Page 30

Ezra

The next morning, Ezra awoke to the feeling of a warm body curled up around him—something that he hadn’t experienced in…

Christ, had it really been years since the last time he’d shared a bed with someone?

It had to have been. The last person he’d let stay in his bed overnight had been his ex-boyfriend, Zane, and even then they hadn’t shared it often, Zane all too adept at coming up with excuses as to why he couldn’t stay the night.

Ezra was very accustomed to waking up alone, which was why it was so jarring to suddenly find himself wrapped in someone’s arms.

Jarring, but not unpleasant.

Quite the contrary.

As he snuggled closer to Titan and burrowed his head into the pillows, he thought he could get used to this.

Some time passed in silence. Ezra, cozy and just on the right side of being overheated, kept his eyes shut and his mind as blank as possible, but in the absence of distraction, the whirlwind that was yesterday came flooding back to him: the extreme anxiety at trying to process the news of his pregnancy and the subsequent soothing that Titan had given him as he claimed him through the night.

The anxiety wasn’t gone. As much as Ezra wished that the alien had fucked it out of him, some worries were too big to simply do away with.

But he no longer felt alone in it. He was used to being the calm one in times of chaos, but he had never truly realized how vital that role was until he was the one feeling in need of reassurance, and Titan…

Titan had done a fantastic job helping him get through it.

He blinked his eyes open, bleary and blurry, and found Titan already awake, watching him with a soft expression. A smile tugged at the corner of Ezra’s lips at the sight of him, and Titan returned it, reaching out to push Ezra’s hair behind his ear.

“I had wished,” Titan said, voice croaky, “during our previous encounters that you would have allowed me to share your bed so that I would be able to see you rouse from unconsciousness the following morning. I thought that it would be a lovely sight. I am pleased to know that I was correct in this assumption.”

Ezra blushed, his grin growing until it turned into a yawn.

A moment later, Titan yawned, too, and a look of bewilderment overtook him.“What is the purpose of this action? And why did I feel compelled to copy it?”

“It’s called yawning,” Ezra explained with a chuckle. “They’re contagious.”

“Why?”

“Because humans are silly, silly creatures. I figured you would already know that. You know everything, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, I am…” He trailed off, twisting his mouth. “Perhaps I do not know everything there is to know all of the time. But this is permissible. I now have you to assist me when I require knowledge, and you are very wise.”

Ezra’s heart sang. In the scheme of things, it was a small gesture, but to him it was monumental. Titan was doing the one thing no partner had ever done for him before—trying.

Unable to help hi mself, he placed a small kiss to the corner of Titan’s mouth.

He moved to pull away, but Titan took hold of his chin and held him still, kissing him properly.

He ran his tongue along the seam of Ezra’s lips, and would have gone further had Ezra not planted a hand on his chest and pushed him back.

“I’ve got morning breath,” he warned. Zane had never let him kiss him in the mornings, saying that it was disgusting. Titan, however, appeared confused, a crease forming between his brows.

“This is of no consequence,” he said sincerely. “I desire you no matter what state you are in.”

As if to prove it, he leaned back in and recaptured Ezra’s mouth.

Ezra hummed, pleasantly content, and allowed him to deepen the kiss, their tongues sliding together.

To his surprise, Titan had no hint of morning breath, and his own fear that he was orally repugnant melted away the more Titan kept kissing him.

It was so good that his hips bucked forward of their own accord, morning wood growing harder.

Titan smirked, and it didn’t take long to figure out why—Ezra hadn’t bothered putting on clothing after they’d finished up last night, and was as naked as the day he’d been born, meaning Titan had felt it all.

“It seems I am not the only one with desire,” he murmured, angling himself just so and rolling his hips.

Ezra sucked in a breath.

In this position, lying as they were, Titan’s cock brushed right up against his own.

Titan’s smirk persisted as he moved his arm beneath the comforter and took both their cocks in hand, beginning to stroke in tandem. A jolt shot through Ezra at the contact, causing his hips to jerk forward again and push him that much deeper into Titan’s clenched fist.

“Very good, my sweet Ezra,” Titan praised, pressing their foreheads together.

Ezra, panting for breath, closed his eyes, all too aware of how close Titan’s lips were to his. To his surprise, despite his halitosis hang-ups and who Titan was as a person, he found himself wan ting to kiss him again. Badly. And not just because Titan was stroking his cock.

It was more than that.

Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones, but being with Titan made him feel good.

Titan’s hand, now slick with precum, slid easily along their shafts and began to pump in earnest. As the pace picked up, Titan made a small sound of pleasure in the back of his throat, which had no right sounding as hot as it did.

“You are beautiful at all times,” Titan went on to say, voice labored from his excitement, “but there is something special having you like this, fresh from unconsciousness and thick with desire for me. You crave me, do you not? The being who bred you. You took my seed so perfectly, and now you can no longer resist me. Your body knows who claimed you, and it wants more.”

