“It’s Severin’s wedding too, Mayte. It wouldn’t be right if he was uncomfortable the whole time because we invited the whole family.”
“If Rodrigo just married Minnow, they could keep la bestia as a pet, with none the wiser. Then he wouldn’t ruin the party with his issues,” Mayte grumbled.
“It’s their wedding, not yours, oh spoiled one,” Fidel reminded her. “You got to do exactly what you wanted for yours, remember? What does Minnow want?”
“I’d say she wants a baby,” Mama smirked, casting a glance at Minnow murmuring sweetly to the baby she held.
“Me? Oh, maybe someday, but there’s no rush. We need to get settled first, and we should probably discuss it.” She shrugged. “I don’t even know if they want children.”
Both his mother and sister gave Rodrigo a pointed look, but he held up a hand. “Minnow is young, and even if she does want children, I’m sure she’s not going to be trying to outdo the breeder over there.”
Mayte flipped him off and he chuckled then headed upstairs to the bathroom. The beer Fidel had brought along was basically water. He was barely even buzzed.
On his way back down the hall, he heard a sound from his old room. Was Mayte giving Minnow a tour? Little jerk. If she was, Dax was going to hear some new stories about Mayte’s teenage escapades that would probably give their mother extra gray hairs.
Annoyed, he stalked into the room. Severin was lying on Rodrigo’s old twin bed, staring at the Kittie poster tacked to his ceiling. Seeing Severin there, of all places, did weird things to Rodrigo’s heart...and his cock. He never would have imagined him here – not in his mother’s house, let alone in the bedroom he’d abandoned when he went to study at Columbia.
“Kittie, huh?”
“Look at them. I was seventeen when I put that up. What wasn’t to like?”
Severin reached under his head and pulled out Gary, the stuffed rabbit Rodrigo had kept since he was a baby. It was gray, although maybe it hadn’t always been, and it was now a patchy, misshapen lump.
“Stray dustbunny?”
“That’s Gary. He knows a lot of shit about me.”
“He’s fugly.”
“Hmm. True. You two have a lot in common.”
Severin narrowed his eyes and crooked a finger, summoning him. Rodrigo glanced at the doorway, wondering if he dared close the door. That would just make people suspicious.
He moved to the edge of the bed and Severin swung up into a sitting position, then pointed at the floor between his booted feet. Self-conscious and afraid of getting caught by family, Rodrigo knelt.
“Your family doesn’t like me.”
Rodrigo shrugged. “They haven’t had time to get to know you.”
“They just met Minnow, but they like her.”
“Well, you are an asshole, Sir.”
Severin arched a brow and slapped his face, but only hard enough to make his dick hard. The corner of Sev’s mouth twitched.
“Watch it, puppy.”
The nickname was supposed to be derogatory, Rodrigo was sure, but he fucking loved it. Any other man who tried talking to him that way would get a punch in the face, but a nickname from Severin was like a prize. He let very few people get that close.
Severin dug his fingers into the back of Rodrigo’s hair, and before he could decide whether he should safeword a blowjob where anyone in his family could happen upon them, Severin’s mouth came down on his. There was nothing erotic or explosive about it, just a brushing of his lips against Rodrigo’s, his hand keeping Ro from trying to control things – not that he would.
As Severin gently explored his mouth, lips barely meeting, tongues barely touching, every muscle in Rodrigo’s body turned liquid. In no time he ached to deepen the kiss, to revert to their usual violence, but Severin wouldn’t let him. The sweetness of it was starting to make his eyes burn and his chest ache. Rodrigo desperately attempted to cling to the emotional walls he kept having to reconstruct, but like always, Severin stripped them away.
This thing between them was too good, and he’d wanted it too for too long. It was hard to trust that it was really happening.
Severin didn’t pull back until Rodrigo was completely lost, once again. He was so close Rodrigo almost had to go cross-eyed to see his expression. Rather than using one of his cold, expressionless masks, there was a crease between Severin’s brows that made him look concerned.
“You should just bring Minnow to these things.”