CHAPTER 7

Basil's POV

The fluorescent hum of the Cavendish Sky Tower Residence kitchen seemed unusually loud. I closed out the financial trades-all algorithms and data streams-and finally allowed myself to inhale. The air was thick, heavy with the unmistakable metallic tang of sweat and spent lust. It was the scent of a primal transaction.

I stepped through the door, moving to the island made of stainless steel. I sat down, and a few seconds later, Baxon walked in. He looked rumpled, energized, and utterly self-satisfied-just the way I'd known he would.

“I see you have had time to bond with Kathy,” I said, keeping my tone dry.

Instinctively, Baxon smoothed his disheveled hair and adjusted the collar of his shirt. "What makes you say that?"

“Look at yourself. Do I really have to explain it?”

“Right. Um. Yeah.” He sat down beside me, setting a small, disc-shaped tin down on the marble counter with a clatter.

I reached for it, recognizing the Montalvo name on the prescription label beneath the brand. "Birth control? Did you try to get her to take these?" I raised an eyebrow, expecting a lecture.

A soft, unsettling smile came to Baxon's face. "On the contrary. I stopped her from taking it."

“Really now? And then you fucked her, and for some reason I am doubting you showed the proper discipline in pulling out before you busted your nut.” I threw the tin back toward him.

“Hey, you didn’t, so why should I?” he said, with absolutely no remorse.

"Because I remember you chewing me out yesterday about not littering bastards everywhere."

“Well, little brother,” he stressed the two-minute difference with relish, “let’s just say you painted an incredibly vivid picture for me, and I liked what I saw. Fuck, she’s hot enough already to be doing this to us. What other girl had driven us this batty?”

He had a point. Our conquests were usually calculated, wrapped in latex, and left in the morning. Kathy Montalvo somehow bypassed every protocol. She was an anomaly that demanded we ignore our self-imposed rules.

"I expected you to throw more of a fit, Jules."

I shrugged, genuinely surprised by my lack of anger. “She’s something special. And I guess my primal monkey brain can be a bit rational sometimes.”

“Primal monkey brain?”

"We're both fucking her. No protection. No restraint. There's something inside us that sees Kathy as our one true mate, and it's kicking us into wanting to make her bear our children. It's our most basic biology. We think we're above it, what with being geniuses and creating massive, effective numerical algorithms, but we're still human. Still primates. Still not much more than beasts." The analysis sounded clinical, yet the underlying desire was a physical ache.

“How does that make a rational, primal monkey brain?” Baxon challenged.

“Well, who else on this planet has the exact same genes as I do? Who’s pretty much my clone at the genetic level?”

He laughed. “Me, unfortunately. It’s a horrible burden to carry, believe me.”

“Not what I mean, bro. Whoever's seed does claim her, we both claim her. She belongs to both of us. It's a genetic redundancy. A guarantee.”

Baxon rubbed his chin, a smirk spreading across his face. "I see where you're going. I guess you're fully on board with the whole knock-her-up train, even though we both know it's a bit crazy?"

“You gonna stop? You gonna keep your dick in your pants, or at least remind yourself to wrap it up?”

“Uh…” He paused, really considering the impossible task.

“Exactly.”

I stood, snatching up the birth control tin, and made my way over to the kitchen sink. I opened each slot, carefully popping the small, chemical deterrents and sending them down the drain. I followed with the garbage disposal, the grinding noise loud and final.

“The way I see it,” I said, now leaning against the sink, “is we stop fighting our instincts. Our bodies are trying to push us toward something good, and I’m not going to deny it.”

“Give in to our baser desires to the fullest, huh?

“It is not like we cannot afford to treat our whims, and hey, maybe being a grandmother will help bring Mom back down to earth and back from this Jean Pierre Valdez asshole, whoever he is.”

"Yeah, use our success to make ourselves happier, huh?" Baxon went silent a moment, the emotional side of him coming up. "What if she's not on board with it?"

“She sounds like she's pretty on board with it.”

“Yeah, but she hasn’t really been able to think about it. We just sweep her up in that moment, take her, and not even let her rationally think it through. I mean, it’s fun and all, but I can’t help but feel I’m taking advantage of her.”

I scowled. Baxon and his damn ethics. It was the only flaw in our shared coding. “Well then. If she comes up and tells either one of us she wants no part of this, it’s hands off. She makes us both hot as hell, but if she says no, then we don’t go. We deal with it. We let her do the job properly and care for Tifania. We’ll just have to get used to walking around with raging erections until the novelty wears off.”

“Fuck, that sounds painful.”

“You’re the one who had to bring up ethics, man.”

“It's for the better, I know, but damn.”

I looked at him, searching for real weakness. "You really think she has a chance of turning us down? She's the same sort of monkey-brain driven sack of hormones that we are, man."

“I know, just…” His doubt was a fissure in the foundation of my certainty. It suggested that this primal fantasy-this solution to our emotional and genetic need for permanence-was fragile. That the woman I had just initiated into our dangerous world could, in fact, reject the very thing my biology screamed for. 

What a terrible thought. To have tasted heaven twice, only to be forever locked out. I pushed away from the sink, the lingering scent of my own destruction a morbid perfume. 

“We play the waiting game then. But we don't back off the temptation. She chose to walk into the lion’s den, Baxon. Now we see if she’s a predator or prey.”