He rolled off Nix afterward, facing him on his side, sticky in hisbriefs and momentarily sated. He brought a finger to his mouth, curious. The taste of Nix’s cum was as smoky as Nix’s scent.
Nix grinned wickedly, a glow to his purple eyes. “That’s a mental snapshot I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.”
Ivan grunted, licking the last of the taste off his lips. He sat up, tugging Nix’s arm until he followed Ivan out of bed.
They were lucky enough not to run into anyone in the hallway, and Ivan cleaned them both brusquely in the shower, not allowing for any of Nix’s games, no matter how his hands wandered. Ivan could tell by the light that it was already later than he usually slept, and he didn’t want to give Sascha a reason to come looking for them before they were presentable.
They found the house’s strange trio of residents in the kitchen.
Sascha and Matteo were eating cereal at the kitchen table, while Kai was standing against the counters, gulping out of a horrifically large mug of coffee that still managed to look relatively tiny in his hands. He was a huge creature—there’d been a reason Ivan had wanted a warrior demon of his own.
But there was something oddly distasteful about it now. All that brute force, with no finesse to speak of. Ivan preferred the subtle strengths of his incubus.
He’d gotten the better deal in the end, hadn’t he?
He sat at the table and poured himself a bowl of cereal, starved after barely touching his dinner the night before.
He looked up halfway through to find Nix seated across from him, staring at him raptly. Ivan paused, his spoon halfway to his mouth. “What?”
Nix raised his brows. “Nothing.”
Sascha grinned around his own mouthful. “It’s weird, isn’t it? When he does mundane stuff.”
Ivan gave his brother an unimpressed look. “It’s cereal.”
Although, it was true Nix hadn’t seen much of Ivan at homeyet, not when Ivan had been running to and from the office at all hours when they’d been in New York.
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” Nix leaned back in his chair, making a show of his surprise now. “Maybe that you’d be eating bullet casings soaked in whiskey for breakfast.”
“We’re Russian,” Ivan deadpanned. “They’d be soaked in vodka.”
That pulled a giggle from Matteo, though he went silent, his face paling, when Ivan looked his way. He was a strange sort. Unreasonably timid, considering he’d been raised around Mafia men, same as Ivan and his brothers. Kai and Sascha had rescued him from the Carusos, where he’d been—according to Ivan’s informants—treated none too kindly by his stepfather, Luca Caruso.
What he was so scared of now, after that family had been taken down, was anyone’s guess.
Maybe he was just too traumatized to pull it together.
Either way, Ivan needed him out of the house, or at the very least the room. Ivan shot Nix a pointed look, reminding him of what they’d discussed in the shower, and his demon cleared his throat. “So I was thinking, Kai,” Nix said brightly. “That you and Matteo could show me around town.”
“Why?” Kai asked bluntly, either genuinely not understanding or stubbornly refusing to take the hint.
“Because I’d like to speak to Sascha alone,” Ivan told him just as bluntly.
Kai set his coffee down, crossing his arms. “No.”
“Kai,” Sascha chided gently.
Kai looked at him beseechingly, like a dog who’d been reprimanded for guarding the home. “I don’t trust him,” he growled as if Ivan weren’t right there.
Sascha shared a long look with him, the two of them seeming to come to some sort of unspoken agreement, and then turned toNix. “How about you and Matty start out, and Kai will follow after we know what Ivan has to say.”
Ivan ground his teeth, a familiar hot rush of anger coursing through his veins. “I’m not allowed to speak with my own brother alone?” A hand landed on his shoulder, and Ivan shot Nix a frosty look. “What?”
Nix raised a brow at him. When Ivan didn’t react, Nix mouthed the wordscontrol issuesat him.
Ivan scowled. If Nix was referring to their conversation from the night before… “It’s different,” he argued.
This wasn’t about him being a control freak. It was about the principle of the thing. He and Sascha were tied together by blood—Ivan should be allowed to speak to him without that big brute of a demon husband butting in.
