Taken by the Billionaire (7 page)

“Tell her that I love her, missed her, and I wanted to come back and see her again since it’s been such a long time.”

I translated his message and then stared at the old lady as she once again caught me off-guard by putting her teacup down on a trivet and starting to laugh uproariously. She nearly tipped over in her chair from the strength of her laughter.

Once the old lady had herself back under control again, she quickly signed a message back to me.

“Um... she told me to call you a stupid shit,” I said nervously, glancing over my shoulder at Peter. "She also says that you’re worse than even Sergei is and that you should get out of her parlor and come back when you mean a single word you say.”

Peter’s face turned a deep, violent shade of red, and he turned away from me for a moment. I saw his shoulders heave as he took deep breaths and tried to control his temper.

“Was that her full message?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her that I will see her at dinner, then, and let’s go.”

I passed the message along to Anneke and then smiled and waved goodbye as I hurried after Peter, who was already out the door.

Peter was speaking to the servants in Croatian when I caught up to him out in the hall, and he gestured for me to come near.

“I want you to follow Katrina upstairs,” he said, pointing to a slender, dark-haired servant girl only a few years younger than me. “She will show you to your room, and more importantly, she has to get your measurements.”

“My what?”

“We do
not
eat dinner in casual attire here,” he growled. “Katrina will run into town and get you appropriate attire for tonight, but she of course needs to know your size.”

“But—“

“No buts,” he snapped, cutting me off. “This is part of your job here, so shut up and do it.”

He turned on his heels and stomped off through a door at the opposite end of the hallway, slamming it loudly behind him.

I had to stifle a laugh as Katrina turned and stuck her tongue out at Peter as he left, and then she turned back to me with a smile and gestured for me to follow her.

The servant girl took me upstairs to a small, much less ornately-decorated room on the second floor. A beam of sunlight shined in the only window, and I felt much more at home in this relatively bare room. It was like my dorm back at college, in a way, except the bed was still bigger. No bed in history has ever been as small as was mine in college.

“You stand, please,” said Katrina in a thick accent. “I measure.”

I stood with my legs spread slightly and my arms raised, and I tried not to giggle at her light, ticklish touch as she zipped back and forth with her tape measure. She measured my waist at several points, the length of each of my legs, my bust, and then several other spots that seemed to make no sense at all, like my neck, ankles, and wrists. Satisfied that she had everything she needed, she scribbled an indecipherable array of numbers on to a tiny, square sheet of yellow paper, bowed to me and then darted out the door and down the hall.

I sighed and lay down on the bed. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

I
have no idea how long I was asleep, but I bolted upright in bed at the sound of someone knocking on the door.

“You dress for dinner! Is time,” called Katrina through the door in broken English, and I leapt up from the bed and hurried to let her in.

Katrina walked in, a glittering black dress draped over one arm and a brown bag held tightly in the other, and she took one look at me and gasped in dismay.

“Shower, Sarah! Go, you must get clean! Look at you! I get this ready, you stop being gross.” she said, scolding me angrily as she pointed to the bathroom door.

I felt my face turn red in embarrassment, and I raced to the shower.

The hot water felt amazing, and I wished I could stay in there forever, but after five minutes at most, Katrina was yelling for me to get out and come get into my dress. I sighed, shut off the water, and fumbled around for a towel in the foggy bathroom.

Katrina had me into that dress in no time at all, and I stared at myself in the mirror, hardly able to believe what I saw as the talented young woman put the final touches on my hair and smoothed out the bottom of my dress.

Oh my God... I look absolutely amazing!

Katrina had picked a phenomenally beautiful dress. It was a long, black dinner dress—hemmed about two inches above my ankles—with a long slit down the left side that ran almost up to my hip. The slit was held in place by narrow, nearly invisible clasps so that it showed off just enough leg to intrigue, but not enough to give too much away. Gold embroidery beneath the bust glittered in the light, and the shoulder straps had just the slightest hint of an interweaving white- and gold-threaded pattern along the edges.

