Chapter 15

Chapter

Fifteen

S omething had changed in Cosmo. Hawk could see it. It was as if someone had turned on a light that had been dimmed since Hawk had known him.

It wasn't just Cosmo though. It was all three of them. Something inside of them had eased. Had lightened.

Hawk was over the moon.

He heard his sweet rosy dragon whistling. And the sound of something moving, deep inside the house.

Curious, he started wandering, searching room by room. He had a basic idea of where Cosmo was, somewhere in the center of the house, in one of the rooms that was smaller and not often used. Something dusty and dark.

No, not dark. Cozy.

Hawk had noticed that Cosmo was trying to use more positive language. It was cute as hell. Cozy.

BANG!

Cosmo?

"Mate?"

Oh dear. That wasn't mental. That was vocal, which was probably bad, because that meant that Cosmo didn't want him to really know what was going on.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. I was just. Moving something…heavy."

He'd obviously done enough searching, and so he found Cosmo with his mind. He simply went straight to Cosmo, finding him smack dab in the center of the house.

Literally in the heart of the house.

This was a room with no windows and precious little but a chair, a bookshelf, and stairs—one going up and one going down. It functioned more as a landing than a room really. And yet, somehow, Cosmo had managed to drag up a desk, or possibly a dresser. It was an odd piece of…

"What is that and how did you get it up here?" Hawk asked.

"I dragged it. It's a map case."

"Oh. Do you have many maps?"

"No, but I like it. Do you like it?" Cosmo gave him a hopeful smile.

"I—"

"I ordered it online, it came today."

"Ah." He didn't really know what to say. Cosmo was perfectly within his rights to bring a map case up to this room. "Do you need help?"

Cosmo blinked at him a little bit and then smiled. "I would love some. Can you help me move it over here to this corner? I thought it would be a good place for a lamp. Then I thought you could put some of your more special pieces from your hoard in the drawers so that they'd be safe, and you could look at them without getting so dusty."

Hawk melted. "You bought this for me?"

"I did. I thought this is a safe place. No one knows really that this room is here, and then you would have a place where you could sit with a lamp and look at your favorite stones."

Hawk grabbed Cosmo up and kissed him hard. "I love it. Thank you."

Cosmo gave him a wicked grin. "How much do you love it?"

"Very much, my love." Hawk tugged Cosmo against him. "In fact, I want to show you how much. But not here where it's still so dusty."

Cosmo kissed him again, moaning, which surprised him. This was escalating quickly.

"Let's go to our room." Cosmo took his hand and pulled him, racing with him in far better than human speed to their room, where he started stripping off Hawk's clothing. He was flushed brighter than usual, and his fingers trembled. "Need you."

Hawk smiled slowly, taking in Cosmo's scent and feeling something click into place that hadn't before.

Cosmo was in heat, he thought.

"Anything you need, my love." He pressed Cosmo down on the bed, his cock rising, readying his knot to do what it was meant for. He took a kiss that had Cosmo writhing and yanking at Hawk's clothes.

"Promise?" Cosmo said, gaze begging him to help him.

"Yes, my love, I promise. Anything at all."

C osmo stretched, curling his fingers and toes, really going with it.

He'd been in bed. For days. Like three days, he thought, but he'd sort of lost track. He'd sent Hawk down to the kitchen for food and beverage, and now he was just waiting to see what Hawk had scrounged.

Cosmo sat up, pulling the sheet around his waist to remove temptation when Hawk came back. They couldn't seem to keep their hands off each other.

He supposed it was normal. After all, the houses—well, it'd never been bad, but it was coming together nicely now. Cosmo felt that everything, not just the bedroom, had little touches that belonged to him too.

There were dozens of little places to sit and snuggle. To read. To play games. Just to talk.

Goddess knew he loved to sit and chat for hours over a jigsaw puzzle, a game of Go or chess.

Cosmo snuggled back into the pillows, glancing out the window. The snow had started around mid-October, and now that they were sliding into Thanksgiving, everything was deep and white.

Most of their supplies had been brought in already. They could get down to pick up packages if they needed to, but it was dangerous to fly there, so they tried to only do it once a month.

Fortunately for them, if they needed fresh veggies, they could just pop out to the dragon side of the universe where it was, happily, summer. They could get ripe berries, lettuce, and whatever they needed that was tasty and good. It was really handy how that worked out.

