Mine. The girl’s face rose in his mind. And mine. Conflagration’s image.
No, not yours.
Ours.
“Excuse me?” Big brown eyes met his startled gaze. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“Walter!” Conflagration slid into the room in sock-clad feet, catching himself on Walter’s arm and waving his phone. “She’s both our date.”
Before he could react, the goddess rose from her bath, creamy bubbles sliding down olive skin to reveal curves and valleys the likes of which he’d never seen before. Inside, his dragon roared its delight. Her feminine scent added spice to the rose and jasmine of the bubbles and went right to his head. Conflagration’s fingers dug into his arm.
“If you’ve looked your fill, gentlemen,” she said, “I’d like to get dressed for your cocktail party later. My name is Gina, by the way. Nice to meet you.”
His face burned. What must she think of them? Of him! At least the other dragon was wearing clothes. “I…that is…I’m Walter.”
“Conflagration,” blurted his neighbor. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Come on, Walter, let’s back out and pretend this isn’t the strangest way to meet a woman yet.”
Her laughter, musical and sweet, washed over him and took the edge off his embarrassment. “It’s new to me, too,” she murmured. But then, I’ve never had two dates for the same night before, so I guess I don’t know what to expect.” She reached out a hand and they looked at each other. “Would one of you pass me a towel before I get a chill?”
Conflagration dropped his arm, and they both scrambled for the pile of thick, white towels on a marble stand near the tub. “Here!” Walter succeeded in grabbing one first and thrust it at her, his sense of triumph far more than it should be. But he didn’t care. And when Conflagration wrapped the second towel around his waist, hiding his nudity, they shared their first smile since high school.
“May I dress now? Unless you want to skip the party tonight? I could just go home.”
“No!” they chorused.
He exchanged a glance with Conflagration and shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind missing the meet and greet to get to know one another better, but we ran into some of our classmates in the lobby and invited them up here for a drink before the cocktail party.” A move for which he could kick himself now. “So, I guess we’d better get dressed and prepare to greet our guests.”
Chapter Three
Conflagration stood behind the bar in the suite living room. Despite the fact that the meet and greet was taking place downstairs, so many of their classmates had come up for their pre-meet and greet, they had settled in for the duration, which, if nothing changed, seemed likely to last all night.
Gina, her alias a thing of the past the moment nosy Suzy the anteater—her “biggest fan” entered, stood surrounded by a group of giggling shifter women and a few guys. Those they’d invited had called down and told everyone about Gina until everyone at the reunion had piled into their room for the chance to meet the famous actress and model.
Before the party, they’d barely had time to introduce themselves to her, and actually had no idea they had been matched with someone known from coast to coast as both a model and the best friend of the heroine in one of the hottest movie releases of the entire year. And here he stood with Walter, watching their date enchant people they hadn’t seen in fifteen years.
“I told you I had a beautiful date,” he muttered.
“You implied you were bringing your new girlfriend,” Walter replied. “Little bit of a lie there?”
A roar of laughter came from some of the people in Gina’s corner.
“Well you basically said the same thing.” Taking a gulp of 7&7, a retro drink but one he always chose when he wanted at least the illusion of a buzz, he glared across the room. “But that’s not the problem now.”
“No, it’s not. But how do we go about getting rid of all these people so we can get to know her? And figure out where we go from here?”
“It is a problem, isn’t it? I’d like to be a good neighbor…”
“For once?” Conflagration arched a brow.
“Let’s not start now. Clearly, we cannot share her.”
He kept his focus on the group around Gina while he spoke, but his awareness of the other dragon grew at the same time. His dragon couldn’t separate his interest in one from the other, which made it mega confusing. “We just need to get her alone and let her pick.”
“Then one of us will be dateless tomorrow night.”
