by Susan Grant
He caught her hand and tugged her back. They collided.
She blew strands of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, so now we’re doing the tango?”
“The tango…”
“A sexy Earth dance.”
“Ah.” Ché caught her around the waist and pressed her to him, close enough for her to feel the hard contours of his body through the negligible scrap of a dress she wore. He was a veteran of the Vash social scene. He’d danced with queens and the beautiful women of the royal court. Now he expected her to bend to his charm like the rest of them, to make her forget through the sheer potency of his masculinity that he hadn’t just made the most laughable proposition she’d ever heard.
Ha!
“Is this how the tango is accomplished?” he inquired.
“No.”
He pulled her closer. Her physical reaction to him was immediate. Her skin warmed, and she tingled low in her belly. But in that irritating way of his, Ché managed to look cool and composed.
Holding her gaze, he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing them to the heel of her palm, and then the inside of her wrist. Goosebumps prickled her arms. “Is this?”
Her lips compressed. If he kept this up, she was going to have to make an emergency rendezvous with the ice cubes in her mineral water. But if she did, he’d think he’d gotten to her. Quickly she took the offensive. “No. The tango is much more intense. Rougher.” Smiling her best sultry smile, she smoothed her hands over and behind his solid hips. “Do you like it rough, Ché?” she asked and gave his rear a firm little push.
His pupils dilated, darkening his gray eyes, and she faced the aroused and hungry male who had come to her in the shower. The familiar dimple in his jaw deepened. “Do you think we Vedlas are so easily distracted?” he challenged.
“If you insult one Vash Nadah, you insult them all,” she muttered. “I’m not arguing with your entire family, Ché. I’m arguing with you. And you’re trying to change the subject, trying to get me to argue about something else. That falls in the same category as distraction. You’re guilty of it, too.”
“Ilana, I…” He stopped. Sighed. “I did not do this on purpose.”
She grinned. “You know, you’re getting pretty darn good at those almost-apologies.”
After a moment of incredulity, Ché laughed; he actually laughed, deep and rich. Even with the contact lenses on, the delight in his eyes shined through. It made her want to laugh, too.
Something fleeting and wonderful flashed in his eyes. “I made a wise choice in tour guides. For this is exactly what I came here to find.” He surprised her by taking her in his arms and whirling her around. It was the most spontaneous she’d seen him, the most relaxed. She wanted to kiss him. Badly. But she’d brought him here as bachelorette bait; she couldn’t steal the lure.
Still chuckling, he hugged her close, swaying slowly as the music changed to a tune that at long last suited their slow dancing. Ché brought his mouth to her ear so she could hear him. His lips brushed her earlobe; her diamond earring clicked against his teeth. “See? The melody changed for us.”
She smiled. “Dream on, Ché.” But she guessed that when you were prince of a good chunk of the galaxy, it was easy to believe that fortune bowed to your wants and desires instead of the other way around.
But, just once, wouldn’t it be nice to go along with the fantasy? Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty—every fairy tale she’d ever read as a kid, where Prince Charming came and swept you off your feet, protecting you, loving you, forever and ever. Never sleeping around. Never sneaking around with other women behind your back. Yeah, it was a fairy tale, the happily ever after. Then there was real life. No one could say Ilana Hamilton didn’t know the difference.
“Excuse me,” she told Ché. “I have to go freshen up.”
She walked off the dance floor and spent the next twenty minutes locked in a stall in the women’s bathroom, wondering what the hell she was going to do about Ché’s offer to teach her how to fly a plane.
Ché was waiting for her when she came out, his drink in one hand and a fresh mineral water and lime in the other. She sighed, veering toward a warren of luxurious private vestibules and conversation nooks. Plush walls muffled the music but magnified the odors of sweat, liquor, and perfume.
She found an empty nook. He followed her inside. Shadows fell across his handsome face. “You’ve said nary a word about flying,” he said, and handed her the glass of water.
“Well, duh. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it’s not my favorite topic. How do you think you’re going to teach me how to fly anyway? You don’t have enough time left here to become an instructor.”
