Page 64 of What We Become

“It’s a safety monitor, Milo.”

“It’s a kitten monitor, and kittens were being monitored—” I deploy the pout. Full lower lip. I’ve weaponized this face before and I’ll do it again. “You are the worst daddy dom ever.”

“I’m not your daddy dom.”

“But you love me.”

A half-smile tugs at the side of his mouth. “I said that in a moment of weakness.”

“Because you’re weak for me?” I grin. Because I can read this man like a redacted document, and I know he loves me a whole bunch. So when he crosses the space between us in two strides and palms my erection through my jeans, I’m not entirely shocked.

I do gasp though.

“Holden.” My voice comes out strangled. “We have an audience.”

My eyes cut across to where Eli and Micah are sitting together in front of the fire. Full view of what we’re doing. Micah gives a finger wave.

Holden leans in, mouth at my ear. “Then you better get upstairs so we can do this properly.”

I’m off the sofa before my brain finishes processing the sentence. My body held a vote, and it was unanimous.

“Don’t mind us,” Micah says, his legs draped across Eli’s lap. “We’ll just stay down here and keep watch on the place while you two fuck.”

“Thank you, Micah,” I call as I corral Holden toward the stairs. “You’re a treasure.”

I drag him up the stairs by the belt loop like a frisky, compliant hostage. Holden lets me for approximately three steps before his hand closes on the back of my neck, and then somehow I’m the hostage being marched down the second-floor hallway at a pace that constitutes a federal crime of hotness.

“Which room?” I ask.

“Mine.”

“Eli took the one farthest from the sex room, which means yours is closest, which means I’m legally allowed to call that fate.”

“Call it whatever you want.” He opens the door, pulls me in, and kicks it shut behind us. Then his mouth is on mine and my whole operating system blue-screens and reboots straight into Holden’s lips.

This is not the stakeout kiss. There’s no panic management to stop my brain from eating itself. This is Holden Cross kissing me because he wants to, and the difference is catastrophic in my favor.

“Clothes off,” he says against my mouth. “You. Then me.”

“See, this is why I love you. Everyone else gets tyranny in their plus-one packages, but I get a consensus-based approach.”

“Milo.”

“Naked, got it, enthusiastic compliance—” But my hands are already on his shirt because they move faster than his discipline. I hook my fingers inside his collar and he bites my lower lip, just enough to shut me up. Which is wildly unfair and also exactly what I asked for.

He strips me efficiently. Shirt off. Button. Zipper. Jeans pushed down. No wasted motion, because Holden undresses a man the way other men file paperwork. “Commando,” he says, looking down where my jockstrap usually lives.

“This isn’t a Russian nesting doll. We don’t need multiple layers.”

His mouth kicks up in a smirk. Then he pulls his own shirt over his head, and I get one whole second of Holden’s torso—scarred, lean, tattooed, and criminal—before he puts both hands on my waist and walks me backward until my thighs hit the bed.

“Up.” He boosts me onto the mattress and climbs over me like I’m a structure he’s clearing. “Good?”

“Extremely.”

His mouth goes to my neck. My jaw. The corner of my mouth. Then his hips drop and his cock slides against mine between us, skin to skin, and my voice does something I will deny under oath.

“Oh—okay. All right. Frotting. We’re doing frotting. I researched this during my bi-awakening and it seems very⁠—”