Shifters, Secrets & Surprises

by Lowe, Anna

  She crossed her arms over her full chest. “Austen, not Houston, was a woman, and the author.”

  Liam shrugged. “Whatever. Human books.” His dark brow rose, eyes glimmering, steady on hers. “Are you going to cooperate, Meredith? Or do we do this dance the difficult way?”

  She inhaled, let her breath out in a rush. “I – we can’t. I’m not looking for a relationship right now.” Especially not with a Conroy. Especially not with her father coming out of jail soon. Meredith paled, thoughts jarring her back into the reality of her situation with Liam. He could never find out who she was. He would tear the lease up instantly, leaving her teenagers in the lurch. Not to mention the threat to her heart if her emotions followed where her body was leading.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked softly. “You look like you’re in pain.”

  “I – thank you for dinner. I have to go.”

  “Meredith-“

  She whirled, agitated, heading towards the double doors. “I have to go!”

  It took three steps before he lifted her off her feet, halting her rush to get away. Meredith felt the heat of his torso against her back as he hauled her against him, arms wrapped around her. He bent slightly, so much taller than her.

  “Don’t run from me, Meredith,” he snapped, voice edged. “It… activates certain responses you aren’t ready to deal with.”

  * * *

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  Sneak Peek: Dragon’s Pleasure

  Book 3 of the Lords of the Dragon Islands series

  by Isadora Montrose

  Sneak Peek: Dragon’s Pleasure

  Smoking-hot dragon shifter Ivan Sarkany has spent his adult life dallying with beautiful females. His new mission: find a virgin (and it must be a virgin), transform her into a fertile dragoness, and produce sons to carry on the dwindling Sarkany dynasty.

  Curvy Christina is that rarest of beings: a dragoness born. Her wealthy and powerful clan has selected the son of a Duke as her husband. Second son Ivan didn’t even make the short list. Too bad her one-night stand in St. Moritz with sexy, muscular, Alpha male Ivan has passionate Christina second guessing her family’s plans.

  This funny, spicy romp will tickle your fancy. You will fall hard for these dragons as they battle the opposition of their families and the villains stalking the Guild of Dragons.

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  Christina pulled off her clothes, dropped them on the bed, and padded into the bathroom. The gleaming white and gray marble and the pale blue tile work appealed to her Scandinavian sensibilities, as did the glass wrapped shower. She stepped under the hot spray and adjusted the six nozzles so that scalding water beat on her shoulders and thighs and butt. She sighed with pleasure at the massage and increased the intensity. After a full day on the slopes, a dragoness needed this.

  She prepared for dinner as carefully as if she had a companion waiting in the hotel dining room. The full length sapphire blue gown she tugged over her head had been created to emphasize her narrow waist and generous hips and bosom. There was no point in a lavishly designed body if you hid it. Nothing was ever going to give her a fashionably slender figure and she had long since learned to celebrate the one she had. A glance in the mirror confirmed that the dress was a masterpiece of seaming. She looked lush and seductive. Yet untouchable. Perfect.

  She spent time on her makeup. Blonde eyebrows and lashes so pale as to disappear, had to be darkened if you didn’t want to look as if you had none. The trick was to use just enough mascara and eyebrow pencil to make them appear to be naturally taupe. When she was finished, her blue eyes were big and luminous above her wide mouth. She added a layer of crimson to her lips and instantly went from sweet to sultry. That was better.

  She slid her feet into strappy, six-inch silver heels and added a long, glittering necklace and a bold platinum cuff set with diamonds to her outfit. Ring? No. It would be overkill. Earrings, instead. The diamond studs, nothing dangling or flashy. Christina fluffed her hair so the studs just peeked through. She picked up her silvery wrap and draped it into folds that covered her bare arms. Armored against both the covetous and the disapproving, she left her room.

  “Have you a reservation?” inquired the head waiter with courteous misgiving.

  “Certainly,” Christina replied. “Bulow. For two.”

