cheeky grin. “But I might need more convincing really soon!”
“Can’t wait.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Apollo
So, what’s a man to do when his entire worldview gets upended with the addition of just one person into his life? Apollo was a man not quite lost, but not entirely sure where he was going either. The last few weeks had been a blur, starting with Jade making her first appearance, all the way to coming to Gold Way and telling her with his full conviction that he and his brother would marry her.
If that wasn’t just about the most insane thing he’d ever heard, he wasn’t sure what was.
He knew Jade was special from the first moment he met her. There was something there that made his dragon stand up and take notice, right along with the man. Shifters always preferred women with healthy curves, though Apollo’s tastes had grown less discerning over the years, but one look at Jade made all those eons of lust come flooding back to him. Yup, he definitely wanted a woman with curves. Especially that woman.
His mouth watered at the merest thought of her, and while being away from her was brutal, being near her was even worse. Apollo seemed to be grappling with himself whenever he was near her, trying to convince himself that throwing her on the floor and fucking her senseless wouldn’t be the most gentlemanly thing to do in their situation.
With each day, it was becoming harder and harder to make that understanding stick.
Never in his life had he been quite as conflicted about what he should and shouldn’t do. Apollo was reactionary to a fault, and finding himself actually plotting and planning, trying to direct his actions so they might impact her only positively, was something he was still trying to get the hang of.
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
C. J. Cherryh
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