Page 6

Aklan strode into the cafeteria in search of Sonja. She had not been at the morning session he’d arranged with her in mind, and he had left abruptly the night before, too wary of losing control to ask for another date.

She had gotten such a gleam in her eyes, he’d been tempted to mark her then and there. Ah, the glorious beauty of her skin! So soft, so supple, so irresistible. More than once, as he’d demonstrated the most basic Ky’Lota forms to her, his mind had strayed instead to the small, glancing touches he’d allowed himself. The adjustment of her posture, of her hands and feet, of slender limbs and delectably curved hips.

A more honorable man, a stronger one, would have refrained from touching her altogether, but that one session had proven how quickly she stole his strength. Was it the sweet curve of her lips that weakened him, the shy flutter of her eyelashes, the tantalizing scent she wore? Or was it her confidence, her intelligence, the honor he sensed lurking at her core?

One thing had become clear as the night wore on: he could not bear their torturously slow human courtship much longer.

But how to quicken the pace without frightening her?

He scanned the cafeteria for her, visually searching each table, and masked the weight of his disappointment. She was not there. Had he perhaps mistaken the hour of the humans’ midday repast? Was she ill or otherwise occupied?

Missy rose from one of the tables and waved at him, a bright smile gracing her features. He pivoted toward her, aware of the stares following him as he progressed across the room, and of the low murmurs as well.

She met him at a relatively human-free spot, her grin never wavering. “You’re looking for Sonja.”

“I wish to speak with her,” he replied. “Has she taken ill?”

“No, I don’t think so. She’s a bit of a workaholic.”

Workaholic . He rolled the word around in his mouth, searching for its meaning. The translator offered no help. Slang befuddled it.

“Works too much?” Missy supplied, her voice kind.

“I see. Perhaps I could find her in her place of work?”

“At her office? Probably. Let me just grab her a snack.”

She whirled away before Aklan could respond, bounding toward the food supply with the same enthusiastic energy she seemed to apply to her every undertaking. He waited but a moment before she bounded back holding a brown bag in her hand.

“This way,” she said as she led him out of the dining area. “Bet you’re getting tired of the stares.”

He followed, shortening his stride to accommodate her quick paces. “It is to be expected. I am the foreigner here.”

“And you took down everybody you faced last night. Hey, we get it, big guy. You’re Superman compared to us.”

“I am a typical Xeruvian warrior.”

“My point exactly. To a human woman, you’re sex on a stick.” She turned down a corridor, her steps light against the dull white floor. “Sonja sure seems to like you.”

Aklan’s steps slowed. “She has said so?”

“Not in so many words.” Missy stopped and turned toward him, her smile gone. “It’s the way she looks at you when she thinks no one is watching. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“I would not intentionally harm her.”

“What about unintentionally?” She shook her head, making her blonde ponytail swing behind her. “What’s your next move?”

“A third date,” he said promptly. “I wish to arrange it with her as soon as possible.”

“Date number three, huh. Normally that’s…no, not applicable here. I bet you haven’t even kissed her yet.”

“Kissed?”

She cocked one finger at him and waggled it. “That’s what I’m talking about right there. Have you held her hand? Been alone with her without your pesky little guards? Where are the boy wonders anyway?”

“Recovering.”

“I can hear your satisfaction from way over here. Now, how are you going to move things along with Sonja?”

“Aside from asking her to meet with me again, I do not know. Your customs seem…”

“Baffling? Crazy? Completely whacko?”

He had no idea what that last word meant, but the first two he knew well, having been baffled by human behavior on more than one occasion. “Baffling, yes. If she were Xeruvian, the matter would have been settled by now.”

A curious gleam entered her eyes. “Really? Good to know, but not helpful for courting a human. So. Here’s what I suggest. There’s a movie tonight in the commons, after supper. You’ll love it. Lots of blowing things up and shit.”

He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to see feces explode, but perhaps this was yet another human quirk.

“Ask her to go with you,” Missy continued. “Sit next to her. Hold her hand. No grabbing.”

“No grabbing,” he repeated dutifully. Not that he would, if he could help it. At least, not until they were mated. Then there would be plenty of grabbing, on her part and his.

At least, he hoped there would be.

“And then?” he said.

“When it’s over, walk her back to her quarters and try to finagle a kiss out of her.”

“What is a kiss? My translator doesn’t quite know what to make of the word. Something about touching flesh to flesh?”

“I dare you to ask her just like that.” Missy grinned wickedly as she turned and began walking again. “Sex on a stick, brother. Sex. On. A. Stick.”

