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“Nothing in the world makes me happier, kotyonok.”

Jay wriggled in place on the counter, clearly pleased with the reassurance. Alexei pressed a kiss to his temple, taking a moment to inhale that lovely peppermint smell while he was there. “How many ways have I told you I love you today?” he murmured.

It was a little game they played these days. A way to assuage Jay’s bottomless need for reassurance and affection and Alexei’s matching, bottomless need to give them to him. Alexei tried to get each love language in at least once every day. He usually succeeded many times over.

Jay scrunched his brows in thought, nibbling at his bottom lip again. “Well, you told me this morning how much you love me. And also that I was—” He paused, cheeks flushing with adorable embarrassment.

“Yes?” Alexei encouraged, pressing a kiss to his ear, watching the delicate shell turn a light pink in response.

“That I was perfect and gorgeous,” Jay mumbled, wriggling again.

Words of affirmation.

Alexei kissed Jay’s pink cheek. “And?”

Jay giggled. “You carried me to the coffee shop on your back because I thought it was funny.”

An act of service, even if it was a silly one.

“Mm. So I did.” Alexei pressed a kiss to the tip of Jay’s nose. “And?”

“And you gave me candy at work.” Jay grinned at the memory of it.

“A little gift for my little love.”

“And you waited for me at the coffee shop for hours, just so I could talk to you when it was slow,” Jay continued, unprompted.

Quality time. That was an easy one, as they were pretty much always together. Maybe at some point, Alexei would get a proper job, but at the moment, he was knee-deep in trying to figure out Jay’s massive, complicated finances for him, which he could do on his own time, in Jay’s presence.

Alexei pressed a kiss to Jay’s chin. Jay hummed happily. “And now you’re kissing and touching me. And you’ll probably touch me even more?”

“Mm. Definitely more.” Alexei kissed Jay’s neck lightly, keeping it chaste for the moment. “And what should we do for the rest of the evening?”

He liked asking because even though Jay was happy with most things—always eager to go with the flow, as long as he was with people he cared for—Alexei liked giving him practice saying what he really wanted. He hadn’t had nearly enough of that in his life.

Jay tilted his head in thought, and also clearly in a not-so-subtle effort to encourage Alexei to kiss his neck some more. “Well, I think we should be naked,” he declared, almost immediately.

“How shocking,” Alexei murmured dryly, obliging Jay’s silent request and kissing the other side of his elongated neck.

It was anything but surprising. Jay couldn’t get enough of what he liked to deem “cozy nudity.”

“I’d like to maybe draw later. Oh! Oh!” Jay tugged at Alexei’s shirt. “I could draw you naked. I haven’t done that yet. It’ll be just like that scene in Titanic where Jack sketches Rose but without all the tragedy afterward.”

Jesus. Titanic . Which was now on the forbidden list of movies, ever since it had made Jay cry for what felt like hours afterward. If Alexei could murder a movie, he’d murder that one.

But if Jay wanted to sketch him like one of his French girls, that was fine with Alexei. “You can draw me however you like, sweetheart.”

Jay’s gray eyes lit up with excitement. “And maybe we could learn a new recipe together?”

“Most definitely.”

“But maybe before all that…” Jay shimmied his hips in place again.

Alexei knew what was coming—he could feel the lust swirling in his sweet mate’s belly, as well as the visible bulge of Jay’s burgeoning erection—but he liked hearing the words anyway.

Loved that Jay felt empowered enough to voice them.

“Maybe you’ll love up on me a bit?” Jay peered up at him through his lashes with the question.

Had Soren been teaching him how to flirt?

Alexei let out a slow, ragged exhale, unbelievably turned on by the thought of Jay trying to seduce him. “Oh, kitten. I’m going to be doing that no matter what.”

He started tugging at the stretchy waistband of Jay’s dark-blue sweatpants, ready to have them out of the way. But then he paused, feeling at the fabric between two fingers. It was oddly thick, almost luxurious, and incredibly soft on the inside.

Alexei took a step back, ignoring Jay’s whine of disappointment, and looked over Jay’s outfit with new eyes, the matching pants and sweatshirt. “Are you wearing…a designer sweatsuit right now?”

“Oh!” Jay peered down at his clothes, smoothing down the fabric and nodding shyly. “Yes. It was a compromise with Soren.”

