The Dragon’s E-Mail Order Menage

Chapter 6

“Well look at you. You look pretty prepared. You ready for this? It’s going to be the best thing you ever did, I guarantee it.”

“Camping? I don’t know. I’m a big fan of the land, really I am, but I don’t know about camping. Especially with only two boys to keep me company.”

Hudson and Levi exchanged glances and abruptly broke into a fit of laughter. Or giggles, more like it. Maggie shook her head and rolled her eyes, uttering a noise of exasperation. Men. It didn’t seem to matter how old they got, some part of them was always right around twelve years old.

That part was always going to drive them to do stupid, dangerous things to impress someone (usually a girl), laugh at bodily functions, and dissolve into fits of laughter over things that only the two of them could really find funny. Secretly she thought it was kind of adorable, but she couldn’t let them know that.

She couldn’t let them know how cute they were being because that was a good way to lose her leverage. So she kept herself in check, kept her smile to herself, and put both of her hands on her hips. It was the universal “I Am Not Amused” stance that every girl seemed to have embedded in her DNA and waited for them to notice.

After a moment, they took a breath and a second to look at her, both of them noticing at the same time the way she was standing and she could see them fighting to get control over themselves. It took a couple of minutes but they finally managed to get it so that only the tears shining in their eyes gave any hint to the fact that they had recently been doubled over in fits of hysterics.

“Sh*t, I’m sorry, Maggie, we’re being assholes.”

“Yes,” she said in a flat voice, “you are. You mind telling me what exactly is so funny in the first place?”

“Nothing.” Hudson smiled, putting his hand out to stop Levi from talking again. “Nothing, really. You just had such a serious look on your face at the idea of talking about camping.”

“What look?”

“A look like you thought we were going to drag you off to your death. It’s supposed to be fun, Maggie, and if you really don’t think it will be, then we don’t have to do it. It’s a pretty cool place, though. Levi and I have been going out there since we were little boys. I think you’d like it once you got out there to see it.”

“All right,” she sighed, “I’m game. Anything you can do I can do better, right?”

“I have no doubt. So let’s get going, then. I want to get out there in time to really enjoy the day.”

Maggie cocked her head to one side, curious as to what exactly that meant, but Levi just grinned, came up close enough to her to brush the hair out of her face again (it was something he seemed to have developed a habit for doing) and smiled at her in a way that was maddening. When he looked at her that way, smiled like that, she knew he was thinking all kinds of things he just wasn’t going to say and there was no amount of pleading, poking, or prodding that would convince him otherwise. She looked to Hudson, wondering if he might tell her what exactly was going on, but he just smiled back at her and shook his head no.

“I know I’m the weak link out of the two of us, but not this time. This is one of those you’ve got to see it to believe it sort of thing, okay?”

“Sh*t. Fine, okay.”

“I hope you like it, Maggie. I really do. I’m a little worried that we’ve built it up too much, you know, the way it is with holidays where you think it’s going to be so amazing that nothing will ever meet your expectations?”

“I’m sure it won’t be. Hudson, seriously. If you think whatever this thing is will be so fantastic then it will be. I believe that. I’m just not so sure how I’m going to like the camping part.”

He laughed and kissed her gently on the forehead before following Levi towards the front door. That contact with him, the simple sensation of having his lips pressed up against her cool skin, took her breath away and for a minute she felt unsteady on her feet. She actually had to reach out for the arm of the nearest chair to make sure she didn’t stumble.

There was that fire, that zing that shot through her blood and ran down her spine, made her feel hot and cold all at the same time. A feeling that she forgot to believe in after every time she came into contact with him, but it was still there, waiting for her.

That was the kind of feeling that made her one hundred percent sure that she was right to be here. It did that, but it was also part of the reason for her being nervous about this camping trip. Sure, she had been living with them for a while now, but that was in a grand, massive house where if she had wanted to, she could easily have pretended that she was living completely alone.

But camping? That would be different. Even though they would be out under the vast New Mexico sky with nothing to encumber them whatsoever, it would still feel like there was far less room than when they were in the house. It would just be the three of them, for one, and even though that was all that was living in the mansion and all that ever seemed to step foot inside (aside from the occasional cleaning lady who managed to come and go like she had some kind of a secret passage way to give her access) there was a lot around them to serve as distraction.

There were more televisions than she could count and more rooms than she had even bothered to take stock of, books and music and a whole other host of things right outside of the front doors. If they went out into the middle of nowhere, what would there be to fill the silence? What if they got out there and realized that they didn’t have anything to say to each other?

Well not Hudson and Levi, they were best friends, right?

But what about her? She felt like there was the very real possibility that they would get out into the middle of nowhere and the two men would find that she wasn’t nearly as interesting as they had first believed her to be. Maybe they would wish that they had settled on someone else. Maybe everything she had felt between her and Hudson, each little spark of electricity, had been a mistake and perhaps the mounting flirtation she had felt between her and Levi was only a passing flight of fancy.

He seemed like the kind of guy whose attention could be easily lost and she wasn’t even sure whether or not it was something she had to begin with! The idea of being out there with those two men made her feel naked, laid bare without even being out there yet.