Every accessory seemed perfectly chosen to complement the dress. Delicate onyx gemstones glittered in gold settings on my necklace and earrings, and my shoes were black and gold with elaborate straps that swirled up and around my ankles until they nearly reached the bottom hem of the long, flowing dress. The only thing that seemed even the slightest bit out of place were the deep-red bra and panties she’d chosen to go with the outfit, but they were impossible to see beneath the dress, so I didn’t muchcare.

I looked at myself in the mirror again, and I couldn’t help but smile. The dress fit me perfectly, and this was the best I could ever remember looking. I didn’t even want to guess what Peter had spent for this outfit, though. It had to be in the low thousands, at least.

“Dinner. Now,” said Katrina, waving a hand in front of my face to drag my attention away from the gorgeous reflection and back to her, and she directed me down the stairs to the dining room.

****

All eyes were on me when I entered the dining room. Peter and Sergei both stared at me as if enraptured, and even Anneke seemed more inclined toward me as I approached the long, cherry-wood dinner table and greeted her.

“You certainly cleaned up nicely! Come sit,” she signed, nodding approvingly, and she gestured to an empty chair at her left hand, next to Peter.

Polite and awkward conversation drifted up and down the table between the two brothers, Alex, and the elder servants who were permitted to eat with the family as a symbol of their status to the household. I, for my own part, dove straight into the shrimp and mussels that Katrina had just brought out. If I ever met the chef, he would truly be my new best friend.

“So, did you really work for my son Peter?” signed Anneke, and I nodded, put down my fork, and answered her.

“Yes. I was an employee at his company in New York. He had me translating international conferences for him.”

“Seriously? Not shitting me?” she signed back, and I held back a giggle.

“Nope! I really worked for him.”

She raised an eyebrow as if intrigued, but signed nothing further.

I turned back to my plate gain, but suddenly noticed that Sergei was staring at me in wide-eyed awe.

“I had no idea you had such a talent, Sarah!” he said, his voice so sweet and syrupy that I felt like I might become diabetic, and then he turned to Peter and added, “Beautiful and talented... quite the catch indeed, Peter!”

It was only by the sheer grace of God that I didn’t reach out and slap him right there and then.

“Would you be willing to translate for me at some point, Sarah?” he asked again, this time in a frank and reasonable voice. “It would be so much easier than scribbling notes to my dear mother.”

“Um... sure, I guess?” I stammered, and I saw Peter grind his teeth and shoot me an angry glare out of the corner of my eye.

“You and I need to have a talk after dinner. In private,” whispered Peter, and I nodded and cleared my throat nervously before digging into the lime sherbet dessert.

I followed Peter up the stairs to his room after dinner, and no sooner did the door close behind me than he spun around to face me with an angry glare on his face.

“You stay away from Sergei, do you understand me?” he snarled.

“Why? He seems nice enough—“

“Who the fuck do you think was trying to kill me, Sarah” he interrupted, pushing me back against the wall. I gasped in surprise as he gripped me tightly by the shoulder.

“Why didn’t you just say something, then?” I snapped back angrily. “I’m sitting at the dinner table with someone who’s trying to murder you, and you don’t even—“

Suddenly, he clamped a hand tightly over my mouth and smothered out my words.

What an asshole!
I thought, my mind filling with rage. How dare he do that when I’m trying to talk to him? This was a serious...

Someone knocked on the door, and I almost instinctively held my breath and went completely silent.

“Yes?” called out Peter, neither budging an inch nor releasing my mouth.

A man called in from the hallway in Croatian, and Peter let out a sigh of relief. He called back an unintelligible answer and then listened quietly to the sound of footsteps descending the staircase.

“Who was that?” I asked as he finally uncovered my mouth.

“Just one of the servants. He wanted to know if I needed anything, and I said to come back in an hour with clean sheets.”

I opened my mouth to pick up the fight where we'd left off, but he suddenly pushed me back against the wall and covered my mouth again, this time with his lips.

His tongue found mine as he kissed me passionately, and suddenly all my anger toward him had dissipated, replaced instead by a spark of desire.

