by Skye Jones
Steffan walked to the glass and passed his hands over it, muttering something, and the doors slid open with a low hiss.
She crept inside, fighting all the while with an urge to run back down the hill to the normal houses at the bottom. But once she got a few feet in, her fears drifted away, and she gave a gasp of wonder. Marlow trotted past her, darting here and there, nose to the ground as he sniffed around.
“Fuck me,” Aiden said. “Steffan…I’m lost for words. I mean, this is… How?”
Steffan gave a small one-sided smile and hitched one shoulder. “I know some talented people, and I also know some magical people. When the two intersect, greatness can happen. And it might be bigheaded to say, but I think this cave is an example of greatness.”
“Can’t argue there.” Aiden walked past them, head up and mouth hanging open. It was the same expression worn by people touring the world’s most astonishing cathedrals.
The roof of the cave sprawled about twenty foot above them, and lights dotted both the walls and the ceiling itself. The tiny lights shone in various muted shades of cream, gold, and silver and gave the appearance of some sort of celestial constellation.
A huge sofa clung to one wall to the right of them, and in front of it stood a massive TV. Bookshelves lined the wall to the left, and in the middle, a gorgeous Persian rug dominated the space. A coffee table sat upon it with a couple of books askew on its surface. Farther toward the back of the room sat another sofa, this one not quite as large as the first, and to the right of it, a comfy looking chair. A huge daybed was positioned to their left, with views out of the doors, and next to it, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf housed a ton of reading material. The whole place was awe-inspiring. Beautiful.
To the back of the room were two dark corridors.
“Follow me.” Steffan walked down the first one, and Mia followed somewhat cautiously.
They entered another space, and she gasped aloud. “Holy crap.”
High above them, the cave roof had disappeared, to be replaced by bright light as the outdoors shone in from a large hole. Thirty feet or so above them, thick glass let the day in but stopped the cold from entering. The room in front of them was astonishingly bright and contained a bed, some dark wood furniture, more rugs, and an open door off to one side. Curious, she walked across to poke her head inside a massive bathroom covered in stone tiles. A claw-foot bath owned the space from its position at the center of the room. To one side stood a large walk-in shower, and then a sink, toilet, and starkly white bathroom cabinet.
“I can’t believe this place, Steffan.” For some odd reason, she had to blink back tears. He’d made a stunning home for himself. It showed a different side to the almost scary countenance he presented to the world.
“How do you sleep with it so bright in here? Unless, do you get up at the crack of dawn each day?” Aiden sounded horrified at the thought.
Steffan laughed. “No. There are blinds I can draw across the glass.”
She rolled her eyes. Of course, there were. Steffan reminded her of some sort of Bond villain living in a place like this.
“Come on, tour’s not over yet.”
He led them back out of the bedroom and down the corridor to the next one veering off to the left. This time, Mia followed gladly, full of anticipation rather than hesitation and fear.
They reached a room with a much lower ceiling and lots of gorgeous natural nooks and crannies in the rock. A ghostly, pale blue swimming pool filled the space.
“Fuck me. I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Aiden sighed and stared at the pool in front of him. “Only thing is, I bet you get a lot of spiders.”
“You’re scared of spiders?” Mia almost laughed at the idea.
“Hate the creepy fuckers.” Aiden shuddered and his mouth turned down. “Seriously, they freak me out.”
“No spiders,” Steffan said with an inordinate amount of pride. “No creepy crawlies at all, or damp, or moss. The walls were treated, there’s a hellishly expensive and complicated heating and dehumidification system, but above the whole place, apart from the outside space, it’s warded against crawling things.”
“Did you do the magic?” she asked.
“No. Rhiannon did.”
Rhiannon? She practiced magic to keep spiders out of your house? The woman could earn a fortune if she went public with such a skill.
Steffan pointed to another door to the far side of the pool room. “There’s a small gym through there. Mostly weights. And a sauna.”
He exited the room, and she and Aiden trooped after him, shooting one another a quick look, eyebrows raised. She cherished the small moment of connection with the usually offhand man.
