She sat on her bed with her laptop, drying her hair with a towel as she looked through more listings for the Storms. Her number-one priority was to give them exemplary service and fulfill all their needs—and not in a sexual way, she had to remind herself.
She found several more listings that they might find appropriate, extra-large mansions that were on private elevations. It was an odd request, but it wasn’t for her to judge. Maybe they wanted to fortify their mansion like medieval knights. Something about them reminded her of men from the distant past, merciless warriors who were also men of chivalry and intellect. Just thinking about it made a shiver go down her spine, and her desire came back to life.
“What is the matter with me?”
She hadn’t been this aroused in… Who knew how long? Krista got her fulfillment from work and success in closing a deal. She wasn’t asexual, but she wasn’t exactly sexually active either, certainly not in a way that would make her pursue it. She’d had Deacon, and they’d been together once a month or so, sometimes once every other month, depending on their schedules. And that had suited her just fine. But now, she wanted to strip naked again, lie across the silky sheets on her bed, and thrust her fingers deep inside her pussy over and over again, imagining all three of the Storms licking her flesh, kissing her mouth, and taking turns ravishing her body.
She knew she needed to do something. Maybe it was just a bunch of pent-up sexual energy she had to deal with. Letting out a deep breath in a businesslike and efficient manner, she grabbed the toy out of her bedside table, reclined against her pillow, and proceeded to slide it over her hungry clit. But the moment she did that, the fantasies came back. Growling, she threw the toy back in the drawer without finishing and climbed under the covers to sleep. Maybe tomorrow, she would regain her sanity and would be able to go on with the business at hand.
Chapter 4
Yuki watched Krista intently as she showed them the next house on their list. Frankly, he didn’t care which house they chose. He could always find a way to bury their ship, no matter the clearance—he was that confident in his skills. He was beginning to think this continued search was only an effort on the part of the others to keep him from claiming what was his.
When they’d returned to the House of Flames with the DNA sample and all three claiming they believed Krista belonged to them, Kian and Cato had been concerned. For three dragons to want the same woman was uncommon, but it wasn’t completely unheard of, as Cato reminded them. It had happened in the past on Dragonia, especially after the female population began to dwindle. There’d been a dragoness two hundred years before the cataclysm who’d had ten mates. The mating analysis had proven it. She had lived out her life with all ten of them, and apparently it was a quite happy affair.
However, mating with multiple partners was uncommon among humans. More than two people could not be legally bound together in the human contractual state called marriage. To attempt such a thing would be considered illegal. So that was an indication of the human attitude about multipartner pairings. He had to assume that Krista would maintain a similar attitude.
As they walked into the next room, Yuki caught Ragnar and Akash taking in the sight of Krista’s curves. It made his inner dragon rumble with possessive anger. What if she wasn’t his and his dragon’s insistence was only a manifestation of the mating impulse? What would he do then? But he felt so sure, so completely sure. She had to be his mate. There was no other way. And if he had to share her with Ragnar and Akash, he supposed it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
His crewmates were like brothers, although sometimes, he considered Ragnar a little dense and Akash perhaps a bit stuck up. Akash was a royal who’d spent the majority of his life with the constant praise of his academic fellows. Yuki had spent his life in the trenches, repairing spaceships, wrist devices, and entire AI systems in the heat of battle. He might not be a natural warrior like Ragnar, but he had fought just as many battles.
If it came to pass that Ragnar and Akash were her mates as well, they could always give her the chance to choose. The mating impulse would slowly drive the other two mad, but what else could they do? Ask the woman to accept all three of them? He assumed that a human woman, used to making love to only one man, would object to being claimed by three dragons simultaneously.
“Any progress on the mating analysis?” Yuki asked Cato through the mental link for the hundredth time.
“It is a challenging process, especially since you want me to run the analysis with three potential mates.”
Yuki gritted his teeth. As Krista turned to him, he tilted up the sides of his mouth, pretending it was a smile.
“I think you will really like this estate,” she said. “The hill it’s on is five hundred feet high, with no other buildings anywhere around.”
“That does sound promising,” Yuki said.
They needed to bury the spaceship under the mansion. That required digging into the side of the hill to place the ship underneath, which honestly wasn’t all that complicated. But he also knew that the moment they chose a house, they would see Krista far less. From the way that Ragnar and Akash were looking at her, he sensed they were thinking the same thing.
“Let me show you.” Krista led them out a big set of double doors onto a patio and manicured backyard. The air was warm, the day was bright, and the sun beamed down on the round globes of her ass as she walked along a stone path toward the edge of the hill.
“This could work,” Akash said through their mental link.
“Then she won’t work for us anymore,” Ragnar stated.
“We’re going to have to decide soon,” Akash said. “The entire House of Storms is waiting on our decision.”
“They can keep waiting,” Ragnar growled.
“Should I tell Hanish you said that?” Yuki asked.
Ragnar growled in response and turned away, looking down the hill.
