Too Damn Rich (27 page)

Poised above the beckoning dark arrowhead of
her pubis, Hannes looked down at her.

Her response was instinctual. Parting her
legs in invitation, she rocked herself backward, bringing her knees
to the sides of her head and holding them there.

Slowly he lowered himself, penetrating the
petals of her sable- furred mound.

For a split second, Kenzie saw the cosmos
explode. Then he was in

side her. She jackknifed her legs and clamped
them fiercely around his torso and held tight.

He began slowly, all the while kissing her
sweetly on the lips, ears, eyes, neck, chin, breasts: anywhere his
hungry mouth could reach while he thrust steadily in and out, in
and out.

Beneath him, she writhed and lifted her hips
to meet him, and so harmoniously were they fused that they achieved
that perfect syncopation in which two entities thought, acted, and
functioned as one.

Dazzling sensations washed over her, made her
buoyant, sent her rising and dipping in the troughs of great
oceanic swells.

"Oh, God!" she moaned, feeling the stirrings
of orgasmic pleasure building up strength. "Oh, Hans! Hans!"

His tempo increased and she kept up the
rhythm, thrashing and flopping wildly beneath him. Her head was
whipping from side to side on the pillow, her hair in constant,
frenzied motion.

"Faster!" she cried. "Oh, Hans! Hans, I'm
going to come! I can't help it! I'm— I'm—"

Harder and faster, he now jammed into her,
his hips bucking furiously.

"Here comes!" she cried. "Oh, Hans! Hans—!"
And her cries and moans became screams of ecstasy.

Suddenly her entire body spasmed, worlds
collided, and her final orgasm flung her out, out, out beyond the
farthest constellations, drowning him in the flood of her
juices.

The frenzy of her climax proved too much.
Hannes's face contorted in agony as an exquisite pain rushed from
the base of his spine. Rearing like a bull, he threw back his head
and bellowed, simultaneously jettisoning his seed inside her.

Then his strength drained, the agony passed,
and his eyes glazed. Together they collapsed, panting and still
joined, into each other's arms, wracked by ever-decreasing seismic
aftershocks.

They lay there quietly, eyes unfocused,
waiting for their thundering hearts, runaway pulses, and rapid
breaths to return to normal.

"Wow!" Kenzie finally whispered. "Now that
was awesome!"

"Yes," he smiled, "that it was."

She snuggled closer, inhaling the heady,
musky maleness of his sweat. With the tip of her tongue, she licked
one of the sinewy, down-covered forearms which cradled her.

His skin was warm, and tasted tart and
salty.

"Uh-oh," he said after a moment.

"What is it?"

He didn't need to reply. Her eyes widened as
she felt the slumbering giant inside her once again beginning to
stir.

"But you just came!" she exclaimed. "Hans!
Don't tell me you're horny already?"

He laughed quietly. "It would appear so."

"Mmm," she murmured happily. "Then we'd best
do something about it, don't you think?"

Chatter. Laughter.

For block after block, Zandra and Karl-Heinz
dissected the evening—first the party, then the crowd at the club.
But, finally, they could hardly contain their curiosity about one
another.

At Fourteenth Street, the traffic light
changed from green to yellow. The chauffeur gave a burst of speed
and the Bentley surged through the swamped intersection, grandly
parting water like the prow of a high-speed yacht. Then the big car
slowed again, nosing sedately on up First Avenue, catching green
lights all the way to Twenty-third.

They spoke at the same time, then
simultaneously fell silent. Looking at each other, they burst into
spontaneous laughter.

"Go on, Heinzie. You first!"

"No, you. Please."

"Oh, gosh. Well ... I hope you enjoyed
tonight. I mean ..."

Karl-Heinz wished he could tell her how he
really felt, how he was seeing her in a completely new light, how
he felt drawn to her, compelled to get to know her better, but he
thought the best course of action would be to keep it light. The
last thing he wanted to do was scare her off.

"Zandra. Of course I had a good time. I had a
wonderful time." He took one of her hands in his. "We'll have to do
this again soon."

"Oh, Heinzie," she said, "I think ... I think
that would be fabulous. We've got so much to catch up on."

