“You’ve gotten very fond of that word,” Arkady said.
“So’s Ellie,” Cash said. “And she’s twelve, so all she needs to know is that she has a new stepdad, not about dynastic marriages or the cost of power-brokering your loved ones.”
Arkady picked up his glass and drained it. The liquid looked too thick for wine as he licked it off his lips.
“So, what, does she think that, at some point, Madeline and I actually liked each other?” he asked. “That I gave up on us because I just liked the cut of Madeline’s jib?”
Well, that question had gone places Cash didn’t think he could deal with right then. He looked away from Arkady’s mouth. That had always made thinking easier.
“That’s pretty much how it works with humans. Once you take murder off the table, people pick misery over divorce more than you’d think.” Cash glanced down at the bag balanced on his thigh and seized on that to change the topic. “Speaking of which, it doesn’t make any sense to tell people I’m your boyfriend.”
Arkady cocked his head to the side. “Boyfriend?” He poured another glass of thick red liquor from a chilled copper flask. “I thought we’d agreed to take it slow and just date for a while. I’m not comfortable with how fast you’re moving.”
He smirked at Cash’s glare.
“It’s your sister’s wedding,” Cash said. “You only take a date to that if you plan to eat them rather than see them again.”
Arkady tilted his glass in acknowledgment of that point. “Your plan?”
It wasnotdisappointment that Cash could taste in the back of his throat. He patted his hand against the camera. “This year, in addition to the portraitist, you also have a photographer. It’ll give me an excuse to mingle, to talk to people, pick out what they want.”
Arkady looked curious. “Can’t you just tell?” he asked. “Pick out their crimes from their aura?”
“I can see it,” Cash said. “It doesn’t mean I always understand it. And that’s with humans. Monsters are a whole different kettle of sin.”
“And we hired my sister’s ex-lover, the half-human who outraged our bloodline with his offspring? Why?”
“To rub in that I’m still just the hired help?”
“You were neverjustthat,” Arkady said, a flash of anger bright in his pale eyes. “And there’s just one problem with that.”
“What?”
Arkady walked over to the bed and leaned down to cup the side of Cash’s neck in his hand. His skin was dry and warm, and the edge of his nail was sharp as he dragged it down over the trail of raw red bruises that Cash knew still looked livid on his skin. It made a shiver run down his spine, and he bit his lip.
“No one is going to believe I’m not fucking you,” Arkady said in a low, rough voice that was so thick withwantthat it made Cash’s mouth water. “And this crowd aren’t the sort of monsters that talk to the help.”
Cash swallowed. “That’s two problems.”
Arkady smirked at him—a flash of white teeth against the dusty gold of his stubble. “Oh, fucking you isn’t a problem,” he said. “It’ll be my pleasure… and yours.”
“Don’t be corny,” Cash said. “You’re Ellie’s uncle, not her dad.”
He twisted his fist in Arkady’s sweater, fine-knit fabric bunched between his fingers, and pulled him into a kiss. Rough stubble scraped over his mouth, and Arkady’s laugh tasted like blood and whiskey as it rolled over Cash’s tongue.
Goddammit, Cash thought with a flash of scratchy, distracted irritation. He wasn’t sixteen anymore; he shouldn’t still think with his cock. Or anything else that was dumb and horny enough to get him back here.
“Don’t,” Arkady said, the words chewed over Cash’s mouth.
“What?”
“Think.”
Fair enough.
They tumbled back into the bed, silk sheets tangled under them and the two of them tangled around each other. The camera jabbed a corner into Cash’s thigh, and he hadjustenough of his wits left to move it onto the bedside table. Cash groaned as Arkady palmed his cock through his jeans, the scrape of denim against tender skin almost unbearable. He slid his hands up under Arkady’s sweater, and the cashmere bunched around his wrists as he explored thealmostfamiliar planes of muscle and bone underneath.
Thicker muscle layered over his back and shoulders now, tight under the stretch of smooth, tawny skin. The new scar on his back, ragged as a hook, was fresh enough to make Arkady twitch when Cash touched it.
