Page 95

Milo’s heart felt so fucking full he couldn’t take it. He bent down and pressed a thousand kisses to Rowan’s mouth. “You idiot, dragon. I just needed an excuse to hide the fact that I was texting you weird thoughts. I thought you were at the pool letting other people see you all naked and gorgeous and flipped out. But you took it seriously and brought me a cup. I fucking love you so much.”

“I spent all my free time in my hotel room,” Rowan managed to get out through his kissing assault. “I went to three stores to find a cup big enough before driving four hours back here.”

Milo finally let him breathe and pulled back, gleefully asking, “Where’s my cup? I want to add it to my nest.”

Rowan flushed. “I…may have thrown it at Ruben’s head.”

Milo wanted to cackle out loud, but the larger part of him was bereft. His special cup!

“We need to fly back and get it right now,” Milo said seriously.

“Now now?” Rowan asked.

Milo was already tugging him up, shoving mismatched clothes at him. “I need my cup, Rowan.”

The words alone, like they were magic, lit a fire under Rowan’s ass, and he got dressed lightning fast. Now he was the one tugging Milo toward the bedroom door and then to the balcony.

Milo had the stray thought that if this was what his life would look like from now on, then he was the luckiest surprise dragon in the universe.

Notes:

Kicky feets!!!!!

28

Milo

How many eyes were too many eyes to have on you? And how many people looking at the bruises your mate had left on your neck were too many people?

Milo was asking the important questions, he felt.

Existential ones.

They helped him not spiral, because he was being placed in a spotlight he absolutely did not want to be in. But they’d shone it in his eyes when they showed up at Rowan's door like an inquisition, interrupting the peace they had found nesting in the last few days and crowding inside their little cocoon to ask dumb questions.

Sitting on Rowan’s lap probably wasn’t helping matters. Cuddling into his chest absolutely wasn’t. But he couldn’t relax enough to just face them without Rowan’s support, and quite frankly, he didn’t want to. He’d found his mate and he didn’t want to be apart from him. Not even to avoid scrutiny and squinty eyes.

Fuck them, honestly. Who gave them the right to judge how he loved or how he was loved? Milo didn’t say anything about their love lives. And he could. Probably. He had absolutely no idea what their love lives were like, but he could find out. Everyone had dirt in their past.

He clenched his fists around Rowan’s shirt and his heartbeat picked up.

“Settle down,” Rowan rumbled into his ear, rubbing a hand over his back. “Nobody is here to hurt us.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Milo grumbled, squinting at Ruben, who was sitting way too close to Ray. Closer than he had any reason to.

“We really aren’t,” Rupert said.

He was directly opposite them on the couch—it had been moved from its prime spot in their nest, which had already irritated Milo—and was dressed in a suit that was too pretentious for Milo’s eyes to handle right now.

“You’re glaring,” Milo said, pointing a finger at the line between his eyebrows. “I don’t like being glared at.”

“You’d think you’d be used to it,” Ethel said.

Milo snapped his head toward her. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I’m not picking sides. I’m just here for the entertainment. They canceled Restless.” She picked something out of a bowl in her lap and Milo gasped when he realized it was popcorn.

“You are evil,” he told her, resting his ear over Rowan’s heart. “Tell her to stop.”