Caged Kitten (All the Queen's Men #2) - Rhea Watson Page 0,160
it dribbled down his cheek. “And Rafe and Fintan?”
His fingers slowly worked into my hair, massaging the base of my skull, tipping my head back. “We have them too.”
Just when I thought I couldn’t love him more, he said that. He accepted what my heart needed—all of them, each one different and imperfect and a piece of me that I couldn’t live without.
Smoothing my hands up his sweaty torso, over rippling muscle and the pounding drumbeat of his heart, I eased onto my tiptoes to kiss him—only for Elijah to weave his fingers through my stick-straight hair, combing it out on either side with a scowl.
“What did he do to you?” he grumbled, his warm browns giving way to the dragon’s gold, his grip on me tightening. I clutched at his forearms corded with muscle, delicious and mine, and smirked.
“You should be asking what I did to him,” I whispered back, a touch of darkness blossoming in my smile when his eyebrows shot up. “Did you expect anything less of a dragon’s mate?”
Or a vampire’s partner? Or the lover of an Unseelie fae prince?
“No,” Elijah rumbled, looking very much like he wanted to devour me whole. “I didn’t.”
Ugh. If he wanted to devour me, let him do it, right here, right now, right in the grass—
“Get a room, you heathens.”
Fintan’s shout landed just before our mouths collided, the charge shimmering between us positively electric—and definitely interrupted. As Elijah hooked a possessive arm around my waist, the look in his eyes promising that this lull wouldn’t last long, I eased back around just in time for Rafe and Fintan’s arrival. And while I would have preferred to be shoved to the ground right now with a dragon’s mouth skimming my body, this stupid red dress shredded to pieces and any lingering traces of Lloyd on my skin wiped away, standing with my three guys, my heart whole and Tully immediately back in my arms… well, that was pretty phenomenal too.
“So, uh, what do we do now?” I asked after a painfully long fifteen seconds of awkward silence, the four of us exchanging glances as if acutely aware that this was the first time we were all interacting as free supers off Xargi’s grounds. Tully nuzzled under my chin, purring, kneading, and my bed flashed in my mind’s eye—my own queen-sized bed with all the blankets clumped and pillows stacked high, waiting for me back in my Seattle apartment. “Do we just… go home?”
Did we date internationally? Cross-dimensionally? I loved each man present—Elijah for his protectiveness and his acceptance of me as I was, Fintan for his humor and his impulsiveness, and Rafe for his wit and his comfort. But, really, we had met in prison, trapped inside this fucked-up bubble for months, the scope of our budding relationships dictated by others.
And now we were just… here.
Free to do what we wanted.
With… whoever we wanted.
What if they walked away? What if Fintan went back to his courtiers and Rafe buried himself in his next book? What if Elijah thought fate had made a mistake and kept looking elsewhere?
What if I was the only one willing to start from the beginning—to explore who we all were to each other outside of handcuffs and jumpsuits and leather collars?
What if I wasn’t enough for these three to—
“I…” Fintan pressed his lips together, almost like he was considering his words before he just blurted them out. The air stilled around us, the winds dying down, the rustling of the grasses falling silent. Rafe and Elijah exchanged glances that were way too serious for my liking, and I hugged Tully tighter, this irrational fear in the pit of my stomach like a lead weight dragging me down, down, down…
“I have a suggestion,” Fintan admitted at last, shattering the quiet, the corners of his sly mouth quirking. “It involves a lot of booze, a bit of dancing, a palace stocked with all you’ll ever need, a bath the size of a stadium, and…” He nudged at Rafe with his elbow, then winked at me. “And a sun that never rises.”
“As long as it’s far away from here, I’m game,” Rafe insisted, catching my eye briefly, his gaze promising a long talk somewhere private—later. My subtle nod had him flashing a shy grin, and Elijah squeezed my waist, watching it all unfold.
“Agreed,” the dragon said, his voice giving way to a seductive grit that had my toes curling. “So long as I can spread my wings, fae.”