“That doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
Gina answered questions, laughed at jokes, even signed a few autographs. This was not how she’d anticipated her evening with her date. Dates. When she’d gotten a look at Walter in the bathroom, wearing only plaid boxers, she’d been stunned by the masculine beauty. And when that other guy—Conflagration?—raced into the bathroom with the news they were both her dates—a fact they clearly had not been aware of before that point—she’d been torn between terror and excitement.
Two dates.
She’d joked with Juniper about the possibility, even made a comment to the effect to Gerri Wilder, but to have not one but two shifters turn up? Wow. Having been raised by humans from an early age, she’d dated people she went to school with, people she met on shoots or through the studio. Humans.
Juniper had told her many times she needed to make the change, to date people whose lifespan as well as physicality was more like hers. Despite her curves and curls, Gina could take on and defeat any of the men she’d gone out with before. In any sport…or hand-to-hand combat. Something told her these two wouldn’t be as easy. Why, either of them could hold her down on the bed and have his wicked way with her. A little shiver crept down her spine as she signed yet another autograph. Usually the thought would send her running away.
In planning this weekend, she’d anticipated some mingling, a lot of pleasant conversation, even fantasized about the possibility of a wild weekend love affair. But she’d not considered that they might be surrounded by strangers, making it virtually impossible to get to know either or both of the guys until they got rid of all these people!
Standing on tiptoe, she attempted to see over the heads of the circle of fans. Sure, they were nice, and it was important she be nice in return. All it took was one diva-bitch story to get out, and her reputation would be tarnished. But if the dragons didn’t rescue her soon, she’d earn that reputation. C’mon, guys. Help!
As if they heard her, they strode over, together and Walter announced, “Well, it’s been a fun evening, but it’s after midnight, and I think we’re all tired.”
Conflagration added, “See you all at brunch.” She hadn’t heard there was a brunch, but okay.
Grateful, she echoed the men’s sentiments, shaking hands and offering smiles and waves as they herded their former classmates from the room then, when they were all gone, Gina dropped to the couch with a noisy sigh. “I am sorry. I thought I’d done enough to disguise my name, but apparently not. I hope you don’t hate me.”
“Hate you?” Conflagration dropped at her left side, Walter on the other. “A beautiful woman who’s famous and nice even when she’s so tired she barely knows her own name?”
“I’m fine!” she protested, but the jaw-stretching yawn belied her words.
“See? We wore you out.” The other man elbowed her with a grin. “No, we don’t hate you. But the event organizer, our former class president, Abasi Knight…he might not love you, at least not at the moment. The bar must have been deserted. And he put a heck of a lot of work into this event. Started on it right after the tenth reunion.” He gave a little shudder. “Which we didn’t attend.”
Ugh. “Was he up here?” She didn’t remember meeting anyone named Abasi, but she’d spoken with so many people. “He wasn’t the bear in the tight vest who knocked over the vase of flowers on his way to the bathroom?”
Walter choked. “Ummm, no.”
“The beaver? Wh
at was his name...no, he was Ernie or something. He was bustling around examining the drywall and the seals on the windows. Strange fellow.”
“Abasi is a camel.” Walter reached for a glass of water on the side table and held it to his lips. “He didn’t come up. In fact, I think he was probably the only one who didn’t. Which would have left Mr. Pompous all alone at the party he arranged. And probably more than annoyed about it.”
Conflagration laid a hand on her knee, bared by the short silver cocktail dress she’d chosen. His palm woke the skin under it and sent flames in a direct line up to her girly parts. She suppressed a little shiver. “Nothing we can do about it now. We only invited a few people up here, and the rest followed, wanting to meet you. You can’t help it if you’re famous.” He leaned in close and spoke in her ear. “And beautiful.”
His warm breath picked up where his hand left off. The heat from the men on either side of her made her want to strip off the dress and splash herself with cold water from Walter’s glass…or maybe wrap herself in dragons. It would be hot, but in the best of ways.
“So, I guess we should call it a night?” she said, just to keep the conversation going. Testing herself a little.
