by Lea Kirk
“I’m sorry, Kai. You don’t have to answer that.”
“We do not have a monarch.” He murmured the words as though they were for her ears only. A secret he shared with her, and no one else. “We have a leader we call Most Esteemed Elder. That person is always the oldest member of the clan.”
“Wow. Your most esteemed elder must be ancient, then…and oh my God, I can’t believe I just said that.” A wave of hot embarrassment rushed to her face. “I’m sorry.”
He really wasn’t that old. Boy, she was having to apologize left and right tonight.
Kai’s lips twitched, then he tipped his head back and laughed in a way that made her heart want to laugh along.
After a moment, his laughter tapered off, but his grin didn’t fade. “Yes, there are several phoenixes who are older than me. And I am all right with that.”
“That’s probably smart. Politics sucks.” She ran her finger around the rim of her water glass. “My dad was in local and state politics, and I hated being the child-prop of his ‘picture perfect family.’”
Kai frowned. “It is difficult being the fledgling of a public leader. As a rule, our monarchs keep their heirs separated from their duties.”
“Heh. I can certainly appreciate that.” Nothing like a scandal to convince anyone to stay as far from the lime-light as possible. “That’s why I became a nice, quiet, boring accountant. You said you didn’t have parents, so who took care of you?”
“The simple answer is the female who was the most esteemed elder when I arrived.”
Her mouth popped open. “Your leader does that?”
“It is the traditional duty of the most esteemed when a new infant arrives.” His grin was borderline charming. “You could say that Fia was my mother figure, though many others were instrumental in my education. She left us all too soon.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. I still miss my mother, and she’s been gone thirty years.”
“I am sorry, Nixy.” He pressed his lips into a flat line and furrows appeared across his brow. “Fia left the colony to be with her soul mate. It was a time of joy for her and I do not begrudge her now. When she passed to the Great Aerie, she was very happy.”
He appeared startled at his own words, as though he hadn’t meant to be so candid with her.
She reached across the table and patted his arm. “I’m glad for her. And, I’m glad you had her in your life for the time you did.”
The waiter returned with their food. She spent the rest of dinner in utter amazement at Kai’s ability to practically inhale his super-spicy meal without breaking a sweat. Indian food was one of her favorites, but even she had to dab her upper lip and wipe away her tears a lot.
It was full dark when they made their way back to the Silverstar building. They came to a stop next to her car and she smiled up at him. “Still can’t believe you wolfed that all down without any problem. I can’t even imagine how hot food is from your home.”
“I may have to take a sample of curry back with me. It is the most amazing spice, and should be added to everything,” he announced.
She blinked, then a laugh burst out. “Well, okay then.”
“You do not agree?”
“It’s good and all, but I’m not sure about curry in cheesecake.” Which sounded seriously gross.
“Maybe we should try it.”
“Maybe.” Or not.
An awkward quiet settled over them. The moment of transition that always happened, when it was time to go, but no one wanted to be the first to say so.
She cleared her throat. “Um, what does soul mate mean?”
He blinked a couple of times, appearing to be considering his words. “I believe the best way to define it is the finding the other half of our souls.”
“You never did, though? Find you soul mate, I mean.”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Kai.” Her hand twitched, and she gave in to the desire to reach out to him.
He met her halfway, wrapping his warm fingers around hers. The touch was natural, comforting, and set her girly bits to aching.
“My life has been good, and I have no regrets.” His smile was slow, but genuine. “And tonight has been one of my favorite life experiences.”
A pleasant warmth rose to her cheeks. “Mine too.”
He raised her hand and pressed his lips to its back. “Good night, Nixy.”
“Night, Kai.”
He released his hold on her and strode toward the building. Without her. No invitation to fly her to his hotel room for a nightcap, or anything. Not that that was what she wanted, but she’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t expected something. Was dating etiquette that much different on his world?
Kai paused at the door like something had occurred to him, and hope glimmered in her heart.
He turned to face her. “Nixy?”
“Yes, Kai?”
“I hope we can do this again.”
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Me too.”
And with that, he stepped through the doorway and the door closed, blocking her view of him. That was it, then. She blew out a long gust of air, let herself into her car, and drove home.
Chapter 9
The quiet of Nixy’s two-bedroom cottage had an edge of disappointment to it as she dropped her purse on the reading recliner in her bedroom and slipped off her shoes. Despite Kai’s farewell statement, the touch of his lips against the back of her hand was like a promise branded to her skin. Except, it shouldn’t feel that way. There was no future for them. Being widowed a second time held about as much appeal as repeatedly slamming her hand in a car door. The age gap between them made being left alone again a frightening reality.
No, it wasn’t reasonable to have anything more than a friendship with him.
Says the woman who is so weirdly attracted to him.
She unzipped her dress, slid it down her legs, and draped it on the chair with her purse. It had to be those crazy dreams that blurred the lines between fantasy and reality. Although, even the older “real” version of Kai had become more appealing recently. And that shirt he wore tonight, dayum. Normally his eyes looked black, but tonight there had been a definite purple hue to them.
Argh, no. Keep things professional.
