by JC Cassels
“Why didn’t you just call Chase?”
Bo sniffed and wrinkled her nose. She studied the row of vendors’ tents with mild interest. “I did.”
“That she did,” Chase nodded. “After she’d maimed the poor guy.”
Blade clucked in mock disapproval. “What am I going to do with you?”
Bo grinned impishly up at him and dragged him to a halt. “I’ve got a few ideas about that,” she said. She unclipped her veil, baring her face to him. She arched one eyebrow in both challenge and invitation.
That was Bo, all summed up. Right there in the middle of vendors’ row, the busiest section of the tent city, she exposed her identity to any chance onlooker and dared him to kiss her. Holy Maker! His pulse jumped up a few beats as he studied her naked face. All it would take was one sharp-eyed holographer…one mercenary wannabe with a good memory for faces…one person who recognized her…to blow up his holofeature career and the cushy life that came with it. As if just being with her wasn’t exciting enough, she had to play this dangerous game, teasing him into putting everything on the line for a kiss.
They were both adrenaline junkies, betting their safety against nothing more than the thrill of the moment. She really was his perfect match. Maker help him, he loved a good challenge, and she was the best. She was the most inviting challenge he’d ever undertaken in his life. She wanted him for himself, not for who he was, what he could do for her, or what she could get out of him. She was the least mercenary woman he’d ever known and the most demanding. He couldn’t resist her. It was fruitless to even try.
He leaned closer, intent on taking her up on that invitation.
A tingle of warning danced along the back of his neck. Something moved in his peripheral vision; a dark figure in the shadows of a nearby tent. He lifted his head, his senses on alert. All playfulness evaporated as his Inner Circle training overrode everything else.
A tall figure in the dark robes of the Catarrh locals slipped around the corner and hurried away taking with it the sudden sense of imminent threat.
He hadn’t survived this long without relying on that sixth sense, the one that told him someone was watching him…stalking him…plotting his demise. The niggling sense of unease gnawing at his gut had been his constant companion for as long as he could remember. The icy tendrils still prickling his neck could only mean one thing: another attempt on his life was coming.
Bo’s hand gently touched his cheek. “Hey,” she said softly. “What’s wrong?”
Satisfied that the dark figure had indeed retreated for the moment, he slowly turned back to her.
Her brow furrowed. She searched his face for some explanation.
Shaking off the specter of death that had settled over him, he slipped back into the holofeature hero role with the lopsided grin that had made him famous. “Nothin’,” he said. He lightly ran his fingertips along her forehead, then traced the curve of her cheek. “I thought I saw a holographer, that’s all.”
He leaned down and took her mouth with his. With calculated skill, he applied himself towards distracting her from the sudden change in his demeanor. His senses were still alert to any sense of threat. A part of him remained coolly detached even as he kissed her. He hated himself for it; it felt like he was playing her. She didn’t deserve that. Bo never held back anything from him.
He felt like a cad.
When he finally lifted his head to take a breath, he pulled her to him and held her as if she were a treasure someone would snatch out of his grasp at any moment. “I’d never forgive myself if you ended up being hurt because of me,” he whispered. “Because I’m…”
Blade swallowed hard. He must be more rattled than he’d thought. He’d almost told her everything. He wasn’t ready for that. Neither was she.
“I’d never forgive myself if you got hurt because I had to kiss you in public.”
Bo peered up at him, cheeks rosy with desire, eyes sparkling with mischief. “In case you haven’t noticed, flyboy, I can take care of myself.”
He lightly brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “I noticed.”
Blade looked to his brother, who was deep in quiet conversation with Bo’s cousins. “Hey, Chase… What do you say we take the ladies for a private party on the beach?” He winked at Bo. “I know just the spot.”
Fresh color filled her cheeks. Bo ducked her head and buried her face against his shoulder. Maker, how he loved watching her blush.
Tese and Gena clapped their hands like delighted children.
“Yes, please, Chase!”
“That sounds wonderful!”
Tuning out their excited chatter, Blade’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the wide pathway beyond the edge of the tent. On an isolated stretch of beach, he’d be better able to see the next threat coming.
CHAPTER THREE
Nights on the edge of the desert brought a different kind of chill. The combination of sea breeze and desert air created its own unique weather pattern. By day, the conditions grew hellish. The deeper into the landmass, the more brutal it became. By night, the temperatures dropped dangerously low.
That was part of the challenge for the participants and their crews. Extreme temperatures and rugged terrain tested the limits of the racers and their equipment. Accidents, injuries and fatalities were a matter of course each year.
The soft, pre-dawn light cast purple shadows inside the well-weathered tent. Though they had both been awake for some time, neither was in a hurry to abandon the warm cocoon of the insulated sleep sack. With a feather light touch, his fingertips trailed along her soft skin, tracing the curve of her arm. With a contented sigh, Bo closed her eyes and savored their last moments together. She burrowed deeper into the hard, narrow cot and the harder man pressed against her back. The folding cot was barely wide enough for one person, but they were accustomed to sharing a small sleeping space. Her bunk aboard ship wasn’t much bigger.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she whispered in Gallic.
“I’m glad you did,” he responded in kind.