“Fuck,” Ezra breathed, one hand gripping the sheets and the other clinging to Titan’s hip for dear life. Titan’s arrogance might be annoying in day-to-day conversation, but damn if Ezra wasn’t weak for it in bed.

“It is okay that you crave me, my beautiful Ezra. I crave you in return. At all times I am thinking of your human body and of your wit and of how wise you are. I am a great being, Ezra, so it is only fitting that I have an equally great being as my mate.”

“Christ alive, your hand, man. You’re so good at this. I’m so close. I’m so close, I’m gonna?—”

The bedroom door crashed open, and a chorus of small voices followed.

“Uncle Ezra! Uncle Ezra!”

Ezra let out a strangled cry and jerked away from Titan with such force, he nearly toppled out of bed.

Yanking the comforter all the way up to his shoulders and angling his hips so his quickly fading erection was out of sight, he looked in the direction of the door and saw Harrison, McCartney, and Eleanor beaming at him from just beyond the doorframe.

“Hey, guys,” Ezra said tightly, trying his best to sound exuberant and missing the mark entirely. “Remember what your dads taught you about knocking?”

“You promised that you would have breakfast with us today before you went to work, Uncle Ezra, ’member? You said so yesterday. You promised!” McCartney said.

“Why is Uncle Titan in your bed, Uncle Ezra?” Harrison asked.

“They must be having a sleepover,” Eleanor said wisely.

“I wanna have a sleepover.” Harrison pouted.

“Are you gonna have breakfast with us, Uncle Ezra?” Eleanor rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, hands clutched behind her back in a perfect vision of sweet innocence.

“Papa is making pancakes. Daddy said he wanted to make them but Papa said that he’s not allowed to use the stove anymore ’cause of the fire last time. ”

“Kill me,” Ezra muttered under his breath. Titan cast him a sympathetic look.

“Offspring!” Al’s voice rang out from the hallway, and Ezra’s blood went ice cold.

“Oh no,” he whispered. “Oh no, oh fuck.”

“Hm, this may present a complication,” Titan whispered back.

“ You think? ”

“Offspring, why are you in Uncle Ezra’s unconsciousness quarters?

” Al’s voice was closer now, and as it drew closer still, Ezra did everything in his power to yeet himself out of the room via astral projection.

He had no idea how to, but if the space gods had mercy, he would learn in the next five seconds.

“He promised he would have breakfast with us today!”

“Yes, but you are aware that it is rude to enter someone’s unconsciousness quarters without permission. You should give Uncle Ezra your sorries?—”

Al appeared at the bedroom door and stopped in his tracks. His eyes grew wide as he stared at Ezra and Titan under the comforter together, side-by-side. Ezra became sickeningly cognizant of their clothes still strewn about the floor.

“Uncle Ezra and Uncle Titan are having a sleepover,” Eleanor told him helpfully.

“I am… observing this,” Al said, not taking his eyes off the two of them.

As he did, Ezra cycled through every possible excuse he could think of that would keep the “Surprise! I’m fucking your asshole of a brother!” situation from going nuclear, but came up woefully blank.

“Al—” he started, but Al abruptly spun around on his heel.

“Come, offspring!” he said hurriedly. “Allow Uncle Ezra and Uncle Titan to have privacies.”

“Al,” Ezra tried again, but Al didn’t acknowledge him.

“Close the door behind you,” he said instead, herding the children out of the room.

“Al, c’mon!” Ezra gave it one last shot. The door slammed shut, and he and Titan were alone once more.

There was a ringing silence.

“God- fucking -dammit,” Ezra said after several beats. He buried his face in his hands.

Titan rubbed his back. “Do not have concern,” he said softly.

Ezra peered up at him from between his fingers. “Easy for you to say. You have nothing to lose from this, but he’s gonna hate me forever.”

Maybe it was a little mean of him, but with his stomach in a thousand knots and all the guilt that he’d pushed aside rising back up to the surface, he couldn’t be his best self. He started to move to get out of bed, saying, “I gotta go talk to him. I have to explain,” but Titan stopped him.

“Wait,” he said, putting a hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “I believe that it may be best if I speak to him.”

“You? No offense, man, but he kinda… you know, hates you.”

“I know this, ” Titan said. They were words that he said often, but they weren’t spoken with any of his usual arrogance.

This time, he said them sadly. “This is why I need to speak with him. You have helped me realize that perhaps I have not been fair to my brother, and that it is possible that his feelings toward me are warranted. Thus, it is my responsibility to rectify this problem.”

Ezra felt his expression soften.

He’s trying, he thought to himself. He’s trying for me.

“Okay.” He leaned in and pressed one more kiss to Titan’s lips, trying not to read too deeply into how such a simple gesture sent his heart aflutter.

“Just try not to let him kill you. I may have let you knock me up, but I’m not letting you off the hook—I won’t be raising these alien babies on my own. ”