Sonja sat on a dilapidated couch, squeezed between Aklan on one side and Missy on the other. Someone had had the bright idea to host movie night in the commons, a former conference room roughly twice as big as her temporary quarters. As soon as word got around, people began volunteering their furniture. By the time someone from the catering company delivered bags of popcorn, the room was packed to the gills.

Thankfully, whoever had brought the movie also knew how to rig it up to play via an antiquated projector system. The sound quality was for crap, but the projector’s flickering light reminded her of the drive-in movies her parents had taken her to when she was a kid. The Avengers had never looked so good.

And Aklan had clearly never been so uncomfortable.

He sat stiffly upright, his shoulders hunched in a futile effort not to crowd her. Five minutes in, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She leaned closer and whispered, “Put your arm around my shoulders.”

The look he turned on her held equal measures of heat and curiosity. “Such would not violate propriety?”

“No,” she assured him.

Carefully, he lifted his arm. She leaned forward, scooted in, and curled her legs up, resting them on his thigh so he could relax his legs, too. When he left his arm hovering above her, she reached around and pulled it down, settling it squarely across her shoulders. This close, his scent enveloped her. She turned her face into his chest, unable to resist the lure of spicy musk. Familiar, but not. It was all she could do not to burrow closer, to sink into his strength and let it renew her own.

He hissed in a breath. “This familiarity is allowed?”

“At this stage, yes, I think so.”

“I would have you closer, if I could.”

She tilted her head up, and her gaze fell to his mouth. They were already so close their faces were nearly kissing distance apart. How much closer could they get and still maintain the propriety that seemed so important to him?

“Closer how?” she asked.

“Sitting upon me.”

An image of her straddling his lap popped into her head and heat suffused her cheeks. “Ah, no. Not in public.”

“My apologies.”

He faced forward again, seemingly intent on the movie.

“Aklan?”

“Yes, pjora-la ?”

“You don’t have to apologize for wanting to touch me.”

“This is good,” he murmured, “as I would otherwise forever be apologizing.”

A laugh sputtered out of her, drawing an answering smile from him. He glanced down and touched her nose with the tip of a claw, so gently she barely felt it. She wanted to kiss him right then and there. More, she wanted him to take the lead, to wrap his hand around her nape and tilt her face toward his, to gaze into her eyes as he lowered his mouth to hers.

The thought sent a frisson of heat through her. No, that wasn’t possible right now, not when they were in public, surrounded by coworkers instead of friends. She’d have to settle for enjoying the weight of his arm against her shoulders, the gentle thud of his heart against her ear, the quiet contentment of being near him. How right it felt to sit with him like this.

After the movie, he asked very solemnly if he could walk her to her quarters, charming her yet again. They wound through the complex, talking softly, him carefully maintaining an appropriate distance.

She kept expecting him to drape his arm around her shoulders again, to take her hand or toy with her hair or something . It finally dawned on her that Aklan didn’t know he had permission to do those things. Duh, she thought, and mentally smacked herself in the forehead. He was following her lead. It was up to her to show him where the boundaries lay.

In the middle of his explanation of the origins of Ky’Lota, she tucked her hand into his. He slipped into his native language, flipped back to English, and ended up code switching the rest of the sentence.

His reaction tickled a smile out of her. Warmed her, pleased her that he, a man so unflappable his expression hardly changed, had gotten flustered just because she’d touched him. She tried and failed to quash the bubbly happiness welling up inside her. For Pete’s sake, she was a grown woman, not a teenager falling for her first crush. But that’s how being around Aklan made her feel.

She tried to rein in the energy buzzing through her blood. They barely knew each other. Yet she was beginning to trust him, to respect him. To want him to take a liberty now and then. Giddy anticipation thrummed through her at the thought.

Damn it, she wanted a kiss!

Her quarters were located at the bottom of a u-shaped hallway randomly jutting off a side corridor. Everything in the Groom Lake complex seemed random, as if it had been built piecemeal when different rooms or structures were needed. She’d caught a glimpse of an underground hangar at one point and had no idea how to find her way back. Just getting from her room to her office required a map.

Living quarters were the worst. They were scattered all over the complex, on various levels, interspersed with conference rooms, public areas, and high security research facilities alike. No two seemed to share a size or layout. Her quarters were barely big enough to turn around in and contained only the bare minimum furniture, while the two guest quarters bracketing hers each had a separate sitting room and efficiency kitchen.

