Ezra woke to a bright light shining directly into his eyes and the heat he had come to associate with Holly pressed along his side. He groaned and pressed his face down into the warm, cinnamon scented hair, smiling slightly when the fingers resting on his stomach twitched and made a half-hearted attempt to tickle him. “You’re ridiculous,” he muttered, keeping his eyes closed.

A warm hand gently cupped his jaw as Holly rolled over so he was facing him. He pressed his lips carefully against Ezra’s, and then flopped back down so he was fully prone. “Go back to sleep,” he mumbled with a yawn.

Ezra giggled and kissed his shoulder, turning on his side so he could wrap his arms and legs around Holly, but the elemental didn’t object just made a sleepy sound and a moment later his breathing evened out. Ezra snickered softly and tucked Holly’s head under his chin. He was awake now and he wasn’t going back to sleep, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hold his husband. He had a fleeting question about Leo and Dimitri but he had fallen asleep probably around dinnertime last night. They may have taken a nap, but they wouldn’t have stayed for the night. The thought made him smile at Holly because that meant the man had climbed into bed with him with no plans of sex or even kissing, just cuddling.

His smile widened as he uncurled his limbs from around Holly and laid flat again. His ribs had begun protesting the awkward angle. He held Holly and dozed lightly, until the fire elemental yawned, snapping him awake. Ezra smiled into his hair and nuzzled against his neck. “Morning.”

Holly shivered and turned over, facing Ezra and smiling sleepily at him. “G’morning.”

Ezra grinned and leaned forward to peck his nose. “You’re cute.”

Holly’s smile widened and he leaned forward to kiss him properly, but Ezra wrinkled his nose. “Morning breath.”

Holly rolled his eyes at him but rolled out of the bed. He tugged Ezra with him. “You need to brush your teeth too.” He yawned widely. “And I need a shower. Maybe you can help with that?”

Ezra laughed, but shook his head. “I’m not supposed to do anything strenuous, remember? And I have fallen every time I have attempted shower sex.”

“A bath then,” Holly said with another yawn. “Not everything has to be sexual.”

Ezra’s eyebrow popped up, unbidden. Holly caught it and snickered. “Hey, I can just cuddle.”

“Yeah, but can I?”

Holly looked at him sternly, putting one hand on his cocked hip. “Not everything has to be about sex.”

“I like sex.”

Holly rolled his eyes. “Really?”

Ezra frowned at him. “Holly, I’m not joking. I- I like romance and cuddling and all that, but I also like having sex every day. At least.”

Holly actually laughed at him. “You think that’s a problem for me?”

Ezra flushed. “It always has been before.”

Holly’s smile softened. “Look, I get you. The out of control sex drive was a problem for me before I got married. I’m sure you’ve noticed our husbands call me insatiable on a somewhat regular basis.”

Ezra smiled slightly. “Our husbands?”

Holly leaned over to kiss his nose. “Yeah. Here’s the thing. I know what you’re thinking and it’s true you probably have a stronger libido than the rest of us, even me. I was happy with just Dimitri for over a year, although, admittedly, he was a bit pent up when we first met. But the point is, I never… I didn’t expect the marriage to last. Not with him, and certainly not the polygamy thing. I dated a lot more than I think you ever did before him, but I cheated. A lot. I stopped when I started dating Dimitri and I haven’t since, but I didn’t expect his sex drive to last and I was right- it didn’t. But he introduced me to his husbands and that worked out. Ezra, we’re polygamists. You’re sleeping with three of us already. You think we can’t keep up? And if it turns out we can’t…” He shrugged. “Look, we’re a jealous lot and we don’t exactly have an open marriage, but… I’ll understand at least. If you need more. Although, really, I don’t foresee a problem fucking you twice a day.”

Ezra giggled and kissed him on the cheek. “I don’t see me stepping out. I just… I need you to know that just because I’m always initiating sex, it doesn’t mean…” He trailed off, unsure what he was trying to say. But Holly seemed to understand anyway, wrapping his arms around him tightly.

