Roland Voros was well out of her league. His elegantly cut suit and designer tie had made her feel both dowdy and tongue tied even as they sent unaccustomed feelings surging through her body. His broad shoulders and long legs seemed to her to be the essence of masculinity. His handsome face, and something elemental about his deportment or his voice, made her insides tremble. But she was most unlikely to ever see the object of her infatuation ever again.
“Dr. Whitcomb has made several suggestions about my dissertation, and the committee had a whole bunch more —different from the ones they made last time,” she said instead of talking about her crush.
“That’s about par,” Dave reassured her. “Best of all is when they tell you to redo stuff so that it’s exactly back to your first draft.” He rolled his eyes and chuckled.
They didn’t quite do that,” Kayla said seriously. “But I’ve had to configure my statistics three different ways because they can’t agree. Now I have to shuffle six sections, and rewrite things so it flows in the new sequence. Oh, and Okla wants me to cite his new paper.”
Dave nodded knowledgeably. “It’s partly academic quibbling, partly real mistakes, but mostly politics.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “Whitcomb sent Okla’s pet back to redo her research. So he’s taking it out on you.”
Kayla gulped. “I hadn’t heard that,” she said. “That’s too bad.” There was no way she was going to touch Stephanie Dodson’s misfortune with a ten-foot pole.
“Yeah, I hear Stephanie had a real hissy fit.” Dave whistled. “Can you imagine, seven years of work down the toilet and having to start over from scratch?” He rootled in his backpack with one skinny hand and emerged with a dusty chocolate bar. “Do you want one?” he asked.
“I’m good.”
* * *
Roland Voros had been utterly unable to get Prof. Whitcomb’s adorable research assistant out of his head. When the door to the biology building opened and buxom, blushing Kayla Cooper walked out he felt the remembered buzz in all his senses. She was wearing the drabbest most ill-fitting pants and blouse he could imagine. Why she had decided to wear mud-colored slacks topped with a baggy tunic in a drab shade of oatmeal was beyond him.
Yet it didn’t matter. She was radiant. She electrified his senses. Her lovely features didn’t require makeup to be beautiful — her bone structure and gorgeous golden complexion was sufficient. Her hourglass figure needed no enhancement. This tall, full-figured woman was a walking wet dream. And he had been dreaming endlessly about her. He stepped into her path and said, “Hello.” And held out his hand to her.
She blushed even deeper. Apricot tinted her golden cheeks. She blinked shyly and then her gold framed glasses went to his face. “Hello,” she returned and her sexy contralto rose two octaves. She transferred her overflowing satchel to her left hand and placed her plump hand in his. The contact sent a spark right through his body as it had done before.
“Are you busy, Ms. Cooper?” he asked her throatily.
She grinned up at him. “Always. But if there’s something I can do for you, I can make time.”
Roland smiled down into her rosy face. “Would you have lunch with me?” he asked confident of her response. He was quite sure she would have reasoned out that he was the donor who had supplied the cash to pay Whitcomb’s grad students. She was going to turn cartwheels if he wanted cartwheels.
“I’d enjoy that, sir.”
He whisked Kayla away from campus. Seventeen minutes later she was seated across from Roland Voros in his favorite restaurant. Statlanders was so rarefied it had no signage just a plain black glass door. An obsequious waiter immediately seated them at his regular table beside a window that overlooked the city all the way to the ocean. Kayla was clearly as impressed by the magnificent view as he had intended her to be.
Roland ordered a full meal for the lovely woman he had enticed to lunch. He liked to see women enjoy their food and he didn’t want to watch Kayla pick her way daintily through a salad without dressing when she clearly needed sustenance. He could tell his ordering for her made her bristle, but although she firmed her plump mouth and fiddled with her glasses, she bit her tongue and kept quiet. Good. He preferred women to understand their place.
It was a thoroughly pleasant meal. By the time Kayla was scooping up the last of her chocolate mousse, he felt he made great progress with this shy student. She had told him about her research on Ngaire Island and the constant battle to prevent alien hitchhikers on the boats they used to get there.
