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Watching the way that Quinn, Peyton, and Will had reacted to Jericho as well had changed everything, and he didn’t know how to put the lock back on the door and bolt it shut. He wished he could close it tight and set it on fire.
Jericho smirked. “Offer’s always there.” He glanced at the bed. “There’s room in here too if we snuggle up nice and close.”
Sebastian was not having sex in the bed that his siblings and his sister’s kids slept in when they stayed over. That was just too weird.
Nor was he going to be having sex with Jericho.
“It’s upstairs,” he said, answering the previous question so that he could derail his train of thought. Put it back on the rails? That seemed more appropriate. It was well and truly off them right now.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” Jericho said bluntly. “The whole point of me being here is to protect you. How am I supposed to do that if it takes me ten minutes to get to you?”
“How slow do you walk?” Sebastian asked. “Are the stairs a problem for you? I don’t have an elevator installed, sorry.”
All traces of amusement had disappeared from Jericho’s face. Sebastian was learning that while he was a giant flirt and seemed good at going with the flow, there were things that he was less flexible about. Protection seemed to be one of them. He had a real bee in his bonnet about Sebastian’s house.
“The window to my room is a hell of a climb,” Sebastian said. It wasn’t even a lie. Every time he’d had to break into his own house, he’d at least chosen the ground level, but he wasn’t going to tell Jericho that. “Upstairs, remember? Are you protecting me from Spiderman?”
“Spiderman is the good guy,” Will said. “If he were watching the house, that could only be a good thing.”
Sebastian smiled at Will because he couldn’t argue with that. He pulled him closer, sliding an arm around his slim hips and letting his fingers graze across the front of his pants. “Both the front and back door are closer to this room than they are to mine,” he told Jericho.
“We’re with him too,” Will piped in. “Between Quinn, Peyton, and I, I think we can put up enough of a fight to survive until you come to our rescue.”
Jericho stared intently for a moment before deflating. “Fine. What time do you get up?”
Sebastian hadn’t won that fight. He knew the other man would come back at him from a different angle, later, when he least expected it. The joke was on Jericho, though; Sebastianalwaysexpected it.
“It depends on the day,” he said primly. He wanted to tell Jericho he needed to relax,but that sounded a little hypocritical.
“Are youtryingto be as difficult as possible or…?”
“It’s my default setting,” Sebastian replied. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through to his alarms. There were… a lot of them. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said it depended on the day. Sometimes the first one got him out of bed; other times it took all six of them.
The only reason he hadn’t needed them the last few days was that they had all gotten up earlier than they needed to. Maybe he wouldn’t need them anymore with three warm bodies, and sometimes Persephone, as his alarm clock.
He flipped the screen to show Jericho he wasn’t lying.
Jericho skimmed it. “You need help,” he said as he met Sebastian’s eyes again, shaking his head.
“You have no idea,” Sebastian drawled. “Coffee is my Band-Aid.”
“As far as coping mechanisms go, it’s not the worst.”
Sebastian bit back a grin. “That’s what I tell myself.”
Sebastian didn’t realise how close they’d gotten until he could feel Jericho’s breath against his face. Will’s warmth was a steady presence against Sebastian’s side. Jericho was trying to tempt him, and his men only seemed to be fanning the flames.
“Is that your only vice?” Jericho asked, his voice barely a whisper, a hint of gravel deep in it.
“That and…” Sebastian glanced at Jericho’s lips. “Alcohol.”
“That’s not what you were going to say,” Jericho said, those lips parting around the words.
They looked soft. Will, Peyton, and Quinn all had a distinct way that they kissed, and Sebastian could figure out, with increasing accuracy, who was kissing him based on feel alone.
Would Jericho be different again? A combination of them?
Why was Sebastian even thinking about this?