“God, what is it with you and that fiery temper of yours, Sarah?” he growled, kissing me again and then caressing my cheek as he pressed me back against the wall. “What’s your secret? I’ve never, ever desired someone as much as I want you, and I want you most when you’re angry at me!”

Peter grabbed my hands and held them up above my head and leaned in again to kiss me. I tried once—and only halfheartedly at that—to fight back and push myself away from the wall, but he resisted and held tightly to my wrists.

He was so strong that he could hold both my wrists in place with only one hand while using the other to pull down first my left shoulder strap and then the right one, baring my smooth, pale shoulders. He painted a line of warm, tingling kisses from my cheek all the way down to the curve of my shoulder, and then with one quick yank, he pulled the top of my dress down and let my breasts hang free.

Using only one hand while the other held me firmly against the wall, Peter slowly undressed me. I panted and squirmed in anticipation as the gorgeous, form-fitting black dress slowly inched down my body and over my hips. It slid down my legs and landed around my feet, leaving me exposed except for the lacy red panties and glittering, gold and black jewelry that Katrina had purchased for me.

“God, you drive me wild like nobody else, Sarah,” he whispered, and he released my wrists so he could grab my breasts and fondle them, sending fiery pleasures shooting through my body.

My mind was starting to get foggy as my arousal rose higher and higher, but I wasn’t going to let him have all the fun this time. I reached out—resisting the urge to lay back against the wall and bask in the glorious touch of his hands against my breasts—and began to unbutton his gray shirt. He interrupted his pleasures long enough to remove his gray suit pants and black boxers, and soon he was completely naked and standing before me in all his incredible, masculine glory.

His shoulders were strong and muscular, his chest smooth and wellproportioned, and he had just the
slightest
hint of abs on top of that. If he lost five pounds, by my rough guess, he’d have the body of a Greek god. Or, in his case, a Russian-Croatian hybrid god, I guess. Either way, running my hands down his powerful chest was enough to set my mind and body on fire and make me think of all the terrible things I wanted to do with him.

I shivered as he ran his hands down my body, sending ticklish ripples of delight through me as his fingers delicately touched my bare skin, and he kneeled down in front of me and tried to undo the straps of my shoes.

“You know... fuck this,” he said, giving up on the complicated labyrinth of interweaving straps after maybe five seconds, and he grabbed me by the hips and pulled me down next to him on the carpet in one quick motion.

Suddenly Peter was on top of me, and my legs were wrapped around him as if my body already knew what it wanted to do and had cut my mind out of the equation. I leaned up and kissed him fervently, and then an intense bolt of pleasure shot up my spine as he pressed his large erection against me through the thin, lacy material of my underwear. It offered so little resistance that I could barely tell it was there as he stroked against me, pressing his shaft between my wet lips and reminding them of what they were missing out on.

My mind was on fire, and I could hardly breathe from excitement. I wanted him inside me, to take me and fuck me for all he was worth. I wanted to scream in his embrace and feel him bring out my lustful inner animal. A soft whimper escaped my lips as he reached down and slid the gusset of my panties aside, and then I cried out loudly as he suddenly thrust himself into me.

I hadn’t been expecting it at all, but he slid into me easily even though I hadn’t thought I was ready for him yet. I was
soaked
on the inside; it just hadn’t made its way out and gotten all over my underwear yet.

Every stroke of him inside me felt absolutely glorious. I felt as if he was stretching me out and filling me to my absolute fullest, and it was all I could do not to cry out in ecstasy at each and every thrust. I moaned in delight as he grabbed my arms and held them outstretched against the floor, and then I couldn’t help but scream in pleasure as he penetrated deep into me.

Wave after wave of heavenly ecstasy washed over me and built up deep inside me as he held me down against the carpet and fucked me with all his might. His shaft slid easily in and out of me, and the friction against my most sensitive of places ignited my body and set my nerves on fire. I felt a sweaty sheen forming on me as I grew more and more excited. No, I was beyond excited... I was approaching orgasm already! I could feel it growing in the back of my mind, waiting until it was big enough to drive out my rational thoughts and fill my mind with unspeakable ecstasy.