“Every single carton, every piece of equipment, every backpack, has to be searched and quarantined. We have flightless birds and hundreds of species of insects that are found nowhere else in the world. Mice and rats and possums have all been carried to Ngaire Island inadvertently. So far we’ve been able to keep them to a dull roar, but we certainly don’t want to add to their numbers, Mr. Voros.”
“Call me Roland.”
He added some comments of his own to their discussion, but he didn’t try to offer an instant solution to a difficult problem. He wanted to impress her not make her think he was a know-it-all. “We’re all invasive species,” he said wryly. “Not just people, but every species on earth. The birds that have evolved on Ngaire got there originally from New Zealand or Australia.”
“We still have to try to preserve those birds,” she argued. “They’ve evolved into entirely new species.”
“That is so. They absolutely need protection. Tell me about your giant spider crabs.”
To his surprise, Kayla found the courage to ask him about Transkona’s fishing fleet after they had discussed the crustaceans nearest her heart. Voros explained that his company was adopting sustainable fishing practices and was trying to use their clout to force others to comply with environmental regulations. The conversation veered off into the unintended consequences of some new international laws and the time flew past.
“Where were you off to when we met?” he asked as he escorted her back down to his waiting limousine.
“I was going home — it’s my day to do errands,” she confessed.
“I will see you there.”
“There’s no need,” Kayla said hastily. “I’m sure it is out of your way.”
“I insist.”
Waimarie Te Paka, Roland’s Maori driver and one of his coterie of sword bearers, opened the back door for them. Kayla smiled at the chauffeur before she got in and scooted across to the far side of the vehicle. She looked around as astonished by the opulent interior as she had been on the way to the restaurant.
Roland opened the cabinet in front of him. “Would you care for something to drink?” he asked her.
Kayla’s eyes were like saucers at the glittering display of glassware and bottles, but she shook her head. “No, thank you. I just had the best lunch of my life!”
Waimarie’s presence meant that he could not do more than converse with Kayla. Waimarie had the sensitive hearing of a dragon, and even though he was Lord Voros’ swore retainer, he was also Watatoni Te Kanewa’s grandson. Roland had to assume that anything he said and did would eventually get back to that stern moralist. So his pursuit of Kayla Cooper would have to be very discreet indeed.
“Thank you again for my lovely lunch,” Kayla said with a beaming smile. “And for the ride home.” She included the impassive Waimarie in her smiling thanks.
“I’ll see you to your door,” Roland said. Hopefully her roommates would be out at this time of day. His investigator had said there were three of them.
“It’s barely four in the afternoon, Roland. You don’t have to bother.”
Roland inclined his head. “I’ll see you to your door,” he insisted.
Clutching her satchel tightly, Kayla led him to the elevator and punched the button for her floor. As soon as she used her key he could hear two female voices raised in raucous argument. Kayla went red then white.
“My roommates,” she whispered shamefaced. “They’re best frenemies.” She shrugged a
pologetically. “The rent is cheap so that compensates for the screeching.”
Roland nodded. His investigators had said Kayla had three roommates. His bad luck to find them at home. He bent and kissed her full lips gently. He pulled back and watched her lashes shyly veil her soft hazel eyes. She felt it too. Good.
“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?” he asked, certain she would not refuse him.
Kayla shook her head shyly. “I teach six to nine tomorrow,” she explained.
“Then the following evening?”
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.” He bent his head and gave her another kiss. Yes, indeed, this woman was sexual tinder to his spark. He was going to enjoy this one.
* * *
Kayla floated to her room, already half in love after just two soft kisses. Her sensible, practical self had already warned her that rich guys didn’t wind up with girls from sheep stations with no money and no social status. But, for the first time in her life, her hormones were humming so she let herself dream.