Her face, flickering in the passing lights,
looked so innocent—so vulnerable and beautiful—that he felt the
urge to put his arms around her. Instead, he asked, "And you,
Zandra? Did you really enjoy tonight as much as I did? Dancing with
your long-lost old cousin?"

"Oh, Heinzie, honestly," she laughed, "you're
hardly old. And yes, I told you I enjoyed it. It was super." She
thought, in fact, that she had not had so much fun for a very long
time. That Heinzie was more than a little attractive, that he had
qualities that she found ... well, immensely seductive.

The Bentley pulled up in front of the
Goldsmiths' pre-war, and the chauffeur came around and opened
Zandra's door.

"Zan—" "Hei—"

She reached over and placed a hand on
Karl-Heinz's. "Don't get out, darling. I'll run for it. Can't wait
to see you again." Then she gave him a quick chaste kiss on the
cheek.

Karl-Heinz returned the kiss, also chaste.
"Call you soon."

"Toodle-oo!" she called, and she was
gone.

"Your Highness?"

"Yes ... ?"

It was his chauffeur, awaiting instructions.
"Where to now?"

"Where?" Karl-Heinz laughed. "Home, I
guess."

When he let himself into his Auction Towers
penthouse high above Burghley's, the telephone was chirruping.

Quickly locking the front door, he hurried
through the foyer to answer it, knowing from experience that his
valet would have retired for the night. For Josef was a manservant
steeped in the grand old European tradition, and prided himself
upon discretion and that uncanny knack of sensing exactly when to
be around and when to make himself scarce.

Karl-Heinz's mouth twisted with irony. For
once, Josef had seriously miscalculated. Tonight there would be no
wine, no women, no song.

Reaching the nearest extension phone, he
found a thick vellum card propped against it. Recognizing Josef's
precise, old-fashioned script, he picked it up and scanned the
message:

Your Highness,

Princess Sofia has been calling repeatedly from
Augsburg. She says an emergency has arisen.

Respectfully,

-----J

Frowning, Karl-Heinz shot back his cuff.
According to his gold Vacheron Constantin wristwatch, it would be
eight a.m. in Germany, not too early to call his sister.

Although, he thought, listening to the
relentless chirrups, that's probably her calling right now.

He picked up the receiver. "Yes?"

There was silence, then a hostile blurt of
German: "Well! Finally!"

He sighed to himself. He had guessed
correctly. It was his sister.

"]a
, Sofia?" he said wearily,
automatically switching to the same language.

"I've been trying to get hold of you for
hours," she complained. "Hours!" she repeated, as though he had not
heard.

"I just walked in and was about to call you,"
he said calmly. "What is the emergency?"

But she wasn't through conveying her
martyrdom. "Really, Heinzie," she sniffed. "As if I didn't have
enough to contend with, I had to spend

the entire night trying to track you down! In
future, you might tell that abominable servant of yours—"

"Sofia ..." His voice was low, but had a
menacing edge to it.

She backed down. "It's Father," she said
tersely. "He's had another stroke."

Everything inside Karl-Heinz came to a dead
stop. It was a moment before he could speak. "How bad is it?"

"Bad enough for you to fly home."

And with that, Sofia hung up.

The LED numbers on the nightstand Westclox
glowed 2:49 A.M.

Kenzie was back in her damp yellow Givenchy
sheath. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, bending forward and
stifling a yawn while slipping a foot first into her left shoe,
then the right. Finally she stood up and wiggled both heels all the
way in.

Hannes came out of the adjacent dressing
room. He was a walking advertisement for Timberland: moleskin
slacks, jacquard knit sweater, water-resistant leather field coat,
and Gore-Tex-and-leather two-tone moccasins. He was holding a
Burberry raincoat.

"It is still raining hard," he told her. "You
had better wear this, or else you will catch cold."

He draped the raincoat around her shoulders
with a flourish.

Kenzie smiled. "Thanks. I'll gladly borrow
this, but really, Hans. You don't have to see me home. I'm
perfectly capable—"

He placed a silencing finger against her
lips. "No argument, Kenzie. I was taught one must see a lady home,
and so I shall."