“I already am a pilot.”
She tipped back her head. “Help! This is some kind of cruel joke.”
But Ché as adventurer intrigued her. She took a deep swallow of her fizzy drink. It made her eyes water. “I didn’t know you flew.”
“I hold ratings in several varieties of sub-atmospheric craft and starfighters. I even docked a starcruiser once. It would not take long to earn clearance to fly your small, private sub-atmospheric Earth craft.”
“Airplanes,” she corrected automatically. “Coast Muni is near my house. They rent planes.” Her heart thumped harder. Why was she giving him this information?
Because if you don’t, he’ll find out anyway.
“But you’ll need ID, Mister French of Latvia. A pilot’s license. You don’t have either.” She pretended to be disappointed for him, for them. “I guess your plan won’t work. Thanks for offering, though—”
“On the contrary, Ilana. My flying credentials are in the galactic database, and under my real name. They will be able to access the records.”
“I thought your visit was secret.”
“From most, yes. Only my advisor, my brother, and yours know where I am. The treaty the Federation signed with your world requires me to enter your world using my real name. But without any mention of ‘prince,’ or the presence of a diplomatic entourage, no one cared.” His mouth curved. “It was not until I was linked to you that the paparazzi came after me.”
“Don’t remind me.” She sagged against the plush wall. Without a thumbs-up from Earth System Patrol and Customs—ESPAC—Ché would have been denied entry. As a high-ranking Vash Nadah and a member of the Great Council, he would have caused an interstellar incident if he’d been caught sneaking past Earth’s border-patrol starships with fake ID.
She drank more water, wishing suddenly it were a margarita—a strong margarita. “I know you princes don’t have outside careers. Is flying a hobby? Do you fly much? Lack of practice makes a pilot rusty. I’m warning you, Ché, if I suspect even one rust flake, I’ll refuse to listen to another word about you taking me”—she swallowed—”up there.”
“I am not forbidden to pursue an outside career. There simply is no time for it. My piloting is a hobby, yes, but more than that. It is a way to empower myself. For the same reason I strive to be fluent in English. The more skills a man has, the less likely he is to find himself helpless in any situation.”
She clutched her glass in sweating hands. “How can you not feel helpless flying? You are so not in control when you’re in a plane. No sane person could actually like strapping into something resembling a tin can with wings, flying miles and miles above the Earth, which is spinning on its axis at a thousand miles an hour, and whipping around the sun at eighteen-point-five miles a second! A second, Ché.” Out of breath, she tried to slow down. “They told me that,” she said, panting. “In a clinic. They thought it would help me, knowing that even when I’m not flying, I am. Ugh! I left and never went back.” From behind a wavy curtain of hair, she peeked at Ché.
“The stars move as well, Ilana.” He appeared almost bored by the thought. “Your sun and its solar system circle the center of the galaxy—a path it completes, I believe, approximately every two-hundred-and-twenty-million standard years. In addition, our galaxy is part of a group of galaxies. And
that group is part of a massive concentration of galaxies, called the local supercluster—”
“Ché,” she almost squealed. She gripped his forearm for balance.
“The supercluster is racing away from the other enormous superclusters of galaxies at an incredible velocity. The universe is expanding, every second of every day, and we are helpless to stop it—”
“But I can stop you!” She laughed and pressed her finger over his mouth. His lips were firm and warm. That touch brought a zing of attraction. “Do you know what I thought yesterday when you got out of your car? I thought you were a hit man, an assassin. I was right. You are. Your weapon of choice? Death by vertigo.”
His eyes lit up with amusement. He drained his drink and set it down on a narrow sidebar. “I have never heard of this method, death by vertigo, but its uniqueness makes it worth mentioning. Alas, killing you is not on my travel agenda, Ilana. Or on any agenda.”
Faint beard stubble glinted on his chin, and the amber glow from the walls of the nook filled the hollows of his cheekbones, made round by his grin. “Assassination of a princess…the aftermath would be most unpleasant. Vicious accusations between the families, shifting loyalties, volatility in the realm. And should the Great Council choose to keep me alive after the deed, which I doubt, we Vedlas would then have both heirs imprisoned. Klark and me, both. My father would not like that. It would be too damaging to family pride. At that point, he would likely be disgusted enough to dispose of us both—by his own hands.”