“I knew you wouldn’t get any sleep.”
“I got enough.”
Bo smiled. Of course he would say that. He was Blade freakin’ Devon, holofeature hero, Inner Circle Agent and Maker-only-knew-what-else. She’d never met a man more confident in his own abilities…and she’d grown up surrounded by the best pilots in the Commonwealth. Until she’d met him, she’d never believed any man could be more arrogant and cock-sure than a Barron Clan pilot.
“You didn’t need the distraction,” she said. “What if your reflexes are slowed because you’re tired?”
He chuckled softly. His lips brushed her neck just below her ear. A tiny thrill rocketed through her at his touch. Her breath quickened. The chill bumps breaking out all over her body had nothing to do with the desert cold seeping into the tent.
“I promise you, love, once I get on my hovercycle I won’t give you another thought for twenty-four days.”
She didn’t need to see his face to know he amused himself at her expense. Bo hauled back her arm and tried to elbow him in the stomach. Though he deflected the blow, he still grunted as her elbow glanced off his ribs. His laughter broke the pre-dawn quiet. He easily subdued her, wrapping his arms tightly around her, his body heat comforting her.
Closing her eyes, Bo relaxed against him, content in the moment.
Blade dominated her senses. His scent surrounded her, clinging to the sleep sack, the pillow, even her own skin. Pressed tightly against him, with his arms wrapped around her, she felt safe. Sometimes it frightened her how much she was growing to depend on that feeling…and on him.
“I don’t even want to think about what I would do if anything happened to you,” she whispered.
His lips touched her ear and his arms tightened around her.
“I promise you, Bo, I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”
The intimate, raspy timbre of his deep voice speaking in the language of her people touched a resonant
chord in her. Moving of their own volition, her hips undulated, pressing her backside against him. His large, calloused hand slid along her side, coming to rest low on her stomach. His fingers splayed across the bare flesh of her abdomen. Bo’s breath caught as she grew still, waiting to see where his wandering fingers would go.
“I got more rest with you here than I would have gotten without you.” He buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply, as if trying to memorize her scent. “It feels good to have you here. You know I need you. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you.”
Her heart twisted in her chest. She melted under the raw honesty of his declaration. He wasn’t a man prone to flowery declarations of love and affection. That he said it at all had to mean something, didn’t it?
Bo wriggled and twisted on the narrow cot until she lay facing him. She lifted her hand and brushed his unruly blond hair away from his forehead. The gray light cast hazy shadows across the chiseled planes of his face. She rested her hand against his cheek and studied his inscrutable features. After years of playing roles, hiding behind masks and aliases, Blade’s expression seldom betrayed his thoughts. She could never be sure with him what was the lie and what was the truth.
The chrono strapped to the inside of his wrist beeped.
With a small sigh, he checked the time. He smiled his apology.
“I have to go.”
“Dev, please don’t,” she said.
Bo bit her lip and lowered her gaze. She sounded needy. She hated herself for it. She was The Barron, for pity’s sake. In the two years they’d been together, they’d made no promises to each other. She’d tried to keep it casual, leaving whenever she felt herself getting too dependent on him. She’d tried distracting herself with work. Even that was getting difficult. She craved him like a drug and she was hopelessly addicted to him.
Sure, he was attentive. It was intoxicating being on the receiving end of Blade Devon’s attention; not because of what he did for a living, but because of the man himself. Unfortunately, something always happened to remind her that he held some part of himself separate, like yesterday, after the interview. There had been no holographer. He didn’t fall back into the cold, professional IC agent demeanor for a mere holographer.
There would always be secrets and lies. The only thing Blade was ever completely honest about was the fact that he lied, often and well.
Without a word, he shifted on the narrow cot. He pulled her underneath him with one arm as easily as if she’d weighed nothing. Her body responded. Blood raced to her skin, setting her nerve endings alight with anticipation of his touch. His soft lips boldly played across hers. His tongue lightly teased her lips apart, wringing a small sigh of surrender from her as he explored deeper.
Sensing victory, Bo slid her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. She arched against him, silently begging him to stay.
Taking his time, he ran his fingers along the length of her arms. He deliberately pulled them from around his neck and pinned them above her head with one hand. His other hand freely roamed the curve of her hip, leaving a trail of sparks along its path. He moved slowly against her, his hips creating a delightful friction against hers while his kiss stole her breath and sent her head spinning.
She arched against him as his hand left her hip. Bracing his weight on his elbow, he shifted and reached for something outside the sleep sack. Before she could register what he was doing, he’d deftly unfastened the sleep sack and slipped out.
With a small cry of distress, Bo reached to pull him back, but he’d already moved out of her reach. The cool air hit her overheated skin, sending a wave of chill bumps along her flesh. Bo shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, missing his body heat.
Grinning at her obvious disappointment, he reached for his riding leathers, fortified with strips of body armor and began to dress.
“Your Kiara wiles won’t work on me, Marissa,” he said in Basic, raising his voice slightly.
Bo’s eyes narrowed and a low growl started in her throat, but he cut her off with a warning shake of his head. He jerked his chin towards the humanoid silhouettes moving across the walls of the tent, cast by riders, crew and other race participants stirring throughout the camp.
