Page 44 of The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement
“Us being drunk?”
“Dancing. We should only have danced once together. Maybe twice if the dances were spaced out.”
“Ifeel spaced out, imagining living under constraints like that, everybody judging.” She spun under his arm. “I’m so glad we don’t care about that.”
“Not tonight, my little Ray.” Hespun her close again.
She gazed up into his royal blue eyes, wondering at the note in his voice. It sounded like a promise. But maybe a warning too.
They weren’t in space anymore. And night would eventually end.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Give them something to talk about.”
“No.”
She drew back with a frown. “No?”
“They don’t get any of you.” His face was set in hard lines and she gaspedwhen he yanked her against him. “Only me.”
A primitive part of her rejoiced at his possessiveness. Because she felt it too. “And the kiss?”
His mouth swooped down on hers as if the anti-grav had failed or the worlds were judging them on style or all the whirling energy in the universe was collapsing into one point: their lips joined in a fierce lock of lust and longing. She moaned, deep in herthroat, and felt him answer in kind. He held her so tight, the devices in her skirts got confused and started to float away. Or maybe that was just from his hands and mouth, hunting restlessly over her body, finding every sensitized nerve and singing pulse point. He nipped at her lower lip—a twinge of shock instantly soothed away when he licked the swell of flesh and tangled his tongue with hers.She clutched at the low stone rail behind her, trying to find some balance between her high heels and the lightheaded buzz of the ghost-mead. Not to mention the rapturous bliss of his kiss.
He must have felt her sway. His roaming hands steadied at the small of her back, still bending her, not letting her loose, but coming down a notch. “Ray,” he rasped. “Don’t go. I didn’t mean to shock you.When I’m with you, I…forget my manners, forget you only recently woke from a nightmare.”
Forgot he was supposed to be getting married? Forgot that she would be leaving soon? Forgot this was just for a night? Despite the seductive power of his hands holding her up, she straightened. After a heartbeat’s resistance, he let her go.
She stepped away from him, letting the cooler night air whisperbetween them. “Well, we’re definitely giving them something to talk about.” She laughed a little shakily. “That Octiron recording crew was really insistent and I’m sure they have cameras around here somewhere.”
“Probably. But I have this.” From his coat pocket, he produced a little device shaped like a fat bullet. “Scrambler,” he said. “Blocks all signals. Although we’ll still be able to breathe.”He gave her a lopsided smile.
He put the device on the rail and flicked the tip. A translucent curtain shimmered up in a dome around them, like a slow-motion waterfall, turning the lights of the many lanterns and moons into a churning glow as the photons tangled in the scrambler field. Even the sound of music from the ballroom seemed hushed and far away.
As for the ability to breathe… She wasn’tso sure. Looking at Raz, his eyes dark with desire and his skin flushed, her pulse stuttered. He was everything she found alluring in a man, and that was before she took into account the way he touched her, generous almost to a fault and intuitive in a way that made her shiver. Not just with pleasure, but also a touch of apprehension. How had he gotten inside her defenses so easily? And he hadn’teven gotten inside her yet.
She swayed toward him, drawn by a very specific gravity. He kept his hands resting on the rail and didn’t move, even when her mouth touched down on his. But he kissed her. Oh, how he kissed her… The hot path of his lips and breath as he devoured her were a marking in some arcane, invisible, wordless language on her skin, a promise of more to come.
They would bothbe coming this time, she swore it.
“Let me show you something,” she whispered. “Only you.”
His celestial eyes glowed with a fierce hunger and the reflected light of the floating globes, so many suspended around the courtyard that she couldn’t tell which were lanterns and which were moons.
She touched the high collar of her dress. The neckline was asymmetrical, like his, as seemed to be a popularstyle for Thorkons, and her fingers were shaking a little, so it took her a moment to find the secret tab.
“They built the dress from the inside out because they didn’t trust me to be able to pull it off,” she explained.
His gaze tracked the movement of her fingers avidly. “I’d pull it off you, if you let me.”
“Pull it off meaning not make a fool of myself as a clueless closed-worlder.” Sherolled her eyes, remembering the snide little asides among the dowager’s staff. “But I think I like the simple foundation best. See?”
She released the tab and the petals of the skirts began to fall away.
He sucked in a breath so deep and harsh that a few petals actually drifted toward him. That gratifying response and the way his eyes blazed hotter emboldened her movements. She released anotherfew petals and playfully hip-bumped one in his direction.
He snatched it from the air and crumped it in his fist, as if he needed something to hold on to. His eyes raked each inch of skin revealed by her slow striptease. “Beautiful,” he rasped.
She knew he wasn’t talking about the gown.