“Oh honey, I know. I don’t want you to feel like everything needs to be about sex. We can have cuddles for cuddles’ sake or cuddling lead to sex or cuddling after sex or whatever.”

Ezra snickered and Holly poked him. “I’m just trying to say…” He trailed off before sighing. “I feel like, from the way you act sometimes, that a lot of your life has been about trying to get the sex you need and I’m just saying, well trying to say, that it doesn’t have to be about sex. We can have cuddles in the shower and when you want sex later, we can have sex then.”

Ezra frowned at him. “I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say.”

Holly grinned ruefully. “I’m not sure I know what I’m trying to say,” he admitted. “But let’s just say we have shower sex this morning instead of cuddles. Would it be because you want sex right now or because you think it’s a convenient time to get your daily sexin’?”

“Oh. Oh.”

Holly grinned and patted his head, prompting Ezra to attempt to swat his hand away. “I’m just sayin’, I don’t need a lot of foreplay.”

Ezra snorted.

“And also that foreplay like things don’t actually have to be foreplay even if you want sex later.”

Ezra blushed, but smiled at him. “Thank you.”

Holly grinned and tugged at a strand of hair. “Come on Streaks.”

Ezra grinned and followed him into the bathroom. It was already fully decked out in towels and little soaps and a large pump container of lube.

Holly saw where his eyes were and grinned. “No reason not to be prepared.”

Ezra laughed and picked up one of the toothbrushes. There were seven in a cup, six a different color of the rainbow, and one white one.

“Ooh, we color code those,” Holly said cheerfully. “Malachi’s already blue so you get green. We’ve been needing to do something with that one.”

Ezra laughed. “Do you have these in every room?”

Holly shrugged and shook his head. “Naw. I just have purple, yellow, and blue, and orange, of course.”

“You’re orange, Leo’s red-“

“Yeah, and et cetera. Not exactly hard to figure it out. This is… hopeful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You want that?”

Holly shrugged. “I’m with everyone but Leo and Giovanni and that… seems to be changing. I hope so at least. Leo’s already in love with everyone that isn’t me and, I mean, we seem to be moving towards something really good. I’ll always be jealous of Dimitri but I know I can’t keep him to myself. He deserves to be with everyone he loves,” he said with a gusty sigh.

Ezra laughed softly and kissed his cheek. “Mature,” he murmured.

“Very. Now brush your teeth so I can kiss you.”

The day was spent lazily for Ezra. He was forced back in bed by Holly and told to lie down before the elemental had to leave for work. He had been taking too much time off lately.

Rylan and Malachi shuffled his clothes up from the guestroom around noon but barely said anything. Both looked worried. Ezra kept his questions to himself until Dimitri drifted in with his backpack.

“How did yesterday go? With McCormick? Are they searching the house today?”

Dimitri nodded and perched next to Ezra on his bed. “I think it went well with McCormick yesterday. It’s easier, when we are not hiding so much. He talked to Rylan for twenty minutes and that was the longest.” He picked up Ezra’s hand and stared at, caressing the slender digits. “Rylan is truly sorry for hurting you when he first met you,” he said softly.

Ezra nodded absently. “So it looks like things might be okay?”

Dimitri shrugged. “I don’t know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slender gold band with a large diamond in the middle.

Ezra’s breath caught in his throat and he stared at the ring with something close approaching panic.

“You left it, in the bathroom. I picked it up but it seemed…. I did not want to make you wear it,” Dimitri said softly. “You still don’t need to. Rylan and I rarely wear ours and none of us do all the time except Leo and Giovanni. But I thought you should have it.”

The huge breath of air Ezra had been holding whooshed out. “Thank you,” he said, taking it, but not putting it on his finger. Dimitri smiled down at him and leaned down to kiss his forehead. Ezra rolled his eyes and pulled him in for a less-chaste kiss on the lips.

Dimitri obliged him for a brief time but pulled away with a smile. “You should rest. I believe you have another fifteen hours or so before you can move around freely. Perhaps a bit longer. You moved more than you should have yesterday.”

