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“Silly me. I thought I was a guest. Not one of your soldiers. And at the time, I didn’t realize I was a prisoner.”
“At the time, you weren’t.”
“But I am now?”
“I said you should not wander around without an escort, yet you took it as an invitation to do just that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. It didn’t escape her notice that Orik’s eyes were drawn down to her bustline. “I wanted to see for myself what sort of place I’m in. Just like you, I find it hard to trust strangers.” And she was an innately curious person. Sometimes to her own detriment. When she was younger, on one of her first camping trips with her father, she’d wandered off while he’d been preoccupied with fishing. She’d spotted what she’d initially thought had been a lost dog, but quickly realized was a wild wolf.
Still, she’d felt compelled to follow the creature back to its den, where two young pups played in the open. A third pup looked to have been injured in some way, limping close to its mother. The mother wolf hadn’t attacked Jessie, only tilted her head as though trying to determine if she was threat. Jessie had mistaken the benign behavior as the wolf’s way of trying to communicate something to her. She had reached out for the injured pup, but was quickly snatched away by her father, who carried her back to their campground in a fury. For hours he had railed at her for wandering off. “You could have been killed!” The next day, her survival education had begun.
“And that’s why you want this blade with you…because you don’t trust us?” Orik said.
“I like to keep my property in my possession.”
“You don’t seem keen to reclaim your other things.”
He was referring to her hiking pack, filled with survival gear that seemed unnecessary in a huge palace with servants. However, there was a nettlesome glint in Orik’s eyes that made it seem as though he had something on her. She did a quick mental inventory of her pack. A waterproof plasma lighter…her water bottle with a two-stage integrated filter straw…a heavy-duty flashlight…her smartphone, loaded with music, earbuds, and solar powered charger that hadn’t seen a sun in weeks…and—oh, Lord! The “back massager.” She felt her cheeks grow warm.
The gleam in his eyes brightened. “There’s one item in particular that would provide hours of entertainment, I’d wager. I figure by now you’d be desperate for it.”
Her cheeks grew hotter still when he reached into the pocket of his vest to retrieve...
Her smartphone? She did a doubletake.
Expression wildly amused, he said in an innocent tone, “What? Did you think I was referring to something else?” His grin reminded her of that of a Cheshire cat. But her ire was subdued by the fact that her phone’s screen was lit up.
“You charged it?”
“June had one of these when she arrived as well, also depleted of energy. We reverse engineered it so she could use it again. You canna make calls to Earth with it, but you’ll be able to listen to some familiar music.”
To hear her beloved Bangles again. Lee Ann Womack. Faith Hill. Destiny’s Child. Those last couple of weeks on that ship had been miserably silent. Nothing had ever felt so lonely. She reached out for her phone—
He snatched it away. “You can have it…if you’re good.”
Her head shot up. “What doesthatmean?”
“Agree to obey my directives, and you’ll have your device.”
“A concession for imprisonment?” She cradled her torso with her arms and glanced around the room. Confined? For how long? Until they decided it was time to send her home?
“I wouldn’t call it that,” he replied, his eyes dropping to rake over her body. “Or I could give it to you now…for a kiss.”
She blinked, cheeks warming. A kiss? She was momentarily filled with outrage, then his roguish lips drew her gaze. Hadn’t she wondered what they would feel like? Whether they would be hard or soft against hers? “That’s a little underhanded, don’t you think?” Her tone was too breathy to be taken as a rebuke.
A little spark of green seeped into his irises, and…was he holding his breath? His larynx bobbed. He was nervous?
How unexpected. “I suppose one little kiss couldn’t hurt…well…not me, anyway.”
“Oh?” he prompted, moving a fraction closer.
“The moment your lips touch mine, you’ll be positively smitten. You’ll end up sniffing around me like a little puppy begging for treats. It will be embarrassing for the both of us.”
“Your confidence may be overblown.”
“Just a friendly warning.” She tilted her head back, a clear invitation.
“Consider me warned,” he growled, and their lips met in a collision of a trillion tiny molecules, all firing at once to light up her nerves in wave after wave of warm, delicious ripples. Dizzying and delightful ripples borne of pure, unfettered, carnal attraction. As his lips swept along hers, it was as though every filament, every fiber of her being stood on end, at full attention, screaming for more of what he was giving her. Her heart pounded in her ears like cannon blasts and her head swam.