With a small sigh of resignation, Bo glared at the shadowy figures and sat back on her heels. It was hard not to pout.
“You don’t play fair,” she whispered.
He stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “Neither do you,” he teased.
Unable to resist his subtle charm, her disappointment gave way to amusement. “You’re not supposed to notice.” Bo threw the pillow at him.
Laughing, he caught it and tossed it back to her.
Any further meaningful conversation with Blade would have to wait until after this accursed race was over. They wouldn’t have another moment of privacy until then. Wrapping the sleep sack around her for warmth, she watched him finish dressing.
Blade tucked his gray undershirt into the waistband of his riding leathers before sitting on the edge of the cot to pull on his boots.
Bo scooted closer to him and hugged him from behind. The sleep sack fell away, but she paid little attention to the cold. Maker, hugging him was like snuggling up to a warm chunk of fuseform. Sometimes she fancied he was a cyborg, a hard mechanical framework covered in living, very attractive, and completely functional flesh. It would explain a lot.
“Please, don’t go,” she whispered, resting her chin on his shoulder. It was as much a prayer as a plea. “Maker knows I understand wanting to challenge yourself to find out where your limits lie, but this…this stupid race…”
With a quick, hard kiss to her forehead, he patted her arm reassuringly. “Love, everything will be fine. I’ll spend twenty-four days riding my hovercycle through the desert and I’ll pass out on cots like this one whenever I reach a rest station,” he said. With a grin, he rose and reached for his jacket. “At the end, I’ll be filthy, smelly, and dehydrated. Once the promotional stuff is over, you and I’ll get on Sundance and we’ll go back to Altair and soak in the baths until there isn’t a trace of this race on me anywhere.” He leaned down and kissed her lightly again on the tip of her nose. “Once I pass inspection, I promise I will make love to you until you beg for mercy.”
He pulled his jacket on and, with a shrug, settled it in place over his broad shoulders. “It’ll be alright in the end, just wait and see.”
He winked at her.
With one last reassuring smile, he caught up his helmet and ducked out through the tent flap. Bo stared after him, unable to shake the feeling that something terrible was in the wind, and this race was only the beginning of it.
***
He’d stayed in bed too long. It had certainly been worth it. The tension he’d been carrying around ever since he’d made planetfall on Catarrh had eased, but it hadn’t disappeared altogether. For days he’d felt a growing sense of unease. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on the cause until he spied the figure in local garb lurking around after the interviews yesterday. He wasn’t about to let Bo know he had any apprehensions about this race. She was already worried for his safety. He didn’t want to add to her concerns. He would deal with the threat on his life when it happened.
He had invited Bo to join him for the start of the Catarrh Endurance Rally as soon as he’d received confirmation of his entry two seasons ago, but until he’d looked up from the interview he’d been giving yesterday to find her standing beside his brother, he hadn’t believed she would show. She tended to avoid events with media coverage.
Under ordinary circumstances, the media stalked him relentlessly. At the Catarrh, the racers consisted of adventurers, celebrities, nobility, and the occasional Sovran. The organizers of the event laid down rigid guidelines for the media to follow. Any who violated the rules found themselves barred from the event and deported from the star system. While, as a participant, Blade had the run of the place, the media was limited to only a small, cordoned-off
area well away from the entrants, their entourages and their crew.
Higher profile entrants like himself were expected to make appearances for the media and grant interviews. In return, the Catarrh organizers fiercely guarded his privacy for the remainder of the race. There would be no unexpected media holos of himself or his Joy Babe. Bo, at least, was safe.
He made his way along the neat rows of tents towards the mess tent at the center of the encampment with the other common tents. The closer he got to the common areas, the slower his progress. He couldn’t go three meters without someone stopping him to chat or wish him luck. Some of those who stopped him were acquaintances from previous years when he was on Chase’s crew. Many were strangers and fans.
“Blade!”
He turned to respond. Two pairs of hands grabbed his arms from behind as a holocam flash momentarily blinded him. Reacting on instinct, Blade broke their hold. He elbowed one in the face and threw his helmet towards the flash. He seized the other’s arm and twisted it behind his back, his fist closed around the back of his collar as he swung his attacker between himself and the direction of the blinding flash. It was all over in scant seconds.
He blinked against the dark spots dancing across his field of vision, waiting for it to clear. A few meters away, a teenager sat sprawled in the dust holding a holocam, staring at him in slack-jawed amazement. Blade’s helmet lay beside him. He wore a jumpsuit that identified him as a member of another racer’s crew. Blade glanced at the other two boys, taking in their matching jumpsuits. His hands trembling slightly from the sudden surge of adrenaline, Blade released the boy he was using as a shield and offered his hand to the one whimpering on the ground, hands cupping his nose.
“Didn’t anybody ever tell you kids not to grab strangers?” he asked.
Though his heart rate had accelerated, Blade focused on maintaining a cool exterior, giving away none of the inner turmoil as he sought control of his fight-or-flight impulses. He pulled the injured teen to his feet and brushed his hands away from his face so he could evaluate his injury.