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  My shaft loomed between us as he fisted it in his hand.

  It felt incredible.

  “Pass me the lube.”

  I placed it in his hand, riveted, watching as he opened it, squeezed a glob into his palm, and then used that to slick my hard, rigid, leaking cock.

  “There’s no way I’ll last longer than a second,” I confessed. “I’ve got zero stamina. You’re gonna have to settle for a blowjob, baby, ’cause—”

  “No,” he told me, lifting up, leaning forward, again reaching behind him, this time for my dick.

  “Joe.” I stopped him, grabbing him tight. “You’re not ready. You need to—”

  “I’ve been ready for ages; I’ve been waiting for you to come home to me.”

  “Baby––”

  “Marcus, I’ve been working my own ass for almost a year waiting to be stuffed full of you again! You should see the fucking dildo I have at home!”

  “You’ve been fucking yourself, thinking of me?” God, that was hot.

  “Every single time, yeah.”

  My breath became shallow with how bad I wanted to be buried inside of him.

  “And now you think I’m gonna wait? Are you insane? All I wanna do is ride you.”

  I let him go, because really, Joe knew his own mind, knew his body better, and absolutely understood his own limits. It was one of the many reasons I was enthralled with him.

  When I felt the head of my cock at his entrance, I gritted my teeth and held on. I would make it if it killed me.

  It nearly did.

  He was so tight, and he was easing me inside him so slowly, inch by inch, his muscles clenched and unyielding against the persistent pressure. He felt so good, the silky rippling walls, and then he dropped down onto me, impaled.

  “Joe!”

  “Oh God.” His body twitched, and I was squeezed in a vise of wet heat.

  “Did I hurt—”

  “Ohmygod,” he moaned, lifting up only to slide back down my slippery length, seating himself deeper, harder.

  “Joseph,” I managed to get out.

  He rose again only to lower himself back down, rise and fall, riding me, chanting my name, begging me to touch him.

  I wrapped his dripping cock with my hand and stroked him from balls to head, holding tight like I knew he liked, my lube-slicked fingers gliding over his velvet skin.

  “Marcus, I need you to fuck me, I need to feel you deep. I need to know you’re home because it hurts to fuckin’ sit down.”

  I would never do that, never be that rough, but as I slid slowly free of him and rolled over, pinning him to the floor under me, yanking his legs up and folding them in half, I realized that I wanted to.

  “For once, just use me up, Marcus. Just forget yourself.”

  But my control….

  “Let go, Marcus. Have faith. Trust me. I deserve it. I’ve earned it.”

  I bent down into the open-mouthed kiss, sucked on his tongue, getting the last taste of submission before I leaned back and lined my cock up with his pink puckered hole. I sheathed myself to the hilt in one long, smooth stroke.

  Joe yelled my name, and I understood from the sound, the bliss that infused it, that he needed me right where I was, hammering into him, driving deep and hard and fast.

  My hands would leave marks where I was holding his hips. Watching him jerk himself off was putting me right over the edge.

  “Joey, gonna come.”

  His moan, the way his inner walls clasped around me, bearing down, let me know that his release was imminent.

  I rammed home, buried to the balls in his ass, feeling his heartbeat and mine together, the throbbing, sizzling heat rolling through me without warning. I came so hard, pumping hot come deep inside my lover, frozen over him, holding tight and making sure he couldn’t move.

  After long minutes, I finally let his legs unfold from where I had them trapped against me, and he slid them over my arms, resting them, allowing blood flow to commence.

  I was panting, covered in sweat, utterly spent, ready to drop down onto him at any second.

  “Get in the bed.”

  I whined.

  “Get in the bed now.”

  “Don’t want to pull out.”

  “Now.”

  I eased carefully from his still-clenching hole and climbed up onto the bed and dropped down like a rock on my belly, my head on the pillow.

  “Shit, you need help?” I asked.

  But he answered with his skin sliding over mine, lying down, his weight of no consequence to me.

  “You going to sleep on top of me?”

  “Yeah.”

  His wet, flaccid cock was pressed to the small of my back, and I could feel his cheek resting between my shoulder blades.

  “Okay.”

  “I wish I could see you, Marcus, just once. Everyone tells me that you’re a stunning man, but all I know is that touching you is different from touching any other.”

  I purred under him. I couldn’t help it.

  “Your skin is always warm and sleek, and your body is so hard and strong. I love touching your muscles, feeling them move under my palm. I love holding your cock in my hand and feeling your body vibrate with power. I love your soft mouth and your big hands and how you grab me and tug on my hair and hold me down. Your weight on me, always, is like home.”

