The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement Read online

  “No one will touch you with Zalar’s Eye upon them.” Until the Earth envoy comes. Came to take her away. Or so she intended.

  The twist in his gut tightened, and dread tossed another loop around his neck, keeping him from speaking.

  The dowager had informed him, none too kindly, that she had managed to sidetrack the envoy and the Open Worlds For All representative with a delaying excursion through the space station, giving him one more day at wooing Rayna and securing her rights to the station for Azthronos.

  The order had left a vile taste in his mouth, like pixberries gone sour and coffee at its most bitter, and his expression must have betrayed him, because his mother had shaken her finger at him.

  “You object?”

  “To pilfering the reparations of an abduction victim? How could I be so naïve?” He managed not to roll his eyes.

  She didn’t do him the same courtesy. “Take your complaints to the God of Eternity where your sire now resides. Unfortunately, the due dates on our debts are not so far out as that.”

  Eternity was how long he’d hate himself for trapping Rayna into union she wouldn’t want.

  And he suspected she’d hate him longer than that.

  How could he ask her to tie herself to a galaxy that wasn’t her own, that she’d never have known about if not for Blackworm’s crimes? Especially now that she had the universe at her feet, like that silly little nebula floating beneath her.

  “Woo her. Win her. Wed her.” His mother had ticked off the steps on her fingers. She ended with, “Beguile her and bed her.” Then she waved her hand. “In any order you’d like.”

  He glowered at her. “I will not lie to Rayna.”

  “Would it be a lie?”

  Hearing the dowager’s words echo made him shake his head.

  Rayna’s hand tightened on his arm. “Raz, what’s wrong? Er, Your Grace.”

  He shook off his torment. It wasn’t hers to suffer with. “What’s wrong is you calling me Your Grace.”

  “Seems to fit you best in this situation, like your uniform.” She pulled slightly away to cast an assessing eye over his formal black attire with the high, asymmetrical neck only somewhat softened by the icestone white cravat like a jagged, frozen waterfall. “Very…respectable.”

  The throaty way she said respectable made him glad for the ballistic protection over his crotch. Otherwise his burgeoning erection might’ve gone right for her. Beguile and bed.

  “And you could be a grand Thorkonos lady, except not so much respectable as ravishing.”

  She smoothed her palm down the dress, knocking free a few more crystals that swirled away in streamers of glittering light. “This is probably terrible for anyone with allergies. But if people start sneezing to death, I guess I can tear off this tissue-paper skirt so they can blow their noses.”

  He found himself snorting. “Not respectable at all.”

  And she would definitely find herself ravished if she got naked in front of him.

  Jealousy, longing, and guilt were a toxic churn inside him worse than the lethal emptiness of space.

  Better to space himself than abuse the trust of this remarkable woman who had escaped her abductor, saved her friends, defied his mother, and faced a universe of aliens with grace and humor.

  They would have this night together but he would not try to trap her into more. The ancient, admired Duchy of Azthronos would sink into oblivion and still he would refuse to take her freedom. He promised her this, though she would never know it.

  His throat rasped with those unspoken words when he asked, “Dance with me?”

  She looked up at him, questions lurking in her dark eyes. “I should warn you. I’ve never really done any formal dancing, and these spiky glass heels look amazing but I can barely walk. The chances of me stepping on your feet are really, really high. Higher than the heels.” She dimpled at him. “And I know how you feel about being stabbed.”

  “I would carry you if necessary,” he said. “But it won’t be. Let me show you.”

  He guided her to the dance chamber and pointed upward. The center tower of the ballroom went five stories up and was open to the night sky above since the energy dome protected the whole estate from anything so vulgar as inclement weather.

  Her jaw dropped. “Zero-G dancing?”

  “More like the anti-gravs on your dress.” He pointed out the unobtrusive lifts on the dancers. “Some lifting and floating, but not truly weightless. If it were, the dancers would be bouncing around like billiards.”

  She dropped her startled gaze back to him. “You have billiards?”

  He tilted his head, half closing his eyes slyly. “I’m…not very good. Perhaps we could play a game of what we call disrobilliards.”

  “Disrobe…” She narrowed her eyes back at him. “Are you saying strip-pool?”

  He blinked with exaggerated innocence. “My universal translator is failing me. I’ll just have to show you.”

  She stepped up closer to him, the icestones of her sandals pressing to the toes of his boots. But it wasn’t ice that went through him; it was a dark, sultry fire. “Show me everything?” she purred.

  Even the ballistic strength of his trousers was going to fail him at this rate. “Later.”

  “Yes, first I want my dance with the disreputable duke.”

  He took her hand, led her to step into the anti-grav shoes, and then whirled her into the soaring column of dancers, letting the music and the Earther in his arms lift his heart before the inevitable end of the night.

  Chapter 11

  She wanted this night of wonders to never, ever end.

  It took her one dance to trust the anti-grav boots. It took a second dance to find the rhythm of the alien music. But by the third dance…

  Rayna laughed with delight as Raz spun her higher. He took her all the way to the top of the chamber in a powerful arc like a comet, her skirts trailing glitter behind her.