  The maître d’hôtel looked stricken. He bowed. “Forgive us,” he said. “When the Prinze left the hotel, his reservations were automatically canceled.”

  Christina looked down her nose at him. She let her lips curve. Sweat beaded lightly on his face.

  “One moment only, mademoiselle, I will see if I can accommodate you.” He bustled off to speak to his confreres.

  Christina put her chin up and contemplated the palatial restaurant as if she had expected to be left standing alone by the reception desk. Waiters moved with hushed expertise. Snowy tablecloths and napkins complemented the rows of gleaming silverware and crystal glasses. The patrons were all in evening dress as she was. Diamonds sparkled. Voices murmured. Just as she had feared, as soon as the diners spotted her standing alone, there was an instant of silence before the buzz of conversation resumed.

  Her eyes fell on a dark haired man sitting alone at a table for two. The other place setting had been removed. He was surveying the elegant room just as she was. Suddenly, gold eyes met hers. An electric wave of lust passed through her whole body. She ordered her hormones to behave and broke eye contact. She sank down onto the velvet bench behind her and controlled her trembling limbs. She kept her back straight and her chin high, assumed her favorite half-smile, and feigned calm.

  The maître d’hôtel was moving slowly but purposefully through the room. He paused here and there to speak to people, but Christina was too far away to hear his words. She pretended to be calm, but all those curious eyes churned the butterflies in her stomach. The man with the gold eyes was staring at her again. She forced herself to move her gaze.

  The maître d’hôtel materialized before her. The starer was at his elbow. He was immensely tall and broad shouldered. His square jawed, chiseled features were as handsome as sin. Even in a tuxedo, he looked muscular and masculine. He smelled like bottled sex. Her pulse ratcheted up and the blood thrummed in her ears.

  “You are alone and so am I. Will you share my table, Mademoiselle van Waals?” he inquired in a deep, soft bass that made her tingle again. His French was immaculate. As were his evening clothes.

  The maître d’hôtel coughed delicately. A professional noise. “Monsieur Sarkany is well known to us, mademoiselle,” he assured her.

  Sarkany! Christina inhaled more deeply. Yes, he was one of those Sarkanys. A dragon. She held out her hand graciously. “Good evening,” she said softly. “I would be most grateful.”

  His large hand released hers reluctantly. Dark red blazed on his sharply carved cheekbones. He bowed and his heels clicked correctly. “Ivan Sarkany,” he said. He offered a formal elbow.

  As she placed a careful hand on his black sleeve, Christina braced herself. She felt another tingle run from her palm all the way up her arm to her heart. Nonsense. Superstitious nonsense. “Do you come often to St. Moritz?” she asked him equally politely, willing her tongue to behave and her heart to settle down.

  Sarkany shook his head and his dark hair moved and fell back into place with casual perfection. Typical dragon. His gold eyes gleamed. “Usually I go to Klosters,” he said naming another exclusive Swiss resort. He pulled out a chair for her at his table and sat down across from her.

  Christina searched her memory. “Your brother is Lord Sarkany?” she inquired politely.

  Ivan inclined his head. “He is. The Schloss Sarkany is not far from here.”

  * * *

  Ivan had no sooner sat down at the table than his idiot cock stood to attention and clamored for satisfaction. Just as if he was once again a half-witte
d thirteen-year-old. She was not just beautiful. She was sex incarnate. The delicate creaminess of her skin was as enticing as her scent. She smelled like vanilla, and roses and female. A made-for-a-dragon female.

  He had better remember his vow. You haven’t declared your Mate Hunt, yet. Not officially, his stupid, heedless serpent reminded him as it pulsed a relentless, surging demand. You haven’t made your declaration. His heart was beating so fast he wondered if Christina could hear the roaring of his blood. He felt as if thunder was rumbling directly overhead. A noise so all-encompassing that he could barely make out Christina’s words. He forced himself to concentrate and ignore his clamoring lust.