Walter shrugged. “If you want. It’s not that late, and we don’t have to be downstairs tomorrow until around eleven for brunch.” She’d swear she saw golden flames in his green eyes as he also closed the distance between them. “Unless we’re still in bed then. I’m sure everyone will understand.”
“I am pretty tired,” she admitted, although she didn’t think sleeping was what he had in mind. And frankly, neither did she. With two men like these, she’d be wasteful to sleep. It had been a long time since she’d been with even one man, and although she was no virgin, there hadn’t been many. And none had been as good in bed as the romance novels led her to believe they would be.
How would it even work with two men? Although they were cuddled up with her on the couch, they weren’t touching each other. Did they plan to?
An avid reader of books where men loved men, she’d harbored a secret fantasy of watching them bring one another to the heights of passion. Of ecstasy. But she’d never been able to figure out how she’d happen to be in the room while it went on. After all, she couldn’t just pop over to the neighbors’ house and peek through the window. Although the two gay rockers were cute. Her face heated at the very thought, and Walter tapped her eyebrow.
“You’re blushing. Is it at the thought of going to bed…with us?”
She’d seen another suitcase in her room when she was dressing. Was one of them, or were both maybe, planning to share that amazing big bed with her? “Of course not. I hadn’t…that is, I don’t…I don’t have a clue how we’d even go about it.” Turned out the books just didn’t give enough information. Was there a Ménage for Dummies available on Kindle?
Sure. Excuse me, boys, while I slip into the bathroom for some research. Juniper and her ideas had gotten her into this mess. She always ended up in trouble when they were together, one way or another. Although it was usually fun. Turned out it could even happen with a phone conversation!
Hopefully, Juniper would earn a little karma on this one. Maybe an interesting date of her own.
Conflagration, with short red curls and fascinating gold eyes with blue rimmed irises. Walter a Nordic blond, with green eyes. Ghosts of flames in both. Pale skinned to her olive, but the rock-hard thighs against hers had her on red alert. What would it be like to be the filling in a dragon sandwich? Because they were dragons. Of that she had no doubt.
“Gina?” Conflagration. If she was going to bed with them, she had to call him something else. She could not shout that out at the peak of passion. “You can have the big bedroom alone if that’s what you want.”
“No!” she blurted. “But do you have a nickname or something? Not that I don’t like your name, but it’s such a mouthful.”
“I—”
“Sky,” Walter interrupted. “I used to call him Sky.”
Their eyes met across her, green and blue/gold, wide and filled with a pain she didn’t know how to fathom, but she waited it out. Let them have their moment and hoped they’d explain later.
Finally, the dragon usually known as Conflagration nodded. “Sky is fine. But only here. And only you two.”
She felt even warmer, as he said that. Raised by humans, she’d always been different, a loner. Somehow, permission to use this name made her part of a group, a select circle with secrets. “I like Sky.” It suited him. His eyes looked like the golden sunset light over a beach.
“All right.” His voice was soft, intimate, and his smile encompassed them both. “At least, for now, I’m Sky.”
Walter reached past her to touch Sky’s cheek, and her cat purred. Sky leaned in even closer, and the purring became so loud, she was amazed nobody else seemed to hear it. She wanted both of them in bed with her. Now.
She had been curious about how something like that worked for a long time. On those long trips away from home, her e-reader and the romances that filled it were her best friends. She’d just about given up on having a real love affair of her own. Maybe they’d only be together for the weekend, but something told her a weekend with these two extraordinary men would surpass a lifetime with anyone else. What would their dragons be like?
Maybe later…Sunday, before they said goodbye, they could do a quick “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours” shift? Her cat would be pleased.
Walter’s throat nearly closed after he said the words, after he mentioned the name Sky. They’d been friends long before it fell into anything else, and the other dragon’s name had been a mouthful for kids on the playground. But they shared it with nobody else.
