THEIR_VIRGIN_PRINCESS

by Shayla_Black_Lexi_Blake

  Dane chuckled softly. “There’s an ocean of food right out there. This place has bananas and all kinds of fruit. We were all trained to know what kind of plants we can and can’t eat. Lea, we’ve got this. We survived the crash. That was the hard part. The rest is easy, especially now that you’ve convinced Coop to make sure he doesn’t die of gangrene. I won’t say it will be like hanging around the palace, but if we take care of each other, keep the fire going, find a safe place to wait out any storms that might come, we’ll be golden.”

  She nodded against his chest. “I want to help. Just tell me what to do.”

  “Really?” Dane asked.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “What we need most now is your trust. You have to rely on us. Take this time to get to know us better. Let us have an actual chance to please you and make you happy.” Dane laid a small kiss on her temple.

  She shivered a little, her head coming up off Cooper’s chest. He wished Dane hadn’t pushed yet, but everything his buddy described…yeah, he wanted that, too. “Just a chance, Lea. You don’t hate this, right?”

  “I’m getting used to it,” she admitted, swallowing hard. She was tense, but not rejecting. It was a step. “Can we agree to go slow? I don’t know what I want and I don’t have any idea what I’ll be able to handle. It’s going to take a while to get used to the idea that you guys could actually want me. That someone touching me isn’t doing it to hurt me.”

  There was a low shout as Landon marched through the foliage and back into camp. He was carrying Alea’s mesh laundry bag, which he’d appropriated earlier when he’d left on his quest to gather coconuts. But it was dripping wet.

  “Hey, I found a bunch of conches!” Lan held up the bag and looked at it proudly. “That’s some good eating and—holy shit.”

  Lan had obviously caught sight of Alea’s half-naked state because it put a truly sizzling stare on his face. Then he lost his usual athletic grace as he walked closer, jaw hanging around his knees, stumbling over the log he’d dragged into camp earlier. He tripped in an epic pratfall. That would make some popular shit on YouTube.

  Alea broke free and started running for Landon.

  “I’m okay!” Lan shouted, but Alea was right there, crouching beside him, and there was no mistaking the way Lan took advantage to stare right at her boobs.

  Dane slapped Coop on the back. “Let’s shore up for the night. We’re all tired. We can cook up those conches and talk about making base camp more comfy. Tomorrow we put our plan into action. It’s time to claim our girl.”

  Coop nodded. “Amen, brother.”

  Dane strode over to give Landon a hand with the conches, whistling as he walked.

  It was the happiest he’d seen Dane in a long time. As Alea turned to glance at him over her shoulder and shot a smile his way, he had to admit, it might be the happiest any of them had been in a good, long while.

  * * * *

  Alea shivered a little and wished that her clothes had dried during dinner. But they hadn’t yet. The fire Dane had built was roaring, but she still trembled. Even so, the stars awed her. They wove a brilliant canvas across the dark sky. She’d never seen so many twinkling so brightly.

  “Beautiful, huh?” Lan sat beside her, his shoulders rubbing against hers.

  She wasn’t alone. She might be on one of the remotest islands in the world, but these three men had gone out of their way to show her that everything would be all right.

  “It is.” The fire crackled in front of her. Cooper and Dane were talking quietly on the other side of the fire pit they’d dug. “Do you think someone will find us?”

  “Sure.” There was no hesitation in his voice. “I think your cousins will move heaven and earth. But it’s a damn big ocean, Lea. It could take some time. Be prepared to settle in and get comfortable waiting.”

  Her cousins. They would be worried by now. She’d intended to text…and now that wasn’t possible. They would know the plane hadn’t landed in Sydney. Piper would be so worried. They would be forced to call all of Dane, Cooper, and Landon’s relatives to tell them their sons were missing. She knew Dane had a father he didn’t talk to anymore. Cooper had a big family scattered all over southern Colorado. What about Landon? “Is there anyone back in the States who’s going to be upset? You have to know Talib is going to call your parents.”

