The gray top I had found to wear was technically a button-up in the front, but it was loose enough that I could just pull it off, which was exactly what I did, leaving me in just the matte black bra that I had found. The slight padding it had pushed my breasts to the top, making them look plump and ripe for the picking. Before I could resume my attentions on his neck, Noah sat up, his hands going to the bra, squeezing and massaging its contents.
A low moan escaped my throat as he found my nipples even through the thick material, gently pinching them between his fingers as though he knew exactly what I needed. Lightning bolts of pleasure rushed to my core, and my hips bucked against his.
“Noah, I need . . .” My voice trailed off before I could finish expressing myself as his hips ground up into mine.
“I know what you need. Don’t you worry.”
Before I could process what was happening, he had me up against him, my legs wrapped around his hips, and was walking us to a room I’d never been in before. As soon as we entered, the smell of summer overwhelmed me, and I knew it was his bedroom.
His mouth claimed mine, truly claimed it. It was not the kisses we had been exchanging in the kitchen; now there was a hard, desperate edge to it as he sucked on my lower lip, his teeth grazing it just enough to have me writhing against him. It was as if now that we were behind closed doors, he could really be himself.
Noah bit and licked and sucked. Each and every motion seemed to be calculated to bring the maximum amount of pleasure, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand just being held and kissed. I needed his touch, his skin on my skin.
We sank onto a luxurious bed, and once I was resting against it, he pulled back. “Don’t be scared,” was all he said before one finger shifted into a giant dragon talon. He hooked it under the center of my bra, between my breasts, and sliced upward. The material fell away, exposing me to his hungry eyes.
His mouth was on one of my nipples before I could even protest that he was fully dressed, while one of his hands went to the other, squeezing and rolling it between his finger and thumb. The pleasure building inside me was beyond anything I’d ever experienced before. I knew that if he didn’t let me come soon, I would be a quivering mess on the bed.
“Noah!” I gasped as he thrust against my hips. I regretted ever getting dressed. If I had known this was the direction my day was going to take, I would have just paraded around naked.
At the sound of his name, a roar ripped from his throat and his hands went to my shorts. “Can I take them off?” His voice sounded more animal than man, and for some reason, that turned me on even more.
I nodded hastily. “Please!”
Hot fingers hooked into my shorts, popping the button off and tearing the zipper instead of undoing them. The material almost copied my bra in falling apart, but a few pesky seams kept it in place. Noah’s hands hooked into the matching black panties and pulled everything down, his hands caressing my legs along the way. My skin felt as if it were on fire for him. Everywhere he touched left a line of heat embedded in me, as if I were being permanently marked as his.
The next thing I knew, his mouth was on my inner thigh as he spread my legs, opening me to him like a flower to the sun. I gasped as he moved from my thigh to my sex. His tongue licked up in one long stroke until he found my bundle of nerves. He drew circles around it, making me squirm in pleasure. Everything in me built toward a climax the likes of which I had never had before, and when he slid two fingers into my hot, wet core, I knew I wouldn’t last much longer.
His long, talented fingers began to thrust in and out of me while his tongue worked magic on my clit. When he added a third finger and increased the tempo of his thrusts, I grabbed the sheets around me, needing something to hold on to. Everything began to shake as his hand and tongue worked my pussy into a frenzy. When his other hand came up and squeezed a nipple, the whole world fell apart. I yelled Noah’s name as the first wave of pleasure hit me.
The orgasm was so strong, it pulled me off the bed as my whole body clenched over and over again. Wave after wave of pleasure consumed me. Everything around me blurred to white, and I could hear a woman’s voice singing quietly in the distance.
I recognized the melody, but I couldn’t put a name to it. A woman looked over at me. Her hair was a fiery red against the bright light. She smiled at me, and it made me want to cry. I felt unworthy of her attention, and yet now that I had it, I craved it. Part of me wanted to run to her, to fall at her feet and hug her, but the other part wanted to run away. Somewhere inside me, I knew she held great power, and I didn’t want her to turn it on me.
Her melodic voice reached out and wrapped around me as she said two words. “Welcome, flamekeeper.”
Chapter Ten
Ava
When I came back to myself, it felt as if I had been floating and had spent a week at a spa. My whole body was a relaxed puddle. The image of the woman I had seen floated in my mind, but I could no longer make out her face. It was like a dream—the more I tried to remember it, the less I was able to.
“Welcome back,” Noah rumbled next to me.
I hadn’t even registered that I was cuddled up with my head on his chest until he spoke. I shifted so I could look at him and realized that he’d even been gentlemanly enough to cover me with a blanket while I was . . . wherever I was.
“Hey.” My voice was scratchy to my own ears. “How long was I gone?”
“Not too long.” He smiled at me, and for the first time, I realized he had dimples, not deep, obvious ones, but they were definitely there. He was sexy as hell, and when I added in the smile and dimples, I stood no chance of resisting him.
“I’m sorry we didn’t . . .”
“It’s probably for the best. There is more we need to explain before you have sex with any of us. I just lost my head there for a while.” There was a note of regret in his voice that pierced me. I wanted to give him the same pleasure he had given me. But that wasn’t it. I wanted to give him more. I wanted to give him my heart. It was a strange kind of longing, almost like being homesick.