By the time Roland had taken her to dinner twice more, and once to the symphony, Kayla was in love and floating through her days. Being pursued by a tycoon left her as busy and more breathless than her old job slinging beers. But it was more fun to have Roland’s deep voice rumbling at her. And much more delightful to feel his arm around her shoulders.
He was so circumspect that he seemed to have guessed that she was entirely inexperienced. She couldn’t think of another reason in this day and age why a man in his thirties would never do more than hold her hand in the back seat of the car or kiss her good bye at her door. His respectful behavior made her hope he was falling in love too.
On the way back from dinner one evening, in the back seat of his limousine, he handed her a little package.
“Go ahead, open it.” He urged.
Her fingers were all thumbs but she managed to remove the foil paper and open the box. It was a brand new iPhone. “Oh, wow,” she was too startled by his gift to thank him properly.
“I want you to be safe,” he said gravely. “That thing you use is out of the ark. And you don’t have service in half the city.”
It was true. Her phone was an antique compared to this one. But it was all she could afford.
“It’s paid for until the next year,” he said. “Take it and be safe.”
“Thank you. It’s a wonderful gift.” She bit her lip, uncertain how to explain that it didn’t feel right to accept such an expensive present.
“It’s the merest token to remember me by while I’m away,” he went on.
“You’re going away?” He had given her no hint of this at dinner.
Roland inclined his flaxen head. “Alas, I have business elsewhere.”
Kayla stared hard at the sleek red phone in her hands. She swallowed her dismay and smiled brightly at Roland, willing him to be more explicit. But there was something so aloof about the wealthy industrialist that she hesitated to question him. But he had given her this pricey phone, surely this meant he would call her?
His gentle salutation at her door sent her to her bedroom to weave fantasies in which he spread her on his bed and loved her aching body all night long.
CHAPTER FOUR
Reykjavik was just as bleak in February as Roland had remembered, but his cousin Gunther had requested his presence to discuss a family matter, so to Reykjavik he went with a bad grace. He had had to leave Kayla behind in Auckland. Of course, the investigation he had ordered on his lovely grad student was as yet incomplete so he had had to delay his seduction.
He comforted himself with the thought that she was too engrossed in her dissertation to be likely to stray before he could return to her. Yet her appeal was so obvious that leaving her unguarded seemed feckless. But he ignored his importunate longings and did his duty by his Right Arm, Lord Dreki of Iceland.
Gunther’s younger brother, Lord Arnor, met his private jet at the airport in Reykjavik. Before long they were in Arnor’s launch heading toward the volcanic island of Dreki. The island did not call to Roland as his own islands did. It rose, bleak and black from ice-clogged Faxa Bay, the merest fringe of stunted trees and shrubs relieving the barrenness of the rock.
Gunther’s fortress home merged invisibly with the black lava. Roland knew it was mostly below ground to capture geothermal heat in order to moderate the frigid Icelandic winters. He was a dragon, fond of fire and volcanoes, yet Gunther’s home on volcanic Reiko did not appeal.
Roland could not shake the unpleasant awareness that he was underground. It was like being deep inside an uncharted cave. A splendid and comfortable cave, to be sure, with large, open rectangular rooms, but a cave nonetheless. Daylight reached the rooms only by windows too high to see out of.
Gunther received him alone in his book lined study. It still boasted the heavy oak furniture of some long dead Lord Dreki. The grim black wood was as severe as the dark gray slate floors. Not even the thick, patterned crimson rugs could warm up this subterranean room. To Roland it was as gloomy as a grave.
“Cousin.” Handsome, hearty Gunther came forward at once, big arms open in welcome. “I’m glad to see you.” He nodded dismissal to Arnor who had accompanied Roland to the study.
Roland returned his embrace. He liked his big, brawny cousin. “What was so urgent, that you had to drag me from New Zealand to whisper it in my ear?” he asked amused.
Gunther held him a little way from himself and searched his taller cousin’s face hard. “I heard a rumor,” he said eventually.
“About me?” Roland was genuinely puzzled.