“Are you sure we can’t get any higher?” Akash asked. “Perhaps on the top of the mountain.”
“Yes,” she said. “If we look further outside the city?”
“We have no need to be close to the city,” Akash said.
“Very well.” Krista’s eyes grew wide with annoyance.
She maintained a plastic smile on her face, but Yuki could sense she was getting tired of showing them properties. This was the fifteenth one, and it was the first time anyone had mentioned wanting to be on a mountain. At first, they’d said they would prefer to be close to town, so telling her now that they didn’t care was a contradiction. If they annoyed her with constant ambiguity and fresh demands, she wouldn’t want anything to do with them, even if they were proven to be her mates.
“I have just the thing,” she said. “But I’m afraid I have other appointments today, gentlemen. We can pick this up again tomorrow.”
“Very well.” Akash reached out to grasp her hand. She let him, and he smiled broadly at her with that beguiling expression he gave foreign dignitaries. It made Yuki want to roll his eyes, but he knew it could be effective.
“Thank you for all you’ve done. You’ve already helped us a great deal.”
“I’m just doing my job,” she said in a breezy voice.
“You’ve gone above and beyond.”
“All in a day’s work.” She smiled brightly.
She led them out to the car and drove the trek back into the city. Yuki wanted to ask her more about her life, get to know her better, understand who she was as a person. But it was hard to do that with the other guys in the car. As they slipped out onto the sidewalk in front of the brokerage building, he stopped her and reached out for her hand. She took it with a questioning look on her face.
“I want to thank you again,” he said. “And if it isn’t too presumptuous, I was hoping that after the deal is closed, we could see each other socially.”
“You mean like a date?”
“Yes, exactly. Would you go on a date with me?”
“I, um…” She looked up at the ot
her two, who were staring him down with lightning in their eyes.
“I would love that.” She bit her lip. She kept glancing at Ragnar and Akash.
Ragnar growled, and Akash stepped forward.
“He beat me to it,” Akash said in his most gracious voice. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“So was I,” Ragnar grumbled.
“You flatter me,” she said.
Still holding Yuki’s hand, she blushed profusely and looked down at the ground. As she fixed a smile on her face, her eyes glowed brightly, and she glanced up at all three in turn.
“The truth is, I would like to date each of you.” She sounded unsure. “I know it’s unheard of, but I’m always willing to try new things.”
She laughed out loud, the sound lively and tinkling in Yuki’s ears. It made his heart skip a beat. The blush in her cheeks made her even lovelier, and his inner dragon roared to claim her. He wanted to grab her right there on the sidewalk, press his lips to her mouth, and devour her with kisses. The others be damned—this woman was his. Even though Akash was an accomplished intellectual and a duke, Ragnar was a decorated warrior, and he was merely a mechanical engineer, that didn’t mean he couldn’t have the woman he wanted. And he would have her.
“We don’t have a problem with that at all,” Akash said. “In fact, it would be ideal. Then you can see which of us you prefer.”
“If you don’t mind,” she said.
“I mind,” Ragnar said.
“Oh?”
“It will be fine,” Akash said. “Won’t it, Ragnar?”
“Fine…” he grumbled, turning away. “But I get the first date.”
“I asked her first,” Yuki objected. But he sighed and thought better of it. He could already tell she was becoming flustered. “But I wouldn’t mind if Ragnar takes you out first.”
“It’s settled then.” She let go of his hand. “This is highly unusual. But I don’t mind if you don’t. I really must be going now. I have a meeting in five minutes. I will talk to you all again in the morning.”
Krista walked away with a hop in her step that made her alluring curves even more delicious. Ragnar growled at both of them, and Akash pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Yuki, why did you bring that up? We should have waited.”
“I’m tired of looking at houses. We need to pick one and get on with it. I know she’s mine. And if the two of you want to beat around the bush for the rest of your lives, be my guest, but I am going to make my woman mine, whether you like it or not.”
“I understand your sense of urgency.” Akash put his hand on Yuki shoulder. Yuki brushed it away, irritated. Akash couldn’t use his smooth diplomacy on him.
“We are all on equal footing here,” Yuki said. “This isn’t old Dragonia. We are on Earth now.”
“Be that as it may, we need to approach the situation with some delicacy.”
“I’ll show you delicacy.” Yuki flicked his wrist device to bring up a large wrench that he used to repair the ship. He gripped it menacingly in his right hand and slapped it into the palm of his left.
“Just simmer down,” Akash said. “Everything went all right. She’s agreed to date us all. That’s a positive development, and now we can go ahead and close the house deal.”
“She’s mine,” Ragnar said.
“I don’t know if you know this, Ragnar,” Yuki said, “but we’ve both heard you say that at least fifty times.”
Ragnar growled, and Yuki continued brandishing his wrench.
“We need to get back to the House of Flames.” Akash stepped between them.
A black shadow flicked across the sidewalk right in front of Yuki, and a being materialized as it slipped into the alley behind Krista’s building.