“Yeah, me too,” I managed as I tucked my head back down against his chest, inhaling deeply. We were quiet for a while, each of us lost in our own thoughts, when I suddenly remembered my goal for the day. “Do you guys have a cell phone I can borrow?”
He thought for a moment. “Actually, we have one for you. It must still be in one of the bags Sebastian and Logan came back with.”
“Can we get it?” I asked, sitting up quickly enough that my head spun.
“Yeah, let me go grab it for you.”
“Thank you, really, for everything.” My voice was low and quiet. I needed him to know not only how grateful I was for his help, but also for that amazing orgasm he’d given me.
“Anytime, my lady.” As he got up, he turned and kissed me on the forehead. The gesture was so small but so important. It made me feel wanted, cared for, and, in all honesty, loved.
A stupid grin spread over my face as I watched him leave the room. I cuddled deeper into the blanket and snagged the pillow he had been using, inhaling his delicious scent. A bubble of happiness surrounded me in that bed as I lay there waiting for Noah to come back. Out of all the brothers, I would never have picked him to be the sensitive one, or the one I got intimate with first. I had fooled around with Sebastian and kissed Logan, but I hadn’t had an orgasm with either of them, and there was definitely something deeply intimate about what had happened between us.
Deep voices echoed down the hall. Anger seemed to follow shortly behind them. I could tell one of the voices was Noah, especially since he had just left the room, and the other sounded like either Sebastian or Grayson. With the door closed, I couldn’t tell. After making sure I had the blanket wrapped around myself securely, I quietly opened the door, hoping to understand what was going on before getting in the middle of it.
“Seriously? You couldn’t keep your fucking hands to yourself after all that talk last night about respecting
her and needing her to know what was going on before anyone bonded with her?” Sebastian's voice boomed down the hall.
“We did not have sex.” Noah said each word quietly and carefully. “I’m not sure how many more times I need to tell you that.”
“Then why can’t you explain the clothes on the floor?”
“Because it’s none of your damn business. I didn’t break our agreement. That’s all that matters.”
I hadn’t realized I had stepped into the hall until Sebastian’s fiery eyes landed on me. “Want to explain that, then?” He flung his hand in my direction.
Noah turned and visibly winced when he saw me standing there. I guess I wasn’t doing much to help his argument, but damn it, I didn’t want to be the cause of a fight between brothers, between freaking princes. I strode toward them, glaring at Sebastian the whole way.
“We didn’t have sex, not that I give a shit about your little agreement. I wanted to, but we didn’t.”
“Then why the hell are you naked?” he practically yelled at me.
“Because there’s a hell of a lot more to being intimate than putting tab A into slot B! Apparently, Noah understands that more than you do.” I knew the last part went right up to the line, but I barely knew these guys. I wanted to change that more than anything, but I couldn’t deny the physical pull I had toward all of them, and if that vision thingy from after my orgasm was anything to go by, then I truly was the flamekeeper they needed.
Sebastian was glaring at me.
“Listen,” I said, lowering my voice to what I hoped was a calming tone. “Why don’t I go put some clothes on, and we can talk about whatever it is we need to talk about. Then there won’t be anything to worry about, right?”
The two princes gave me a tight nod, and I wandered off down the hall with my blanket still firmly wrapped around me. I refused to be a reason they fought; I just couldn’t let that happen. If what they said was true and their clan really was in danger not only from dying out naturally but from outside threats, then the last thing they needed was bickering within the royal family.
My room had a fresh stack of clothes inside it, and it made me wonder exactly how much the brothers had bought for me, and why hadn’t they just left it all in the bedroom to begin with? I sighed and pulled on a scoop neck T-shirt and a pair of stretchy leggings. If I was stuck there, I figured I might as well be comfortable. Besides, the sexual tension was high enough; the last thing I wanted to do was wear something super revealing.
Back in the spacious living room, I found Logan had decided to join the party. I decided to sit by him since he hadn’t been involved in any of the fighting earlier. It was almost as if I knew I needed to drive my point home, force them to see that I wouldn’t deal with them being angry with one another about me.
I lay my head on Logan’s shoulder, and his arm wrapped around me, tugging me in closer, while his hand played with the ends of my hair. His scent tickled my nose as the woodsy smell lightly accented with amber seemed to permeate my soul. My heart was on fire being surrounded by three of the brothers, but there was a cold spot where I hoped Grayson would one day be.
“So, what do you need to tell me, then?”
The three of them looked at each other, and to my surprise, it was Sebastian who jumped in. “Listen, it’s not just the trials that will be dangerous. We aren’t exactly the most popular clan, and the others, well . . .” He let his emotions play over his face, and I waited for him to continue in his own time. “They assassinated Blair, the previous flamekeeper. It’s why Noah’s been cooking all our food, so it’s freshly made since you got here. Usually we have staff who help out around the penthouse, but until you have passed the trials, none of us are comfortable with that. Humans are fragile, after all. We need you to know that the trials are dangerous, but so is being part of the fire clan.”