“Okay, and here is the kitchen area.” Steffan stopped by a final door in the corridor she hadn’t noticed on the way down.
He popped it open, and they both peered inside to see a large kitchen with a dining space and full-sized table at the far end.
“I cook outside a lot in the summer, barbecues and that sort of thing,” Steffan said. “But in winter, this is good for the cold days. It has a long flue from the stove to the outside of the cave.”
“Where will we sleep?” Aiden asked.
“Mia will have my room.” Steffan smiled at her and glanced at Aiden. “You can have the daybed in the main living space, and I’ll take the outside.”
“You can’t sleep outside!” She didn’t want to shove him out of his bed and make him sleep in the elements.
“I do it often, Mia.” His calm expression and smile softened his features, for once making him look approachable. “I’ll be in dragon form, all the better to protect you until Nathan gets here. Not, I hasten to add, that I believe you are in any danger, but I made my friend a promise.”
Drat. There went her plan to seduce them both. Her one night out of normal life to take a walk on the wild side. The very wild side! Bit difficult to do if one of the objects of your desire is sleeping in a cave doorway in the form of a dragon.
Her stomach rumbled, and it rang out loud in the corridor. She flushed and glanced at the floor.
“Someone’s hungry.”
Trust Aiden to draw attention to it, instead of ignoring it like a gentleman. She punched his arm softly and froze. What had she done? She didn’t have the sort of playful relationship with Aiden that entitled her to do such things.
He frowned at his arm and fixed her with his green eyes, blinking once slowly. “What’s that for?”
“You should have ignored my stomach making noises. It’s what a gentleman would do.”
“I’m a dragon, not a gentleman.”
“But your kind believes in being ultrachivalrous from what I hear, so you should behave like a gentleman to fit the dragon ways.”
He leaned in close, got right in her face. “I don’t live by dragon ways, sweetcheeks. I think most of the ways of my kind are stilted, needless, and old-fashioned and…frankly, laughable.”
Her heart stuttered. She’d been so sure she’d be safe with these guys, but his behavior surprised her.
A growl to her right had her whipping her head around in time to see Steffan pull Aiden from her and slam him into the opposite wall.
“Do not get up in her face like that again. Do you understand me?”
“Whoa, don’t go getting your knickers in a twist.” Aiden sneered at Steffan, and she ground her teeth at his arrogance, but her heart pounded. She did not want these men fighting in this enclosed space.
“You ought to stop being such an utter dick. It’s boring.” She snapped out the words, genuine anger fueling her response. Oddly, she wasn’t scared of Aiden hurting her. She paused. Why didn’t she fear him hurting her? It made no sense. Logically, she should be terrified of these guys. They were both big, and they both turned into fire-breathing beasts, for God’s sake. But she simply wasn’t. She worried they might hurt one another if they fought, but she honestly held no fear for her own safety. And weirdly, that little fact scared her more than anythin
g else. She reached out and touched Steffan’s wrist. “Shall we go and look for something to eat? I’m famished.”
He turned to her, his eyes so silvery they reminded her of stark moonlit nights, but as he looked at her, they warmed right in front of her.
“You are hungry?”
“Yes.” And she also didn’t want World War III breaking out between these two big men, thank you very much.
“It would be my honor to feed you. Unfortunately, I cannot offer you the feast you deserve, but perhaps, if you visit again one day, my clan can show you how we celebrate. I’m sure once you reach the Scottish clan with your sister, you will get to experience many feasts.”
She shrugged. “I prefer simple food anyway. Meat and potatoes kind of girl.”
“Me too. Steak, baby. Give me a good steak any day.” Aiden shot her a small smile.
Steffan gave a low growl deep in his throat but didn’t look away from her.
“What meat do you like, Mia?”
Oh, God. The way Steffan said her name. “Yeah.” She swallowed. “I like steak too.”
He laughed then, threw his head back and laughed with all those dazzling teeth on display, and she almost swooned at his feet.
