Page 77 of Demon's Desire
Nico cursed himself internally for making Harper uncomfortable. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t appropriate.”
Harper’s attention snapped back to him. “What? No. I want to be able to talk to you. We’re friends, not just coworkers. I don’t have much experience talking about my, um, sex life. It makes me awkward. That’s all. Sometimes it feels like I don’t have experience with anything. It’s like my life didn’t start until I left my coven.”
Nico opened his mouth.
“Do not apologize for not helping me more than you did. We’ve been over this.” Harper pointed an accusing finger at Nico, who clamped his mouth shut.
He took a second to finish hiscoffee.
Nico had been intrigued by Onyx from the start, had this desire to figure him out and not let him get away. If that wasn’t being drawn, then what was? Being mates fit, but without knowing Onyx’s feelings, there was no way to be sure.
Nico wanted Onyx so much, he was at risk of seeing things that weren’t there. He needed an outside opinion at the very least.
“Don’t laugh, but I think I’m Onyx’s mate.”
Harper squealed in a pitch so high, Nico winced. He flung himself on Nico and crushed him into a hug. “Oh, Satan, I’m so happy for you. I totally called it.”
Nico’s heart pounded, and nerves rocketed through him. “You called it?”
“You two have been spending a lot of time together. It makes sense. Tell me how it feels.” Harper pulled back and inspected Nico.
“It feels like I don’t want to live without him.”
It was intense but true. Nico couldn’t lose Onyx, couldn’t watch Onyx move on and leave him behind. They could grow together, bring others in to join them, but Onyx and Nico were the beginning of a core, a foundation. They had to be a part of each other’s lives from here on out.
This had to be what the mating bond felt like.
Harper bounced up and down. “Aww.”
Nico laughed. “I didn’t think you’d be this happy.”
“Why not? I want everyone to have a mate. You deserve a fated love. I have to tell Ash. He might actually be right.”
“Ash thinks I’m Onyx’s mate?”
“Not exactly. He had a theory. Since Ollie was Dante’s mate and I was the one to bring Ollie into our group, Ash wondered if I’d found Onyx’s mate too. Except he guessed Dex, and that was wrong. You being the third mate actually fits better. It’sallfate. There’s no way it was randomchance that I rented a room with Ollie and got a job with you, and we’re all demons’ mates.”
“The odds do seem slim.”
“Not slim, one in a million. Maybe even less likely. The demons have been searching for thousands of years, and then, boom, three mates all connected to each other? It’s about fated connections. Who says they only form between mates? Why not among families? The brothers have each other. It follows that as their mates, we’d have our own bond.”
When put that way, Nico’s doubts began to fade.
He was scared of wanting this and being wrong, but the intensity with which he longed for Onyx wasn’t usual. Instead of seeing it as a sign he’d be heartbroken, it could be a sign he was right.
“Can I tell Ash?” Harper pulled out his phone.
“Not yet.” Nico grabbed Harper’s hand. “I need to talk to Onyx. He hasn’t even hinted that we could be mates. I need to figure out how he feels before anyone else gets wind of what I’m thinking.”
Onyx wanted some form of relationship with him, but was he as all in as Nico? Was fear holding him back?
Harper put his phone away. “Okay, yeah. I won’t tell anyone we talked. But I need to come up with something to tell Ash.”
“Why?”
“He’s going to ask what got me so excited, and passing it off as a reaction to a super successful brew seems unlikely.”
“He’ll know you got excited?” Nico’s heart skipped. He’d heard there was a telepathic element to the mating bond, but not exactly how it worked.
