“I’m innocent.” Ethin raised his hands, dirt covering him from fingertips to elbow.
“You threw dirt at me!”
“I told you I was digging up weeds. You were in the path of my weed pile.”
“Nuh uh!”
“Yeah huh.”
“Nuh uh!”
This would continue forever if I didn’t give Ethin the look that said he better fix it.
“Maybe I threw dirt at you, but regardless, one should get dirty when gardening. You aren’t doing it right if you leave clean,” he said, and Malwin considered that an acceptable response. Nodding, he ran off to clean up, giving Ethin his opening.
He cut the space between us in two quick strides to drape his arms over my neck. I grabbed his waist to bring him in, leaning in forthe kiss I never grew tired of. It didn’t matter how often I had him in my arms; the moment he left I wanted him just a moment longer.
“You let me sleep in,” I muttered against his mouth, which found kissing more interesting than my topic of conversation.
“You stayed up past your bedtime,” he replied, silencing me for a moment longer as his tongue ran over the roof of my mouth. “I figured you were tired,” another deep kiss that had me squeezing his side because we had to stop otherwise there would be a problem.
Finally, he relented, although I wanted so much more. Those light brown eyes, once so cold they froze the air in my lungs, had grown warm over the year. A spark ignited within them, becoming an endless flame that thawed him more and more each day. There were fewer scowls, less defensiveness, but always the same amount of snark. That would never go away, and I wouldn’t want it to.
“And you need your rest for all I have planned today,” he added, donning a smile only he could pull off, somehow charming and devious all at once.
“Oh, what are these plans?”
Ethin peeked over his shoulder, ensuring Malwin wasn’t within hearing distance, then leaned in to nip my ear. “Once we’re alone, you’re going to make me beg for a good fucking,Captain.”
Then he released me, knowing damn well that he wrecked me, and sauntered off, spinning around the bend with a laugh that got me even hotter.
I always knew this man would be the end of me, but I didn’t expect the cause to be his sex drive. Not that I was actually complaining. It… it had been… incredible, to put it mildly. So long as Malwin wasn’t over. One never knew when he would stumble into the room and sneak into our bed. We more often than not woke up to him between us, hogging thepillows, which I also wouldn’t want to change. And I think it was safe to say, after the many nights I woke to the greatest loves of my life cuddling in my arms, that Ethin didn’t want it to change either.
“Are you feeling okay, Daddy? Your face is all red,” Malwin asked, having returned. He sat at the kitchen counter, his legs swinging off the chair. Pieces of his artwork hung on the fridge beside the shopping list, a calendar covered in events, and pictures of all of us.
“Yeah.” I coughed and returned to making lunch. “I’m fine, bud. How many lettuce wraps do you want?”
“Four.”
“Four?!”
“I’m growing.”
Humming, I pretended to pout. “I don’t want you to grow.”
“But I need to get taller!”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do!” Malwin dragged out the O and called for Ethin to back him up.
Ethin dropped into the chair next to him, changed and cleaned. He had always been tall and lean, the kind of figure that made heads turn and eyes linger. Mine certainly did when I first saw him; and all the days after. Sometimes I felt like a pervert for staring at his ass every time he left the room and struggling not to stare when his shirt rode up to reveal the dark hair beneath his navel leading to the part of his anatomy that I thought about way too frequently.
“I didn’t eat much as a kid and still got tall as fu,” Ethin bit his lip at the glare I shot him. “Tall. I’m tall.”
“I want to be taller than you,” said Malwin.
“In your dreams, squirt.”
