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.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
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-witted 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 contrac
t. 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. Christiana 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. Christiana 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 fragrant pussy 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. And then she sucked hard on one and his foolish cock danced and jerked in his pants. 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. She pulled on the waistband and licked her lips before she knelt before him and took his cock into her mouth.
He had had head scores of times. But the feel of her soft warm mouth on his stupid serpent shot him straight into overdrive. He came on a gush of pleasure before she could even establish a rhythm. She choked a little and sat back on her heels. She swallowed and winked at him and licked her lips.
“You witch,” he said and pulled her up. He yanked at her hips trying to pull her dress up. She backed away from him and tugged at a zipper concealed in the side seam. And then did the other side. He pushed his hands into the slits she had created and got his hands full of those two pillowy globes and kneaded them as he had wanted to for hours. The nipples were hard nubbins against his palms.
He pulled the dress over her head and tossed it aside. She was gorgeous. Her black lace bra was sheer. It looked like she had painted flowers over her pearly skin. Underneath, her areolas were puckered. The deep pink cones poked at the fabric. Her matching thong barely covered her neat blonde muff. So her blonde locks were natural.
She had left him only a narrow landing strip on her swelling mound. But even so, the lace barely covered it. He palmed her mons with one hand, while the other felt for the catch of her bra. Her breasts popped out and waved those delectable rosy tips at him. He tugged at her panties and the lace tore in his hands.
“Sorry,” he apologized mortified. He had never done such a crude thing before.
She giggled again. Not a childish titter, but a happy burble. “Doesn’t matter,” she whispered pulling him toward the bed.
“It’s my turn,” he told her. He knew it was going to take some time for his dragon maker to reload. Only the senseless thing didn’t seem to know that, because he was aching and hard again.
He pressed her down onto the sheets and began to feast on all that satiny sweetness. He tugged her nipples into her mouth. She tasted unbelievably feminine and ambrosial, like all his fantasies come true. His heart clenched as he laved the sweet buds with his tongue and his hands plumped her heavy breasts. As big as his palms were, she overflowed them. He was in heaven.
“You are the most beautiful woman,” he swore.
She chuckled. “I’m glad you think so.”
> He licked his way down her soft and cushiony belly to that strip of pale curls. He sniffed her. She smelled as good as she tasted. Elemental. Made for him. He sampled her stiff red clit with a taunting lap of his tongue, and spread her wide so he could lick her deep rose labia. She was squirming now and trying to capture his head with her thighs, but he was far stronger and effortlessly controlled her so he could eat his fill. She screamed aloud as she came. He lifted her by her buttocks and felt the spasms deep in the resilient muscles. He set his mouth back on her open pussy and resumed his feasting.
When she had come twice more, Ivan felt he had redeemed himself for his earlier over eagerness. He slid back up Christiana’s damp and writhing body and kissed her so she could taste her cream on his tongue. Her deep moan was all he could have hoped for — a desperate, needy noise. He rammed himself home and felt her passage clamp down hard as all her interior muscles tried to hold him close. He set a steady pace, even though every instinct told him to race to completion, to flood her with his potent dragon seed, to start a fireling on this most lovely maiden.
Except this sex goddess desperately chanting his name was no maid. And he was destined for some wholesome virgin. He was just a sterile mule playing at sex with this goddess. All he could offer her was temporary pleasure. Her strong long legs were twined with his and squeezing as she caught his rhythm. She matched him vigorous thrust for vigorous thrust. His eyes went black. Every muscle contracted. He came with a convulsive spurt, unlike anything in his experience.
His triumphant bellow echoed in the room even as he slipped into the little death.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He was heavy. The powerful arms that had supported him while he fucked her were relaxed and limp. His weight was crushing her into the mattress. Christina felt replete. Remade. Her heart felt as if she had come home. Which was nonsense. Total nonsense.
It wasn’t as if sleeping with her would have made Ivan Sarkany aware that she too was a dragoness. Apparently, her father and uncle had been correct when they told her that a dragoness born had a scent utterly different from that of both male dragons and dragonesses made. Ivan would leave her bed unaware that she was anything other than just another mortal woman who had succumbed to his lures. And what would make her want him to recognize her.
Dragon's Pleasure (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 3) Page 6
