The Star Princess

by Susan Grant

  “But they’re not here,” she said. “Only we are. Let’s open that champagne.”

  He lifted the bottle. “It is warm.”

  She breezed into the kitchenette and opened the freezer. “Voilà! Ice cubes.” She carried over the plastic tray. She started plopping the cubes one by one into the flutes and then stopped. “Unless you want to ruin the mood by making me wait until you chill the bottle.”

  “Nothing will ruin our moods today, Ilana.” He popped the cork while she added more ice to the glasses.

  When the flutes were filled and foaming over with champagne, they lifted them. “To taking chances,” she said, and gave him a meaningful gaze. If he didn’t start getting the hint that she wanted him tonight, wanted to sleep with him, then she was going to have to be more proactive.

  He dipped his head in that grave and charming Vash way of his, and gave no hint that he’d caught on to her desires. “To the rogue.”

  Her flute paused halfway to her mouth. “Rogue?”

  “I have admitted this to no one.” His mouth tipped slightly. “A rogue lives inside me. Always has. It is he who urges me to take risks, to go against advice, to be impractical when conformity is expected—or even required. But when I think back over my life, the moments instigated by the rogue are the ones which stand out as the times when I felt truly alive.”

  Her throat closed. It took a few tries before she could breathe again. She tapped her flute to his. “To the hijacked garden carts of life, Ché.”

  “Indeed.” Their flutes made a musical chime as they connected.

  “Drink up,” she coaxed. Whatever it takes to loosen you up. Closing her eyes, she took a healthy sip of champagne. It was dry, crisp, and perfect.

  Giddy, and not entirely from the champagne, she came up on her toes and kissed Ché lightly on the lips, then pulled away slowly. He appeared more pleased than surprised. “See? There are lots of ways to celebrate,” she said.

  She put down her glass. Her heart was beating faster now. The role of seductress was one in which she felt comfortable—usually. But not only had Ché rejected her once before, she wanted him. Badly.

  She stepped closer and combed her fingers through his hair. The sun had bleached out the short ends, contrasting with his tan that had deepened during the weeks spent in L.A.

  Her pulse was flat-out racing now. Making love with Ché would either get him out of her system or make matters worse than they already were.

  Probably get him out of her system, she decided. That was the way it had always worked in the past with men.

  He stood very still as she took her time exploring the rugged curves of his face, and his eyes closed as she brushed her thumb over his lips. He was fighting her, she realized, trying to pretend she wasn’t touching him like this, that it didn’t feel as good as she knew it did. “Resistance is futile,” she whispered without a trace of threat in her voice.

  He kissed her thumb, reached for her wrist, turned her hand over, and pressed his lips to her palm. She almost groaned aloud, aching from temptation. Until now, the only thing that had kept them from each other was total physical abstinence. They’d just blown that sky high.

  She wasn’t sure who started it, but the next thing she knew they were kissing; it was that natural. At first, their lips skimmed and touched, small, sipping kisses, tender and affectionate. She couldn’t help sighing, couldn’t help thinking about how so few men had made her genuinely sigh. Warm fingertips lingered. Hands caressed. Only the sounds of their lips touching and of their breathing interrupted the absolute silence in the room.

  Then Ché’s fingers skimmed across Ilana’s throat and collarbone. She ached for them to reach lower. But he made no move to cross the invisible line he’d drawn all those weeks ago when he said he didn’t want casual sex with her. So the kiss stayed tame, however much she wanted more.

  How could he not want more? The attraction was there. The hunger was there. The time was right.

  She sighed again and arched against him. Ché kissed his way to the hollow under her earlobe, nuzzling her there. She laughed softly and shivered, hunching her shoulders. His voice was a deep murmur in her ear. “Are you ticklish, Ilana?”

  “Not ticklish. Sensitive. You know all my sensitive spots.”

  “Not all,” he confessed.

  If he weren’t wearing those damned gray contact lenses, the gold would have taken her breath away. She cleared her throat because it felt suddenly dry. “Why don’t we start from the top, then, and work down?