“My little fashionista.” Alexei tugged them off anyway, tossing them onto the kitchen floor.

He paused there again, looming over Jay, now naked on the counter, taking in all the smooth, creamy skin on display. It didn’t matter how often Jay exposed him to cozy nudity; Alexei would never not be ravenous at the sight of it.

Alexei wrapped his hands around the backs of Jay’s thighs, lifting them and encouraging Jay to lean back on his elbows.

Jay’s breath hitched as he complied. “Here?”

“Mm. Right here, kitten. We’re absolutely starving for you.”

Alexei proceeded to eat Jay out thoroughly, mercilessly. Devouring his hole, drinking in the whimpers and sighs and high-pitched cries, making sure to praise his perfect vampire for being so good for him.

“I’m not—I’m not doing anything though,” Jay protested at one point, as he always did when Alexei praised him for pillow princess behavior. Another one of their little games.

Alexei speared him with his tongue, getting distracted and sloppy with it, before remembering to answer. “Oh, but you are. You’re letting me please you, letting me love on you. And you’re doing it perfectly, kitten. So greedy and desperate. You taste so good, sweetheart.”

Alexei reveled in the surge of heightened pleasure he could feel rush through Jay at his words, the way Jay’s muscles relaxed in his hands.

Normally Alexei could—and did—do this part for hours.

Taking Jay to the brink again and again before searching for any relief for himself.

But there was a frantic edge underneath his own desire this time.

Jay was right; Sergei’s visit had brought a reminder that Alexei’s life could have been so different.

If he hadn’t come to Hyde Park. If he hadn’t walked into Death by Coffee that day.

He reared back, grabbing the lube out of the cabinet drawer (he’d learned to always be prepared when it came to Jay). “Need to be inside you now, baby.”

Jay held his own legs back now, folding himself in half, because he was just that perfect. “Yes. Yes. Always, Alexei.”

Alexei sank into his mate, into that perfect heat, and it felt like it always did—like coming home.

He hooked Jay’s legs around his waist, leaning over fully to press their foreheads together as he buried himself fully to the hilt. “I love you. So much.”

He could feel Jay’s answering smile against his lips. “Love you, Alexei.”

Alexei and his beast were both soothed by that, and he set an easier rhythm than he’d been expecting, rolling his hips in long, slow, deep strokes, taking pleasure in the soft, happy sighs Jay breathed into his mouth, the slight hitch in his breath every time Alexei bottomed out.

But Jay was a greedy little thing at heart, and eventually he tugged at Alexei’s hips with his legs, urging him to pick up the pace. “Please?”

“Oh, my perfect, needy mate.”

Alexei gave him what he wanted, losing himself in shorter, faster, almost frantic thrusts, rocking their bodies together on the counter. He palmed the back of Jay’s head, bringing his mouth to Alexei’s neck. “Come on, kitten. Let those fangs out.”

Alexei craved this sometimes. Him and his beast both. To be consumed by Jay, an echo of the thrill of those early feedings, when Alexei’s blood had the power to nourish him.

Jay sank his teeth in with a little growl, and fresh heat shot down Alexei’s spine at the contact. He stroked Jay’s hair, murmuring his pleasure at every gulp of blood.

It wasn’t long before Jay broke off with a gasp. “Touch me, please, Alexei. Gonna come. Gonna—”

Alexei grasped Jay’s leaking cock with one hand, stroking it to the same rhythm as his hips, helping his perfect, beautiful mate find his release, willing his own to hold back until then.

Jay cried out, head thrown back. With the first spurt of wetness against his fist, Alexei groaned low, hips stuttering as he bit into Jay’s taut neck, drinking his own reward in turn.

Alexei stayed in place afterward, having learned his lesson about withdrawing his softened cock from Jay too soon (and it was always up to Jay to declare what constituted too soon).

They passed the time with long, thorough kisses, each of them licking the taste of the other out of their mouths, until there was nothing left but saliva, not a speck of coppery deliciousness to be found.

“What should we do first, of all your plans?” Alexei murmured against Jay’s lips.

Jay tightened his hold, his legs still wrapped around Alexei’s hips. “Let’s just hold each other for a while longer. Does that sound okay?”

“That sounds perfect, kotyonok. Absolutely perfect.”