Page 212 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

Dick twitching violently, I move over to her with my own damp towel, and I aim for her face. The face that begins to close off when I dab at the golden shimmer around her blackish-crimson scar.

“So gorgeous,” I rumble, and all her attention is on me now, even as my brothers get to work on their own chosen parts of her body.

The muscles that had started to stiffen relax again as Ezla hears, feels, and sees my truth: she is the most devastating sight I have ever seen. “I can see you really think that.”

“He knows that, Ezzy!” Tiger pipes up, and I nod firmly.

“Hm.”

I grin. She’s so damn captivating all the time.

I carefully swipe around the scar, my pinkie tracing the luminous line in fascination. Yet with that also rises a familiar fury. It happens every time I think about how she got it.

I have to crush it underfoot so I don’t say something on a Cooper level of stupid.

The Avri is hardened but flexible and smooth like my Bonded’s skin, and her jaw clenches the longer I trace the energy. Even I have the foresight to know it’s not a good idea to keep touching her there, so I move on to her right eye with the damp towel, adopting a tenderness I didn’t know I was capable of before her. But when I’m with Havoc, it happens sometimes, that softer side of me coming out only for her, and I just want to tuck her into me and feel her heart beating against mine. Mostly, my obsessive love urges me to kill anyone I view as a threat to my relationship with her, constantly demanding I claim her in any and every way possible. But it’s not hard to be like this with her either; I love it just as much, even if this part of me isn’t as loud as the other.

My lips part in wonder as Ezla’s lashes flutter closed for me, and she relaxes more and more as I meticulously work at removing the makeup there. Tossing the cloth over my shoulder when it gets too dirty—which, with its colour, I can only really tell it is because the onyx painted around her eyes has stopped coming off and started smudging—I absently hope it lands in the laundry basket that Scotty’s no doubt the culprit of moving in here. He’s been taking care of all the cleaning happening in our Bonded chambers, unsurprisingly, and I’m not about to complain. He’ll probably take the basket to the laundry room we have beside the kitchen later.

Havoc makes a soft sound, limbs loosening while we continue pampering her like she deserves. Leaning in closer, I’m utterly enraptured as she . . . as she starts to drift off, falling asleep with all of us right here.

The room is plunged into a silence so piercing it makes my ears ring.

Until it’s broken the same way it always is.

“Oh . . . my . . . god!” Tiger breathes. I think he’s about to burst into a cloud of shimmer and sparkle. “Oh my god!” he hisses next, his words aimed at me and the other guys this time, eyes bugging out of his head to emphasise his point as he waves a hand around madly.

Is he even trying to gesture at my Havoc? She’s not on the other side of the room, yet his indicating would suggest otherwise.

“Is she . . . She’s asleep?” Alby’s hazel eyes are as wide as Tiger’s, his voice so low I can hardly make it out. But I’ve learned to strain my ears when he speaks since he’s always been extremely quiet, so I’m used to it by now.

“Yeah, she is,” Scotty murmurs back with a small, affectionate smile aimed at my— our girl. I still need to remind myself of that every once in a while. My tendencies won’t just disappear in a snap of anyone’s fingers.

“That’s . . .” Cooper clears his throat, not taking his gaze off the slumbering goddess either. “That’s really, really good . . .” His voice fades at the end, features lacking their default grouchiness.

“Good?! Coops, this is amazing!” Tiger is trying desperately to keep his voice down. Which is great, because I don’t want to have to crush his windpipe if he wakes our Bonded up after I’ve just accepted him as my brother. “Oh my gaaaaaawwwd!” Did he just whisper-sing opera? “This is— I can’t even— The trust! The trust to be able to do this! She loves us!” he declares proudly, then sniffles as if overwhelmed by all the emotions rushing through him.

“Agreed. She certainly loved my—”

“Cock.”

Pursing my lips, I squint threateningly between Cooper and Scotty. “Stop doing that.” But I keep my voice quiet so as to not wake our girl, so it loses some of its effect.

Those two and Tiger have recently started doing this annoying fucking thing where they finish my sentences before I can say “cock” myself.

“But it’s so funny,” Tiger snickers, snatching Cooper’s towel from him, then taking the rest of ours when we hold them out to him. He hops off the bed to take them to the laundry basket, picking up the one I threw from the floor along the way, before settling back into the obsidian silks as calmly as possible. I’m admittedly impressed by his devotion to the task.

He sticks his face right in front of Ezla’s.

Scotty sighs, rubbing a hand over his own face. “Careful, Tiger. Don’t wake her.”

“I wasn’t going to. But look how pretty,” he coos, running his fingers ever so carefully over her cheek. It’s more delicacy than I knew he could muster when he’s like a bull in a china shop most of the time.

Alby yawns then, awkwardly covering his mouth with a pale hand. “Sorry . . . Are we sleeping now? In here? I don’t . . . I want to stay in here,” he whispers with a blush that shocks no one.

“Yeah,” Scotty replies. “I think she’ll be okay with it. Where does everyone want to—”

“Dibs!” Like a shot, Tiger dives for her right side.