Not that she was complaining, she thought as she and Aklan strolled down one leg of the hallway. Being at the bottom of the u-shaped corridor afforded enough privacy and peace to make up for the room’s narrow confines.

Except when she wanted to have a guest over. Then the single room setup wasn’t entirely convenient. When they reached her quarters, Aklan’s hand still wrapped around hers, she thought seriously about inviting him in for coffee. If her quarters had been something other than a cupboard-sized bedroom dominated by a big, cushy bed, she might’ve done just that.

Instead, she leaned back against her door, her fingers laced through his, tilting her face toward him as if she were a sunflower and he was her sun.

“What’s on the menu for tomorrow?” she asked.

“The menu?” he said.

Idioms. Damn it. “I meant, what are you doing?”

“A group of humans has asked me to lead them in Ky’Lota each morning during our sojourn here.”

Her mouth twitched in amusement. So formal. “And then?”

“I thought perhaps to see you again, unless the other diplomats call a meeting. I believe the diplomat from the United Kingdom clan—” At her look, he quietly corrected himself. “The United Kingdom country had an emergency this afternoon. The other diplomats wish to move forward without her. I am content to wait until she returns.”

“I thought you wanted to get the negotiations over with.”

His gaze dropped to her throat, and he leaned toward her, a low grow rumbling out of his chest. Her heart tripped into a rapid patter. Now, she thought. He’s going to kiss me now.

He leaned down and rubbed the tip of his horn along her temple, nipped her earlobe. She gasped and closed her eyes, and her fingers tightened against his. Footsteps rang through the hallway. Aklan eased back, his gaze intent on her. Whoever it was said hello as they passed. Several someones, several hellos.

Sonja didn’t give a rat’s ass who as long as they left quickly.

“ Pjora-la ,” Aklan murmured. “I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?” she whispered.

“To help us understand one another better.” He reached into his robe, pulled out a small box, and opened it. Inside, two translucent earbuds rested in fitted cushioning. “So long as you are within range of my wristcom, we may speak to one another in confidence. May I?”

She nodded shakily. He gently grasped her chin and turned her face away, lifted one of the earbuds, and inserted it into her ear.

A sharp prick startled her into a gasp, then the pain faded, and she realized Aklan had stepped back. The box had gone the way it came, hidden away within his robes. Aklan stood military stiff, his hands clasped together behind his back. He uttered a string of sounds she recognized belatedly as his native language just as Mike came sweeping around the corner, his expression thunderous.

“What’s going on?” Mike asked, his words a sharp staccato.

Aklan gazed imperiously at him. “Sonja and I had a movie date this evening. I walked her home. This is customary, yes?”

The words reached her ears as an overlay of English and Xeruvian. She shook her head, touched her ear, and encountered a sticky fluid. She dropped her hand and examined the residue coating her fingertips, rubbing them together. Blood intermixed with a grayish fluid.

Oddly, the sight didn’t scare her. The blood she should’ve expected, given the level of pain. Short, yes, but sharp. And the grayish fluid?

She turned her gaze on Aklan, letting his and Mike’s conversation wash over her without registering any of it. That fluid must have something to do with the earbud. She’d allowed a foreign actor to implant alien technology into her ear.

And just that morning she’d said she wouldn’t stoop to treason.

Immediately, she shook the ridiculous thought away. Mike would be ecstatic over the gift, when she told him about it. If she told him. Assuming it hadn’t already compromised her, she thought wryly.

“Sonja!” Mike said.

Her head jerked up. “What?”

“Your ear is bleeding.”

She touched her ear again and kept her gaze well away from Aklan. “I’ve got a little bit of a headache.” Which was true. Her head was beginning to ache from having two languages overlapping each other in her brain. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He threw her a sharp look. “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?”

“If it doesn’t stop, I’ll have it checked. Promise.”

“See that you do.” He touched her shoulder, nodded to Aklan. “Ambassador.”

Aklan returned the nod and watched him walk away. As soon as Mike was out of hearing range, he turned back to Sonja. “I should have warned you about the pain, and the headache.”

One language now, thank God, and that helped tremendously. Already, the headache was fading. Maybe it was because both he and Mike had been talking at once.

She straightened abruptly, her fingers touching her ear. “You’re speaking Xeruvian. And I understand you. From here, directly, not through your wrist device.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Thorian Kael will have to explain the details.”

“Who?”

“Another warlord. He developed the translation program and these devices, so that we could understand your languages.”

“I’m speaking English.” The realization burst out of her so fast, she winced. “Does it sound like English or Xeruvian to you?”