Hawk was very into making smoothies, especially out of some of the fruits that were unusual to him.

As if thinking of Hawk made him appear, his mate walked in, smoothies and a massive plate of sandwiches in his hand.

He arched one eyebrow at the stack of sandwiches, and Hawk shrugged. "Your brothers have been worried about us. They sent sandwiches."

"I like sandwiches and I'm starving." He wiggled happily, his stomach snarling. "The snow's coming down again."

"It is. I love it. It reminds me of when I was young." Hawk tilted his head. "I think it does, at any rate."

"Tell me about it?"

"There was lots of snow. But also volcanic stuff underground. So hot springs. Hot sand. All the good stuff. I would have to ask Bakli exactly where it was…"

Hawk came to sit with him, the sandwiches between them, handing him a smoothie.

"Thank you, love." He grinned because he would probably rather have hot chocolate, but Hawk was so proud of his blender skills.

"You're welcome. And Corbin said hot chocolate and cookies downstairs tonight. We are not just invited, we are required."

Cosmo laughed softly. "That sounds like Corbin."

"I am not offended." He grabbed a sandwich.

"What kind do we have?"

"Ham and cheese. Turkey and provolone. I think tuna fish."

He gagged a little bit. "No tuna. No, I think turkey and provolone for me, thank you." That actually sounded really yummy. "So, cocoa, huh? Are we having a movie night? Did he say?"

Corbin had decided that they were having family night at least once a week. Sometimes they played games, sometimes they did puzzles, sometimes they watched movies, sometimes they kicked each other's asses on Fortnite.

It just depended.

It was kind of unfair how good Hawk was at video games, considering he'd never even seen one before they had met. Whatever.

That part didn't matter.

The part that mattered was all of them together, bundled up on the great big couch, being idiots together.

He knew what was important.

Hawk grabbed his smoothie and handed Cosmo a quarter of a turkey sandwich before settling on the bed and arranging himself. "How are you, mate? Are you sore?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? That would make you feel all alpha dragon studly. ‘I knotted my mate twenty-seven thousand times in the last three days. Are you tender?'"

Hawk grinned, totally unrepentant. "Uh-huh. So are you sore?"

"Yeah, in that don't touch it, it's tired sort of way." Cosmo cracked up. "I'm fairly sure that a couple of the times we did that, I could taste you when I swallowed."

They both started laughing, just kind of howling their joy. The simple fact was they had been together and had really had an enormous amount of fun. In fact, Cosmo was thinking that he might be done with fun for at least, oh, five or six hours now.

Hawk grabbed him and hugged him tight. "Have I mentioned how incredibly joyful I am that you were in my home when I got here?"

Cosmo snorted, tossing his head. "I am your home, dragon. Also? I need to wash my hair."

Hawk nodded. "We'll bathe after we eat, and I'll wash everything. Make sure it's all clean."

"You'll wash gently—everything right?"

That started them laughing again.

"Absolutely everything." Hawk winked for him, then tore into a sandwich. He seemed ravenous.

Cosmo got that actually. His sammy and smoothie were gone so fast that he blinked at the empty glass in his hand. Huh.

He set the glass aside and took up another sandwich piece. "These are yummy." He peered at it to make sure it wasn't tuna.

"They are. I wish there were chips. I should have thought of chips."

He laughed at Hawk's lament. "I could ask Cullen to bring them up."

"Mmm. No. Not just now. I want you all to myself for just a bit longer."

"To snuggle but nothing else, right?" He wasn't up to anything else. In fact, he was starting to get sleepy again halfway through this sandwich.

"Yes. You look tired, love." Hawk reached out to stroke his cheek.

"I am, kinda. Is that weird?"

"No. I think we should curl up together. If I do not wish to sleep, I will read."

"Oh, I like that."

He did too. He loved the idea of just snuggling up and resting. He wasn't hiding. Wasn't worried or nesting or… anything.

He was just happy.

It worked for him.

He liked it a lot. Cosmo yawned, putting the plate of sandwiches on the little table that sat far enough away that he wouldn't smell tuna. It was a reach, but he didn't want it on the bedside table.

Hawk reeled him back in when he leaned too far.