He’d eventually go back to Bezchi, and then where’d she be? She glanced at the photo on her nightstand.
“It’ll be just you and me again, babe.”
She headed into the bathroom and cranked the faucet to fill the tub, then tugged her girdle and undergarments off, leaving them on the tile floor. They’d be fine there until tomorrow. She climbed into the tub and sank down to recline in the steamy water.
Despite the awkward end to their evening, it had been a wonderful dinner. They’d talked about so much, and Kai had even given her a peek into his childhood. How sad he had never found his soul mate, though. A piece of their conversation surfaced, and she sat up so fast water sloshed over the side.
“He said phoenix.” But that couldn’t possibly mean the same thing as the creature from Earth mythology, could it?
No, that was ridiculous. Kyzel and Rol both resembled hawks or eagles, but that didn’t mean they hovered on air currents hunting rodents for dinner. And Fyad had a definite crowish look going, and she’d never seen him hoping around fresh road-kill or collecting sparkly things, that was for sure.
She relaxed back into the water. Phoenix must just a term for…people who lived in the desert and liked to eat spicy food. Fiery food. Yes, that was it, end of discussion. She wasn’t going to think about it anymore. In fact, after her bath, she was going to read until her eyes couldn’t stay open. Then she was going to fall into a nice deep sleep.
And she absolutely, positively would not dream.
Something about the dream had changed. The pond water was cool around Nixy’s ankles, and the sun was warm on her shoulders. Even the stones lining the pond’s bank
were hard and cold under her butt. How come she’d never noticed the little sensory details before?
That’s because this time you’re only wearing your nightgown.
She ran her hands over the smooth, silky black fabric of her favorite negligée. One she’d bought after Efrem’s death because she couldn’t bring herself to wear any of the ones he’d made love to her in. Some of the other widows in her support group had looked at her funny when she’d admitted that, but one thing she’d learned was that everyone grieved differently.
Anyway, the winery was beautiful this time. And since this was a dream, she could wear whatever she damn well pleased because no one was here to judge her.
A choked gasp came from behind, and she whirled around. “Kai.”
Of course he’d be here, in his usual younger dream form. But what wasn’t usual was his outfit. The no-shirt part was normal, along with his hairless chest, undecorated by the Bezchian flying leathers he wore in real life. But the loose white pants riding lower on his hips than she’d ever seen….
Me-ow, Kai.
“Ni-Nixy?” His gaze traveled down her body, and back up. “You look as lovely now as you did at dinner.”
Oh, dear. Her boobs were spilling out of the negligée, and all her body rolls weren’t being contained by her girdle. A burning heat raced to her cheeks and she crossed her arms over her breasts. Not everyone looked as hot as him in their sleep clothes.
“No.” Kai stepped closer and peeled her arms away. “I mean it. You are beautiful.”
A small huff escaped her. “This is a dream, so you’re saying what I want you to say. Even I know that.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes, which up close like this were still the darkest purple imaginable. “What if I am not?”
“Well, you have to be. It’s my dream, right?” And she’d prove it to him. She reached up, slid her hands behind his neck, and drew him down.
It was supposed to have been a slow, lazy kind of kiss. Instead, the moment his mouth touched hers, a fire of need exploded inside, racing through her with wild abandon, and suddenly it was all tongues in a desperate dance of desire. She pressed against him…or maybe he pulled her close. Either way, the hard ridge of his erection lay against her belly, God help her.
Kai cupped his hand over her breast, tweaking her nipple. A shot of white-hot lust arched straight down between her legs.
If there was any question about his intent before, it was gone now. “God, Kai.”
He pulled back with a groan, then kissed his way over her jaw and down her neck. Then he closed his mouth over the hard bud, teasing and sucking it through the thin material until her hips rocked against his thigh.
Panic spiked in her gut. What was she doing? Things had gone too far, even for a dream. She wasn’t ready for this yet. She needed space, a little air, time to think.
She clasped her hands to either side of his head and force him to break the suction. He met her gaze, confusion in his gorgeous eyes.
“I’m sorry.” It was all she could manage to choke out, then she pushed him away.
A tumbling sensation sent her spinning into blackness.
Kai awoke with a hard jerk, as if he had been dream flying and fallen out of the sky and hit the ground. But the soft touch of the mattress under his belly and the faint scent of cleaning soaps from the pillow under his cheek assured him he was not broken on the ground. Still, tremors wracked his body and he could not seem to get enough oxygen, no matter how hard he breathed.
“It was a dream. Only a dream.”
But his dream-self had physically responded to Nixy, desired her, and that was completely unexpected. And inappropriate. He needed to meditate, to clear his mind.
He forced his eyes open and shifted his hips to alleviate the pressure of the hard thing pressing against his lower abdomen. He was back in the hotel penthouse, safely grounded in reality. And Nixy was nowhere nearby.
What was he going to do about her? He shifted again. Whatever was under him seemed to move with him, tugging at his groin. He frowned. That was not a sensation he had ever experienced before. Had something creeped into his bed as he had slept? He braced his hands against the mattress, levered his body up, and gazed down.