“Me too. I like steak very much.”
“Sounds like a plan. Assuming, as I said, I’m also invited to this dinner?” Aiden shot them both a look that managed to be at once contrite and defiant.
God, he wound her up, but she couldn’t help but find him appealing too for some unknown reason. She’d never been one of those girls who liked a bastard. Always thought doing so showed some sort of lack of self-esteem, but she kind of liked Aiden despite his snarly attitude. He reminded her more at times of a naughty child pushing boundaries than a truly nasty person.
“Of course, you may eat with us.” Steffan turned toward the kitchen but turned back before he opened the door. “Just keep your mouth shut.”
*****
Aiden wanted to punch Steffan in his smart mouth, but he thought he might want to kiss him even more. Despite his supposed commitment to the ways of their kind, Steffan was more like him than he realized. Yes, Steffan didn’t openly sneer at the dragon way as Aiden sometimes did, but he lived away from the clan and shunned most of their social events. Up until now, Aiden had thought of Steffan as a seriously hot, but slightly strange, loner. Now that he’d seen this complex home Steffan had built, he’d gained a lot of respect for the dragon. Oh, he’d always been aware of, maybe even fearful of, Steffan’s power and strength—who wouldn’t be?—but now he saw a completely different side of him.
It didn’t help his monumental crush any. And then there was Mia, whose scent increasingly drove him insane. He felt as if he was acting at being a normal dragon male, when he’d become a living, breathing, seething mass of hormones.
Surely Steffan battled against it, too? But the other male appeared remarkably composed. Yet, he knew Steffan also sensed the attraction between them; their matching went way beyond a platonic bond. So how did the other dragon remain so calm? Aiden wanted to jump on them both and ravish them to within an inch of their lives. Or have them ravish him to within an inch of his. He frankly didn’t care who did the ravishing, so long as he was involved.
It was this cocktail of emotions that made him act like some spoiled hormonal brat. He didn’t like the Dragonea way of life, true, but he didn’t normally disparage it so much. He also didn’t normally act like such a dick toward the females. He had fun with females, dragon and human alike, but he respected them. However, Mia pushed all his buttons because she made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. Things beyond plain old lust he could slake and move on from. Possessiveness, interest, and a need to understand, these things went deeper and scared the crap out of him.
Plus, she had this whole duality thing going on that drove him insane. On the one hand, she gave the impression of innocence in some ways, yet appeared provocative in others. He liked to play a little rough at times, both on the giving and receiving end of things. But Mia struck him as more inexperienced and perhaps in need of gentle handling. Then she’d go make a comment about having a threesome and blow his preconceptions out of the water. Christ, his head pounded with all the back-and-forth and overthinking.
“Would anyone like a glass of wine?” Steffan asked, and Aiden nearly cried with relief. Oh, thank the gods. Something to take the edge off.
He nodded in response.
“Yes, please.” Mia sat herself at the large dining table toward the back of the space, and he went to join her, making sure not to sit too near. He didn’t need her delicious fragrance messing his head up further.
Steffan pulled open a tall cupboard door to reveal a hole in the cave wall with wine stored within. He yanked a couple of bottles out, gave them a quick look-over, then pushed them back in, continuing the process until he found what he looked for. Aiden tried not to notice Steffan’s forearms bulging with ropey muscle as he twisted the corkscrew, pulled the stopper free with an oddly sensual pop, and proceeded to pour three generous glasses.
Aiden needed to fuck. His body rode him hard, and all it wanted to do was fuck and mate and…whoa… Mate? No, no fucking way. Absolutely not. He needed to bail on this whole situation before things went haywire.
“Here you go.” Steffan placed a drink in front of Aiden and Mia and held a glass in front of himself. “A toast. To bringing another dragon female home.”
Mia winced slightly, but she drank to the toast. “Takes some getting used to…being called a dragon female.”
“You will get used to it, though. With time.”
