Gift of the Gods (Magic Blessed Academy 1)

Well, if they were waiting on me to do that, we’d be here for a long fucking time. My heart, mind, and body all seemed to be sending me conflicting suggestions, leaving my thoughts a tangled up mess. There was only one thing I was sure of without a doubt.

I shook my head adamantly. “No. I’m serious. No fighting.”

Lachlan shook his head, his expression d

ark. “Sweetheart, that’s not—”

“No fighting.” I glared down at each of them. “We got this far because we stuck together. Because we had each other’s backs. I’m not letting this entire group splinter because each of you wants to bang me and you can’t figure out what to do about it.”

Gesturing at the cave around us, I let out a low, harsh laugh.

“For fuck’s sake. Look at this place. We only made it here because we each contributed to the effort. Merrick, you saved Trace’s life today, and I’m so damn glad you did. But I can’t let you save his life one minute and then turn around and challenge him to a duel or whatever the next. That’s not how this works.”

Merrick’s gaze flicked to Trace, and I saw his expression soften as he remembered how close to dying his friend had come today. As he remembered that the man before him was one of his best friends.

His head dipped in a small nod. “You’re right.”

The other two men seemed to have gone through a similar thought process, because their shoulders relaxed slightly, and the angry tension hovering in the air lessened.

I let out a soft breath. “Good. I mean, you guys are all big boys. You can learn how to share your toys, right?”

The second the words left my mouth, tension crackled through the air again. Only this was an entirely different kind of tension than the angry jealousy that’d filled the space around us before.

This was shock, arousal, and… interest.

“Share?” Merrick murmured, rolling the word around on his tongue as if tasting it. His gaze tracked over my face, heat burning in his eyes. “Is that what you want, Ari? You don’t want us to fight over you?”

“Ye’d rather we shared ye instead?”

Lachlan asked, his voice a little strained. I couldn’t quite tell if it was because he loved the idea or hated it, but when I shifted my gaze to him, the expression on his face definitely wasn’t one of disgust.

“Holy fuck.”

That was Trace’s deep contribution to this conversation, but honestly, it pretty much summed the whole thing up. Everything I was feeling right now could best be expressed by those two little words.

Holy. Fuck.

I’d thrown out the suggestion of sharing as a joke, but as soon as the words had spilled out of my mouth, as soon as I’d seen the men’s reaction to it, it had struck me that I wasn’t actually joking.

That was exactly what I wanted.

I wanted the dynamic that’d been developing between all three of us to continue to grow. I wanted to fight alongside these men, I wanted to have them by my side as we navigated whatever challenges the gods threw at us next… and I wanted to fuck them all so badly it made my body ache just thinking about it.

Was it possible to have all of that?

Not just the friendship, not just the growing bond between us, but a physical relationship too?

Fuck it. This whole thing might collapse as soon as we get back to school anyway. Why bother playing it safe in the land where there is no safety?

“Yeah.” I met each of their gazes, affixing a cocky, confident look on my face even as my heart hammered in my chest. “I do. Think you can handle that?”

I watched the three of them absorb my words.

Then Merrick reached up and took the water bottle I’d forgotten I was holding from my hand. His fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he tugged me down onto his lap, spreading his legs so I perched sideways on one of his thighs. His arm banded around my waist, and he buried his nose in my hair as his lips found my ear.

“Ari, I don’t share.”

My breath caught, a spike of arousal at the possessive growl in his voice mingling with disappointment. I hadn’t known until I said it out loud exactly how much I wanted all three of them, but now that I’d spoken the words, it was all I could think about.