Last time he’d touched Sky’s cheek, it had been softer, a teenager’s skin with just random fuzz. Now, the stubble he’d admired on the man’s jaw, the red haze, prickled his palm.
Between them, Gina’s sweetness and curves formed a bridge. Made it easier for them to talk, to behave like the friends they’d been before one attempt at sex gone wrong blew it all up. If this weekend let them go home and be civilized instead of constantly baiting one another, it would be worth it.
He’d really missed his friend.
Gina stirred, and his focus turned to her. “Gerri sent us a real movie star. I don’t think we paid enough.”
The edges of her lips quirked. “I am not a star. I play second bananas and friends of the stars, usually provide some comic relief. Mostly, I’m just a model.” She didn’t have the hard edges most models did, though, the prominent bones, instead possessing the curves he liked to see on a female. “And, because I know you will ask, I’m also a jaguar.”
“Nice.” He eyed her glossy black hair and deep-brown eyes. “I bet you’re a stunner in that form, too. Shiny fur, gleaming fangs…dangerous claws. What color is your fur?”
“Black.”
What was that sound? “Are you purring?”
She shrugged, cheeks reddening again. “She is. My cat likes you.”
“And me?” Sky—it felt so good to think of him that way again—patted her leg. “Does she like me?”
“Can’t you tell?” The purring continued, louder and stronger. “I’ve never had her do that before, I mean so someone else can hear.”
“Is she saying anything?” Walter asked. “About us?”
“Why?” The wary look in those deep-brown eyes had him backing off, but he could make a guess. “Can you hear that, too?”
“Nah.” He brushed his lips over hers, slowly, tasting her sweetness, the champagne she’d had earlier, the cherries she’d picked out of the bowl of fruit the hotel sent them…and something else entirely her. “I just wondered.”
Sky opened his mouth then closed it. What had he been about to say? They’d gone from near enemies to he wasn’t sure what. Maybe friends. He could live with that.
Maybe.
Chapter Four
He snapped his mouth closed.
> Sky.
He’d put the name entirely out of his mind. For longer than the fifteen years since high school. Nobody called him that at all since Walter stopped. He’d come up with the name when they were kids and he couldn’t pronounce the moniker bestowed upon him by his parents. A fine name, Conflagration, one gifted to a lucky member of each generation by the thunder. Some called dragons prides, there were other names but his family used thunder. The sound made by their wings when they all took off together.
Thunder.
Also the name he’d called Walter, a member of a neighboring “pride” back then because his buddy hated having such a blah name while he was Sky. Should he mention it, now? Their date looked back and forth between them, no doubt picking up on the tension and maybe wondering what caused it. Ever since they’d walked into the bathroom and seen her naked, everything changed.
Aww, screw it.
“Since we’re going with nicknames, Miss Gina, would you like to know what I called Walter here, back in the day?”
“Dude!”
“Quiet, Thunder!”
Gina blinked. “Thunder?”
Walter aka Thunder shrugged. “Yeah. But when I went into the wizard business, Walter looked better on the signs.”
“Be honest, T-man. Has anyone but me ever called you that?” Sky kept his gaze focused on his old friend, almost-lover, and recent almost-enemy.
He gave a rueful snort. “Actually, no. Seems silly now, but I really liked that name. When we’d stand and watch our elders take off into the sky, the name made me remember I would be one of them someday. Who names a dragon Walter?”
Gina’s giggle broke into their stare-down. “Okay, so you both have great names. Sky and Thunder…love it. And I am stuck with the name I was born with?” She thrust out her lower lip in an astonishingly adorable pout.
“Did you learn to pout like that at model college?” he asked before closing his lips over hers for a kiss. The prior relationship between him and Thunder might be a loss, but they had a weekend with this gorgeous creature to share and, if she didn’t have any objections, they might spend a good part of it in bed.
Paranormal Dating Agency: Claimed by Her Dragons (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 3