  “Have you ordered yet?” she asked. Her beautiful, puzzled face looked as if she had said it twice before.

  Ivan pulled himself together. “I told Fritz to delay my meal until yours was ready.”

  “Ah,” she closed her menu and when the waiter came over she ordered rapidly and smoothly.

  “Bring us another glass,” he said indicating his wine bucket. “You will join me?”

  “Thank you.”

  She wasn’t doing anything that he could say was overtly seductive. But he certainly felt seduced. Maybe it was that dress that clung so affectionately to her upper body, delineating the sweetest pair he had ever seen. Maybe it was the loose, blonde hair that fell in a honey colored tumble of big bold curls. Or maybe it was those huge blue eyes that looked at him as if he were the tastiest dish in the world.

  “What is your role at Sarkan Industries?” she asked.

  “I’m CFO,” he said and waited for her follow up questions about his personal wealth. Good luck to her. He was an expert at playing that game.

  “Worldwide?” she continued staring into his eyes as if he fascinated her.

  “Yes. However, our headquarters is here in Switzerland,” he returned noncommittally.

  “SII is a Swiss company,” she said approvingly. “It is better you keep your HQ here. By-the-bye, that was quite a coup you pulled off last year when you bought out Bradding Shipping from under the noses of the competition. Congratulations.”

  “I’m glad you thought so,” he said in surprise. “I handled the project.” The Bradding deal was not general knowledge and had been deliberately underreported in the financial press.

  “I noticed the first thing you did was buy out the rest of the shareholders,” she said admiringly.

  He braced himself to be asked how much of it he held himself. “SII is a privately held company. We like to keep control in our hands,” he explained.

  Christina nodded as if that made perfect sense to her. “These days, minor shareholders can be a royal pain,” she agreed.

  “How do you come by so much information about the corporate world?” he asked.

  “I studied business administration at university,” she replied and bit her lip.

  So it was a lie. What had he expected from Hector’s mistress? “Where did you go to school?” he asked to see if she would confirm her lie.

  She hesitated. “California,” she said.

  “UCLA?”

  She turned her head. “Is that Katharina Gutensohn over there?” she asked.

  Ivan followed her eyes. “Yes,” he said surprised at the presence of the Austrian ski champion. “I wonder what she is doing here?”

  Christina chuckled. “Judging by her entourage, I’d say she is being offered an endorsement contract. Good for her.”

  “St. Moritz is very beautiful, but it isn’t much of a challenge for Katharina Gutensohn is it?” he murmured.

  She shook her head and her curls bobbed over her shoulders. “Not even the Devil’s Run. I haven’t seen her on the slopes at all.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Ten days,” she responded absently.

  “The snow is surprisingly good for this time of year.”

  “Is it? I don’t usually ski in Switzerland. But if I do, I prefer Gstaad.”

  “So do I, but I couldn’t get a reservation.”

  Her brows went up. “I would have thought the Sarkany name would have gotten you a hotel room anywhere in Switzerland.”

  “I didn’t choose to waste a favor, when St. Moritz had a room available.” He smiled. “Did you ski when you were at UCLA?” There, she had a chance to retract her lie.

  “Oh yes. Tahoe, Big Bear, Mount Baldy. My friends and I did them all. But I prefer Deep Valley and Aspen? You?”

  They argued back and forth about the best ski resorts in the world. She was a great deal more open about skiing than she had been about where she attended university. She had skied the finest slopes and, given her performance that afternoon, to some purpose.

  “For me, none of them compares with Switzerland,” he told her. “I spent my boyhood on these slopes and it always feels like coming home.”

  She nodded. Her eyes were shining, the pupils so huge the irises were little more than narrow sapphire bands around black wells. The diamonds around her neck winked in the candlelight, reminding him that this was a very expensive woman. No matter, he could afford her.

