many.”
Ezra plastered on a fake smile, feigning interest, and nodded. “Well, I’m a big fan of Al’s, so any family of his is sure to be just as, you know, cool.”
“You are impressed by my brother?” Titan’s eyes narrowed incredulously. “You shall think very highly of me, then, as this means it takes very little to earn your favor.”
Yeah, no. That clinched it. Language barrier this was not. As horned up as Ezra was for this guy, his attraction shriveled up and died.
Titan was an asshole, and no amount of fuck-me eyes would make up for it.
He immediately—finally—took back his hand and folded his arms over his chest. If Titan noticed his change in demeanor, he didn’t show it. His sexy little smirk didn’t fade even a little.
Why did hot guys always have to be such dicks?
“We will allow the two of you to become knowledgeable about one another while we do the human custom of ‘mingling,’” Mrs. Leon announced. She gestured at Ezra with her own Pop Rock-rimmed champagne glass, which had a green olive plopped inside of it like a martini.
Before Ezra could protest, Mr. and Mrs. Leon turned and walked away to mingle with a man dressed in a faux-fur overcoat and orange Crocs, leaving Ezra alone with Titan. Titan seemed pleased by this development. He braced his elbows against the mahogany dining table behind them and leaned back, dragging his eyes up Ezra’s entire body like he was a predator sizing up his prey. Ezra’s heart did that funny little double-time thing again, but he ignored it. He had a strict “no dicks” policy when it came to hookups. Or, well, yes to dicks, but not todicks.
Still, this was Al’s brother, and Ezra wasn’t one to be rude unless a situation really, really called for it, so he said, “I’m glad you could make it to the bonding ceremony,” just to make conversation. “I didn’t see your paperwork come through, so I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“I did not do these paperworks,” Titan said smoothly with a nonchalant little shrug. “I have special permissions from the government to travel to wherever pleases me.”
Ezra resisted the urge to roll his eyes. How unfair was it that golden-boy Titan got to reap the nepotism rewards when the rest of his siblings had to jump through a thousand bureaucratic hoops to be allowed onto Earth? Al’s parents had nearly bitten Al’s head off when they’d discovered he’d made first contact without going through the proper channels, even though it had been a complete accident, but Ezra got the feeling that if Titan had been the one stranded on Earth, they wouldn’t have batted an eye.
“Right, well, again, glad you could make it. I’m just gonna…” Ezra gestured haphazardly in a random direction and started to leave, only for Titan to push himself off the table and step in front of him, preventing him from going anywhere.
“You feel attraction toward me, Ambassador Ezra,” Titan uttered, speaking in hushed tones that were still too loud for the subject matter at hand. Ezra glanced around, embarrassed, but no one was paying them any mind. “I know this is the truth. I sensed it.”
Ezra went from embarrassed to annoyed in a millisecond. “You were using your touch telepathy on me!” That was why Titan had held on to his hand for so long. “That’s like, such a dick move, man.”
Titan shrugged again, eyebrow arched. “I did do this, yes, but I did not need to do it. I sensed your attraction from across the room. You are easy to read, Ambassador.”
“Wow, fuck this.” Ezra held up a middle finger and said, “Read this,” before moving around Titan and making a beeline for the closest server he could find.