Ché brought his hand to his chin and studied her. “But if doing away with you were made to look like an accident…Hmm. Now, that could work.”
“You pig. I don’t believe you.” Laughing, she pushed at him. “You’ve given this way too much thought.”
“I have not given it any thought at all. But I have spent enough time amidst the intrigues of the royal court to know what works and what does not.” He regarded her more soberly. “I did not come here to hurt you.”
“You are not your brother any more than I am mine, Ché.”
“No,” he agreed soberly. With the obvious loyalty and pride of a devoted older brother, he insisted, “I love him.”
“And I love mine, too.” Ilana put her nearly full glass next to Ché’s empty one on the sidebar. Breezily, to lighten the suddenly serious mood, she said, “We have a saying on Earth: ‘You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.’ I’d say that applies to brothers.”
“Perhaps entire families. Our families.”
They looked at each other and laughed.
“I’m glad you came, Ché. I’m glad we had the chance to really meet. What can I say? You’re fun.”
“Fun…” He pondered that, his mouth tipping belatedly at one end. “I have been called many things. Never that.”
“It doesn’t surprise me. Most of the royals wouldn’t know ‘fun’ if it jumped up and bit them on the nose.”
“Or doused them with pepper spray.”
She pretended to punch him. He caught her fist, holding on to her fingers. She laughed, but her smile faded in the intensity of his gaze, a little too deep for her comfort zone. Instinctively she gave him a mental push away. An emotional push. She had to keep distance between them, keep him from getting to her.
He took her hand, pressed it to his chest. A suave, casual gesture. But the feel of him rocked her. Balanced precariously between banter and body contact, she decided that stealing a kiss didn’t scare her as much as his intimate regard.
Ilana leaned toward him, hesitantly, and then with more purpose, rising up on her toes to touch her lips to his.
Their warm breath mingled. Ché’s hand squeezed hers, more of an involuntary movement, she suspected, than a conscious act. She kissed him lightly, tasting him, most definitely intending to entice him, here in the semiprivacy of the nook, where her girlfriends wouldn’t know. Then, slowly, she moved back far enough to see the bemused expression on his face. She’d surprised him. “I was curious to see how you kissed when you weren’t angry.”
He made a soft sound of protest and reached for her hair. “I was not angry. Annoyed, perhaps. And curious…curious to see what you would look like.” He took a few strands between his fingers, sliding them down to the ends. Her body reacted instantly, awash in tingles. “And what you felt like,” he murmured.
A thought intruded. Ché was a man accustomed to courtesans meeting his sexual whims. Was this gentle caress what it seemed? Or was he only inspecting the merchandise as an objective potential consumer? She didn’t know.
She wasn’t supposed to care.
“And I was curious,” he continued in his deep and sexy voice, “to see if you tasted as good as I suspected.”
“Did I?” she whispered.
Ché cradled her face in his hands, oh-so-lightly, as if he couldn’t choose between studying her upturned face and hauling her close for a kiss. She made the decision for him.
Ché responded to her kiss with a sound low in his throat. Her mouth opened, her tongue searching out his. A shudder coursed through his body, and he pressed her close, one big hand cupping the back of her head.
She ran her hands over his shoulders and back, feeling the hard muscles shifting under the fabric of his shirt. It was a lush, sensual kiss that seemed to go on and on.
His scent filled her nostrils, spicy and exotic. She sensed his arousal on an elemental, almost animal level that was shocking and new. An image of them, sweating and naked, rolling on twisted bedsheets, flared vividly in her mind. He had to feel it, too, the heat blazing between them.
“Let’s go home,” she said, pulling away slightly. “We’ll figure out an excuse. I can have a headache,” she suggested. “Or you can.” And then she’d take him to bed.
Already she felt better, taking charge and putting on the moves, deciding where and how their relationship—if one could call it that—would advance.
