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‘Who?’ Rina asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Massimo. He was always so charming. He never seemed to do anything wrong. If you listen to the stories about him, it’s like everyone thought he was a Paladian saint who could walk on water and summon lightning at will.’
‘I never liked him,’ Rina confessed. ‘Too slimy for my taste. He reeked of a man trying too hard for affirmation so he could hide his scheming and evil under all his couture robes and sickly sweet cologne.’
Selene rolled her eyes. ‘So dramatic. Do you think he’ll find me?’
‘If you’re not careful, he will. The Makori Dynasty has a long reach. We’re hoping the folks on Eden II are trustworthy, but we can’t be sure of all of them. Anyone there could easily spill the beans on your location in exchange for a few million schill.’
Selene fell into a hushed silence. Maybe she’d been too quick to trust Kainan. He’d disappeared completely. Yet regular deliveries of hot, delicious food, wine, and freshly brewed kahawa had arrived at the apartment’s door—courtesy of a faceless two-legged silver bot droid with zero conversation skills.
Rina interrupted her train of thought. ‘You’re wondering if Kainan Sable has sold you down the river?’
‘Mmhmm,’ Selene said quietly. ‘But then again, every conversation I’ve had with the man has made me rethink my view of Eden II as a backwater teeming with backstabbing rogues, pirates and ex-cons. Annoying though he may be, he’s smart, and his op here must be run by people with some serious tactical and strategic brains. I’m wondering why father let me think so little of them.’
‘Perhaps he thought if you knew how, if his colleagues are as gorgeous and intriguing as Kainan seems, you’d have fled to hunt them down,’ Rina laughed.
‘Never!’ Selene said, shaking her head emphatically. ‘I was not and have never been a pimply-faced teenager with cringe-y crushes.’
‘Girl, I beg to differ!’ Rina laughed. ‘I’ll concede that you were always much more serious and considered than I was in high school, rarely letting your hair down. But when you crushed on someone, you fell. Hard.’
‘True,’ Selene conceded morosely.
‘Regardless, you’re now a woman who needs to be loved. You’ve got a generous heart that gives as much as it wants to get back. More importantly, you haven’t had sex in years. You’ve been married to your job for too long, and you need to get down and dirty with a good long, fokk fest. Delivered at the hands of a mountainous sex god with desire tattooed all over him.’
Selene choked and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to unsee the erotic scene Rina had just set off in her mind. ‘Stop it! You’re being ridiculous, woman.’
Rina sized up her friend. ‘So he does affect you -.’
‘No!’ Selene said, firmly rejecting her friend’s assessment.
‘Oh yes, he does. But, remember, I know you all too well.Eyes squeezed shutis your tell for when you’re truly flustered. It takes quite the man for this hella reaction from you. Seriously though, what’s he like?’ Rina ventured, leaning forward on-screen.
Scary, thrilling, arousing, exasperating, daunting. A larger-than-life enigma who inflamed her body and infuriated her mind,Selene thought.
‘Like no one I’ve ever met before,’ she slowly said. ‘He’s different. He even calls me a different name.Khamila.’
Rina’s eyes flicked to her left as she accessed a screen on her end. ‘Khamila.It means beautiful, in Edenite.’ She looked back to Selene. ‘Well, well, my friend, it would seem your mountainous sex god, yourkhaji -which incidentally is the name for a male lover in Edenite - may want you as much as you want him.’
Selene scoffed. ‘Me? Want him? Honestly, Ri’, I don’t have time for all of that. And don’t be presumptuous! He’s no god. Most people on this rock are human. But, that said, there’s something slightly different about him.’
‘I concur,’ said Rina. ‘He’s not your everyday human. That’s why I took a clearer picture of him, better than the one we had on file when he picked you up at the Enclave,’ Rina said with a smirk.
‘You didn’t?’
‘Did so! I ran it through all our available databases. In particular, the University of New Malindi’s xeno-archaeological servers. Despite his obvious Edenite features, no known civilisation, aliens, or biology in this System match his unique eyes and bio pattern. So he’s different, all right. Maybe he’s a -.’
Suddenly Rina’s face fell. She paused her patter, and her eyes widened, fixed on a point beyond Selene’s shoulder.
Selene whirled around, and sure enough, there he was. His large form filled the apartment’s bedroom, dominating the space. He wore a close-fitting navy and gold jumpsuit with a white crest on one shoulder. His sapphire gold-flecked eyes glowed in the low-lit room, and she felt them pierce her to the core.
‘How did you -?’ she said.
‘I have my ways,’ Kainan said, his voice low, deep, amused.
‘How long have you -?’ she asked, dreading that he may have heard most of her conversation with Rina.
His lips twitched. ‘Long enough.’
