Treasure Lane Dragons: Complete Series (BBW Paranormal Dragon Shapeshifter Romance) (46 page)

Somewhat curiously for him, Apollo found himself more than willing to forget about every other woman for the opportunity of getting close to Jade. He hadn’t been with anyone since her audition, and damn if that wasn’t a personal record by a mile and then some. He was surprised he could still cling to his sanity, really. At any other time, being confined to just jerking off would have made him lose his mind for sure.

Yet, here he was, perfectly happy with his choices. Voodoo – that’s what it had to be.

Dammit, where is she hiding…

Apollo wandered around the mansion, which he now found annoyingly large, as it wouldn’t allow him to locate his prize as easily as he would have liked. He’d spent the morning in the vaults with Alexander, checking their hoard and making sure that Ares had done a decent job.

Not that he didn’t trust Ares with the family fortune; it’s just that dragons tended to have a healthy amount of focused worry when it came to their hoard. Trusting the main hoard with a younger sibling was already a step most of his contemporaries wouldn’t have dared make.

It had given him a chance to share a few words with Alexander about Jade, though they were still mostly avoiding discussing her when given the chance. It was too… complicated. Yes, he and Alexander had shared women in their life before – it was only natural for twin dragons. But they’d never really expected to find the one, and now that they’d identified her and were sharing a house with her, all sorts of problems popped up.

For instance, what if she preferred one over the other? Dragon lore told them it wouldn’t happen, but dragon lore hadn’t been particularly well introduced to the modern woman, who could upend all traditions with one decision.

The fact that the Goldplains tended to be non-traditionalists didn’t help either. They hadn’t been doing things the way they were supposed to for generations, so when Apollo found himself and Alexander in a situation where they actually wished that the old lore held true, it felt a bit alien at best and downright horrifying at worst.

Apollo smirked to himself. He, Apollo Goldplains, one of the richest men in the world, a rock legend, a fucking
dragon
– afraid of something. He thought he’d never see the day.

He was just about to give up on finding the elusive Jade, when the sound of a familiar tune caught his ears and made him whip around on the spot.

She must have found the music room…

He was right. Jade was seated in a big leather recliner with a 1953 Fender Telecaster in her hands, playing the Gold Dragons’ first hit –
Light This Way
. Apollo took a breath as he stalked into the room, grabbing a 1963 Gibson on the way. He plugged it into an amp and sunk into a chair across from Jade, his hands already playing the song before his brain could even catch up.

The night was long, but you were there

We went together, but I’m still alone

It wasn’t real, you’re always missing

We went together, were you ever there at all?

The words came easily, years of singing it at every concert having etched it into his memory. For the first time, he had to stop and wonder what had made him write the lyrics in the first place. It had been so long ago.

He watched Jade smile at him as she took the solo, her hands plucking the strings with effortless grace. She was no slouch on the guitar, and he was sure she could give him a run for his money. It made his chest fill with pride. That was exactly the kind of woman he was missing – one that could stand on her own two feet next to him and Alexander. The dragon ancients had done a great service to them for bringing Jade to their very doorstep.

Jade played the last few notes of the song backed up by Apollo. He kept the guitar on his lap as Jade turned down the volume on the amp, strumming along to some song in her head.

“I see you found our music room,” Apollo said, sweeping an arm across the studio.

The walls were lined with old and rare guitars and there were concert-level instruments along with amps, speakers and lighting all over the room. All of the Goldplains were musical – it ran in the family. Alexander and Apollo had taken it one step further from using music for healing purposes or singing hymns for the dead, but their brothers were just as eager to take part. Ares was a damn fine drummer, and Achilles had a weakness for more classical instruments.

“It’s awesome! You guys should have told me you’re hiding stuff like this in the mansion!” she said, lifting the Telecaster a little and grinning from ear to ear. It was worn, but still in good shape, just like most of the gear in the room.

“Yeah. That was one of my father’s. It was his little weakness. Back then, rock was just starting to make a mark on the world, and they felt it wasn’t the time yet to indulge in stuff like that.”

Apollo shrugged. His parents had passed one after the other in quick succession, both his fathers succumbing to their age after his mother died. It was the heartbreaking reality of dragonkind. Life without their mate wasn’t worth living, and the dragon always seemed to agree. It was as if the life force got sucked out of the shifter after losing their mate. Even if they could have kept living physically, the soul didn’t wish to go on anymore. The downside of having human mates – they cut down the dragon’s life expectancy quite a bit. Still, Apollo had to agree that a shorter life with a woman he adored would be far superior to a long one filled with loneliness.

“Your fathers… So you had two?” Jade asked, cocking her head to the side.

Apollo chuckled. It must have been an odd concept for a human to grasp – sharing body and soul with more than one person. Of course, it was perfectly normal for shifter twins, but he couldn’t blame her for being a bit taken aback by it.

“I did, yes.”

The look on her face told him she obviously wanted more details, and when she launched into the theme song from
Little House on the Prairie
, he burst out laughing.

“Alright, okay. It isn’t exactly the most traditional way to be raised, I’ll give you that. But I think of it as just getting more of that parental attention kids crave for. Our fathers were pretty similar – strong, caring, dependable. A lot like Alexander. Most twin Alphas are pretty much alike, I hear. It’s supposedly what makes them work so well as a unit.”