  God, I loved him.

  “So please, please don’t ever leave me again. I can live without you. I know that now. I can. I just don’t want to.”

  I wanted to roll over, but he pressed me down, and I was weary and so ready to sleep. I could finally, completely rest. I had Joe in bed with me.

  “Stay with me.”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Never leave me.”

  “No,” I promised.

  “I love you so much, Marcus, never wanna sleep without you again for the rest of my life.”

  Amen.

  VIII

  The next morning the kitchen was already cleaned up when I walked in to take care of it. Jael was having coffee.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s to be expected. Reconciliation is messy.”

  I had to agree.

  I promised my sentinel that I would replace all the dishes (simple), and the punchbowl (harder, as it had to be ordered online from some place in Glasgow), and he smiled and nodded and said it was fine. When his hand went to my face, cupping my cheek, I grumbled that he had been right.

  “Of course,” he said, like I was an idiot. “I always am.”

  I made omelets and served Joe breakfast in bed. Before I could take the dishes back to the sink, the kiss I got sent a wave of heat through me. I had the man pinned under me seconds later. When he arched up to meet me, I forgot about everything else.

  My stomach growling brought me from the bedroom hours later, and Jael suggested that instead of eating, I shower and change.

  “Why?”

  “They’re coming.”

  “Who’s coming?” I asked.

  “Who do you think?”

  And even though I had wanted to simply go home with Joe, see it, stretch out on my California king, and watch him make dinner, I understood. It was time.

  Malic got there first. I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t. Your best friend should always be the first one through the door.

  I was standing on the back deck; Joe was stretched out on the chaise sipping a mojito, which I had teased him about.

  “Since when do you drink before lunch?”

  “Since you went away.”

  I rolled my eyes because I knew he had years of rubbing it in my face.

  “Marcus.”

  I turned, and Malic was standing there staring at me, eyes clouded like they never were, holding onto the doorjamb, jaw clenched, the muscles in his neck corded.

  “Marcus,” Joe prodded quietly. “He could die from you not calling to him.”

  But Malic and I didn’t do words. They weren’t necessary. I nodde
d, and he breathed, and I saw him straighten, ready to walk to the railing, and I knew that this time, it wasn’t enough.

  I lifted my hand, and he moved very fast. Normally, just us, no life and death situation imminent, there was no need for such a display of speed. But one second we were apart, the next second he was on me, one arm over my shoulder, the other under my arm, hugging me the way I normally only held Joe, so close I could feel his heart beating. His face was pressed into the side of my neck, and he inhaled me, breathing me in, making his body understand that I was safe so his brain could process it.

  “Don’t stay away again,” he mumbled against my skin.

  “No,” I promised. Not him. The others I could never swear to, but him I could, him I had to. He was my brother.

  I felt the final clench, and then he pulled away the same instant I let him go.

  “All good now?” Joe asked snidely. “All hugged out?”

  I laughed when Malic lunged at Joe, attacking him, and my boyfriend yelled for the big gorilla to get the hell off him. I was still smiling as Ryan and Julian, Jackson and Raphael, and Leith and Simon came through the door. Dylan came last, followed by Jael.

  I took a breath and Ryan ran. I didn’t expect the leap, arms and legs wrapped around me, the kiss on my cheek, my jaw, and the hug with the shivering.

  “Sorry,” I apologized, realizing that I had been an idiot a moment ago. I loved them all, and they were all my brothers. Malic and I were more, but that did not diminish what I felt for the others. “Forgive me.”

  “You saved my life; you protected me. What the fuck is there to forgive?”

  When I let him go, he slid down my body, and I had Julian there to fill my arms. The mantra of the thank you began.

  Leith and I hugged briefly, but it was hard, and his whispered words were fervent and sincere. The kiss, his lips feather-light on my own for just a moment, was unexpected.

  I was out of my depth. How had I missed that they all loved me?

  Simon smiled, and the dark charcoal eyes glowed quicksilver before he leaned in to hug me.

  “Don’t you know, Marcus? You’re the guy that holds everything together. Without you, they’re just fighters. With you, they’re a family.”

  But there was no way.

  Jackson was taller than Ryan, but I was still bigger than he was, so I was again engulfed, arms and legs, and I apologized to Raphael for putting my hands on him as I held him to me.

  “It’s okay.” Raphael smiled dangerously, his possessiveness tempered just for a minute.

  Jackson kissed me and hugged me, and I got my hands in his hair and pushed it back from his face. I had grown accustomed to the beard and mustache.

