Their Virgin Princess (Masters of Ménage #4)(9)

Landon had moved past Dane, but he could still see the way his friend moved his head in a sharp, unmistakable shake. Coop continued his translation. "And then Lan says, in his too often verbose diatribe against her stubbornness, 'no.' You know, I think the dude should explain himself from time to time. Oh, look, he got the designer shoe stomp."




       
         
       
        
Sure enough, Princess Alea stomped her right foot, threw her hands up, and stalked off, tossing open the door to the ballroom and flooding the hall briefly with glittering lights. Dane saw the way Lan sighed and opened the door again, his stare following her as he pursued.

Dane's hand twitched, and he made a fist to quell his urge to smack her sexy but rebellious little ass. "I swear to god, Coop, sometimes I want to lay that girl over my knee and not let her up until we've reached an understanding."

"Only sometimes, Dane?"

Nope. Pretty much all the time. From the minute he'd seen Princess Alea Binte al Mussad, his cock had been hard and his heart had taken a nosedive. She'd hit him like a bolt of lightning. He'd stood there staring at her, feeling like a damn fool, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. Then he'd looked at his two best friends, ready to tell them that he'd finally found the one woman he wanted to put a collar on-as crazy as that would have sounded-and realized they were just as head over heels. That quickly, all three of them were fucked.

But they had all backed off, unwilling to step on each others' toes. They had been through too much together. Coop and Lan were the only family Dane had left. Oh, there was a father and three brothers back in Georgia, but he'd come back from the Korengal Valley a different man. Shortly after his second tour, the family drama and his divorce had ended any affection or allegiance they had for him. In their head, Dane was as good as dead. Coop and Lan were his brothers now, and he couldn't fight with them. They had been at an impasse.

Until they had really understood the way relationships worked here in Bezakistan. It was tradition among the wealthy and the landholders in this small country for the brothers of a family to share a wife so they didn't have to divide the family riches or leave any sibling to suffer poverty. After a few weeks, Dane had decided they could adopt the Bezakistani way. He, Lan, and Coop might not truly share blood and they might not be preserving a fortune, but they all wanted Alea and weren't willing to stab a brother in the back to have her.

So after a full month here, he'd decided he liked the idea of sharing. The families in Bezakistan seemed happy, and he wouldn't have to relinquish his backup. He'd spent the majority of his adult life in the military, his whole childhood before that following his dad from base to base. The idea of having a family that functioned as a team really suited him.

And then just as they'd settled everything between the three of them, they realized they had forgotten to talk to the most important member of the team. And Alea didn't want anything to do with them. Or at least that was her story, and she seemed to be sticking to it. 

Landon touched his earpiece and suddenly his voice came on the line. "I want you to do a background check on that British fucker, Oliver Thurston-Hughes. Get me everything you can. I want to know it all, right down to what the asshole eats for breakfast so I'll know what to poison."

"Slow down," Coop said. "Why are we going to poison that Brit's oatmeal? Do they even eat oatmeal in England?"

Lan ignored the question, getting right to the point. "He's a little too interested in the princess."

Fuck. If he was calling her "princess," then their conversation had been a clusterfuck. "What's going on, Lan?"

His pal didn't look back. Instead, Lan stared across the ballroom, never taking his eyes off her. "That cousin of hers is trying to get her to go to England. The princess walked out onto the balcony to get some fresh air. First Mr. Small Dick followed her, then Crazy Bitch crashed the party. They laid all kinds of guilt on Her Highness."

"She's not going to England." There was no way Dane would allow it. Especially now that he was pretty sure she was still in potential danger. He would talk Talib into putting her on lockdown if he needed to. And if, for some reason, she left anyway, he would have to quit and follow her because he couldn't leave her unprotected and alone.

"I don't think she really wants to go," Landon replied. "But the British fuckwad sure seemed interested in her being a bit more than a traveling companion."

"I got a shot, boss. I can take him out in one," Coop said, his voice serious.