  Lan turned to the fire. “Don’t have any.”

  His parents were gone? “I’m so sorry.”

  A bitter smile crossed his face. “Don’t be. They aren’t dead, darlin’. At least I don’t think they are. I don’t know. My mom ditched me about five minutes after I was born. As for my dad, I don’t even know who he is. I’m not even sure my mom did. She got around.”

  She knew he came from a small Texas town. How hard had it been to be abandoned by the woman who should have loved him above all others? “How old was she?”

  “She was all of seventeen when she had me. The way my grandma told it, she tried really hard to get rid of me, but I was dug into that womb.”

  “Get rid of you?”

  Lan turned to her, his face a careful blank. “She tried a homemade abortion. I wasn’t part of her plan.”

  “Oh, Lan.” She reached for him, feeling sick, and yet an urge to comfort him all at once.

  Then she stopped her hand in midair as she realized that she’d been about to hug him. The sympathetic gesture had come almost instinctively.

  Lan turned back to the fire as though he couldn’t stand to watch her choose to not touch him. Like other women in his life had rejected him. “It’s no big deal. My grandma raised me. We didn’t have much, but she made sure I got fed and had clothes.”

  He’d said absolutely nothing about anyone loving him. “Do you miss her? Is that who Tal will call?”

  “She died a couple years back. She wouldn’t have really cared. She was a mean old lady. There was a reason my momma wanted to get the hell out of that trailer. My grandma ran off everyone who ever loved her. She never let a day go by where she didn’t tell me what a whore my momma turned out to be and that I was an embarrassment. She kept me because righteous women take care of their mistakes.”

  How hard had it been for his sole guardian to consider him a burden? Lan was so competent. In the course of one day, he’d scouted the perimeter of the island, found food, and set up a desalinization station that was gathering water so they could stock up. He was amazing and he’d always been so deeply kind. She didn’t stop this time. If nothing else, he was her friend.

  Alea scooted closer to him and placed a hand on his back, leaning her face against his strong upper arm. His skin was warm and smooth, so much softer than she’d imagined, though it covered rock-hard muscle. “You weren’t a mistake. I can’t imagine any mother not being so proud of you.”

  He turned slightly, forcing her head up and looking on her with a curious gaze. Slowly, he reached down and brushed away tears she hadn’t known she was shedding. “Are those for me?”

  She shrugged, then nodded. He wrapped a bulky arm around her and hauled her in close. For a moment, she stiffened, then sank against the heat of his body. And the safety. She felt safe with all of them.

  “Don’t you cry for me, Princess.”

  Sometimes when he called her that she could almost believe it was a term of endearment and not merely a title. “Someone should. And I’m not really crying for you. It’s not pity. You came from so little and you’ve turned into a wonderful man.”

  “Sometimes,” he began, staring down at her, “bad things happen to good people, and they still find a way to turn it around. They find a way to be brave. I know you’re brave, too. I want you to kiss me, Lea.”

  So much for his lack of smarts. He was a manipulative bastard. But if she wanted to heal, wanted to move forward and not let the kidnappers beat her, as Piper had pointed out, she had to be willing to take chances. Get out of her comfort zone. Try to be a whole woman. Believe that she could trust them.

  Alea closed her
eyes and tilted her head up. She could handle this. Landon would never hurt her.

  She waited, but nothing happened.

  Alea opened her eyes, and found Lan staring down at her. Cooper had moved behind, and she could feel his heat. Dane had edged closer, too. His gaze was fixed on her, smoldering like the nearby fire, as he leaned back against a tree.

  “He said he wanted you to kiss him, baby,” Dane pointed out. “You have to listen to instructions or there might be consequences.”

  She stiffened a little. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

  Cooper leaned in. “Come on, Lea. Don’t be scared. You know Dane likes to play. It’s just who he is. He needs to feel like he’s in control.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “If he thinks you’re afraid, he’ll pull away. His ex-wife told him he was a pervert, and I don’t think he can handle it if you feel the same way.”

