Glancing at Rheyas, he’s wearing a matching smirk. Releasing my hand for a brief second, he scoops up some snow. Taking mercy on the freezing mage, he pelts him in the back instead of the head before reclaiming my hand.
“It’s snowy, with a chance of revenge.”
He bursts out laughing as he turns. “Revenge for what?”
“Picking on me for being hot and bothered. Daydreaming about getting railed is a perfectly legitimate way to pass the time when you’re constantly surrounded by your mates with nothing better to do, thank you very much.”
Stopping dead in his tracks, we almost crash into him. Thankfully, Rheyas’ hold became practically bruising with my words, so even though my foot slips, I remain upright.
“Well that’s not very nice,” Ian declares, gaze flitting over me. “How the fuck am I supposed to sleep now? Do you have any idea how awkward it is waking up with a boner when there’s two other guys huddled up in our puppy pile to stay warm?”
Chuckling, I smack his shoulder to get him to start walking again so we can get out of the cold. “Hate to break it to ‘ya, but there are worse ways to wake up than in the middle of a group huddle with morning wood jabbing me in random spots. Going to have to agree to disagree on this one.”
“Honestly, I feel worse for the others,” Ian continues as we finally reach the porch, shaking off the snow and stomping our boots clean.
“Why’s that?”
Hawk pulls open the door, naked and making grabby hands for his backpack. “We can scent your arousal. Why else do you think we keep ditching you for short bursts to ‘check out a strange noise’?”
All we can do is pray there’s really no one around, because my laughter echoes into the night. “Are you serious? No wonder this journey is taking forever for us to get anywhere if you keep taking breaks to jack off.”
Rheyas tries to gloss over the topic. “What do we have to work with in here?”
Hawk, though, refuses to let him get out of it, ignoring him to carry on our conversation. “If anything, you should be flattered.”
I mean, he’s not wrong.
“Fates, how many times can you guys come in a day?” I ask in disbelief. “I think the best I’ve ever seen from a guy is like, four, and even then he needed breaks in between.”
Ian groans. “Please don’t make us talk about this. There are certain things men shouldn’t know about each other, and recovery time is at the top of the list.”
“Personal recordusedto be seven,” Hawk retorts unperturbed, yanking a pair of sweatpants on. “But that was before I met the love of my life and most beautiful person on the planet. You can’t really blame me for being excited.”
I don’t take off all of my winter gear yet, knowing there’s a few things we need to take care of before we can get too comfortable, but enjoying the conversation enough not to interrupt yet. “Man, thank goodness everybody here wants to protect their virtue. I might be good, but I don’t know if I’mthatgood to keep up with all of you.”
Ian kicks off his boots, walking over to the fabric dust cover on top of the furniture in the living room and yanking them off. “I’ll color code your schedule, my lady.” Flopping into a chair, he groans in relief. “Just consider me your vagina’s personal secretary; I need a new job anyway.”
Rheyas is adamantly silent the entire time, refusing to weigh in. So I have mercy on the guy and ask, “Can you check if the bathtub is in decent shape? I’ll look for a couple of bowls.” He nods, heading off without a word, though there’s a bit of relief in his eyes.
“What for?” Ian asks and I pick up his coat, extending it to him in offering with a grimace.
“With the way the snow is picking up outside, we’re going to need to ride it out here for a day or two. Even huddling up with those two, there’s no way we won’t freeze to death out there unless we conveniently stumble across a cave. But seeing as this farm land stretches on for a hell of a while, and there’s not a mountain in sight, it’s a good bet we’d be stuck sitting at the base of a tree.
“And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to clean up a little. The utilities are shut off in this place, but we can still add water to the tank to flush the toilet, stretch out our food by drinking more water, and clean up a bit.”
Rummaging around in the kitchen, I grin as I find some old pots. It’ll take a hell of a while, but if we knock all of the hard work out of the way now, we won’t need to go outside again for a day.
Hawk chimes in. “Eh, he can stay inside. Relay line will work quicker than all of us running in and out.”
Rheyas returns, giving a thumbs up, and I pass him the larger pot. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Ian bathroom, Hawk go-between. Rhey and I outside?”
“I can handle it,” Rheyas objects, but I’m already walking towards the door.
“Of course you can, you’re amazing and don’t even have nerve endings, apparently. But regardless, it’ll go ten times faster if everyone pulls their own weight. And I don’t know about you, but even though it’s way warmer than outside, without heat in here, it’s going to take a good while for that snow to melt. So I’d rather get it going now so that there’s a shot I can take a hobo bath before bed without using ice cubes. So you’re just going to have to suffer watching me and be ready to pull me out of a snow bank when I fall in.”
* * *
“Here, I’ve got it.”Rheyas’ nails lengthen into claws, carefully piercing the top of the can and ripping the metal enough that the lid can be pried back.
