Page 53 of Cold Ignition

“Yeah,” he murmured. “That’s what I was talking about.”

Alexios pulled back just enough to look at Keanu again, eyes darker now, focused.

“You still think you don’t belong here?” he asked.

Keanu’s answer was immediate. “No.”

Alexios nodded once. “Good.”

Rangi moved then—no hesitation, no pause—closing the final gap behind Keanu, one hand sliding around his waist, grounding, steady, possessive in a way that didn’t cage—it anchored. His other hand came up, finally touching, fingers spreading warm over Keanu’s chest as if testing the reality of him.

Keanu sucked in a sharp breath at the contact, muscles tightening under Rangi’s palm.

“Still sure?” Rangi asked softly against his ear.

Keanu’s voice came out rougher. “Yeah.”

“Say it,” Alexios said.

Keanu swallowed, eyes locked on Alexios’s. “I want this. I want you. Both of you.”

Something in Alexios settled—final, decisive. “Then we’re done asking.”

Rangi’s grip tightened slightly, his mouth brushing the side of Keanu’s neck, making him visibly shiver. “About damn time,” he breathed before he placed his mouth against Keanu’s pulse and sucked.

Keanu’s head tipped back instinctively, a low sound catching in his throat before he could stop it.

Alexios’s gaze dropped to his mouth, then lower, tracking the reactions, the shifts, the tells he knew how to read.

Rangi’s thumb stroked once over Keanu’s sternum, grounding, claiming. “God, you taste so damn good,” he murmured. “I want more.”

Alexios’s mouth curved—brief, dangerous. “Bedroom.”

One word. Not a suggestion. A direction.

And this time—none of them hesitated.

Chapter Nine

The bedroom wasn’t large.

It didn’t need to be.

It was built for intention, not excess—clean lines, warm wood, a wide California King bed set into the slide-out Keanu had engineered with obsessive care. There was a faint scent of fresh linen layered over something warmer—sun-warmed metal, the quiet ghost of his own presence, the life he’d imagined for himself long before he’d understood what it might look like.

Now it looked like this. The door shut behind them with a soft, final click.

Keanu felt it in his chest.

A boundary crossed.

No stepping back out of it the same way.

He turned slightly, breath slower than his pulse, taking them in as if this might be the last clear moment before everything shifted again.

Rangi was closest—heat and ease wrapped in one solid, grounded presence. Alexios was just behind him—still, controlled, watching with that steady, assessing gaze that missed nothing.

Keanu had spent two days trying to understand what that look meant when it landed on him.