Chapter 155: Chapter 155: Complicated matters

“Do you want to know?”

Dean stared at him in offended suspicion.

“You are vile.”

“Possibly.”

“You’re dangling information in front of me while lying over me like this.” Dean gestured vaguely with one hand, as if the entire situation could still be described with dignity. “That is not a fair negotiating environment.”

Arion did not look even slightly ashamed. “No.”

Dean narrowed his eyes harder. “And you still want more sex.”

“Yes.”

The honesty of it hit far harder than teasing would have.

Dean looked at him for a beat too long, then away, because Arion saying it that simply was somehow worse than all the nuzzling and warm, sinful calm. Worse because there was no performance in it. Just want. Just certainty. Just Arion, still very much not done with him.

“That,” Dean muttered, “is a deeply hostile answer to give someone with bite marks in unreasonable places.”

Arion’s expression stayed composed, but his gaze dipped briefly to Dean’s mouth and back. “It is not my fault that you are delicious.”

Dean stared at him.

Then he looked at the ceiling with the hollow resignation of a man abandoned by every higher power that had once loved him.

“You cannot say that to me,” he said flatly.

“I already did.”

“That is not a defense.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Dean dragged one hand over his face. “God. You are shameless.”

“Yes.”

The answer came without hesitation, without embarrassment, without even the courtesy of pretending otherwise.

Which, annoyingly, fit him.

Arion lowered his head a fraction, not kissing him yet, just staying close enough that Dean could feel the heat of his breath near his mouth and throat, the edge of the mark he had already turned into a problem of state and body alike. The mattress dipped more under his weight, broad shoulders steady on either side of Dean, careful even now, even like this.

“I’ll be gentle,” Arion said.

Dean gave him a long, deeply suspicious look. “Your definition of gentle has already proven unstable.”

Arion’s mouth curved. “I mean it.”

That should have helped.

Instead, it made Dean more aware of everything.

The warmth of Arion over him. The clean scent of soap and coffee, threaded now with vetiver – the beginning of arousal that Arion was clearly not bothering to hide. Dean could smell it. Of course he could smell it. That was the whole problem. His own body, already overfamiliar now with Arion’s scent, answered the shift with humiliating immediacy.

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You’re already turned on.”

Arion did not even attempt to deny it. “Yes.”

Dean looked personally offended. “That was fast.”

Arion’s gaze held his, calm and golden and entirely too open. “You’re under me.”

“That is not a romantic statement.”

“You’re in my bed.”

Dean blinked. “Technically this is your room.”

“Yes.”

“That was not the point.”

Arion bent just enough for the tip of his nose to brush Dean’s cheek, then his jaw, then the soft skin just below his ear in a slow, unhurried motion that said more than words would have.

Dean’s breath caught anyway.

Traitorous body. No discipline. No ethics.

Arion’s voice lowered. “You smell like me. And like coffee. And like you.” His hand at Dean’s waist moved once, just a small stroke through the blanket. “That’s enough.”

Dean closed his eyes for one second, then opened them again and glared weakly. “Fine. Tell me.”

Arion grinned like a man ready to eat his cake. “Nero has a crush on Sebastian.”

Dean went completely still.

Then he blinked once.

Twice.

And stared at Arion like the man had just calmly informed him that the moon was legally married to the sea.

“Excuse me,” Dean said.

Arion’s grin remained. Shameless. Pleased. Deeply offensive.

“Nero,” Dean repeated carefully, “has a crush…”

“Yes.”

“On Sebastian.”

“Yes.”

Dean’s mouth opened.

Closed.

Opened again.

Then, with all the force of a man whose nervous system had simply given up and chosen outrage, he hissed, “Oh, that is disgusting.”

Arion’s brow lifted. “Disgusting.”

“Yes.” Dean shoved at his shoulder in scandalized betrayal, not hard enough to move him in any meaningful way, because Arion was still Arion and gravity had clearly pledged allegiance to him. “Not morally. Structurally. Socially. Cosmically. Sebastian?”

Arion made no attempt to hide his amusement now. “You asked.”

“I did not ask for this much damage.”

Dean stared past him at the ceiling, clearly attempting to renegotiate with fate. “Sebastian.”

Arion lowered his head slightly, nosing once at Dean’s throat with infuriating ease. “Yes.”

Dean clutched at the blanket. “No wonder Nero looked homicidal.”

“That would be part of it.”

“Part of it?” Dean turned his head sharply to glare at him. “What do you mean, part of it? What else is there?”

Arion’s eyes met his, golden and deeply unhelpful. “Your brother was flirting.”

Dean stared.

Then his face changed all at once.

“Oh,” he said.

A beat. Then another.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Arion’s mouth curved against his skin. “Yes.”

Dean let his head fall back against the pillows in spiritual defeat. “No, because that makes sense. That makes horrible, perfect sense. Sebastian flirts when he’s bored, when he’s curious, when he’s annoyed, when he wants a better drink, when he wants attention, when he wants to see whether someone breaks…”

Arion listened with the air of a man enjoying himself far too much.

“And,” Arion added with increasing amusement, “he still half-considers Nero a child. Not literally. Just… in that Sebastian way. He doesn’t even consider that Nero could feel more than friendship.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Dean groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “They’re both dominant alphas. Biologically, in Sebastian’s head, it probably doesn’t even register as a real possibility.”

“Nero is an enigma,” Arion said, visibly pleased that Dean had forgotten that important aspect about his friend in less than five minutes.

Dean went still.

Then he slowly lowered his hand and stared at him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Arion’s mouth curved.

“No,” Dean said, his voice flattening with fresh horror. “No, do not smile like that. I already hated this situation. Now I hate it in layers.”

Arion, still shamelessly comfortable over him, said, “It does complicate the matter.”

“Complicate?” Dean repeated. “It detonates the matter.”

Because that was the part Sebastian would not be thinking about. Not even a little. Sebastian, who could analyze people down to the flick of an eyelash when he chose to, would never naturally slot Nero into that category. Not because he was stupid, but because the entire framework was wrong in his head. Two dominant alphas. Younger family friend. Dax and Chris’s son. Annoyingly beautiful menace. Not mate.

Not possible.

Except Nero was an enigma.

And enigmas, when they wanted, when they needed, when biology decided to become everyone else’s problem, could change the secondary gender of whoever they chose.

Dean closed his eyes.

“Oh, that is evil.”

Arion’s brow lifted. “Evil?”

“Yes, evil,” Dean snapped. “Not Nero. The setup. The whole cursed design of it. Sebastian is standing in the dark holding a drink while a biological category he’s probably never had to think about is quietly staring at him with long-term intentions.”

That, apparently, amused Arion even more.

Dean pointed at him from the bed. “Do not enjoy this.”

“I’m not enjoying it,” Arion lied.

“You absolutely are.”

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