Alistair had made himself scarce until it came time to order in dinner. Nicholas had wanted Chinese, Elijah had wanted pizza, and Dylan had wanted Thai food. Alistair had said that he didn’t care, and then four pairs of eyes were on Cami. As soon as she’d said she wanted Korean food—specifically a nice order of bibimbap—it was as if no one had expressed any opinion or preference before; everyone suddenly was onboard with Korean.
Cami climbed out of the seat she’d taken and stretched against the stiffness in her muscles. She still wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about being the subject of any kind of prophecy; she wasn’t even sure she believed the story. But the hospitality and generosity of her hosts was appealing. And the wicked witch with the house made of sweets was generous to Hansel and Gretel too, Cami reminded herself. It was obvious that the four men weren’t telling her everything about the situation, but she couldn’t think of a way to realistically get more details. She’d spent some of the afternoon researching the Overton family and managed to at least confirm that the people in the house were who they claimed to be. She also confirmed that Dylan had no reason to lie about the family money; his wing of the family was absurdly wealthy and had been for pretty much its entire existence.
The Overton clan was apparently very reclusive, which Cami reasoned had to do with the ‘secret society’ they belonged to, along with the magic she had seen on display, however briefly. She wanted to know more about the different abilities that the Overtons apparently inherited—beyond Dylan’s ability to conjure fire and Alistair’s apparent natural ability to hypnotize people. She also wanted to know just what ability the four men thought she was supposed to inherit, and how it was going to save their ‘kind.’ That's another good question, Cami thought as she padded into the kitchen. Just what kind are these guys?
“Ah, here’s Cami’s bag,” Elijah said, setting aside her order. Nicholas had been the one to make the call, after writing down what everyone wanted from the menu online. “Bibimbap with beef, and all the pickles and things that go with it.” Elijah looked up from his careful distribution of the food and smiled at Cami, and in spite of her wariness, she felt something inside of her quiver just a bit. The youngest of the Overton cousins had taken the time at some point in the afternoon to put his barely-shoulder-length hair into a loose, low ponytail, and he’d changed into a pair of well-worn jeans and a tee shirt, but there was something in his big, dark brown eyes and ready smile that warmed her from the inside out.
It would have been a lot easier to say no to these guys if they weren’t all incredibly, unjustifiably gorgeous, Cami thought, accepting the takeout bag from Elijah with a quiet “thank you.”
“Do we want to eat in the dining room or the living room?” Nicholas seemed to be more or less in charge, even though he wasn’t the oldest—Dylan was—and the fact that he looked at her when he asked, silently deferring to her yet again, shook Cami. What was happening?
“Dining room sounds good to me,” Cami said, considering the little containers of various pickles, kimchi, and other accoutrements that went along with her meal, and how much more difficult it would be to balance them in the chair she’d claimed in the living room.
“Fine by me,” Alistair said.
“We don’t eat in there often enough,” Dylan chimed in.
“Okay,” Cami said before Nicholas and Elijah could voice their agreement. “Could you all just maybe chill a bit on being so agreeable?” She caught the flash of amusement on Dylan’s face before he suppressed it.
“What do you mean?” Nicholas looked at her steadily.
“I mean, you’re obviously kissing my ass here,” Cami pointed out. “It’s kind of unnerving.”
“You’re a guest in our home,” Nicholas said firmly. “It’s our responsibility to cater to you, make you feel honored.”
“Okay, I’d rather feel comfortable than honored,” Cami said. “And to make me feel comfortable, I’d prefer it if you guys just kind ofdid whatever you normally do, like whatever you normally like, be whoever you normally are.” She looked at each of the cousins in turn to see if her point was sinking in for them.
“I can tell you right now, Nick isn’t going to stop deferring to you,” Dylan said. “And he’s going to keep putting pressure on us to defer to you too.”
“Seriously?” Cami sighed. “Do any of you even like Korean food?” The four men shrugged.
“None of us dislikes it,” Alistair offered.
“The only person who didn’t have an opinion on what we should have for dinner was Alistair,” Elijah said. “In a situation like that, the choice was to go with what our guest wanted or keep arguing for the next hour over what we were going to get.”
Cami pressed her lips together. “We are not ordering takeout the rest of the time I’m here,” Cami told them. “Please tell me you can all cook at least basic stuff?”
All four men looked offended.
“Of course we can,” Nicholas said. “We aren’t completely helpless.”
“Alistair makes good breakfast,” Elijah offered.
“Nick knows how to cook a decent steak and potatoes,” Alistair added.
“Dylan, for some reason, does soup,” Nicholas said.
“And Elijah makes good burgers,” Dylan said. “Also, somehow, salads. No idea where that came from, but Elijah knows how to do it.”
“Then you can each take a turn cooking for us all, and I’ll chip in too,” Cami said, satisfied with that proposition. That could cover the majority of at least the dinners she would be there, and she wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt of knowing that the four men were eating whatever she wanted merely because she wanted it.
“You do know that as soon as you’re out of the room, we’re all going to be arguing over who gets to cook for you first, right?” Dylan smirked as he asked the question, and Cami sighed.
