Page 59 of Colin

Fox blinked at the change of subject. “Your boy?”

“Colin.”

Fox bristled. This little shit. “Yourboy?”

“Oh ho!” Jamie cackled, the delighted sound grating on Fox’s nerves. “Touchy, touchy. How’s he doing? I’m worried seeing Derek might’ve messed with his head. That guy was always a cunt.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t you do anything about it?” Fox had been wondering about it since they’d run into the dick. Jamie seemed protective enough of his friends—he was certainly protective as hell over his psychotic mate. Why wouldn’t he have protected Colin back then?

“What the fuck was I supposed to do?” Jamie asked, for once not sounding like he was on the edge of laughter. “He thought he was in love. And it’s a cardinal rule—you don’t tell someone their boyfriend is an asshole.”

“Your boyfriendisan asshole.”

“I know,” Jamie said with a happy sigh, sounding proud of the fact. “But never to me. And that’s what counts, right?”

Questionable fucking morals, this one.

Fox watched Colin through the window. He was whispering something into Dane’s ear now, and the look on Dane’s face… Fuck, he couldn’t look more smitten if he tried. “Do you regret it?” he asked Jamie, hating himself a little for it. He and the kid weren’t exactly gal pals. “Letting him turn you?”

Jamie scoffed. “Of course not.”

Yeah, second-guessing didn’t really seem to be up the little punk’s alley. Still… “What if he hadn’t been your mate after all?”

“Stupid question,” Jamie answered immediately. “We both knew we were mates. And even if we hadn’t…even if I’d only known what I felt when I looked at him…I’d still have done it.”

Fox bit his lip, his eyes still fixed on the blue-haired human a window away. He wanted to know what he was saying, why he was smiling. He wanted to know what he was thinking. He always wanted to know what he was thinking. “Sappy,” he accused.

“That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? A fellow sap to give you permission to give in to your urges.”

“And are you?” Fox asked. “Giving me permission?”

“Not my place, dude. All I know is if youdomake the wrong call and hurt our guy, there’re quite a few vampires in the southwestern region who will make sure you regret it.”

Fox’s devil protested wordlessly inside him. It wasn’t any other vampire’s place to protect Colin. It was theirs—his and Dane’s. No one fucking else’s.

He knew better than to voice that out loud. Jamie would tell Colin, and Colin would probably bitch-slap Fox for being presumptuous. “Noted.”

“Anyhoo, let me chat with Luc and get back to you on the plotting murder side of things. Tell Colin I said—” There was the obnoxious sound of kissy noises through the phone.

Fox hung up.

Sometimes he really hated that kid.

“Cut itout.”

Fox grinned. “What? I’m not doing anything.”

Colin’s scowl might have been intimidating, if it didn’t have the unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how one looked at it) side effect of making Fox horny as fuck. “You are. You’re…you’reticklingme,” Colin accused, managing to make it sound like the most heinous of offenses. He tilted his head up to look plaintively at Dane, who was toying with his hair. “He’sticklingme.”

They were sprawled out on the couch together in what was turning into one of their favorite configurations: Colin with his head in Dane’s lap, his legs resting on Fox’s. He and Dane were watching some ridiculous superhero movie while Fox read his book.

And it was maybe true that Fox wasoccasionallyrunning his fingertips along the arch of Colin’s foot. But who could blame him? It was just so fun to watch him squirm and scowl. And maybe Fox liked the attention—could Colin really claim to be surprised?

Speaking of attention…

“Hey, why don’t we flip?” Fox asked.

Colin, who had already gone back to watching the TV screen, cocked a brow, not even giving Fox the satisfaction of looking over this time. “Excuse me?”

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