My eyes flick from him to Alder, and sure enough, my yellow-haired demon has more than just sweat drippin’ down his body—there’s desire bleedin’ out of his candied eyes too. His lavender skin is darker than usual from the heat, and I find myself wantin’ to trace every single one of his watercolor blossoms with my tongue.
“Well, I’m sittin’ half naked next to you two, and you’re hotter than a Georgian summer,” I admit. “I still can’t believe you’re my mates,” I say, the term tastin’ more and more delicious each time I say it.
“Well, believe it,” Alder says, his hand comin’ out to skate over my arm. It shouldn’t be possible in this heated room, but just that touch sends a shiver down my spine, makin’ my wings flutter slightly.
“I won’t do it again,” Flint confesses, his head tilted back against the wood planked wall and his eyes closed.
“Do what?” I ask, confused.
“I won’t go after Delta’s mates. I got it all out of my system,” he tells me casually, and I study the planes of his face for a moment, but I don’t detect any bullshit.
“Okay, good,” I chirp, decidin’ I can live with that. Flint does appear infinitely more relaxed after cleanin’ Jerif’s clock with a right hook.
I look over to Alder, but he holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m moving on too,” he concedes, and I nod once.
Well, that was easier than I thought it would be.
I relax a little bit more, glad that’s over with. I look to the guys and feel gratitude and relief wash through me. I never in a million years thought I’d end up with a couple of guys like them, but damn, I got lucky. Not only are they sexy and protective, but they listen to me too.
“I must’ve broken a lot of she-demon hearts by takin’ y’all off the market,” I say, not at all feelin’ guilty about that.
Alder shrugs while Flint gets up and goes to the shelf inlaid near the sauna’s door and a hidden cabinet I hadn’t even noticed before. “Do we need to have the talk, Peaches?” he asks, as I watch the marble-gray veins of his back move with the bunchin’ of his muscles as he opens the cabinet door—which I now realize is an ice box. He picks up a chilled pitcher and starts fillin’ water in a glass before he comes over and hands it to me, along with a cold wet washcloth.
I take them both gratefully, gulpin’ down the cold water and passin’ it off to Alder so he can have a drink too before I drape the cold cloth around the back of my neck. It feels heavenly. “What talk?” I query. Did I do somethin’ worthy of a lecture?
Flint takes the empty cup from Alder and drains his own glass before he tosses a cold washcloth to him too. He then sits back down on the bench with a cool cloth around his own neck, and settles me with a look. “The roster.”
His meanin’ dawns on me, and I squirm a little. “Oh. Uhh, no?”
Alarm bells ring in my mind, and there’s a steady chant of red alert goin’ off in my head. Mayday! Mayday! How the hell did we get on this topic?
Flint smiles and swipes his washcloth over his face and chest, and damn if he doesn’t look sexy doin’ it. I wanna lean in and lick those water droplets right off his rock-hard skin. Maybe that will steer us to safer waters.
“Well, let’s do it anyway,” he says as Alder gives him a nod.
“That’s alright,” I announce, a little too high-pitched. “We really don’t need to,” I tell them, because I don’t. Whoever they hooked up with before me...it doesn’t matter, and frankly, I don’t wanna think about it. I also really don’t want them askin’ me about my business before them either. I don’t want anythin’ taintin’ what we have here and now.
“We don’t want to hide anything from you, and we’ve lived a lot longer than you have,” Flint says. “And of course, we’ve fucked she-demons along the way.”
“Not humans?” I ask curiously, ignorin’ the twinge of annoyance that strikes through me at Flint’s words. I really don’t want to know, and yet I just blatantly asked them to dive into it even more.
Stupid mouth.
Flint and Alder both shake their heads. “No, we never dabbled in humans,” Alder tells me. “But any demon we had sex with was just that—sex. Nothing more. You don’t ever have to feel threatened by our past.”
“Even when Flint’s groupies show up to the bar?” I tease and try not to roll my eyes. Why do they think I need to hear all of this? Is this like a normal thing that goes down between mates? You kiss and tell and then try to never think about it again?
Flint rolls his eyes. “Especially then.”
I snort out a laugh, and then my mouth betrays me again. “So, have y’all shared partners?” I ask, because I’m a curious idiot. Why can’t my brain catch up with my damn mouth and shut it down before it digs us a bigger hole? In my experience, these kinds of rehashin’ talks never end well. I should end this and stop blurtin’ out stupid questions.
“Well...orgies are a thing in Hell. You don’t know that, since you haven’t been down there yet, but there’s a very free attitude when it comes to pleasure. So when we were younger, we participated in festivals and things, but no, we’ve never shared a partner between us. Not until you,” Alder tells me.
I’m a little surprised by that. They seem so comfortable around each other and me. I just assumed maybe there had been others before me to scratch all their itches.
“Alright, well, thanks for sharin’,” I tell them, hopin’ it shuts down the roster talk once and for all.
Alder and Flint look at me expectantly, and I
