"When?"
The word was, in Gregoris's mouth, both a practical question and something far more dangerous… a logistical inquiry wrapped around raw want, stripped of ornament and made all the more ruinous for it.
Rafael's breath caught.
Gregoris's thumb moved slowly along the line of his jaw, warm and possessive. The sensible part of Rafael - the father, the strategist, the man who knew perfectly well what adding another child meant in real terms - tried, briefly, to reassert itself.
It lost.
"Preferably," Rafael began, and heard the slight unsteadiness in his own voice, "soon."
He noticed an immediate shift in Gregoris, but Rafael wasn't done.
He leaned in just enough for his mouth to brush Gregoris's ear, his next words quieter, lower, and more intimate for being offered so close.
"Or," he murmured, "when my heat comes."
Gregoris made a low sound in his throat - a rough, restrained note of approval that sent heat straight through Rafael's body.