  “Show me the rogue, Ché.” Holding his gaze, she took his hand and placed it on her breast. Her top had a thin shelf bra for support, and that was all. She could tell by the tightening of his mouth that he could feel every contour covered by the stretchy fabric.

  One convulsive flex of his hand, and her nipple contracted. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths. Her arms hung at her sides, her hands in fists. She couldn’t look away from his eyes, though it was so intensely intimate to watch him as he touched her. She’d gone up in an airplane today, a tiny little rickety plane. She could do this; she could let him look into her soul.

  “Ilana…” His voice sounded thick, huskier than ever. His gaze dropped away from her face, to his hand covering her left breast. His thumb rubbed across her tight nipple, and it was as if the sensation were hardwired to a place between her legs, each stroke of his thumb setting off tiny explosions in her nerve endings.

  Her knees became disturbingly weak. She placed her hand over his. Breathing hard, she said, “We probably shouldn’t take this any further unless it’s going to go somewhere.”

  His breaths were just as uneven as hers. She recognized the sharp hunger in his face. To her, he looked suddenly very male. Not quite a stranger, not quite frightening, but a man who could enthrall her with sheer sexual magnetism.

  She took the chance and moved closer until their stomachs touched. He had a choice: He could put his arms around her or push her away.

  He put his arms around her.

  She pressed her cheek to his chest and smiled. His hands were flat on her back, keeping her close. His heartbeat was like thunder. He wanted more. She wanted more. What was stopping them other than some irrelevant Vash honor code? Or was he as scared of taking the relationship to the next level as she was?

  She reached for his T-shirt and tugged it from the waistband of his jeans. “Now, where are you hiding that tattoo of yours?” She tried to keep her voice light. “Can I see? I’ll still respect you in the morning. I promise.”

  He grabbed her wrists. He was so damned strong.

  “Easy, Ché,” she crooned. “You’re doing great. Just great. There’s no need to worry.” She tried to reach the top button on his jeans, but he wouldn’t let her. It was equally difficult to keep her smile from showing. “Look, I know how to do this. Just hang in there and you’ll be okay. I know how to fly, if you know what I mean.”

  Suddenly he tipped his head back and laughed. With shocked satisfaction, she saw amusement, surprise, and wry delight light up his eyes. “That is precisely what I said to you in the airplane.”

  She grinned and nodded. “When you thought I was going to panic. And it worked.”

  He released her wrists so he could wipe his eyes of laughter-induced tears. “And you think because you ask to see my tattoo that I will panic, too?”

  “No. But if I ask you to make love with me, I think you might.” She brought her hands to his waistband again. Raised her brows. “I flew today. You gave me the confidence to do it. My decision was spontaneous, maybe impulsive. And I don’t regret it for a minute.” With a jerk of her wrist, she opened the top button of his fly. For the first time she noticed the sizable bulge there—not the faint beginnings of interest, but a full-fledged erection. “I don’t think you will either, Ché.”

  “Ilana…”

  “Look where we are. It’s so romantic. It’d be so special here. Isn’t that how you wanted it? I thought your people considered sex somethi
ng beautiful, a holy act between consenting adults.”

  “It is.”

  “But you act like there’s something wrong with lovemaking.”

  “I certainly do not think there is anything wrong with lovemaking!”

  She was almost glad to have made him angry. Some emotion, any emotion, was better than that tight control, his warrior’s resolve. “Then it has to be me. You think sleeping with me will be a mistake. And what if it is? I think we’re both mature enough not to ruin our friendship over it.” To her shock, her throat tightened. “Okay, just forget I brought it up.” It had suddenly become painfully humiliating, having to convince him to make love to her.

