Looking back to Kefir, Marrick met his eyes.Kefir had been keeping watch over him, making sure he didn’t disappear until Luther and Blaine had come to find him.As their gazes locked, any doubts Marrick might have had on that score vanished.
“You didn’t tell us you were going outside,” Luther chided as he reached him.
“You didn’t tell me I needed your permission to,” Marrick said, as calmly as he could.
Luther and Blaine sat down next to him, one either side.The warmth of their bodies immediately surrounded him, and damn, he hated himself for loving that.
“We’d tell you where we were going if we thought you would worry about us when we were gone.”
Marrick nodded, still staring down the drive, where Kefir had vanished.The little guy was half his size, and they’d let him walk off into the dark with barely a shrug.
“Any particular reason he thinks I need a babysitter?”
“Kefir?He doesn’t like it when the other members of the pride aren’t happy,” Blaine said, as if that accounted for everything.
Luther seemed to realise it didn’t actually explain a damn thing.“When Ryland disappeared a few months ago, Arslan was frantic.We all kept watch over him until he’d regained the trust of his mate.”
Marrick nodded.A babysitter.As if he’d needed anything else to remind him just how weak and helpless all the lions thought he was.
“We should go inside,” Blaine decided.
Marrick didn’t even bother with a token protest.Within minutes, he was up in their room, toasty warm, perfectly comfortable and miserable as sin.
“You liked the meeting of the pride?”Luther asked.
Marrick nodded automatically.
“We liked you being there.”The serious tone of Luther’s voice finally sank in.His being there had really meant something to them.Luther came to sit on the bed next to Marrick.For once, he didn’t reach out to touch him, to start something.
“It happens every week?”Marrick asked, as the silence stretched out.
Blaine nodded as he joined them on the bed and encouraged him to lie down between them.
“Must cost a fortune,” Marrick mused, more for something to say than anything else.
“You’re sure you’re not upset about keeping the money?”Luther checked.
Marrick shook his head as he moved to rest it against Blaine’s shoulder.“Couldn’t care less.”
Blaine didn’t seem convinced.“Ryland insisted that he be allowed to pay it back on his own terms.”
Marrick nodded, sleepily, guessing that Ryland had probably only been there in the first place because he needed the money.That kind of thing could mess with a guy’s mind.Poor sod.
Closing his eyes, Marrick curled a little closer to the lion’s warmth.
Blaine’s hand stroked down his back, smoothing over his arse until he stopped just short of teasing him.When he took his hand away, the atmosphere around them changed.
“You’re tired after the meeting.You should res—”
“I’m fine.”
They both looked so bloody sceptical.Marrick felt familiar tensions pour into him.Pushing himself up off the mattress, he slid one leg over Blaine’s prone body and straddled his waist.Blaine’s dick was already hard.
The expression in Blaine’s eyes changed rapidly, from shock, to seeing a challenge, and then to confusion over how he could move Marrick from his current position without hurting him.
He’d have tossed Luther halfway across the room if Luther had tried to pin him.Marrick had seen him do it.It was Blaine’s instinctive response to a challenge.Marrick would have given everything to feel his back hit the floor on the opposite side of the room.
It wasn’t about winning the challenge.He had no interest in that.But maybe to be seen as a challenge.Or just to be seen as someone he could play rough with without worrying about it…someone who was strong enough, someone who was healthy enough…
