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Chapter One
Jax
When the door to the room inside the elegant Valleywood Inn swung open in answer to my knock, a tall, older man with touches of silver in his dark hair stared down at me from the doorway with icy disdain.
“Is-is this Mr. Bousset’s hotel suite? Mr. Dominic Bousset?”
“It depends. Who are you?” he asked, towering over me and making me nervous with his not overly friendly gaze.
His mahogany eyes burned a hole straight through me, but I fought to not lower mine. I was easily intimidated by such a direct and challenging look. I was an omega, after all, and my father was a strict, authoritarian Alpha. I didn’t see him often. In fact, I’d been raised mostly by my grandmother since I was about twelve years old, but my father had taught me by example that it was wise to be wary of all Alpha males. So, it was difficult for me to meet this older man’s challenging look, even now that I was living away from all that and had been for years. I still had to force myself to hold my head high and respond calmly to him.
“I’m Jax. Jax Jordan? He’s expecting me.”
He raised one skeptical, imperious eyebrow, and I continued, stumbling over my words a little. “H-he knows I’m coming. Mr. Bousset, that is. I have an appointment.” Nervously, I peered around him, trying to get a look inside the room and lowered my voice, whispering. “Is he here? Do you work for him? He hasn’t changed his mind about speaking with me today, has he? Because I can totally come back some other time if he has.”
That sounded like such a good idea that I started to drift backward down the hall, but the man reached for me and plucked at my sleeve, dragging me forward again.
“Please stop talking. You’re in the right place, Jax-Jax, and no, he hasn’t changed his mind. Just come in, and I’ll let him know you’re here.”
I went inside, pulling my sleeve away and pushing my hair out of my eyes. “It’s just one,” I called after him irritably. “One Jax, I mean. My name is just Jax.”
“I don’t really care,” he said in an indifferent tone, and turned away. I was stung by his rude reply, but I figured I was supposed to follow him, so I trailed along behind him anyway.
“Sit down,” the guy with silver in his hair told me, so I sank down onto a plush beige sofa. Two other men shared the room with me, though no introductions had been offered. Both were big and muscular and both Red Dragons. Alphas too, as I could tell from their smoky, spicy scents. They were lounging in chairs by the marble fireplace, staring at me, so I nodded politely and said hello, giving them a tentative smile. They stared back at me with warring expressions of suspicion and lust on their faces.
Seriously, Alpha males were so predictable. I tried to focus only on what I’d come here for and ignore their stares, but I was growing increasingly nervous, since they were looking at me like I was some kind of dessert special on the room service menu.
The Valleywood Inn was arguably the most expensive hotel in town, and it surely looked like it. Suites at this hotel were reported to go for a thousand dollars a night. I didn’t pay anything close to that much for an entire month’s rent of my little shop, though to be fair my grandmother, who had left the shop to me when she passed away, had negotiated an incredibly good, long-term contract with the former owner of the property, Mr. Louis Bousset.
The rent on my shop was the lowest of all of the building’s occupants, and so I had always suspected a romantic relationship existed between Bousset and my grandmother. But it was hard to tell the feelings of Dragons sometimes, especially Reds, who prided themselves on showing very little emotion. Mr. Bousset had seemed to grieve for her terribly though, after she passed, and he himself didn’t last too much longer, dying in his sleep only two months after my grandmother’s sudden demise.
Speaking of Reds, I guess such a massive, expensive room as the one I was sitting in was befitting a powerful Dragon like Dominic Bousset. He was rumored to be unimaginably wealthy, as many of the Reds were, though few were as successful in business as he was. That would make him almost the exact opposite of me, a lowly, small and decidedly unpowerful dragon shifter. I was a Wyvern, in fact, the smallest of all the Dragons, with way too many bills and a bank account that barely hovered above the negative range most days.
I looked around the room while I waited—at the furnishings, which all seemed to be either beige or white, and the draperies, which were made of rich material and were a soft green color, like the underside of a leaf. The carpet was the same pale shade and thick under my feet. I’d never even seen a hotel room without a place to sleep in it before, but this was a suite, after all, and I’d never actually been in one of those before either. For all I knew that was a common thing. I could see a door on the far end of the long room that must have led to where they kept the beds, and the older man had disappeared through that door.
It opened again, and a man stepped out to come toward me. He was followed by the older guy I’d already met. The moment I saw the man in the lead, I think my heart stopped for just a second before it banged back into rhythm again.
So this was Dominic Bousset.
My first impression of him was how tall he was, immediately followed by thinking he was seriously one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever seen. He walked toward me with an arrogant, sexy, and dangerous grace. His feet were bare. They were long and pale and elegant, and I could hardly keep my eyes off them. I felt my cock stir with interest.
All in all, he was damned impressive, and considering that I lived in Valleywood, where beautiful actors literally walked in and out of my shop every day, that was saying something.
He had to have been six-five—tall, like many Alpha Dragons. He was nicely built on top of that, with muscles that bulged deliciously under his rumpled, white, button-up shirt and skintight jeans. In addition, he had dark hair that was not quite brown, but more like rich mahogany wood. His eyes were a lovely golden amber. He hadn’t shaved in a day or so, and he had a scruff on his cheeks. The most fascinating thing to me, though, were his bare feet. I had no idea why—unless I had some previously undiagnosed foot fetish.
He came over to sprawl down into the chair opposite me, with the older man behind him. Dominic Bousset propped his feet up on the coffee table between us.
They were unbearably sexy and immediately drew my gaze again—he had beautifully manicured nails, and high, elegant arches. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off them, along with that gorgeous body of his. My cock plumped up in my jeans and strained against the confines of my zipper. I stirred restlessly in my seat as he looked me over and I crossed my legs, hoping to hide what was happening.
“Mr. Jordan,” he said. Oh gods, he had a French accent—not a pronounced one, but it was definitely there. It was almost overkill for him to have a sexy accent too. His honey dipped tones were deep and seductive, as he leaned toward me slightly. I could have sworn he sniffed the air, then inhaled a bit and looked at me curiously.
“I understand you wish to speak with me.”
“Yes, we had an appointment,” I said, mentally admonishing myself to get a fucking grip.
“We did?” he turned and spoke in rapid fire French to the older man, who answered him in the same language. Bousset gave an irritated huff and turned back to me.
“Je suisdésolé. C’est ma faute. Apparently, I did know it, but forgot, according to my assistant. I’m sorry. My flight was delayed, and I got in quite late. I’m afraid I’m jet lagged.”