Apollo shrugged. He certainly wasn’t very similar with Alexander. It was something that had become almost a point of pride as they grew up. Alexander was always the ‘good’ one. The one that kept the family values in mind, the one who excelled when needed and fell into the backdrop when required. Apollo always did everything the opposite way, and it didn’t take long until
not
being like Alexander became important to him as well. Funny how life goes – some rules just aren’t made to be followed.

“But you and Alexander aren’t,” Jade said.

It was more of a statement than a question. Apollo nodded.

“We’re not. We’re actually descended from dragons, who used to own areas on the present day territory of France. We still have a chateau there with some vineyards. Our mother was French – Colette. She named me, and my fathers argued until they settled on a name for Alexander. That was their agreement – my mother would get to name the rest of the brood if my fathers, Argus and Aias, got to name the firstborn.

That doesn’t explain how we’re different, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that we weren’t brought up to be the same from the beginning. There weren’t separate expectations for us or anything, but my parents made it very clear that we were allowed to chase our dreams, and they weren’t going to stop us. The Goldplains prosper in a time where most dragon families are bleeding wealth, and I think the fact that we’re a bit off the norm is a big part of that.”

Apollo plucked a few chords on the guitar, memories of his childhood flooding back to him. Happy days spent in this very same house, exploring and becoming the dragon he was today. He had to wonder what his parents would say now. He doubted they’d be very happy with his deservedly bad reputation, or the drinking, or the women.

But they’d like Jade,
he concluded with a smile.

“I think having a big family would be nice,” Jade said absently, staring up at the high ceiling of the room. “I was an only child, and I always missed having siblings. And my mother was a single mother, so there was never that support system that a kid needs. If I am to have kids, I want plenty of them. But only if I can be sure that they have two parents.”

She glanced at Apollo, and with a sudden blush, corrected herself. “Or, well, at least two parents, I guess.”

Heat pooled in Apollo, and he set aside the guitar. Dragons above, she was completely devastating. It was as if she was made to fit between him and Alexander, to match their curves and edges perfectly and make them into one whole. Intelligent, a killer musician, feisty, but still so delicate – she was everything he didn’t know he’d missed.

Apollo stood up and stepped over to her chair. He put his hands on either armrest, his body blocking Jade’s. Her gorgeous green eyes went wide with surprise, and as he leant in, she touched her hand to his chest, sending a lightning bolt of desire through him.

His lips brushed against hers. Gently at first, but all carefulness was quickly abandoned. He took the guitar off her lap, and his hands went around her waist. In an instant, she was in his arms, her legs around his waist, and he was sinking back into the chair, holding her body tightly against his.

He wasn’t sure what it was – whether the immensely clear vision he had of her as the mother of his and Alexander’s children? Or was it just that he’d been imagining how the moment would taste for so long that he couldn’t say no when they were finally alone and she was within his grasp? Whatever it was, he was going to enjoy it.

He nipped at her lower lip, and it coaxed out a sighing moan from Jade. It made Apollo hard in an instant, and he ground her hips against his, so fucking ready to take her right there and then. Only the thinnest veneer of self-control remained.

He’d promised Alexander, and Alexander had promised him – no sex alone. The first time was special, and he couldn’t be greedy, though he desperately wanted to. Instead of tearing her clothes off, he had to settle for devouring her mouth, his tongue stroking into it like his cock would pound into her pussy.

She writhed in his arms as he pulled on her hair, angling her head so he could kiss her long neck and then shower kisses on her chest. He stopped only at the very edge of her tank top, the vision of her bountiful breasts so close. But she might as well have been on the other side of the world for how available she was to him at that very moment.

Fuck.

That was all he could really think about.

Painfully, he peeled his lips off her skin and leant back in the chair, breathing hard. Jade’s eyes were foggy with lust, and he knew exactly how she felt. She captured her lower lip between her teeth, and he thought she’d surely stop if she knew what torture it was to watch her like that.

“The things I want to do to you…” he murmured, trying to catch his breath.

His dragon stalked close to the surface. For an instant, he felt his eyes flash gold and then blue again, the animal retreating only far enough to allow him control. Jade exhaled hard and pulled a hand through her hair. She scooted back and got off his lap, and he felt an immediate pang of pain as the physical contact was severed. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before – just a glimpse of what the final bond would feel like.

“But we have to be good,” she finished his thought, stepping back and falling into her own chair.

They shared a look across the few feet of distance, and it would have been enough to melt the polar ice caps.

If I can’t have her soon, I might just lose it entirely. Fucking hell.

“We have to be good,” he agreed, frustration bubbling in his tone.

Next on his agenda – go find Alexander and tell him that if they didn’t stop playing nice real fast, he might just die from blue balls.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jade

Jade wasn’t sure what her stance on, well, everything was. On the one hand, she was being courted by the two men she’d spent plenty of time daydreaming about, imagining what it would be like to meet them (and to fuck them, let’s not leave any doubt to that). And in the process, she found herself becoming more and more daring around them.