She wriggled in her discomfort. “I was watched all the time. Home tutored until I was eighteen. A bodyguard with me at all times when I went to uni. It made it very difficult to make friends. This summer was the first time I was allowed to go anywhere, traveling around Europe with a group of acquaintances rather than actual friends, and even then my father had men watching me all the time.” She spoke so quickly, the words were tumbling over themselves. “I had kicked up a fuss about being smothered and…and my father finally agreed to let me go on the holiday. He thought I didn’t know he was having me watched the whole time.” She smiled ruefully. “Even the girl I shared a room with admitted she had been paid generously by my father to keep an eye on me.”
“So you have never been alone with a man?”
“Not until you and Rhys, no.”
“Ah.” Rhys gave a grunt of satisfaction before crossing the room and moving back down onto his haunches beside where Cristina lay across Aeran’s thighs. “You’re a virgin.”
Cristina’s cheeks burned a fiery red. “I don’t see—” She broke off with a groan as Aeran landed yet another smack on her bottom. “Yes. Yes, I’m a virgin.” The color in her cheeks now matched that of her bottom. “There’s no way I could be anything else when my father has been so protective of me,” she stated defensively.
Rhys gave Aeran a triumphant glance before placing his hand on Cristina’s cheek and turning her face toward him so that he could kiss her. A long and possessive kiss that Aeran also shared through their rapidly deepening bond.
Aeran continued to enjoy sharing that bond until Rhys had taken his fill, Cristina’s lips swollen and a deep rose color by the time Rhys ended the kiss. Then Aeran lifted her up and across his thighs so that she was straddling him, her sore bottom against his thighs, her bare and wet pussy pressing against the bulge in his jeans as he claimed her mouth for himself.
He could taste Cristina’s innocence now that his senses weren’t being blinded by jealous thoughts of her in another man’s arms and another man’s bed, her beautiful body being claimed and fucked by him.
Cristina was theirs.
Completely and only theirs.
Chapter 9
“The two of you now seem very calm, when earlier you were so angry.” Cristina eyed Rhys and Aeran suspiciously as the three of them lay on the bed together in Aeran’s bedroom. The two men took turns feeding her delicate mouthfuls of food from the tray one of the other brothers had brought up to their suite a short time ago.
Their suite?
Dear God, was she really starting to think of the three of them as being together? A dragon shifter triad?
Would their brothers accept her? Would their human mates?
Cristina had a feeling that if Rhys and Aeran said it was so, then that was the way it would be.
Rhys popped a grape into her mouth before answering. “You’re our mate. It’s our pleasure, our priority, to please and care for you.”
Cristina frowned. “It didn’t feel that way when the two of you were spanking me.”
Rhys gave her a knowing smile. “You loved every minute of it. Surprisingly so”—he placed another grape next to her lips, pale gaze following every movement as she parted her lips and he could push the fruit inside—“for a virgin.” He tapped her playfully on the nose. “We have only just begun to explore your sexual needs and preferences.”
“I don’t have any—”
“No more lies, mate,” Aeran warned. “Because you can’t begin to hide the responses of your body from us. Right now, your nipples are as hard as the rubies they resemble, and your pussy is swollen and very wet. They’ve been that way since I spanked you.”
Cristina wondered why there was never a hole for her to crawl into when she needed one.
Because nothing about her life was the same. Oh, she had railed and stamped her feet at her father’s overprotectiveness, longed to do the things other women her age were doing. But now that safe life was all gone, she—
She what?
Wanted it back again?
The only thing she missed from her former life was her father. And she now had no choice but to accept she had never really known him.
Everything had been so fraught and out of her control since it was confirmed her father really was dead, so much so, Cristina hadn’t really had the opportunity to process the information.
She processed it now.
She hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye to her father. He was just gone.
They had argued before she left for Europe. Cristina had been determined to go away with her friends, and although Cezar finally, and reluctantly, had to accept that decision, they had still been slightly at odds with each other when Cezar accompanied her to the airport.
“He never for a moment doubted you loved him.”
Her vision was slightly blurred by the hot tears still falling down her cheeks, but she recognized Rhys’s voice as easily as she knew her own. As he seemed to know the reason for her tears. “You can’t know that.”
“Of course I can.” Gentle fingers lifted her chin until she was looking at Rhys. “You have been a constant pain in both our backsides from the moment we met you, but it hasn’t changed the way we both feel about you.”
“I’m the one who has a painful backside,” she reminded ruefully, not quite ready to explore what Rhys might mean by “the way we both feel about you.”
“Only because we care for you,” Aeran assured.
“You spanked me and then made me apologize to both of you!”
He shrugged. “And now it’s all forgiven and forgotten.”
Cristina’s sore bottom told a different story!
She also wondered if it was only the mating heat that governed these two men’s affection for her. Or did they actually care about Cristina, as well as their mate? Perhaps to them, they were one and the same thing. Which was reassuring to a mate, but not so much to the woman.
Inwardly, Cristina felt very alone right now and vulnerable, despite the presence of both these men and those delicate tendrils of bonding that all three of them felt and which both men assured her meant that they would protect her with their lives, if necessary.
