I Wanted One Stepbrother, So All Three Claimed Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Dish Rota

Leif turns polite and cold over breakfast, Tilda defends the dish rota on the fridge, and Soren drags Kenji into the shower and goes to his knees.

Leif flipped a pancake without turning around.

"Morning, Ken," he said.

Leif had called him Ken every morning since the night in the laundry room.

It was a name for a houseguest, and it stung.

Kenji stood in the kitchen doorway in his socks, with his hair still wet from a two-minute rinse.

He looked at the broad back in the gray henley.

Leif's shoulders were set so high they almost touched his ears.

"Morning," Kenji said.

"Eggs are on the stove. Coffee's fresh."

"Leif," Kenji said.

"Eat something before class."

The kitchen was the loudest room in the house, even at seven.

Erik sat at the table in wire-rimmed glasses with a laptop open next to his plate, copper hair sticking up on one side.

He did not look up from his screen, but the corner of his mouth was twitching.

Tilda stood at the refrigerator with a clipboard and a pen behind her ear, tapping a finger against the whiteboard.

She was fourteen, with a long blond braid and braces, and she ran the house like a small, serious bank.

"Friday dishes are Leif," she announced. "Saturday is Soren, Sunday is Erik, Monday is Leif again. Kenji doesn't have a column because he cooks."

"What's the dish rota for?" Kenji asked.

"Dishes," Tilda said.

She said it fast, and Erik coughed into his coffee.

Kenji looked at the whiteboard.

Down the side ran the days of the week in Tilda's tidy handwriting.

Next to each one was a single initial: L, E, S, L, E, S, L.

There was no K anywhere on it.

He thought that was strange, and then Leif set a plate in front of him with three pancakes and a fried egg, and he forgot.

"I'm not going to pretend," Kenji said.

He said it low, so that only Leif and the table could hear.

Leif's hand stopped on the spatula.

"I'm not sorry," Kenji said. "And I'm not going to act like it didn't happen. You called it a mistake and then you stood on the stairs and let Erik tease you. I'd like to know which of those was the mistake."

Erik made a small, delighted sound.

"Eat your eggs," Leif said.

"Leif."

"I know you're not sorry." Leif turned around at last, and his eyes were red-rimmed and very steady. "That's the problem, Ken."

He took his tool bag and his keys off the hook by the door, and he left.

The back door shut with the soft click of a man trying not to slam it.

Tilda looked at Erik.

"Told you," Erik said, and went back to his laptop.

"Told you what?" Kenji asked.

"Nothing, Tanabe. Eat."

The mudroom door banged open.

Soren came in from five a.m. practice with his hair dripping and his swim bag over one shoulder, and the kitchen got louder.

He dropped the bag on the floor, crossed the room, and wrapped both arms around Kenji from behind.

He put his nose into the side of Kenji's neck, and breathed in.

"You smell like Leif," Soren said.

Kenji went rigid.

"Soren," Erik said.

"What? He does. It's all over him." Soren's grip tightened. His mouth was against Kenji's ear. "Cedar and copper. He got to you first."

"Soren," Erik said again, warning.

"I'm going to rinse this chlorine off," Soren said cheerfully, to the room. "Kenji's going to help me find my goggles."

"Your goggles are in your bag," Tilda said.

"Nope."

He picked Kenji up around the waist and carried him out of the kitchen with his feet off the floor.

Kenji did not fight it.

Upstairs, the bathroom was already filling with steam.

Soren kicked the door shut with his heel and set Kenji down against it.

He was six-two, wide through the shoulders and narrow at the waist, and he was already stripping off his sweatshirt.

"You don't have to," Kenji said.

"I want to."

"I mean, you don't have to do the thing where you win."

"It's not a contest." Soren grinned, white-blond and sunny, and then the grin went away. "It's a claim, Kenji. Leif doesn't get to be the only one."

He pushed Kenji's shirt up and kissed his stomach, just above the waistband, with an open mouth.

Kenji's hands went into Soren's wet hair.

"Say yes," Soren said.

"Yes."

"Say it like you mean it," Soren said.

"Yes, Soren, please."

Soren dragged his sweatpants down and went to his knees on the bath mat, and took him into his mouth all at once.

Kenji's head thumped back against the door.

It was hot and wet and tight, and Soren set about it with total focus.

He took him to the root and hummed around him until Kenji's knees buckled.

"Jesus."

Soren pulled off with a slick pop and looked up through his lashes.

His lips were swollen and shining.

"Tell me how it was with Leif," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I want to do it better."

He sank down again, and one big hand wrapped around the base while the other cupped Kenji's ass and pulled him in.

Kenji bit his own wrist to keep from shouting.

The shower roared behind him.

Soren worked him with a swimmer's patient lungs, long slow pulls that ended in a tongue flicked under the crown.

Every time Kenji's hips jerked, Soren held them still against the wood.

"Look at me," Soren said, around him.

Kenji looked.

Soren's pale eyes were fixed on his face, wide open and a little wild.

He moaned when Kenji's cock hit the back of his throat.

That did it.

"I'm going to..."

Soren hummed, an encouragement.

Kenji came with a muffled cry, and Soren swallowed every drop, his throat working, his hands bruising on Kenji's hips.

Then, before Kenji had breath to be grateful, Soren turned his head and set his teeth against the soft inside of his thigh.

He bit.

It was not gentle, and it was not a nip.

Kenji gasped and his fingers clenched in Soren's hair, and Soren licked the mark, and looked at it, and smiled.

"There," he said. "That one's mine."

He stood up, lifted Kenji's chin with one wet finger, and kissed him, slow and thorough, so that Kenji tasted himself.

"Erik's next," Soren said, against his mouth. "He'll say he hates it."

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