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Jay wriggled in place on the counter, clearly pleased with the reassurance. Alexei pressed a kiss to his temple, taking a moment to inhale that lovely peppermint smell while he was there. “How many ways have I told you I love you today?” he murmured.

It was a little game they played these days. A way to assuage Jay’s bottomless need for reassurance and affection and Alexei’s matching, bottomless need to give them to him. Alexei tried to get each love language in at least once every day. He usually succeeded many times over.

Jay scrunched his brows in thought, nibbling at his bottom lip again. “Well, you told me this morning how much you love me. And also that I was—” He paused, cheeks flushing with adorable embarrassment.

“Yes?” Alexei encouraged, pressing a kiss to his ear, watching the delicate shell turn a light pink in response.

“That I was perfect and gorgeous,” Jay mumbled, wriggling again.

Words of affirmation.

Alexei kissed Jay’s pink cheek. “And?”

Jay giggled. “You carried me to the coffee shop on your back because I thought it was funny.”

An act of service, even if it was a silly one.

“Mm. So I did.” Alexei pressed a kiss to the tip of Jay’s nose. “And?”

“And you gave me candy at work.” Jay grinned at the memory of it.

“A little gift for my little love.”

“And you waited for me at the coffee shop for hours, just so I could talk to you when it was slow,” Jay continued, unprompted.

Quality time. That was an easy one, as they were pretty much always together. Maybe at some point, Alexei would get a proper job, but at the moment, he was knee-deep in trying to figure out Jay’s massive, complicated finances for him, which he could do on his own time, in Jay’s presence.

Alexei pressed a kiss to Jay’s chin. Jay hummed happily. “And now you’re kissing and touching me. And you’ll probably touch me even more?”

“Mm. Definitely more.” Alexei kissed Jay’s neck lightly, keeping it chaste for the moment. “And what should we do for the rest of the evening?”

He liked asking because even though Jay was happy with most things—always eager to go with the flow, as long as he was with people he cared for—Alexei liked giving him practice saying what he really wanted. He hadn’t had nearly enough of that in his life.

Jay tilted his head in thought, and also clearly in a not-so-subtle effort to encourage Alexei to kiss his neck some more. “Well, I think we should be naked,” he declared, almost immediately.

“How shocking,” Alexei murmured dryly, obliging Jay’s silent request and kissing the other side of his elongated neck.

It was anythingbutsurprising. Jay couldn’t get enough of what he liked to deem “cozy nudity.”

“I’d like to maybe draw later. Oh! Oh!” Jay tugged at Alexei’s shirt. “I could draw you naked. I haven’t done that yet. It’ll be just like that scene inTitanicwhere Jack sketches Rose but without all the tragedy afterward.”

Jesus.Titanic. Which was now on the forbidden list of movies, ever since it had made Jay cry for what felt like hours afterward. If Alexei could murder a movie, he’d murder that one.

But if Jay wanted to sketch him like one of his French girls, that was fine with Alexei. “You can draw me however you like, sweetheart.”

Jay’s gray eyes lit up with excitement. “And maybe we could learn a new recipe together?”

“Most definitely.”

“But maybe before all that…” Jay shimmied his hips in place again. Alexei knew what was coming—he could feel the lust swirling in his sweet mate’s belly, as well as the visible bulge of Jay’s burgeoning erection—but he liked hearing the words anyway. Loved that Jay felt empowered enough to voice them. “Maybe you’ll love up on me a bit?” Jay peered up at him through his lashes with the question. Had Soren been teaching him how to flirt?

Alexei let out a slow, ragged exhale, unbelievably turned on by the thought of Jay trying to seduce him. “Oh, kitten. I’m going to be doing that no matter what.”

He started tugging at the stretchy waistband of Jay’s dark-blue sweatpants, ready to have them out of the way. But then he paused, feeling at the fabric between two fingers. It was oddly thick, almost luxurious, and incredibly soft on the inside.

Alexei took a step back, ignoring Jay’s whine of disappointment, and looked over Jay’s outfit with new eyes, the matching pants and sweatshirt. “Are you wearing…a designer sweatsuit right now?”

“Oh!” Jay peered down at his clothes, smoothing down the fabric and nodding shyly. “Yes. It was a compromise with Soren.”

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