  Talib liked to “play,” too. Oh, her cousins had tried to hide that fact from her, but she’d snuck into Tal’s “dungeon” when she was a teenager. The locked door had always intrigued her, and they’d never let her in or explained. Unfortunately when she’d finally figured out how to sneak in, Tal had been playing at the time. She’d hidden, of course, but she’d heard the moans, the slaps of leather on skin, the gasps—the sounds of satisfaction.

  And she’d heard the tenderness he’d shown his submissive afterward. The praise he’d given her. The woman’s sighs of contentment. They had both enjoyed themselves. There hadn’t been anything wrong with it. She’d heard that the dungeon was open again and her cousins played with Piper, teasing her and loving her. Tal needed the control after what had happened to him.

  What had happened to Dane?

  She sat up and stared at him, illuminated by the fire. He had a bland, somewhat expectant look on his face, but she was starting to really know him. His anxiety revealed itself in the hard line of his shoulders, in the stiff way he held himself. “What if I’m not submissive?”

  And just like that, his body relaxed, and the teasing Dom was back. “Oh, you are.”

  “Maybe I want to be in control. Maybe I need it after what happened to me.” How would he handle that?

  A smile softened his face. “You’ll always be in control. That’s the great misunderstanding about the lifestyle. The submissive can stop the scene at any time. Any play is meant for your pleasure. Any rule is meant to protect you, build trust between us, and lift you up. It’s why I won’t listen to you talk badly about yourself. I’m willing to spank you over that so you’ll remember. Even if you hate me, I need you to believe how amazing you are.”

  She didn’t necessarily understand, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t hate him. Ever. “We have to go slow with the whole play thing, Dane. I might never be able to handle it, especially the bondage. Being unable to move…it scares me.”

  Which meant she might never be able to please him.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay. We’ll go as slow as you need,” Dane assured her. “Trust isn’t an overnight process. We’ll take it one baby step at a time, if that’s how it’s got to be. For now, I want you to kiss Lan slow and deep. He’s going to sit back and let you have your way with him.”

  Lan smiled at her, placing his hands behind him and using them for leverage as he tilted back. The move left his big chest on display. “I’ll keep my hands to myself, darlin’.”

  She rose to her knees. Her having control while she had her way with Lan confused her. “That doesn’t sound terribly submissive, Dane.”

  “There are as many ways to play as there are players,” Dane shot back. “We don’t have to follow any rules except our own. Now kiss him. I want to watch.”

  The idea of Dane watching her as she kissed Landon made her heart pound in a sultry rhythm. She’d been kissed before by men, yes. But she’d never been the aggressor.

  Men? Hah. She’d dated boys. Not a single one of her few boyfriends had been as masculine as Landon or Cooper or, oh god, Dane. They were big and broad and hard. They oozed testosterone. They had protected her today. They had made sure she was comfortable and safe and warm. They always would.

  No, she’d never dated even one man before. Those rich boys had been cultured, some even really intelligent and interesting. And she would bet they would have panicked and screamed like girls the second they realized the plane was going down. They wouldn’t have put that much time, energy, or thought into making sure she lived. Hell, Coop had all but volunteered to commit suicide by palm tree just to put the plane down in a visible location that might give the rest of them a better chance at being rescued.

  And Landon… She stared up at his stony face, his gorgeous, sculpted mouth. His lips were thick and perfectly curved. His cheeks already had a sexy growth of beard. And his blue eyes were so hopeful.

  Kiss him. She wanted to. She could even feel blood rushing to her nipples as she thought about it.

  With a little smile, she leaned in and brushed her lips against his, getting just a hint of his warmth and the firmness of his lips before she pulled away.

  She’d done it! She’d kissed him. And she wasn’t stressed or traumatized. He hadn’t pounced on her or…

  “You can do better than that, Princess,” Lan challenged.

  “Yeah, you aren’t going to make him crazy with that little kiss.” Cooper was watching, too, over her shoulder. He’d gotten to his knees behind her. She could feel him almost touching her. What would it be like to have his hands on her hips? Or her breasts, teasing her nipples as she kissed Lan?