Rhys sat up to remove the tray from across her thighs and place it on the bedside table before turning back to pull her farther down the pillows. “It’s time we showed you how much we forgive you.”
Her eyes widened as Aeran settled the heat of his body on her other side, the two of them boxing her in. “I’m really not sure about this…”
Rhys chuckled softly. “We won’t complete the mating until you tell us you’re ready to do so.”
“And if I’m never ready?”
“You will be.” Aeran trailed tender kisses down her cheek and throat. “Our goddess mothers don’t make mistakes,” he assured. “And you were fated to become ours from the moment of your birth.”
He sounded so certain, so accepting of that fate.
Cristina glanced at Rhys and saw the exact same conviction on his harsher features.
How did she feel about that?
She already knew them to both be honorable men. Despite the spankings, they were also protective of her. Even their fierce dragons had shown her a certain amount of tenderness.
But a fated mate?
To two dragon shifters, not one?
Could she do that? Become that to Aeran and Rhys?
Cristina would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge, to herself, at least, that she was already feeling the strengthening of those emotional and physical tendrils these two men called their mating bond. A bond that would only continue to grow stronger the longer the three of them were together, entwining and joining them, until it would be impossible for them to be apart.
If Cristina had ever thought about her future, of falling in love and marriage—which, considering how protective her father had been since she came to London, hadn’t been very often—then she had never for a moment envisaged becoming the focus of the
attentions of two men. Especially two men like Rhys and Aeran.
The dragon shifter bit aside—oh God!—they were both arrogant and authoritative, and so much older than her. Centuries older than her, it seemed, and no doubt they possessed the experience to go with those years. Physical experience Cristina didn’t have. They must have both had hundreds of lovers in sixteen hundred years.
It was a bit much to expect her to go from being a virgin to accepting two lovers at the same time.
“It won’t be like that.” Rhys once again demonstrated that he was able to read her emotions as he pulled the T-shirt up and over her head. His lips moved to nuzzle the heat of her throat, one of his hands cupping a bared breast. “Aeran and I are both concentrated solely on you. Your pleasure. Your comfort.”
“Close your eyes,” Aeran instructed softly as he slid down the bed. “You’ll see. We’re both so attuned to your pleasure, it will feel as if there’s only one man making love to you.”
Cristina gave a snort. “I think having two cocks trying to penetrate me at the same time might blow that myth out of the water!”
Aeran’s lips roamed freely over her smooth and delicious skin, at her navel. “We aren’t going to penetrate you with our cocks.” He licked a path down to where the scent of Christina’s arousal was heaviest, fingers gently parting the swollen petals of her vulva to bare her opening and the erect clit above. “Not yet,” he murmured. “Now close your eyes.” He waited until she had done exactly that before lowering his head to lap up the sweet nectar of her arousal.
Suck her. Lick her. Pleasure her.
Aeran had been attuned to his dragon for many centuries, enough so that he knew this time, those instructions weren’t coming from him.
Taste her. Penetrate her. Fuck her with your tongue.
It was his bond with Rhys, Aeran realized incredulously as he felt Cristina’s swollen nipple against his tongue as Rhys sucked it fully into his mouth.
Fuck her with our tongue, he brother encouraged as he suckled harder, his fingers pulling and tweaking the other nipple. Let’s show our mate how well we intend to pleasure her for the rest of our lives together.
Aeran glanced up at Rhys, nodding as he saw the glitter of intent in his brother’s eyes as he continued to suckle Cristina’s bared breasts. Cristina was theirs, and the sooner she accepted that, the easier their life together would be.
Cristina was being bombarded with an overload of emotions and sensations, and not all of them were her own.
She could sense Rhys’s throb of arousal as he suckled her nipples, and her own pleasurable response to having them sucked. Could feel his pleasure as he sucked and laved this tongue across her nipples.
She could also feel Aeran’s lips against her belly and then lower as his mouth took complete possession of her pussy. At the same time as she tasted and felt herself against his lips.
It was beyond erotic.
Too much so for her to retain any shred of sanity as the long length of Aeran’s tongue curled itself about her exposed clit and began sliding up and down that erect and sensitive organ to the same rhythm as Rhys pulled and sucked on her nipples.
Cristina was sure no human tongue could do what Aeran was doing to her.
No human tongue.
But Aeran and Rhys weren’t completely human.
That thought was lost, completely escaping her, as that thickened tongue now stroked along her vulva, and then farther back, licking the sensitivity of her bottom before pushing inside to lick and penetrate.
A climax instantly ripped through Cristina. Wave after wave of endless pleasure.
“My turn,” she heard Rhys murmur as she lay sprawled on the bed, between her thighs slick and parted in invitation.
The two men changed places, Aeran now squeezing and pulling on her nipples, Rhys’s tongue and lips taking possession of her clit.
Cristina was instantly bombarded with another overload of sensations. Her own pleasure, along with Aeran’s and Rhys’s.
The fierceness of her second release robbed Cristina of breath, her heart seeming to stop beating as she was hit by another climax, and then another.
“Breathe, mate,” Aeran murmured against her throat. “Breathe, damn it!”