They drank and chatted for a while, but he sensed a building tension within Mia. He didn’t want to be so attuned to the female, but her emotions were presented to him so clearly. Something built within her, but despite trying to decipher exactly what, it eluded him. Maybe the female didn’t know herself what she felt.
She fidgeted for a while, moved about in her seat, and ran a finger down the stem of her wineglass.
“Can I take a shower? I feel horrible from the journey and not sleeping last night. I fancy freshening up.” She looked at Steffan over the rim of her glass.
“Of course. I’ll show you where everything is.”
They filed out of the room, Mia taking her wine with her. Aiden banged his head on the table in front of him twice and then downed his glass of wine before reaching for the bottle and pouring another. He was so very, very fucked. Part of him wanted to run into the bathroom after them and rip their clothes off, and part of him wanted to run out those big glass doors and down the hill to freedom.
Steffan sauntered back into the room and rubbed the back of his neck.
“This is such a bad fucking idea.” Aiden kept his voice low in case Mia hadn’t gotten into the shower yet, but he hoped Steffan heard the seriousness in his tone.
The big male merely raised one eyebrow at him and began to get things out of the cupboard. “You say fuck a lot.”
“And you’re like a robot.” He pushed his chair back, needing to move. Needing anything other than to sit still for one more moment trying to contain the crazy, roiling emotions taking over his body and mind. Not thinking, but acting on the need to move, he stalked over to Steffan and got right beside him. “Don’t pretend to me. Now that she’s out of the room, admit you feel it. I’m going out of my mind here, and she’s sensing it too. I can smell the fucking lust on her.”
Steffan turned to him, eyes flashing a molten mix of gold and silver. “Watch your mouth. Don’t talk about her in such a way.”
“What way? Jesus, I’m only telling the truth. She wants us…both of us…bad. We ought to help her out. Help one another out.”
“Then what?” Steffan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Walk away? Let her walk away? You don’t want to settle down and be mated. You’re busy running away from here every chance you get. And I can’t be mated again. I don’t have it in me to go through the fucking pain of it again if it all goes wrong.�
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“Whoa. I’m not talking about becoming mated. I’m talking about some fun and games. We can mess around some. We make sure we don’t go the whole way, and we’re golden.”
Steffan turned and moved into him, using his bulk and something subtler, an echo of his power, to hustle Aiden back until his butt hit the wall behind him. “Do you know how crazy and dangerous what you suggest is? Do you think if we start to mess around, as you say, we’ll be able to keep it all light and fun and not go there? You telling me you’ll be happy with a blow job and a bit of a fumble and leave it at that?”
“Why, you offering?” As soon as the words were out, he regretted them.
“Gods, I’d love to teach you some manners. You don’t even know who and what you’re playing with.”
What? Sometimes the guy’s ego astounded him. “I know exactly who and what you are, Steffan.”
Steffan stared at him for a long beat, and all the silver ran out of his gaze as warm, molten gold filled his irises. Aiden couldn’t look away. Hell, he couldn’t breathe.
“You have no clue.”
And then he couldn’t breathe for a whole other reason, as warm lips touched his and Steffan kissed him. Holy fuck. Steffan kissed him. And it was glorious. Firm, warm lips moved against his, and he sighed into the kiss. Steffan took advantage and licked at the open seam of his mouth, asking for entrance, and Aiden gave it. Steffan licked inside, seeking his tongue, and Aiden’s head swam with the taste of him.
Then it was over and Steffan pulled back, his gaze on Aiden’s, panting. Aiden realized he’d possessed no real understanding of Steffan’s power. One brief taste of the male had been the most potent experience of his life. And gods help him, but he wanted more.
Chapter Six
Steffan turned back to his preparation and took the chopping board out of its holder. He hoped to the gods he looked calmer than the seething mass of emotions he’d got going on inside. He’d meant to shut Aiden up. To let the other dragon taste his power and to scare him into backing off with his crazy idea about them getting down to some fun and games with Mia. He needed the option off the table because his honor depended on him keeping a promise to his good friend. And fucking said friend’s mate’s sister? Not honorable.