“Xeruvian. Yet do I know you speak English.”

The last filtered into her brain as an unintelligible string of syllables. Xeruvian. But she’d also heard the English translation, without the pain caused by his conversation with her boss.

Because he’d spoken Xeruvian while Mike spoke English, and that’s what had given her the headache: the device trying to translate both at once.

“Remind me not to be in the same room as you and the other diplomats while I’m wearing this,” she said mildly. “You’ve just put all our linguists out of business.”

“Not at all, pjora-la . We have no intention of trading this particular technology. I share it with you to facilitate our mating.”

“About that. What exactly does mating entail?”

His gaze grew heavy lidded, nearly hiding the hot gleam in his eyes. “Mating is…similar to your marital customs, only such a bond can never be broken. Xeruvian mates are tied together on the deepest level. We know our mate upon first sight, through an instinct older than time.”

Despite her attempts to control her expression, her eyes widened in a kind of shocked horror. “And that’s what you want to do to me?”

“I knew you were mine the moment our eyes met.”

“I see,” she said faintly.

“Do you? Perhaps if you felt the mating instinct, too, if you felt the same uncontrollable tug in your blood that I feel.”

“You seem to be controlling it just fine.”

“Only through an enormous exertion of will. The mating instinct is urging me to mark you now, to claim you so thoroughly, no one can question our bond.”

The breath whooshed out of her and her knees went weak. “Claim me?”

“Mark you, bed you,” he snarled, and his fingers twitched into fists. “Just thinking on it tests my control.”

Her nipples pebbled into hard little nubs behind her bra, and she shuddered. “That isn’t our way, not if we want the relationship to last.”

“Thus must my control never waver. However, be warned, pjora-la . Once a Xeruvian warrior spies his mate, he must claim her. Such a male, if left unmated, can become quite dangerous. Not to his mate, never that, but to the people around her. I have no wish to harm your friends and coworkers.”

She tilted her chin up, her gaze hard. “And I won’t be forced into rushing things.”

“Then I ask only that you do not artificially prolong our courtship.” His expression softened into a hint of a smile. “I would touch you again, if it so pleases you. Once more before we retire for the evening.”

The breath whooshed out of her on a slow roll of heat. “It pleases me.”

He crossed the distance between them in one step and surrounded her with his strength, his palms flat against the door, framing her head. He dipped his head and scraped his teeth across the sensitive skin at her throat, sending a wracking, shuddering flood of desire through her blood. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she bit her lip to contain a moan, to keep herself there against the door when everything inside her begged her to lean into him, to touch him, to feel his heat. She wanted to tunnel underneath his clothing and test the hard firmness of his body, to rake her fingernails gently across his abs, to tease and torture him all at once.

The need for him was a molten fire in her blood, shocking her with its intensity.

And still, she burned.

“Kiss me, Aklan,” she whispered huskily. “Please.”

“I would do as you ask, pjora-la . Only, what is a kiss?”

Her legs went weak, and a moan escaped. And yet again, footsteps echoed down the hallway, warning of someone’s approach. “I think I’m going to have to show you when we’re alone.”

“Now?”

The hope filling his voice made her laugh. “Another time.”

He drew back reluctantly, and by the time the walker came into view, Aklan was standing a respectable two feet away from her.

Of course, she was still propped against the door. Thank you, jelly legs. “See you tomorrow?”

“What time?”

Sonja waited until the person passed, another female coworker who was discreet enough not to look too closely at them as she keyed open her room and disappeared into it. “Ky’Lota?”

“And after?”

“Work. Another debriefing.” She only just refrained from rolling her eyes. Part of the job. She pointed at his wrist. “What kind of range does that thing have?”

“Enough. Why?”

“Sight distance only?”

“Slightly more.”

“Can you hear me if I talk to you when we’re not together?”

“Very likely.” He cocked his head, his eyes narrowed. “We have not fully tested it yet.”

“No time like the present. See you tomorrow.”

She slipped into her room before he could respond. Waited a beat with her back pressed against the door. When she was certain he’d walked away, she said, softly, “Aklan?”

“Yes?”

“What does pjora-la mean?”

His laugh was soft and seductive. “You but have to think on it to know.”

She crossed her eyes at the far wall, then closed them. Tried to think about it, but the only thing in her head was him .

“ Pjora-la ,” she whispered, and the meaning hit her at the same time as his growl.

Fate given .

She sucked in a breath as her legs gave way and she slid down the door. Dear lord. She didn’t stand a chance in hell of walking away from him intact, did she?