  Her whole body flushed with heat at the thought.

  Alea leaned toward Lan again, determined to make him—and the others—a little crazy. She could do it. She’d survived a damn plane crash. She could survive being touched and touching in return.

  Lan’s eyes drifted down to her breasts. He liked them. There was no mistaking the way his cock got hard because he was only wearing his boxer briefs and the fire illuminated his thick length. Yeah, she was already getting to him.

  Alea brushed her lips against his again. But this time, instead of backing away, she pressed in, allowing her hands to cup his face. She loved the rough feel of his whiskers against her palm as she inhaled his scent, tested the firm softness of his mouth, acquainted herself with her body being so close to his.

  This was nice. So nice. She was getting warm and relaxed.

  “Use your tongue, Lea.” Dane’s command guided her from somewhere near the fire.

  Her tongue. Heat surged through her belly…and arrowed lower. No denying that she wanted to know how he tasted.

  Alea ran her tongue across his bottom lip and felt his whole body shiver as his lips parted. Then she curled her tongue around his shyly and drank in his flavor for a heady second. Oh, she felt lightheaded, but as she eased away, she realized that she had power over him. Dane was right. She wasn’t out of control. Quite the opposite.

  “Hey, it’s my turn,” Cooper said. “I want a good-night kiss, too.”

  “Go on or he’ll whine all night long,” Lan whispered against her lips.

  Good-night kisses. If she started allowing them, would they want them every night? Would they want more? The thought made her shiver.

  She turned to Cooper. He held himself just a bit apart, giving her space, the same way Lan had. She moved closer to him and cupped his face, too. His hair was so short, but when she ran her hand across it, she was surprised at how soft it felt. She bumped her nose against his before finding his lips.

  As they touched, a little spark sizzled over her lips. As she opened her mouth and his followed suit, their breaths meshed, their tongues tangled. Coop wasn’t quite as good at being passive and patient as Lan. He surged in, wrapping a hand around her shoulder, as he tilted his head and went deeper. Alea stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. A big zing followed. He was potent. And she couldn’t deny that it was nice to be close to them.

  She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and loved the groan that came from deep in
his chest. Then she nipped at him again before pulling away with a teasing grin.

  Alea stood up, perfectly satisfied with this little experiment so far. But she had one more man to go. Dane.

  Gulping down nerves, she walked to the fire, her feet sinking deliciously into the sand. It was funny how much more aware she was of everything now. The night suddenly wasn’t cold, but rasped a nice cool breeze over her skin.

  Dane watched her, his gaze warm as she halted beside him. “Is it my turn, baby?”

  She nodded, putting a hand on his chest. He was perfectly ripped, every muscle gloriously hard. His face had no give. And somehow, without a word, he demanded that she try her best, give as much as she could. For some reason, she found herself wanting to please him.

  “Go ahead.” He spread his arms wide, giving her full access.

  Alea had a suspicion that he wouldn’t give her this much leash often. She’d better enjoy exploring and setting the pace while she could.

  Searching up into Dane’s blue eyes and finding a gentle understanding under his hunger, she leaned against him and kissed him, not waiting this time. She drew her tongue along his plump bottom lip, and he remained still beneath her, letting her control everything. How far would he allow her to go?

  She pressed harder, but his lips stayed closed.

  “Open your mouth,” she whispered.

  He obliged when she kissed him again, giving her access. She hoped she was doing it right. She rubbed her tongue against his, curling and sliding. He played along, but he was largely still beneath her.

  Alea stopped and backed away.

  “What is it, Princess?” Dane asked.

  “I want you to kiss me back.”

  “I moved with you.”

  She shook her head. “No, you—”

  But he had. Yes, it was reassuring to have all the control, but she wanted him to respond. She wanted him to truly want her and to prove it in his kiss. Even twenty-four hours ago, she wouldn’t have been able to imagine needing him to kiss her. Now she ached for what he held just beyond her reach.