  “There is nothing in the world like skiing,” she said fervently. “It is like flying.” She gave an elegant little shiver that made those diamonds shimmer more brightly. Ivan could tell she was wearing a king’s ransom around her neck and in her ears. Being able to value gems on sight was an innate and useful dragon talent. And this woman was wearing a small hoard.

  The waiter placed their rhum babas before them with a flourish and left. Christina forked up a tiny dollop of pale yellow pastry cream. Her pink tongue captured the soft froth before it could fall from her red lips. His stomach clenched and his brainless cock twitched. Christina smiled at him and desire clenched every muscle in his body. They finished their cake and sipped coffee. Ivan could only hope it would clear the fire from his brain.

  She signed for her meal. He signed for his. He rose to his feet. She rose to hers. In heels, her eyes were exactly at a level with his own. He offered her his elbow and felt her gentle touch grip his heart like talons.

  “What floor?” he said in the elevator.

  “Twelve.” Her voice was low and he felt it vibrate through his entire body.

  They were standing almost but not quite touching. The mirrored walls reflected back a tall, elegant, beautifully-dressed couple. She exquisitely fair. He dark. Shoulder to shoulder — like modern aristocracy. Which of course he was, even if she was probably not, despite that van in her name. The elevator stopped. The door opened. Although his room was on the tenth floor, he exited with her. He would walk her to her door. She looked sideways at him. An invitation if he had ever seen one.

  She opened her door with a practiced swipe of her key card. He came in behind her. The dark walnut door closed with heavy, quiet solidity. “Shall I go?” he ground out.

  Her eyes were luminous in the half-light of the single sitting room lamp. “No.” Her throat moved as she swallowed.

  He pulled her into his arms. It felt as if he had been waiting his whole life for the soft press of those glorious breasts against his chest. He took that bewitching, seductive red mouth with his and pressed his yearning tongue home to taste the sweetness within.

  She gave a hungry moan and returned the slide of his tongue in a fierce duel. She kissed him as if she too were starving. Her tongue thrust into the recesses of his mouth as if she could not get enough of the taste of him. She tasted of rhum baba and woman. Pure spicy woman. His woman. He growled and hauled her still closer so that her erect nipples ground into the slabs of muscles on his chest. She moaned into his mouth. It was the sexiest sound he had ever heard.

  Together they danced toward the bedroom. He maneuvered her so she sat on the turned-down bed. He bent and removed her sandals and tossed them away. Her stockings were sheer and revealed that her toenails were a deep purple — exactly the color of his scales when he took dragon form. He pushed at the hem of her dress, desperate to find the source of the fragrance he could
smell so clearly.

  “Let me,” she said and stood up.

  He could look down on the top of her head now that he had taken off her shoes. “Let me,” she said again and reached for the studs of his pleated shirt. Her fingers slowly unfastened them until she came to his bow tie. He had had to explain many times that it was no clip-on job, but her fingers dealt with it expertly and it soon dangled from either side of his collar. Her hands slid under his black jacket and peeled it down his arms.

  It fell to the carpet, but he didn’t care, for she had found his nipples and was tracing them with arousing fingertips before bending forward to lick them. Again she made that murmurous noise of pleasure and contentment. She giggled slyly and covered him with one hand and squeezed. Her eyes opened wide as if the size astonished her, which was a flattering trick and wound him still tighter.

  And then her hands were at his waist undoing his belt buckle and unzipping his pants. He stepped out of them and stood before her in open shirt and boxers. And socks. But she wasn’t looking at his feet. Her eyes were riveted on his white silk shorts which were tented by his package.

  * * *

  That was just a little something to whet your appetite for more spicy adventures with my dragons. Read the complete story in Dragon’s Pleasure. Book 3 in the Lords of the Dragon Islands series is a 65K standalone novel.

  Check out the Lords of the Dragon Islands series here.

  Author Information

  Anna Lowe (Sasquatch Surprise, The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch series)

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  Lily Thorn (A Present for the Alphas, Hunted by the Alphas series)

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