"My, a real gentleman," she mocked gently,
basking in the warmth of old-fashioned chivalry. Then, catching
sight of her reflection in a mirror, she fluffed her hair with her
fingers. Turning back to him, she smiled brightly. "Well? Ready
when you are!"

Armed with a furled umbrella, he cocked his
elbow. "Shall we go?"

She slipped her arm through his. "You know
something?" She gazed up at him, giving his arm an affectionate
squeeze. "You really are the last of an endangered species!"

"A hopeless romantic," he agreed,
nodding.

They took the elevator down, crossed the
lobby, and stepped outside.

Reality hit—literally, in the form of
buckets. It had gotten considerably colder, and a powerful wind was
driving the downpour sideways, drenching them with a chill wet
blast which flapped the overhead canopy like a sail and turned
Hannes's umbrella inside out the moment he had it open.

"Brrr!" Kenzie said, clutching the lapels of
the raincoat together. Not wasting a moment, she left Hannes to
struggle with the umbrella, hurried to the curb, and scouted the
sparse but swift oncoming traffic.

Lo and behold! There it was—that rarest of
all Manhattan miracles—an unoccupied taxi on a rainy night.

Flapping out one arm, she jammed two fingers
in her mouth and rent the night with a traffic-stopping whistle.
Brakes screeching, the cab slammed to a halt. Leaping forward, she
chucked open the rear door and dove inside. Hannes, tossing his
useless umbrella into the gutter, dove in right after her.

"Eighty-first between First and Second,"
Kenzie said breathlessly.

The words were barely out of her mouth before
the turbaned Sikh floored the accelerator.

The force of the takeoff pushed Kenzie and
Hannes back in the seat— and they remained that way for the entire
fourteen-minute ride—a hair- raising experience.

"Who's he think he is?" she moaned. "Aire
Luyendyk at the Indy 100?"

But she had to hand it to him. Despite a
dozen near misses, the Sikh swung them into Eighty-first Street in
record time, in one piece—and in a hard, broadside skid.

"There, on the right!" Kenzie yelled. "By
the—"

She braced herself as the cabbie stomped on
the brakes, bringing the cab to a screeching, whiplash halt.

He turned around and beamed proudly. "Better
than the Coney Island ride? Yes?"

"All I know is, somebody upstairs must be,
ah, looking out for you," Kenzie said weakly.

Hannes struggled out of his field coat. "Keep
the meter running," he told the cabbie, and tented the coat over
his head. He opened his door, jumped out into the downpour, and
dashed around the cab to Kenzie's side. Then, sheltering her under
the water-resistant leather, he ran her to the front gate and up
the steps of her brownstone, where the recessed entry with its twin
carriage lights offered protection from the elements.

Hannes lowered his coat and shook off the
water while Kenzie rummaged inside her little evening bag. Before
she could produce her keys, he had his arms around her and was
pulling her close.

She looked up at him in surprise, the
Burberry sliding off her shoulders, the better for him to grab a
handful of buttocks.

"Hannes!" she laughed, pretending shock.
"Stop that!"

He pressed his lips to her neck.

She made a halfhearted attempt to push him
away. "The cabbie's probably watching!"

"So?" He raised his head and grinned. "Why
deprive the poor man the pleasure?"

"You are incorrigible!"

"Am I?"

And before she could respond, he covered her
mouth with his. Greedily now, she pressed herself against him and
slipped her arms around his neck, their tongues dancing an
impromptu dervish.

Ah, she thought, how pliant she was in the
arms of this beautiful man she knew so very intimately, and yet not
at all!

When their lips parted, he raised his head
slowly, pale eyes searching her upturned face.

"Before we part here on your doorstep, tell
me something, Kenzie."

She stared up at him. He had fallen
momentarily silent, then stroked her cheek gracefully with his
fingertips.

That simple touch set off a chain reaction of
sensations, sudden delicious thrills rippling down her spine and
along her extremities. But the playfulness was gone from his eyes
and lips; he was regarding her with a calm solemnity, with a gaze
so intent it was as if he were reaching deep inside her.

"Is tonight only the beginning?" he asked
softly. "Or is it the end?"

She caught her breath, unable to tear her
eyes off that masterfully sculpted face. Bathed as it was in the
brightness of the carriage lights, it seemed to glow with an inner
radiance all its own.