“Am I not your Right Arm?” Gunther asked jovially. He buffeted Roland on the shoulder. “Of course about you.” He led the younger man to a bench before the fire. “Sit down. Do you want food or wine?”
“I ate on the plane,” said Roland. “But wine would be welcome.”
“Is it true that you have asked a Maori dragon to be your Left Arm?” Gunther demanded when their glasses were full.
Roland’s surprise was genuine. “Not at all. I have accepted fifty sword bearers from Watatoni Te Kanewa who has too many young dragons in his retinue. And I am pledged to build a fortress on Tarakona and to find jobs and houses for them all.”
“Fifty sword bearers? Why so many?”
Roland shrugged. “Te Kanewa asked and I did not wish to refuse him a favor. I am a dragon lord with the hoard of many centuries. It is nothing for me to find employment for fifty men. I will use some as body guards, and others for security work. You know the world is a dangerous place, and the House of Voros has many enterprises in lawless spots.”
“I know that your great-grandfather and Te Kanewa’s father were friends,” Gunther said consideringly. “But I thought that the obligation lay with the Maori dragons not with your House.”
Roland wobbled his hand from side to side. “It depends on your point of view. We were granted the Island of Tarakona, in exchange for our help in cleaning pirates out of the Tasman Islands. And we added it to our titles more than a hundred years ago.
“Lord Te Kanewa recently reminded me that the House of Voros had agreed to fortify Tarakona and keep mortals out. Well, I don’t think there is as much bad blood between Maori dragons and mortals as there was back then, but I have no reason not to keep our promise.” Roland leaned forward. “To tell the truth, I hoped to sweeten old Watatoni Te Kanewa enough to persuade him to part with one of his granddaughters.”
Gunther’s blue eyes widened. “Granddaughters? Dragonesses?” he asked skeptically.
Roland shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t know. But given Maori traditions, virgins each and every one.”
“Huh.” Gunter nodded. “But you haven’t accepted one of those Maori sword bearers as your Left Arm?”
Roland shook his head. “You know tradition demands that I be related to my Right and Left Arms. The Maori dragons are worthy, but they have always resisted intermarriage with the European dragons. Besides,
I don’t yet know any of them well enough to honor in that way.” Roland sipped his wine reflectively. “But what is there in that to demand so much secrecy and worry?”
Gunther looked grave. “Vadim of Montenegro has begun his term as High Marshal by scrutinizing the arrangements of all members of the Grand Council. He has already expelled Lord Drake of England from the council on the grounds that his Left Arm is Balaur of Romania who is unconnected to the House of Drake. Lord Spyridon of Cyprus has been denied standing because he is divorced.”
“But that’s crazy,” objected Roland. “What dragon gives a damn about those medieval statutes these days? Surely the council has less trivial matters to concern them?”
“The ancient laws are still on the books,” Gunther said earnestly, “And apparently Vadim is enforcing them. When I heard that you had asked Chief Te Kanewa for a Left Arm, I wondered and I worried. What if Vadim is using his position to get rid of powerful dragons? You could be next, cousin.”
“I am not interested in Guild politics,” Roland assured his cousin. “But the idea of a Johnny-come-lately like Vadim tossing Drake and Spyridon off the Council is obscene. Whatever next?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it, Ro. We take this present peace for granted, but you know that we dragons had a thousand years of savage wars over much less than disrespecting two venerable houses like Drake and Spyridon. The Guild of Dragons is as vulnerable to mischief as any other body.”
“But civil war!” said Roland in disbelief. “Why would Vadim wish to provoke civil war? Where is the profit in that? Dragons have moved on from pillage to commerce, and peace is necessary for our prosperity.”
“And yet. It is a fact that Vadim brought up Drake and Spyridon’s violations and forced a vote. Do you think those proud old dragons will just accept this humiliation?”
Roland shook his head. “Of course not. And old Balaur is probably just as offended as Lord Drake. And even you look a little militant, Gunther.”
Dragon's Successor (BBW/Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 2) Page 3