Ezra sighed gustily. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Can you get me food then? And tell me exactly what’s going on in the investigation?”

“Of course.” He stood quickly and departed. Ezra stared after him, eyes dropping to his ass. God, he wanted to fuck him. He groaned softly and thumped his head against the pillow. The entire day was to be spent mostly prone in bed and not for any fun reasons and he had to be 'careful' for a week.

“You okay?”

Ezra turned to look at the open door, dredging up a smile for Rylan. “A touch bored although Dimitri should take care of that soon.”

Rylan grinned widely. “I missed the show yesterday.”

Ezra shuddered. He turned his eyes to the ceiling stubbornly. “I think Dimitri is just going to feed and talk to me.”

“Aw, that’s no fun.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “I know you’re a voyeur, but do you prefer it to participating?”

When the silence stretched on too long, he glanced at the blonde to find him staring back, all levity gone.

“That an invitation?”

“It certainly wasn’t not an invitation.”

Rylan chuckled and made a show of looking him up and down. “Maybe when you aren’t so banged up.”

“Ouch,” Ezra muttered, trying to make it sound sarcastic. It didn’t.

Rylan’s smile faded and then disappeared altogether. “It actually hurts your feelings that I won’t have sex with you?”

Ezra shrugged, staring up at the ceiling again.

Rylan snorted. “Why? You don’t like me that much.”

“I- Yeah, okay… But nobody rejects me. Not for sex.”

The bed dipped as Rylan settled in next to him.

Ezra kept his eyes on the ceiling. He really didn’t want a gentle talking to.

Rylan grabbed a handful of hair and yanked him up by it, smashing their lips together. He kissed him deeply and thoroughly, and when he dropped Ezra back to his pillows, he left him breathless and with swollen, tingling lips. Ezra brought his hand up to his mouth in surprise and stared up at Rylan who shot him a smug smirk. “You’re not allowed to move today and you aren’t allowed to do anything strenuous for a week. Sex with me is strenuous. To say the least.”

He patted Ezra’s shoulder. “That wasn’t a rejection, that was a… tabling of the offer.”

“Oh.”

Rylan smirked and climbed over him to settle on the far side of the bed. “What was Dimitri going to talk to you about?”

Ezra blinked at him, thrown off slightly. “Uh, the investigation?”

“Aaah, right. You’re kind of out of the loop up here.” He settled against the pillows, pressing their arms together. “They’re looking over the downstairs today. They might make it up here, or it might take a few days, but they’re trying to go fast to make up time. Tomorrow is supposed to be the last day and we’re supposed to be told Friday but we missed a few days and it depends on what they find and how fast and everything.”

Ezra sighed. “What are they even looking for? What are they hoping to find?”

“Well, I suppose it would be bad if they found the dungeon in the basement.”

Ezra turned to stare at him. Rylan grinned. “That was a joke.”

“BDSM dungeon? I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“That’s Leo’s room.”

Ezra snickered.

Rylan’s eyebrow popped up. “I’m not even joking. He likes bondage, a lot. And you’ve been there. He has costumes. And toys.”

“Not that many.”

Rylan laughed. “Next time you’re in there, check the little white dresser. Seriously, even Leo mostly uses that as a playroom. He has a few regular DVDs in there and will even watch TV. Sometimes. But usually he spends most of his time in Giovanni’s room and just screws the rest of us in his room.”

Ezra laughed. “I’ll check it next time I’m in there.”

Rylan nodded just as Dimitri came back in. He paused at the door and then walked in slowly, settling on the other side of Ezra. He handed him a plate of rice and veggies. Ezra smiled at him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”

Dimitri smiled back. “Did Rylan fill you in?”

Ezra nodded. “Yep. As much as he knows.”

Dimitri nodded. “They aren’t being very clear. How was the phone call to your mother?”

