Page 15 of The Ruby Dragon’s Unconventional Mate (Oro Escondido #3)

Chapter

Thirteen

“ R eally?” Lachlan stared at Bryant with one eyebrow raised.

Lars had taken the twins home about an hour ago, and they’d settled on sandwiches for lunch.

Something easy. He’d barely gotten one bite of his BLT when his brother had started in on him.

“You seriously mated with Lars while I was watching the twins downstairs?”

Bryant rolled his eyes and forced himself not to blush. One of the benefits of being a ruby-colored dragon was that blushes were less obvious. “It just happened. You were fine.”

Lachlan had been fine, right?

“Of course I was fine. Those two girls are amazing, and I adore them. But still—not appropriate. Bad dragon, tempting Lars up to the bedroom. Bad bad bad.”

“Shut up, you asshole.”

He would be aggravated, except that Lachlan was barely holding his chuckles in, and the happiness that was pouring from his twin was also kind of perfect.

“I’m so glad that you two finally worked it out. It seemed like it took forever. So are you going to move in together?”

He blinked. “Lachlan, we’ve had sex once. That’s it. I’m not moving anywhere.”

“Well, when you decide to, just know that I have your back. I think that you would look adorable in that little house.”

Bryant rolled his eyes. “Stop it.”

“I’m serious. It’s a fairy-tale house. It fits in perfectly. You have the fairy tale. I have the castle. We’re like movie dragons. I love it.”

“Just shut up. What are you thinking? Oh my god.” Bryant got it, really.

It was a fabulous idea, the idea of forever with Lars, but right now, it just wasn’t an option.

He wasn’t on his own here, so they would have to just take it slow until Lachlan was more settled.

He thought Lars would understand that. After all, Lars had Logan.

Lachlan sobered. “It’s a small wing, Bryant. We don’t have to live in the same house for you to be here for me. And if I get a housekeeper, one that comes from the wing, someone we can trust…”

He fought not to wince. They’d thought, in their old wing, that they could trust the people they had surrounded themselves with.

They’d been wrong.

“No, I’m not ready for that.” He shook his head. “I don’t—I don’t want anyone in here…not like that. If Lars doesn’t want to come here, then we can just do this at a distance. Right now, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Lachlan blinked at him. “What if it’s a big deal for him? Lars seems like kind of a homebody, and that’s his home…”

“And I can go have supper over there. He can come spend the night here. It’s not that big of a deal.” He wasn’t leaving Lachlan.

“What if there’s a baby?”

His eyes went wide. “We had sex once .”

Lach tilted his head. “You do know how sex works, right? It only takes once.”

“We’ll use birth control.” This was the worst conversation ever.

“You’re not going to knot him, until the point in time when you think that I’m okay?”

It had just gotten worse. Bryant stared at his brother. “We are not discussing this. We are not that close.”

“We’re pretty close.”

“We’re not that close, trust me, not that close. Christ.” He rolled his eyes. He could not believe this.

“What? I’m just trying to look out for you like you look out for me.

You have to think about these things, if you have a mate.

Seriously, what if you have babies? If you’re going to stay separated, are you going to raise the babies over here, or is he going to raise the babies by himself over there? It’s important to have a plan.”

“My current plan is to finish eating this sandwich, check my emails, move some money around, and then go to sleep by myself in my bed in my house. Tomorrow, I’m going to do some work. I’m going to do my rounds, and I may or I may not see Lars.”

He was absolutely going to see Lars. He might go see Lars tonight, once Lachlan was asleep.

In fact, that sounded like the best idea ever.

He’d just sneak out and go hang out with Lars, come back, get changed, check his email, make sure Lachlan had breakfast, and then sneak back out and go hang out with Lars. It could totally work.

Lachlan stared at him.

“Also, I’m going to have coffee and a pastry for breakfast. What are your plans?” He made his eyes very wide. Hopefully, that was clear enough that Lachlan was in big trouble.

“Maybe I’ll take Lars out, and he and I will go exploring.”

Exploring. He didn’t love this idea. Which was stupid, because he knew Lachlan, and he knew Lars, and he knew that neither one of them would do anything inappropriate.

But still, the mate bond was really, really, really just needing to be naked together for like a few weeks, and the idea of his brother taking Lars who knew where to do who knew what, while he was supposed to be sneaking out to see his mate, was problematic.

“That’s mean, Lach.”

“Why? If you have no plans to see him…”

“I want to go see him, okay? I just don’t want?—”

“To leave me alone? Let me call Bea. I bet she and her mate will come play cribbage.”

“Cribbage.” He pondered that. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I find it meditative.”

“Okay.” He’d never seen Lachlan play a board game.

But then, he had to admit, in some ways, he wasn’t lying when he said they weren’t that close.

They were twins. He knew Lachlan better than anyone, and vice versa.

But for the last dozen years, they had both been so busy with their businesses and their places in the wing that they had lost track of each other.

“I could—I could ask Lars to come over to play cards.”

And they could have a nice hard loving too.

“Yeah?” Lach’s face lit up, and he felt like a total dick for not thinking of something like this before. “Yeah. I would love that. To be able to spend time with you both.”

“Okay. Should I ask him to come back in time for supper, then?”

“That sounds great. And without the girls, he can just fly over.” Lachlan said it without flinching, and Bryant was proud of him. His body wasn’t working like it should, and they had no idea if Lach would ever work out his magical imbalance.

“Have we asked about a healer here?”

“Mmm. No. I know they have a midwife, but I haven’t looked into it.”

“Okay.” Shit. Was he always this stupid? He would ask Lars when he called.

“Mmm. I think I’m going to go grab a nap. Those girls wore me out.” Lachlan polished off his sandwich and slowly made his way out of the room.

God, that tore at his heart.

He called Lars right away instead of waiting.

“Hey, you. Did I forget something?” Lars asked.

“No. No, I had several questions, actually.” Hearing Lars’s voice made his heart soar again instead of being sore. Words were so weird.

“Okay, go for it.”

“First, would you like to come back for supper? Lach is in the mood to play cards, and I was thinking about surprising you by showing up at your place anyway.”

He loved that soft, husky chuckle. “What can I bring?”

“Some kind of bread?” He would make pasta and salad.

“Can do. What else?”

“Is there a wing healer here?”

“Uh.” Lars paused. “We have several. They all specialize, kind of.”

“Okay, cool. I’d like to talk about that when you come over.”

“Sure. Anything else?”

“Will you bring an overnight bag and let me feed you breakfast too?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Lars sounded tickled as hell, in fact. “Is it okay if I bring Slippy?”

“Yes. Jarrel actually loves to play with smaller animals, and not in that eating-them-eventually sort of way.”

“So cool. So what time?”

“Yes? Whenever you want to come back. Lach is napping.”

“I’ll be over in ten-ish. I just dropped the girls off, but I need to get home and stuff things in a bag so I can fly to you.”

“I’ll be waiting, love.” He almost said, “I love you,” but he wanted to say that face-to-face the first time.

Bryant knew it was true, though. He loved Lars so much already. Lars was kind. Sweet. Fierce. Giving. And utterly the hottest thing he’d ever seen or touched. Just thinking that had his cock hardening.

Why did he feel like he wasn’t doing right by any of the people in his life that he loved. Lach. Lars. His friend Logan…

Bryant took a deep breath in, and then he let it out. Okay. He needed to stop crying in his iced tea and get on with making things better.

And he would start with Lars, loving on him while they had time this afternoon.

And then he would find out about getting his brother some damn healing help.