Cristina could hear the rising panic in his voice, but she still couldn’t do as Aeran asked.
Everything inside her seemed to have stopped.
There was no breath.
No heartbeat.
No rush of blood coursing through her veins.
All she was aware of was that endless release as her body was racked by climax after climax and that pleasure continued as an endless loop through her, mind, body, and soul.
“What the fuck…” Aeran reared up to stare down at their mate’s unmoving chest, her face growing paler by the second. “What the hell is happening?”
“I have no fucking idea!” Rhys looked just as panicked as he moved to Cristina’s other side. “Breathe, damn it. Cristina, breathe!” In desperation he thumped his fist down on her chest.
Then again.
And again.
In desperation, he sent a plea to his brother Dylan through their familial dragon link. Our mate has stopped breathing. Get the fuck up here. Now!
Tears blurred Aeran’s vision as he grasped hold of Cristina’s shoulders to lift her up into his arms. She was completely boneless, her head lolling against his shoulder, delicate eyelids closed, face pale, her lips turning blue.
He glanced up and saw that his brother looked just as devastated. “We’re losing her, Rhys.” He could literally feel Cristina’s life force fading.
“Not on my watch, you’re not!” Dylan hurried across the room, pushing both men out of the way as he stabbed a needle directly into Cristina’s chest and pushed down the plunger. “It’s just adrenaline,” he bit out as Aeran and Rhys both growled.
“Everyone calm down.” Holly had now joined them, prying Aeran’s fingers loose before she took his place and gathered the still-unbreathing Cristina against her before pulling the sheet up to cover her nakedness. “You should both leave.”
“No fucking way!” Rhys snapped.
“She’s our mate,” Aeran snarled.
Ours, their two dragons echoed possessively.
“And whatever the two of you did to her almost killed her.” Dylan glared at them. “Get the hell out. Now.”
“We can’t leave her—”
“Get them out of here before they both shift completely and wreck the place,” Dylan instructed as Nathaniel and Grigor now stood in the doorway.
It was the first indication Rhys had that he had partially shifted. His jaw was elongated, his teeth long and sharp, glittering scales on his cheeks, his hands now claws tipped with lethal talons. “I’ll kill the first person who tries to touch me—” He broke off as Holly did exactly that by placing her hand on his arm. The one person in the room, besides Cristina and Aeran, he would never harm. “We only just found her. We can’t lose her,” he pleaded with Holly brokenly.
“You won’t,” Holly assured gently. “Look, she’s breathing again,” she said in some relief as Cristina’s chest moved and she drew in a shuddering breath. “Go with Nathaniel and Grigor and let Dylan and me handle this,” she encouraged. “I promise either Dylan or I will come and tell you when we’re sure Cristina is out of danger.”
It took several more seconds, and a sharp instruction from Grigor, before Rhys and Aeran reluctantly agreed to leave the bedroom.
Holly had said she or Dylan would come and get them “when” Cristina was out of danger, but both men knew it might be “if”…
Chapter 10
“What the hell did the two of you do to her?” Grigor demanded the moment they were in the sitting room with the bedroom door closed behind them.
“Cristina fucking died in there,” Nathaniel added with incredulity.
Rage such as he had never know before surged inside Rhys and was instantly released in the roar of fury he gave as he lau
nched himself at Nathaniel, eyes glowing a deep aquamarine, talons raised, dragon’s teeth bared.
No.
Rhys instantly stilled, the anger still raging inside him, but no longer out of his control.
No, Rhys, Aeran repeated through their mental link as he stepped forward and touched his arm.
The anger in Rhys died completely, eyes no longer burning with the need to kill or maim, talons receding, teeth returning to their human size and shape.
Nathaniel is right, Aeran sighed. Something we did almost killed our fated mate.
Rhys waited until the last of the anger had drained out of him before turning to Nathaniel. “I apologize,” he said stiffly.
Nathaniel nodded. “Accepted.”
“But we know what almost happened to Cristina. We just don’t understand why,” Rhys continued. “One minute, we were making love with her, and the next, she had stopped breathing. God, the sensations and emotions were so intense, overwhelming, beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before,” he added with a groan. “Is it always like that?”
“Lovemaking with our mate is intense, yes,” Grigor confirmed, still frowning. “But none of our mates have ever died during the claiming.”
“We didn’t claim her,” Aeran put in softly.
Nathaniel’s gaze sharpened. “Still?”
Rhys shook his head. “We wanted to give Cristina time to become accustomed to the thought of having two mates or, in her human mind, two husbands, before we complete the mating.”
“Your mates all had three weeks after the mating started to make that decision,” Aeran reminded.
“We were both making love to Cristina.” Rhys took up the narrative. “She simply ceased breathing, and her heart stopped.” It had felt to Rhys as if his warrior heart ceased the moment hers did, and he didn’t need to consult with Aeran to know he had felt it too.
“If Cristina dies again, then we die along with her,” Aeran said the words anyway.
“Well that goes to the top of my list for most embarrassing moments!” Cristina grimaced as she lay back on the pillows of Aeran’s—their?—bed. “God, my chest hurts!” She gently rubbed the bruised area.
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