I nodded, taking in his words but unsure how to respond. After a moment, I asked, “How many women have you tried to make into flamekeepers before?”
“Three,” Sebastian said, staring at his hands. His fingers were laced while his elbows rested on his knees. When he looked back up, his eyes were haunted, the dark depths seeming pained instead of full of their normal humor. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and moved on. “Then there’s the whole bonding thing—”
Noah cut him off. “We discussed that this morning a little. I told her she would need to be as emotionally and physically bonded to us as she could be to survive the dragon fire.”
“That’s true.”
“Will you ever become kings?” I asked, hoping they would answer the question that battered my heart without me actually having to ask it.
“Yes, once a new flamekeeper is crowned, we will rise to be the new rulers of the clan. If Blair hadn’t been assassinated, my parents would have ruled with her until they decided to step down, but dragons don’t have one monarch, or even two. We have a ruling family—the queen and her kings, and of course, the flamekeeper.”
We were all quiet a moment as I thought about that. The question I most needed the answer to hadn’t been answered; at least, not clearly. I needed to specify if I even wanted to consider this. “So you’ll need a queen?”
“No, you will be our queen.”
My eyebrows scrunched up on my forehead. “I’m confused . . .”
“It’s a gender thing,” Sebastian said, jumping back in. “The queen is the primary ruler if she is of royal blood, and she takes her kings as she sees fit. The flamekeeper, in that case, is a secondary queen, usually more of a religious icon in that situation, but she has her own mates. Since there wasn’t a female dragon born to our parents, we will be the primary rulers, but we need a flamekeeper and a queen. If we had a flamekeeper already in the clan, then we may take a queen, but the bonding we have to complete with you so you survive? None of us would want to take a queen after that. We will be your mates for life.”
I let out a breath and turned my face toward Logan. His hand had been stroking my hair the whole time. I inhaled his scent again and focused on how safe I felt around these men. They had been more than honest with me; they had shared their grief, their heartache with me. It was time for me to be honest with them, too.
Chapter Eleven
Logan
I felt Ava go stiff under my arms a moment before she sat up, removing herself from my protective embrace. She floored me with how she was dealing with all this, asking questions, absorbing information. It was more than some of the others did. As soon as they heard we were princes, they agreed to whatever we asked, certain that the payoff would be worth it, their greed winning out over common sense.
The distance between us not only increased physically, but emotionally as well. I could feel her drawing away, putting up walls to protect herself. I wasn’t sure what had triggered it, but I damn well wouldn’t let it stand. If she wanted to do this, be with us, then those walls would need to come right back down.
“There is something I need to tell you,” she said as she curled away from me, wrapping her arms around herself as though she needed protection. My dragon paced inside me and demanded answers for this behavior, insisting that I find out where the threat was coming from.
“You can tell us anything, Ava,” Noah said as he leaned forward in his chair.
I could see the lines of tension on my brothers’ faces, and I knew I wasn’t the only one fighting for control with my dragon.
“Well, the thing is . . .” She took a deep breath, and suddenly the words came tumbling out. “I owe a loan shark a lot of money. I needed to pay for some things at college, and I couldn’t wait to contact my parents since they were basically in the middle of nowhere. The guy I was dating at the time, total sleazeball—” A low growl emanated from Sebastian’s direction, but like a trooper, she ignored it and carried on. “Anyway, he recommended this guy, said that he was always willing to help college students out, and I didn’t really have anyone else to ask, so I took him up on his offer. I thought I’d be
able to pay it back in no time, but the restaurant I was waitressing in closed, and suddenly, everything seemed to spiral out of control. Now, he’s sending goons after me, like the guy in the hospital. Before I can agree to anything with you guys, I need to figure out what to do about Frankie, or he’ll keep coming after me.”
“He can’t get to you here,” Noah said, his voice low and calm. It was only because we were brothers that I knew he was about to lose it. “And he wasn’t the one who attacked you at the hospital. We think that was the water clan.”
“The water clan? How many clans are there?” Ava shook her head as though she couldn’t fit any more information in.
“How much do you owe him?” Sebastian asked before we all got off track with talk of the other clans.
“I originally borrowed one thousand dollars, but his interest rates are so high that I think now I owe him almost ten thousand dollars.”
“That’s insane. How can someone take advantage of people like that?” Sebastian hissed.
“I’m sorry. I would really like to at least be able to consider helping you, but I don’t want to drag you into my mess.”
I reached out and took her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over her knuckles. “Can you get in touch with him?”
“If I can get a phone, yeah, but it doesn’t matter right now. After losing everything in the fire, I’m going to die before I pay off my debt to him.” Her voice broke at the end, and my heart shattered right along with it. She had been so strong through everything, and now this little thing was destroying her.
“You get in touch with him and arrange a meeting. I’ll talk to him and set up some new terms,” I said quietly.
“Really?” Hope shone bright in her eyes like the summer sun.
“I’m sure if the three of us, or four if Grayson ever pulls his head out of his ass . . .” I sighed and refocused. “If we go talk to him, I’m sure he’ll listen. He’s a business man, after all.”
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