Ezra swore and put down his fork. “She wants to visit. Like, immediately.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I- Fuck, I had never told her about all the abuse. She… I think she just thought he hit me once in a blue moon when really drunk which, I mean, with how bad I got with my addictions…” He shook his head. “Rick was always careful when she was visiting. I really didn’t have anything to hide and I was really careful about hiding the bruises I did have. She saw a few fading bruises over like, fifteen years. She freaked out and wants to visit.” He shook his head and grabbed Dimitri’s hand.

Dimitri squeezed gently. “Do you want her to visit.”

Ezra shrugged. “She has a problem with fae. She might actually feel guilty enough to be nice, but… I don’t know. The polygamy thing on top of this might be a problem and- and… I might not even stay.”

Dimitri’s hand spasmed in his. “Why not?”

Ezra shrugged. “Malachi. Mostly. I don’t... He doesn’t like me and he doesn’t want me here. I can understand that and I think I kind of have to respect that if I want to keep this.” He rubbed the back of Dimitri’s hand with his thumb, trying to get the man to relax his grip. “And I do want to keep this.”

Both men on the bed with him froze. Ezra stared down at his and Dimitri’s intertwined hands. Moment of truth. If they had just been saying things, doing things for the investigation, it would come out now. Hopefully. The part where they got truth spelled was over and the men who were looking over the house were a floor away and only had human hearing. There was no reason to lie anymore.

Dimitri moved first, cupping his chin and kissing him softly and insistently. It was just a chaste brush of lips at first, but Dimitri nibbled and licked until he opened up and then he kissed Ezra like he was the only one in the room, like he was important, like he never wanted to stop.

Ezra was the one that had to pull away, his lungs screaming at him. His chest felt too tight and his heart was trying to beat its way out.

Dimitri kissed his chin and neck, anywhere he could reach, like he couldn't bare to pull his mouth away. He was still gasping for breath when he wrapped a hand in Dimitri's hair and smashed their mouth back together, air not near as important as Dimitri's lips on his.

Dimitri broke it off the second time, pressing a gentle chaste kiss to his jaw and smiling gently. “I do want you to remain living here and remain married to us, but if you wish to reside elsewhere and just… date, I will be content.”

Ezra giggled breathlessly, too dazed to even be embarrassed at the noise. “Glad to hear that.”

Rylan snickered and smacked his stomach lightly. ”Right. Mother first. Then worry about hypotheticals that might not even happen.”

Dimitri flinched and huddled closer to Ezra. Ezra frowned and drew him into his arms, cradling him against his side.

“I don’t know. Do you think it would help for my mom to come? She can be pretty… Um... Well, she can be pretty mean.”

Rylan shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll have to meet her eventually. Probably. Might as well get it over with.”

Ezra started and then grinned. “Jeez, you really just go to the balls to the wall with accepting me here, don’t you?”

Rylan smirked. “No point in doing it half-assed.”

Ezra shook his head at him. “Look, she’s caused problems before. She’s my mom, I love her, I don’t want to never talk to her again, but she really, really hates the fae.” He ran a hand through his hair and then winced. “If she comes, I have to dye my hair too. She threw a fit last time she saw me.”

“You shouldn’t have to-“

“I don’t have to. It makes dealing with her easier.” He shrugged. “And across the border, it makes everything easier. I don’t think most people would have ever talked to me if they knew I was fae.”

“Humph.”

Ezra flashed a grin at them. “Look, my mom has issues, but she’s always tried to do her best. She just… She’s old-fashioned. If-“ He stuttered to a halt. It wasn’t really if he stayed anymore, was it? Not if he was being honest. Ezra wasn’t sure exactly what was going to happen but unless the investigation went to hell, he was going to stick around. He had decided weeks ago that he would miss Leo, at the very least, if he disappeared. He cleared his throat. “I mean… Um, you should meet her eventually.” He glanced down at his lap and then nudged Rylan. “Maybe just not in the middle of everything.”

Rylan shrugged. “Up to you.”

“Thank you.”

Rylan stood slowly, doing his best not to jounce Ezra around on the bed. “You’re still on bed rest until tomorrow morning, but I’m taking you out to lunch tomorrow.”

Ezra’s eyebrows shot up. “Why?” he asked suspiciously.

