“You’re like this with her all the time. I figured it was what she liked”
Severin forced down a growl. “She’s my submissive, and my fiancée. We have an agreement in place about how things are between us. Consent. A safeword. You can’t just step into my role because you live here.”
“Rodrigo does it.”
“He’s our fiancé.”
“So add me too.”
“No.”
Loïc’s hands clenched, and something flashed in his gaze that looked a lot like hurt. “Why not?”
“We’re all in a relationship with each other. Together. We’re not adding extra people, let alone my own brother.”
“What? Are you worried you and I will have children with two heads?” Loïc scoffed. “I won’t suck your cock, you won’t suck mine. Pas de problème. I want to fucking belong here, Severin. I want in. I’m tired of being the outsider in this house.”
“Loïc, you’re my brother. I’m not sharing my romantic relationships with you.”
“Romantique?” He spat. “Seriously? Forgive me, but I fail to see your relationships as anything close to romantic.”
“You don’t have to understand our relationships, you just have to understand we’re not going to include you as anything other than a platonic member of this household. If you want a relationship, you’ll have to find your own lovers. You have to work at it.”
Minnow, tactfully, didn’t laugh at that. It was kind of her, considering she’d done almost all of the work in their relationship at the beginning, while he’d only watched her and silently panicked.
Loïc walked to the kitchen island and put it between them. His knuckles were white where he gripped the granite top. His face was an ugly grimace but Severin couldn’t interpret the emotions that played in the subtle shifts of his eyes and mouth.
“Should I leave? Go back to Marseilles?”
Severin sighed. How was he, of all people, supposed to fix this fucked-up brother of his? But Loïc was all alone in the world, having just burned the house he’d always lived in to the ground, and sold off their mother’s company. What would that mean for Loïc’s state of mind?
“You can stay, at least for a while.” He glanced at Minnow, but she said nothing. “You can’t be like this with Minnow. She has to feel safe.”
“Or with Rodrigo,” Minnow murmured.
Severin raised his brows at Loïc, who flushed.
“I don’t get bossy with Rodrigo.”
“No, but you flirt aggressively with both of us whenever you catch us alone. It’s inappropriate.” Minnow moved to lean against Severin, and he wrapped his arm around her. Was she lending him strength, or borrowing some herself?
Loïc pressed his lips into a flat line. “I don’t know how...” He shifted his tall frame to sit on the countertop behind him, looking more angry boy than large man.
“How what?” Severin asked.
“Is this a fucking therapy session?”
He sighed. “This is your family caring about you, and giving you rules. If you want to stay here, you’ll follow the rules.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, you’re not. Now finish your sentence. You don’t know how...what?”
“I don’t know how to interact with people if I’m not servicing them. I try to copy what the three of you do, but I guess that’s wrong because I’m not part of what you are to each other.” He swallowed. “I’ve been a whore so long. How do adults interact if they’re not fucking each other?” He didn’t pause for an answer. “I didn’t go to school. I’ve never had friends. I had older sisters who were mostly kept away from me, and a mother who only cared about her business interests and her orgasms. I don’t know how normal people act.”
“You can learn.”
“Maybe. Or maybe my brain is wrong, and I can’t learn.” Loïc’s face was a