  “Can we sit and talk about what happened now? Please?”

  We could.

  Raphael came close after I put Jackson down, after he could bear to be near me as my hands were no longer on his man. We were all the same. We were protective, kind, strong—until you tried to take something from us. Then you saw the scary, primitive warder. I never liked anyone to see that side of me, the side that could be cruel and merciless. For a kyrie, the distinction between angel and devil was even thinner. So as I saw the flicker of rage rise and dissipate just as fast, I said a quick prayer for the man stupid enough to ever try and take Jackson Tybalt from the creature who loved him.

  As I looked over the men who inhabited my life with me, I realized that Malic was looking away. Following his gaze across the deck, I saw Dylan leaning on the railing, contemplating the setting sun.

  He was purposely standing apart.

  I looked back at Malic, and he shook his head. He wanted me to not worry about it, whatever it was.

  But how could I, after everything?

  Taking a breath, I walked over toward Dylan. His eyes flicked to mine, and the second I saw the anger, I understood. Joe had looked much the same way. My hearth had been mad at me. Dylan was mad because of me.

  I stopped close enough so he had to tip his head up to look at me. It was a lawyer tactic that I realized I used subconsciously to give me the upper hand. “You don’t love me anymore?” I teased, thinking it was safest. He was just a baby after all.

  He sucked in a breath.

  “Can I guess?”

  His brown eyes were so big and so pained, vulnerable.

  “I hurt your man.”

  He tried so hard, but the tears were inevitable.

  “I’m sorry, Dylan. I had to deal with things myself, and—”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “No?”

  He cleared his throat and reached out to put a hand on my chest. “Marcus, you’re the guy that holds it all together,” he said softly. “You don’t get to be alone. You don’t get to run away or decide to go on a vision quest or something.”

  “Dylan—”

  “I thought it was Jael, you know? I thought he was like the father and you guys all thought of him like that, but no one does but Jacks. Everybody else, he’s like a big brother and a boss rolled into one.”

  I stayed quiet because he had a point to make, and it was obviously eating him up, so he had to get it out. Peripherally I was aware that the others were closing in on us, but I was focused on my friend’s hearth more than anything.

  “But you, Marcus….” He took a breath, “I didn’t know who you were until you weren’t here anymore.”

  A second hand joined the first, and then both hands slid down my sides to my hips, holding on.

  “When you were gone, it was like Malic lost his family. I asked him how Ryan was, and he didn’t know. I asked about Leith and got the same answer. We tried to come here and visit Jael, all of us, but no one could talk. Ryan killed that witch, you know? He—”

  “I know.” I smiled, turning my head to look back at Ryan. “That was amazing.”

  His eyes sparked, and I realized that I was the only one who saw it, because everybody else was looking at me instead of Ryan Dean.

  “I was dead if you hadn’t taken her head off, Ry,” I told him. “I knew you were fast, but I had no idea.”

  He nodded, and it was obvious that the man was overwhelmed.

  “Jael,” I told him. “You would have been amazed.”

  “I’m sure I would have.”

  “And Malic.” I exhaled. “There was no way Ryan would be alive if you hadn’t taken that blow for him. Jesus, man, you scared me to death.”

  He was staring at me so hard, as though he was memorizing my face.

  “And you held the line even though you were shredded, Jacks.” I smiled at him. “When you fell… I think my heart stopped.”

  His dark eyes were locked on me.

  “I just thought, at least Leith is safe, and Jael and Malic. It sustained me, and I think Jacks and Ry too.”

  No one said a word, and after a moment I became aware that all eyes were on me.

  “Marcus.”

  I turned back to Dylan.

  “This”—he gestured at all of us—“does not work without you. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand, but I do now.”

  “We’re all in this together, all of us, warders and hearths, and we’re a family, yeah?” I asked.

  “We are now.” He took a quivering breath. “Because you’re home.”

  I took his face in my hands as he broke down into tears.

  “Goddammit,” Malic growled as he came toward us. “Why you gotta go all soft and mushy on him?”

  I chuckled, grabbing Dylan, crushing him against me, hoping to squeeze all the tears out in one shot.

  “You’re suffocating him,” Simon laughed.

  “He’s loving it,” Julian sighed, “so it’s okay.”

  “Can we drink now?” Leith whined.

  I let Dylan go, released him into Malic’s arms, but even as my friend took his small, young hearth close, he put a hand on the back of my neck and squeezed gently.

  “I know,” I told him.

  “Just fuckin’ stay.”

  “I’m no
t going anywhere.”

  “Don’t leave us,” he muttered under his breath. “Me.”