  Ilana Hamilton begged no man. This was the last time she asked Ché…for anything! She spun away to hide the embarrassment and emotion she felt welling up in her eyes, grabbed her glass of champagne. “I’m going to get drunk and celebrate. You can do what you want. In fact, return that phone call from your papa. You can’t seem to break the umbilical cord anyway—”

  He hauled her to him with a strangled sound of fury. This time his kiss was hot, hard with passion. A groan rumbled in his chest as he expertly maneuvered her backward. The edge of the table butted up against the small of her back. Water sloshed in the vase of sunflowers as he pushed her backward. The room spun and tilted, and she was flat on her back, Ché’s powerful body pressed to hers, his muscular thighs holding her in place.

  His hands landed on the table, to either side of her head. In a sort of pushup, he lowered himself and kissed her—hard at first, but then the intensity eased a little, as if the kiss blinded him to everything else. His tongue was velvet, stroking hers in an expert, never-ending, carnal caress. After all this, she found she wanted that kiss, a simple kiss, to go on and on and on…

  Ché made a muffled, drawn-out, rumbling groan. There was something so indescribably intimate and satisfying about that sound. Honeyed warmth spread through Ilana, and the rest of her body quickly caught up to what her lips already knew.

  Suddenly a shudder ran through Ché’s body and he wrenched his mouth from hers. Breathing hard, he swore in a language she didn’t recognize. Her eyes opened wide. He gave her little time to ponder the raw expression on his hard, noble face before he lowered his head and tugged off her jeans.

  He kept his face down, as if on purpose, so she couldn’t read his eyes. His broad shoulders blocked the light flooding through the French doors as his fingers slipped under the elastic of her panties and yanked off her thong. The wetness on her upper inner thighs cooled in the rush of air.

  She felt him shift his weight, bump against the table. It creaked. The sunflowers sloshed in their vase. There was the pop of releasing buttons overlaid with Ché’s ragged breaths. He lowered his pants while she lay sprawled on top of a table designed for cozy romantic dinners, not the round of disturbingly detached coupling into which this had turned.

  He wasn’t going to make love to her at all; he was going to steal himself a round of brain-numbing sex. Steal? Ha! Hardly. Not when she was there, right along with him.

  Sex for her was no different from a long jog or a hard swim, but with a bonus at the end. Physical exertion with a sweet prize waiting at the finish line. Why should she expect any different with Ché? She’d wanted casual sex all along, and now he was going to give it to her. Only she couldn’t quite convince herself that this was her reward and not a punishment for her persistence.

  His strong fingers glided up her to where his leg had wedged her thighs apart. It was a cold, self-assured offensive, and yet he kindled in her a breathless carnal urgency. Her mind might be confused, but her body knew exactly what it wanted. She raised her knees, squeezing his hips. But he pushed her legs down.

  Knowing fingers slid though her engorged folds. He’d learned about her in the shower, knew where she was the most sensitive; pushing aside the covering of flesh, he exposed that spot to his practiced fingertips. He’d done this to women, to the courtesans at his disposal many times before. Yet a choked cry exploded from Ilana, and her hips writhed. As if she were his little puppet.

  “Goddamn you, Ché.” She grabbed the collar of his shirt. Wrapping the fabric in her knuckles, she used the leverage to lift her shoulders off the table. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears: guttural, tight with unrequited need. “You’d better not leave me this time. You’d better stay until we’re through.”

  He pushed her back onto the table. An emotion she couldn’t read contorted his features. Grabbing her bottom, he lifted her hips and thrust his pelvis forward. There was no fumbling; he knew where to go. With a harsh grunt, he pushed into her and sank himself home.

  Her body jerked in shock at the sudden, thick intrusion. She burned, but the burn turned quickly to sharp pleasure.

  Dragging her upper body off the table, Ché seized her mouth in a breathless, punishing kiss, angling his firm lips to force hers apart with the pressure. He made a deep growl in his throat, his fingers sinking into the skin of her thighs as he ground her against him, ramming deeper each time, his breaths harsh. Ilana clutched at his shoulders, riding the tidal wave that was her response to him. She was ready; hell, she was more than ready, but he’d surprised her. She hadn’t thought he’d do it; hadn’t thought he’d take her like this. Where was the Vash Nadah finesse she’d heard so much about?