“Did you see that?” Yuki whispered.
“What was it?” Ragnar asked.
“A vampire,” Akash said.
“They’ve found her,” Yuki said.
“They will not touch her.” Ragnar clenched his fists and his jaw.
Yuki started off toward the alley, but Akash stopped him.
“We need to protect her,” Yuki said.
“I’m sending a message to Kian and Hanish now. We’ll watch over her around the clock.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Yuki asked.
“When we aren’t with her in person, we will watch over her under stealth.”
“We must be with her always,” Ragnar said.
“She would become extremely suspicious and irritated with us if we tried to be around her all the time,” Akash pointed out.
“I will protect her with my last breath,” Ragnar growled.
“All of us would.” Yuki rolled his eyes. He slid his finger over the screen of the phone he’d rigged up to his wrist device so he could use it in out in the open in the human world. “This is her place of business, and her condo is located about a mile from here. There is a hotel right across the street from her condo. We can get a room there and take turns looking out for her.”
“Excellent idea,” Akash said.
“What now?” Ragnar asked.
“I’ll arrange the apartment,” Yuki said. “Ragnar, you go stealth and watch her through the window. Or go into the building and stand in the corner. If you see any shadows moving or humans materializing out of nothing, they’re vampires. Kill them.”
“Yes. Kill them.”
“Akash, you should discuss human mating practices with Cato. The sooner she is mated with one of us the better.” Yuki knew Akash was the best at studying cultural behaviors.
“Or all of us,” Akash corrected.
“The sooner she is mated with one or all of us, the sooner her blood will be poisonous to vampires, and she will be safe,” Yuki agreed.
Maybe he could work with Akash after all.
Chapter 5
All day at work, Krista felt the oddest sensation of being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, and she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. But every time she looked up, there was nothing there. She kept getting a tingle of arousal, as if a man who desired her was watching. She knew she must just be over excited by the prospect of dating all three of the Storms.
Dating three men, from the same family no less, was preposterous and unwise. How could she possibly allow herself to do it? But none of them had a problem with it, so why should she? She giggled under her breath as she filed some documents.
In all honesty, the prospect of dating Ragnar, Akash, and Yuki was the best thing to happen to her in a long time. In all the years she’d spent with Deacon, she'd never felt as desirable as she had in five minutes with the Storms. It was a whole new sensation she was eager to explore. As a high-powered real estate broker, she wasn't used to feeling sexy and wanted, but she thought she could definitely get used to it.
After work, she hurried home and called the building’s maintenance man to take the dead plant to the trash. It had been a housewarming gift from Deacon, and the sight of the dead thing reminded her of the death of the relationship. If she had been less busy, she would have put in the effort to get over Deacon and start dating months ago. But she'd never gotten around to it. Now she was getting over it, times three, and she couldn't be happier.
Ragnar wanted to be the first to take her out. The silent-but-aggressive man had the body of a linebacker—not the type she usually interacted with or considered dating. But she wanted to see where things went. She was as attracted to Ragnar as she was the other two. Akash had a smooth and tactful way about him. He was cultured and would be a fantastic date at parties. Yuki was quick and smart, skilled with technology, and had a way about him that told her he was fun and adventurous. She thought they could get into a lot of trouble together if she let her more free-spirited side out to play.
Hearing a knock at the door, she opened it for the maintenance man. He walked in, and she pointed to the old plant.
"Do you want me to bring back the pot?"
"No. T
ake it all to the trash. You can keep the pot if you want."
The maintenance man disappeared out the door with the plant. Krista sat in her favorite easy chair and rested her bare feet on an ottoman. She picked up her phone and sent a quick text to Yuki. She grinned and squealed like a teenager, thinking of his handsome face and bright eyes. He had been gracious enough to let Ragnar take her out first. However, he had been the one to approach her first, initiating the entire arrangement.
"How are you?" she typed.
He responded a moment later. "I am well. And how are you? Have you had a pleasant day?"
"Yes. I had an excellent day—made even better by your invitation."
"I couldn't resist. I’ve wanted to ask you out since the moment we met."
"I have to admit, I felt the same."
Krista looked up, feeling that same sense of eyes on her. She looked around, searching for someone who wasn't there. She was alone in her apartment. Her senses were completely out of whack. She had never been particularly sensitive to such things before. But she couldn't shake the sensation no matter how much she rationalized there was no one there.
"I have the weirdest feeling today," she confided in Yuki. "It’s like someone is watching me."
"That's strange. Do you have a security system?"
"I live in a high-rise on the fourteenth floor. My building has excellent security as does my condo."
"I am pretty good with that sort of thing if you'd like me to take a look."
"I might just do that."
"Let me know."
She told him she’d consider it but had to go. She headed down the hall to her bedroom and into the master bath. After a long day of showing properties, closing deals, and running her brokerage, she loved to have a nice, long soak in the tub. Now that she had three men to think about, her bath time had an added benefit.
Dragon Guardians: Complete Series Page 4