She’d have to be careful, though. She’d already found out how dangerous he was. He was no pushover. He was a worthy challenge, an equal. Keep it light, she warned herself. Keep it casual.
Keep it physical.
Ché lazily tasted his way from one corner of her mouth to the other. “You wish to go home?”
“It’s time for bed,” she mumbled against his mouth.
“Sleep, yes. I suppose we must.”
She chuckled huskily. “But you know we won’t.”
His misunderstanding showed. He did have a problem with slang. “Not sleep sleep, silly.” She buried her face in the warm hollow of his neck, her arms wrapped over his shoulders. “I want you to make love to me,” she whispered, moving her hips against his.
He moved her back. There was something in his eyes that was a little too direct for comfort. He shook his head. “No, Ilana.”
Saying those words cost him; she could tell by the reappearance of the dent in his jaw.
“I will not bed you tonight.”
Stung, she pushed away from him. He’d turned her down. She couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be embarrassed or disappointed or both. No one had ever rejected her before. Granted, she chose her targets with precision, she wasn’t promiscuous or indiscriminate, but Ché…she’d assumed he was equally attracted to her, and when men were attracted to her they didn’t say no.
But she was wrong. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to die of embarrassment, be pissed off, or both.
Somehow she managed an amazingly light, casual tone. “Bummer. And here I was, looking forward to searching for your tattoo. But I guess you’re tired out from all that dancing.”
“No, Ilana.” Emotions played over his face, surprisingly raw and honest. “I am not too tired to make love to you all night. To wake with you in my arms, to stroke you, and kiss you, until you were ready for me once more. If I were to love you tonight, tomorrow not even the longest bath would erase the memory of me between your legs.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. Only pride kept her from whimpe
ring at the sensual picture he painted with those words. Sure, she’d known men who could talk the sexy talk. But no one had ever done it with the carnal certainty that Ché did. His unshakable self-confidence with regard to lovemaking was an aphrodisiac all on its own. She wondered if he knew how close her knees were to giving out.
“You’ve made your point. You’re not tired. But you are curious about me. You said so. So am I, about you. Why not spend the night together and satisfy our curiosity?”
“I am not another Cole,” he said with distaste. “A toy that you can bring out when you want to play and then cast aside. When the time comes for you to remember me, it will be as the man who was different from the others.” He leveled a steady gaze at her. “Nor are you a plaything to be discarded. I have thought about you since the day I saw you on that rooftop, but I have been with you now for a day. One day. If I were to take you to bed tonight, I would be treating you in the same offhand manner I do the pleasure servers in the palace. An appealing indulgence, but ultimately forgettable.”
Her face grew hot. She hugged her arms tighter to her ribs.
“I do not intend to forget you, Ilana Hamilton,” he said, gentler.
Ilana swallowed. It was another rout, she thought, only this time one of emotions; she felt psychologically what she’d felt physically after he left her alone in the shower.
She felt wrung out and inside-out. A curious achy feeling swamped her, as if she’d just had a long and draining cry. Leaning her weight on the cushioned wall behind her, she regarded Ché. He hadn’t escaped unscathed, either. She’d seen the regret darkening his eyes. The tinge of bitterness. It was plain to see, the duty he felt he owed his family, and what it cost him personally.
Ilana might have a Vash stepfather, and a brother who seemed more and more Vash as time passed; she might have spent five years trying to figure out the Treatise of Trade, but this was the closest she’d come to understanding what it meant to be a Vash Nadah.
Ché was honorable to the core. “Fealty, fidelity, family” was the Vash warrior’s creed. Like Rom, Ché had been raised on and was devoted to the ancient code of the warrior, one that stressed control and self-discipline. It was seen as an honorable way of life, one that supposedly set an example for the lower classes. As a Vedla, Ché was as Vash Nadah as you could get. If he made a promise, he would keep it. When he married, he would be fully committed to that woman, arranged marriage or not, even if he wasn’t in love with the woman. Ché stood as the exact opposite of her father, whose cheating and lies had made it difficult for her to form a lasting relationship with a man.