“Okay, ground rule number two: stop treating me like I’m some—I don’t know—some princess you’re all trying to win over so I’ll marry you and you can get my kingdom,” Cami said. “Stop kissing my ass!” She set her food down and crossed her arms over her chest, pinning each of the four men down with her gaze as best as she could. It was difficult, considering that they were all at least a few inches taller than her, and Nicholas and Elijah at least were much more sturdily built than she was.
“Would you rather we treat you like a prisoner?” Nicholas’s bright eyes flashed in a way that Cami would have considered improbable if it weren’t for Dylan’s earlier display of supernatural ability. “You didn’t seem to like even the possibility of that happening earlier.”
“No! I want you to treat me like a regular person,” Cami said. “Just treat me like a temporary housemate. No pandering to my opinion, no going out of your way for me. Just someone who happens to be in the same house.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Alistair said. The other three glared at him. “What? I’m being honest. She needs to know.”
“What do I need to know, and why did you wait until now to tell me?” Cami resisted the urge to stomp her feet, and instead clenched her jaw.
“You already know,” Nicholas told her, his voice surprisingly gentle. “We already told you that you could be the savior of our kind. We can’t just treat you like anyone else under our roof.”
“Especially since you’re incredibly hot,” Dylan chimed in.
Cami took her arms away from her chest and brought her hands up to cover her face. “I am realistic enough to know that I’m moderately attractive,” Cami said. “If I was incredibly hot, I’d have been the one having a bachelorette party, not my friend.”
“Have you considered the possibility that a lot of guys probably think you’re too hot for them?”
Cami brought one of her hands down to look at Elijah, who’d asked the question. “What?”
Elijah shrugged. “It’s just a theory,” Elijah said. “But even if you weren’t one of us, you have this vibe that I’m sure a lot of guys find intimida
ting.” The other three nodded.
“You’ve got the ‘take no shit’ vibe,” Dylan agreed. “A lot of guys hate that in a girl.”
“Don’t give me that ‘you’re intimidating to men’ crap,” Cami said, disgusted.
“No! You aren’t intimidating. They’re intimidated,” Alistair corrected. “It’s part of what drew me to you last night.”
“You’re going to have to explain,” Cami said, frowning.
“Before I figured out who you were,” Alistair explained, “I caught that feeling from you; it’s part of what clued me in that you might have been the woman I was looking for. Our kind is very” He paused, searching for the right word.
“We’re more or less matriarchal,” Nicholas explained. “Like I explained earlier: men of our kind do have traits, but they’re only expressed fully in the women. So, women have power.”
“That didn’t stop Alistair from hypno-drugging me,” Cami countered.
“Once we’ve confirmed that you’re who we think, and we start introducing you to the rest of our kind,” Nicholas said, “you’ll see what we mean. Especially in your case.”
“I’ll wait and see then,” Cami said, already tired of confusing explanations that only brought up more questions. “For now, let’s just eat.”
“Thank God,” Dylan said. “My bulgogi is getting cold.”
Cami took a deep breath, picked up the bag of her food, and turned on her heel, headed toward the dining room that Elijah had shown her earlier in the evening. Dozens of questions began to form in her mind, but she told herself that a week was definitely long enough to get all the answers she wanted. In that moment, what she wanted more than answers was a full belly.
Somehow, the four men herded her toward the head of the table, and Cami would have argued the point, but she knew it was just going to lead to another circular conversation. She sat down and began taking the packages out of her bag, watching the four men do the same with their orders, and wondered just how strange her life was going to become in the next seven days. I really probably should have told Jessica more about what ended up happening last night, Cami thought as she broke apart the disposable chopsticks that had come with her meal and set out the different containers of side dishes. She glanced up to see Nicholas looking at her intently from one side of the table and knew—without even having to ask—that somehow or another, her next one-on-one was going to be with him.
There are worse fates, Cami thought idly, taking in the broad shoulders, muscular chest, and overall panther-in-grass slink of Nicholas’s body. There was one thing she knew the next seven days were not going to be short on: sexual tension. Any of the four men would have been a shock for her to be able to pick up at a bar; hadn’t she been surprised at Alistair’s interest in her the night before? But for all four of them to apparently unanimously agree that they wanted her? Cami shook her head slightly to herself and began mixing up her rice, vegetables, and egg. It would be an interesting week, whatever else happened.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nicholas
By the time Cami padded into the kitchen the next morning, Nicholas had coffee made and ready. He sat at the kitchen table—much smaller, set off to the side, just the place for a quiet contemplation over coffee—reading the news on his phone, waiting for her. All four men had, by mutual agreement, left Cami more or less to her own devices after dinner. It had been incredibly difficult. Nicholas had finally gone to his own bedroom in the sprawling mansion, but he’d spent the night thinking about how to get through to Cami and wondering about her.
“Good morning,” he said, barely looking up from the article he was reading as Cami came in.