There was nothing on the sheet. But his cock was fully extended, standing straight up, pointing at him. The evenly spaced fleshy bands of his pleasure rings fluctuated, none of which had ever happened before.
“No.” He drew his legs under him and sat back on his heels. Then he prodded at his erection with his finger, pushing it downward toward its normal position.
It bounced back up, bobbing as though laughing at him.
Panic knotted in his gut and his breathing became erratic. This was wrong, all wrong. A phoenix only responded like this in the presence of their soul mate. But Nixy was not here, so this must be residual from the dream. And she was not his soul mate anyway, so how had this happened?
He had to do something about his…condition…before his daily report to Uri, but what? He let his gaze dart around the room until the bathroom door caught his attention. A shower. Aye, a nice hot shower would relax him.
He crawled across the bed, stretching his wings out far enough to keep his balance. The second his bare feet connected with the short-pile carpeting, he stumbled toward the bathroom.
Wham. Crash.
“Ow.” He retracted his wings and glanced at the bedside lamp now teetering on its rounded side, shade askew. “Sorry. I will fix you later.”
After he had fixed his other problem.
He shimmied through the bathroom door sideways, so as not to bang his wings into the immovable door frame, then pulled the shower lever to the on position. The water flowed from the flat, silver device at the far end of the all-but-useless circular fixture called a bathtub.
Even after all the days he had been here, he had yet to figure out how to fit into the thing comfortably. The best he had managed was to dip one wing in at a time to clean them, then draw them in against his back as tight as possible and soak his body on his hands and knees. In this case, humans were fortunate to not have wings.
Perhaps he and Fyad should return to the Silverstar suite, where everything was sized appropriately for a Bezchian. Even Prime Advisor Rol’s displeasure dimmed at the prospect of taking a real bath again.
Steam flowed around him as he stepped under the miniature artificial rain shower, then gazed down at his still stiff-appendage. Why was it not going down? Maybe it needed help. He pushed it downward again with his finger. That did not work any better than it had the first time. He wrapped his hand around it and…. Jolts of pleasure had him sucking in a deep breath. Oh, sweet spring breezes, he had heard that cocks could be sensitive when aroused, but like this?
And if he moved his hand just so…. The ridge rings pulsated against his palm like living things, and his abdominal muscles tightened. He closed his eyes and a groan escaped him. What sheer bliss was this?
Nixy.
He opened his eyes and jerked his hand away as though it had been burned. It could not be her. She was not present.
Then how do you explain this?
An anomaly, nothing more. One he could get control over, somehow. He glanced up at the rain disc. If hot water did not fix it, maybe cold water would. He cranked the lever to the other side and the water went from pleasantly hot to steal-his-breath freezing.
A roar of misery lodged in his throat even as his body contracted in a hard shudder. Stinging icy torment, that is what this was. He looked down and almost laughed with relief. Torture or not, his cock was relaxing, softening to its normal position. Clearly his body’s reaction had been caused by a dream only, not Nixy herself. What a relief that there was no chance this would ever happen when she was near him.
A prick of disappointment pinched at his heart, but he tamped it down and shut off the water. Feelings like that served no purpose. He gave his wings a shake, expelling a fine spray of excess wate
r onto the bathing room’s walls, then reached for a towel and wiped the nubby material over his body.
Now that he was back in control, he must prepare for his communications with Uri. He dressed quickly, then settled on the desk perch in front of the deep-space communicator. A moment later, it pinged a signal from the most esteemed.
“Greetings, Elder Kai.” Uri’s voice crackled over the tiny speaker, but no visual appeared this time.
It was not unusual to have audio-only on such communiques, even though he had expected a visual call. “Greetings, Most Esteemed.”
“What is your report?”
“The plan to befriend Ms. Vogel is moving forward. She responded positively to the bouquet, and we consumed a meal together at a public place.” Kai ran his tongue over his lips. “Also….”
Uncertainty gripped him. Sharing details of the evening seemed somewhat wrong. Too personal.
“Also, what?” Uri prompted.
He ran his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. “I believe she is responding much better than we hoped. She has allowed me to infiltrate her dreams.”
The silence from Uri was worrisome, and as it lengthened, Kai shifted on the perch. The communicator box glowed a pale blue, indicating the connection was good, so why was Uri not speaking?
Finally, the waiting was too much. “Most Esteemed?”
“I am here.” Uri’s voice was monotone.
“Is there a problem?”
“I am not certain.” Uri sounded unsettled. “Proceed as you are, but, Kai….”
“Aye?”
“She is human and may think your overtures are more than platonic, so be careful.”
“Aye, thank you, Most Esteemed.”
The blue glow faded as the connection ended, and Kai hunched his shoulders. In his concern over telling Uri too much, how had it never occurred to him that his revered leader might be keeping something from him as well?
Chapter 10
Frustration was like a living thing writhing just under Nixy’s skin. Not even kicking along the sidewalk through wet orange, yellow, and brown leaves in the pouring rain was helping. Perfect Sunday afternoon walking weather for someone from Seattle, maybe, but not so much for a SoCal girl.