Page 65

—Thank you—comes across the bond.

—Always, sireno.

Chapter 20

Something Cosmic and Inevitable

Aleks

It’s late. Sweat is sticky on my body. I took my shirt off hours ago, and it hangs from the back pocket of my cut-off denim shorts. After hours of dancing in the sand, in the ocean, back to the sand, all with my body pressed tightly to Javier’s, I’m not sure whose sweat is whose. I don’t care, though. I like the feeling of having a part of him on me.

Our clasped hands swing between us as we walk up the path. Our palms, like the rest of us, are slick with sweat, but I don’t want to let go.

“I think I deserve a cigarette.”

Javier snorts. “Of course you do.”

“What? We fucking crushed it. I should get a reward.”

“Language, boy.”

I melt at the admonishment. It’s impulse, then, the next words that fall from my lips. They feel obvious, like putting words to something already true, already felt and known between us.

“I love you.”

Gravel crunches under our feet as Javier stops.

—Sorry, Daddy, I should have—

Javier turns me around, tugging me closely against him so his belly touches mine. He reaches out with his hands, cradling my face as his thumbs brush over my cheeks. “I love you, too.”

I feel it in our bond, in the presence of him in my chest every time I take a breath. I know he loves me when he kneels beside the pool and tells me I can do it, when he feeds me by hand and worships my body. The words he said earlier, spoken in Spanish over the soft roar of the shower, words I had never let myself imagine someone saying to me.

He loves me. My mate, he— I crash my mouth into his, shoving my tongue into his mouth without finesse or grace. He meets me with equal hunger, groaning as he matches my urgency.

I’m pressing into him when he pulls away. “Not here, love,” he says, running his tongue over his spit-slicked lips.

“But the first time,” I start, thinking back to humping his leg in a dark alcove.

He shakes his head. “It was not like this yet, and you know it.”

“But you knew I was your mate.” It’s something I’ve wondered about, thinking back on those early days when we’d newly arrived in Monstralia.

“Understanding the existence of a potential fated mate gave me no ownership of you,” Javier says, his voice firm, unwavering as he looks at me. “Dios, I wanted to help you, to care for you, but you did not belong to me until you chose me in return. I am the luckiest man in the world, Aleks, to know a bond like what we have. But if you had told me no, if you had not wanted this, with me, I would have walked away.”

I tip forward, needing to touch him, to be close to him in the wake of his words. His neck is sweaty where I press my face against him, but I don’t let that stop me from nuzzling into him. I lick his skin, the salty bite of his sweat egging me on until I’m sucking unabashedly at the base of his neck.

“Boy,” he warns, his hands drifting down to grip my hips.

I respond by sucking harder. I’m going to leave a mark, and I find I rather like the idea of him walking through the rest of the games with my love bite bruising his skin.

He yanks me back, and his gaze is all heat and want and stern Daddy and fuck I’m hard and I want him. I want him now, public indecency be damned. Before I can suggest stepping into the bushes to get busy, he unzips his fanny pack and hands me a sucker.

“Something to keep your mouth busy until we get home,” he says, gaze fixed on my mouth as I wrap my lips around the sweet and suck.

“Better?” He asks, his voice gone low and rough.

I glare at him for show, but I nod.