“Morning,” Cami said, her voice carefully neutral. Nicholas resisted the urge to smile, turning his attention back to the article on his phone. He had come up with his plan after finally getting a couple of hours of fitful sleep; he would wait for Cami to come to him, with plenty of incentives at hand for her to stay for a while. He’d set up the coffee, left the mansion just before dawn to catch his favorite baker just as she opened, and bought up a little of almost everything in the shop: breads, pastries, even a few of the fanciful desserts that the baker had come up with. Nicholas watched Cami in his peripheral vision as she poured coffee for herself, taking a few moments to find milk and sugar and doctoring her drink the way she wanted it. She turned around and suppressed a laugh as she saw the offering he’d left, arrayed on the kitchen island: not just the different baked goods, but a variety of jams and jellies and softened butter, along with sufficient utensils.
“I know you said no takeout for the rest of the week,” Nicholas said, turning to face Cami. “But I was pretty sure you’d be up before Alistair, and I didn’t want you to have to wait on breakfast.”
“This is kind of a lot,” Cami said, glancing from the stunning array to Nicholas. Nicholas took a moment to focus on the woman mentally, sensing the shift in her energy. She wasn’t activated yet, but they had all agreed the night before that they could feel the potential in her. After another night’s sleep in the mansion, surrounded by draconic essence, that sense of her as one of his own kind was even stronger.
“I’m not expecting you to eat it all yourself,” Nicholas told her. “I get hungry too, and the other three will eat anything you haven’t already claimed.”
Cami shook her head, smiling slightly, and Nicholas resisted the temptation to get up and go to her with difficulty. It was more than knowing what she represented to dragon-kind; it was more than the knowledge that Cami was developing into exactly who they thought she would be. There was something about her that stirred an instinctive, animal kind of desire—something Nicholas rarely felt. He wanted to rip off her clothes, he wanted to see every inch of her body again, with the time to explore each contour.
“I thought I’d said something about kissing my ass?”
Nicholas did smile as Cami began piling a plate with different breads and pastries in spite of her comment. “You seem very focused on that particular phrase,” Nicholas said. He held Cami’s gaze as she looked at him, pausing in the midst of serving herself.
“So?”
Nicholas continued meeting her gaze and smiled slowly. “So, it makes me think that maybe you do want us to kiss your ass,” Nicholas mused. “And maybe not entirely metaphorically.”
Cami’s eyes widened, and Nicholas saw her cheeks light up with color. She took a deep breath, briefly straining the buttons at the front of her pajama top, and closed her eyes. “I am not going to discuss the possibility of any literal ass kissing,” Cami said, opening her eyes once more and avoiding Nicholas’s gaze.
She added a few more slices of fresh bread to her plate and brought it, along with her coffee, to the table, pausing to decide where she wanted to sit. Nicholas was unsurprised when Cami opted for the furthest spot away from him, putting her food and drink down and going back to the kitchen island for butter, strawberry jam, and a pair of knives.
“I’m curious about something,” Nicholas said as Cami settled into her spot, scrupulously avoiding looking directly at him.
“Mmhmm?” Cami spread butter on a piece of bread and began eating, still not looking at Nicholas.
“Last night, you called yourself ‘moderately attractive’ and said that if you were as hot as my cousins and I claimed, it would be your bachelorette party, not your friend’s,” Nicholas began.
“Correct,” Cami said, glancing at him for a half-second between eating bread and drinking coffee.
“You also seemed pretty skeptical of the idea of being too attractive to be approachable,” Nicholas continued.
“Because that is bullshit,” Cami said. “I have yet to meet a guy who doesn’t think he’s God’s gift to women, who doesn’t think that any woman should be flattered to be hit on by him.” She raised one eyebrow, and Nicholas got the distinct impression that she considered him especially to be in that group.
“I’ll agree with you as far as men thinking that they’re
automatically entitled to any woman’s attention, in general,” Nicholas said, and both of Cami’s eyebrows went up slightly in surprise at the admission. “But that’s not the point I’m interested in making. What I’m curious about is how long it’s been since you were with someone.”
Cami’s eyes closed in a slow blink. “I’m not sure that’s really your business,” she said, and Nicholas caught the defensive edge in her voice.
“You’re clearly single right now,” Nicholas observed. “Or I’m sure you’d have mentioned it before this point. There’d have been a boyfriend you would have called yesterday, or you’d have said something to one of us.”
“And you think that I’m single unwillingly?”
Nicholas smiled again. “No, not at all,” he said. “I think you’re single because the majority of men you’ve met, at least recently, pretty much suck.”
Cami chuckled. “And is this you creating an opening to tell me about how you’re much better than them, and I should rip off my clothes and bang you right here on the kitchen table?”
Nicholas shook his head. “No,” he said. “Although if you did want me to bang you on the kitchen table, I wouldn’t say no.”
Cami rolled her eyes and started in on a croissant. “So, what is the purpose of asking about how long I’ve been single?”
Nicholas picked up his cup of coffee and took a slow sip before speaking. “To figure out just how much better one of us would have to make your life in order to convince you to not be single anymore,” Nicholas replied.
“What do you mean ‘one of us’?” Cami set the remainder of her croissant down and looked at Nicholas directly.
House Of Dragons (The Cami Bakersfield Saga Book 1) Page 6