Rylan mirrored his expression and crossed his arms. “Oh, so you can proposition me, but I can’t ask you on a date?”

Dimitri stifled a laugh.

Ezra glared at him. “That wasn’t asking,” he pointed out.

“Well, my dear gentlemanly sir, would you care to accompany me to a place of business to get sustenance?”

“I think I liked the first one better.”

“Hey, you in the skirt, date me.”

Ezra glanced down at his loose sweatpants and t-shirt and then looked up at Rylan who snorted. “Ezra,” he amended. “Would you like to go out with me tomorrow?”
Ezra nodded. “You do remember I can’t have sex for two weeks, right?”

“Oh my god, go hump Holly.”

Dimitri stifled another snicker.

“No need to be an ass.”

“Hey, I’m not joking.” He leered at Ezra. “I’d like to see it.”

‘You know, you never did answer my question.”

“He likes both equally,” Dimitri said softly. “Although not usually at the same time.”

“How do you know that? We’ve only slept together a few times and we actually fucked.”

Dimitri pressed his face to Ezra’s neck, hiding the blush he was sure to have. “A good bit of information was on your questionnaire,” he murmured.

Ezra shivered slightly at the feel of warm breath wafting along his neck. “It just said he liked voyeurism,” he pointed out, proud when his voice came out even. “A lot. Along with a list of like thirty other kinks.”

“Holly and Leo talk a lot. Not to each other, but I’m sure that’s coming.”

Rylan snorted. “They talked about what I like in bed to you?”

Dimitri glanced up. “They didn’t talk about me to you.”

“No dammit.”

“You would have wanted to hear?” Ezra asked with a raised brow.

Rylan shrugged. “I can always enjoy a good story.”

Dimitri shifted against him again, distracting Ezra from answering.

Rylan’s eyebrows shot up and he took a seat at the desk. “I can enjoy a good show too.”

Ezra’s face heated up as he squirmed further under the covers. “Aren’t you leaving? I assumed that was why you were getting up.”

“Oh, so you can proposition me but I can’t watch you have sex?”

Ezra started to shake his head that it was okay, and then nodded. “Yep. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“What?!”

“I don’t do shows for people I haven’t slept with.”

Rylan stood with a sigh. “Oh that just isn’t nice,” he grumbled. He headed to the door, calling over his shoulder, “Have fun without anyone appreciating the show then. And you should probably call your mom when you’re done! Malachi’s family might be coming to visit in the next few weeks too. Maybe have both of them at the same time if your mom be more comfortable around more humans.”

Ezra scowled and pushed his mom out of his thoughts. She was one of the last people he wanted to think about when snuggled up to a guy he was about to have sex with. Or try to have sex with.

He turned towards Dimitri and smiled slightly, kissing him on the cheek.

Dimitri smiled at him. “You propositioned Rylan?”

“Sort of? It wasn’t actually intended as a proposition but he thought it was and I didn’t argue. He is very attractive.”

“He is. And very good at sex.”

Ezra laughed softly and tugged Dimitri on top of him. Dimitri went willingly, once again keeping all of his weight off of Ezra. “I think I need a playbook for your signals.”

“Hm?” Ezra muttered, already going for his shirt.

“I just…. I didn’t pick up you wanted sex until Rylan said it.”

Ezra laughed softly as he unbuttoned the silk shirt. “I almost always want sex. But don’t worry, I have no trouble telling you. You’re very distracting, you know.”

“Hm?”

Dimitri murmured, pushing up the shirt Ezra was wearing to under his armpits.

“Very distracting.”

“Is that so?” Dimitri murmured against his neck, squirming against him again.

Ezra started to nod and then swore. “Son of a bitch! That was on purpose!”

“You didn’t seem to be responding.”

Ezra smacked his shoulder lightly and then tugged off his shirt the rest of the way, barring large amounts of flawless dark skin. “I’ll keep in mind that you’re subtle as all get out,” he muttered, yanking Dimitri’s pants open. "Jeez, talk about needing a playbook."