  The comm in his jeans pocket started chiming again. They froze. It was his family, she thought.

  “Ah—Great Mother…” Gasping, he held fast to her upper arms. So many emotions flickered in his face. And then, when he opened his eyes, the Ché she’d come to know was back.

  “No,” he said. His expression was gentler now, almost regretful. “Not this way, Ilana. Not with us, love.”

  Love. Relief pierced her.

  And then he withdrew from her, his entire body shuddering as he pulled out. Still rigid, his sex sagged damp and heavy against her belly. She throbbed inside where he had been.

  It had cost him, that retreat. His voice was so rough that he almost whispered. “May I…try again?”

  She swallowed, nodding, too emotionally unsettled to reply. But he must have seen what he’d needed to in her eyes, because he lowered his head and kissed her—a tender, loving caress. She wrapped her arms over his shoulders and kissed him back, tears pressing behind her eyes, her throat aching from emotion.

  He scooped her off the table, supporting her weight in his muscled arms. She kept her own wrapped tightly around his neck as he carried her into the bedroom they hadn’t yet seen. It was cool and shaded, smelling of lavender and freshly laundered sheets. A thick red and gold comforter lay over the bed, folded back partway to reveal lavish red satin sheets.

  Almost tenderly, Ché laid her on her back on the sinfully plush bed. Foil-wrapped chocolates were scattered, ignored.

  They stripped off the rest of their clothes, rolling over the big, soft feather bed, savoring the feel of warm bare skin and cool satin sheets. Passion rose, but Ché took time to move his hands and lips over Ilana’s breasts, her throat, her face, as if he wanted to memorize her, the kind of caresses that should have preceded their initial attempt at lovemaking but hadn’t.

  He’d said he wanted to start from scratch. If he was willing, then so was she.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Only after Ilana was breathless from their foreplay, nearly begging him to take her, did Ché seek to complete the act. He rolled her beneath him so he could better watch her sweet face as he made love to her.

  Her eyes closed. “Look at me,” he whispered. “Ilana…”

  Her lovely eyes opened. At first, desire glazed them, but she blinked, focusing on his face, poised so close to hers. And then those eyes became so clear and blue that looking into them made Ché’s chest tighten with emotions he couldn’t name, because he had no experience with anything so intense.

  Propping his weight on his elbows, he lifted his hips. Ilana’s hands rested lightly on his shoulders. When he pressed at her opening, she raised her
hips to meet him. With a swift inhalation, watching her face contort with the pleasure only he could give her, he pushed deep inside her body. This was no feverish plunge; he savored every contour of her wet inner walls, every contraction of her muscles. He kept up the slow, steady, erotic push until he was sure it would kill him unless he let loose and thrust into her. But he called on every ounce of discipline he had, finally reaping the reward for his patience when she sheathed him fully, gloriously. There, he held himself still, his breaths uneven as he watched her. Her eyelids lowered as she tipped her head back and moaned. She would lose herself in the pleasure unless he called her back.

  “Ilana,” he whispered sharply. Her eyes flew open. “I want you here with me.” He needed her with him.

  She nodded, and then her breath hitched as he began to move inside her. She lifted her knees, pressing them to his swaying hips to hold him close. He held her face in his hands, gazing down at her as she looked up at him, their eyes locked.

  Take me. To Ilana, he gave more than his body and years of experience, far more. He began to sweat, his loins clenching with the heavy, potent pleasure-pain he knew preceded release. He gritted his teeth, his breaths hissing, wanting first to open himself to her, to let her see inside him as he devoted his entire being to this exquisite, strangely poignant lovemaking, giving her what he’d never given any other, gifting her with what he knew in his heart he would never bestow on anyone else, no matter what the ancient laws of his people demanded he do.

  Always before, he’d sought the goal of maximum physical release. But this time it was different. This time he wanted the woman he was with to hold him close. He craved that connection, a taut thread between them that seemed to rise above the joy of physical sex, turning it into something far more transcendent.