  She might’ve worried for a moment about dancers below seeing up her dress, but the anti-grav in the layers of gauze seemed to know where they needed to float to keep her decent and demure.

  Even if all her thoughts were decidedly, ducally wicked.

  When she’d descended the stairs—thank the God of Tripping Hazards for the hidden escalator—she’d almost fallen to her knees at how stunningly handsome he was. Well, she’d already known he was stunningly handsome, but in his formal black suit that was something like a tuxedo and something like the historical court dress she’d seen in old drawings he was even more enticing. Maybe it was the irresistible confluence of a man with old-world manners and a zoomy spaceship… Be still her heart.

  But it couldn’t be still, not when he was rocketing her through a vertical ballroom of suspended lights and other hovering dancers. He had all the strength and grace needed to guide her even when she faltered. And once, when she got too cocky and almost upended them, he took control and whirled them actually upside down for a moment, a very not upright and respectable move if the aghast expressions of the other dancers were anything to go by. Or maybe they were just horrified at her shriek of shocked laughter.

  Raz didn’t seem to mind, though. He just laughed along with her and spun her again.

  She seemed to keep spinning inside even when he finally let them float down and insisted she drink something. She tried the ghost-mead, although he asked for a watered-down version. When she’d stuck out her tongue at him, he backed her into a private, enclosed alcove and kissed her, hard and lingering, until she thought she might be floating again.

  “Let’s take our drinks out to the balcony,” he said. “Or I might keep kissing you.”

  “Is that an oath?”

  “No. Just the truth.”

  The hunger in his eyes convinced her.

  But she let him tug her outside because the night was beautiful and maybe he wasn’t wrong about needing to clear their heads a little.

  It would be too easy to let this night mean too much. Though the do
wager had swanned by at one point to nod approvingly at them—“How romantic,” she’d cooed, “the engagement of the Duke of Azthronos and a Black Hole Bride”—Rayna heard a few sotto voce hisses too. She couldn’t understand the words, but she guessed the meaning anyway: How could a blood champion and avatar stoop to courting a closed-world hillbilly?

  They didn’t know this was just for one night. And she was having trouble remembering that herself, as if Raz’s handsomeness and charm were a mind-wipe she was all too happy to inflict on herself.

  The few people standing out on the small balcony overlooking the front courtyard melted away at his look, leaving the space for just the two of them.

  She gave a low, impressed whistle as he closed the doors behind them with a decisive thud. “My arrogant duke.”

  He huffed out another one of those laughs that made her heart skip. “They didn’t want to be here anyway. Can’t gossip about us right in front of us.”

  “Gossip?” She pursed her lips. “We didn’t do anything that crazy.”

  “Merely by existing you are fascinating.” When she gave him a gimme-a-break stare, he shook his head. “No lie. The Earther who escaped a black hole to capture a duke.”

  Though the thought of being the subject of interstellar speculation creeped her out, she waved her hand dismissively. “Probably they just want to talk about how fine you look.” She waggled her hand again. “Or this massive rock.”

  “It’s probably my pants,” he said modestly. “Did you know they are actually mostly bombproof?”

  She giggled, then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Hoo. That ghost-mead is good, even watered down.”

  He took her into her arms and waltzed her slowly across the balcony. “No drunkenness. Because then I will have to be respectable and not fuck you.”

  Her whole body heated at the crackle of desire in his voice. “I’m not drunk,” she protested.

  “I meant me.”

  She giggled again, then snorted, then giggle-snorted. “We can keep dancing until we sober up.”

  “That’s really what the crowd will be talking about.”

  “Us being drunk?”

  “Dancing. We should only have danced once together. Maybe twice if the dances were spaced out.”

  “I feel 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.” He spun 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 gasped when 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 her throat, 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 whisper between 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’t so 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’t even 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 both be 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 popular style 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.” She rolled 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 another few 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.

  “In old Earth days, when a duke caught some innocent maiden and had sex with her, it was called deflowering,” she told him. Her voice trembled just a bit, and she wasn’t sure why. She wanted him to want her.

  “Deflowering sounds shortsighted and unnecessary.” He released the crushed petal and plucked another drifting petal from the air, slowly fisting the fragile material. “A flower can be enjoyed without any willful destruction.”

  She caught her breath as he rumpled a few more
petals into suspended globes of ruffled tissue, hovering around her like orbiting mauve moons. “Maybe dukes back then were just cruel monsters.”

  “Alien dukes are merely arrogant, or so I hear.” He floated one of the widest petals over the moons, capturing them. Then he clamped his hands around her waist and lifted her.

  She braced herself on his shoulders, but he only spun her a single step and settled her lightly on the floating petals. With a gasp, she tightened her hands on him when the raft of gauze jounced under her weight.

  With a flick of his fingers, the rest of the gown glided away, leaving her lounging in the shortest slip imaginable. The last leaf of tissue wrapped around her figure, the almost transparent fabric clinging to her curves. He growled low in his throat and spun her on her petal cloud floating in the air. He wedged his big body between the petals until his hips parted her knees. Skimming his hands up her inner thighs, he opened her legs, nudging closer.

  The blaze of his hot stare sent a flush through her whole body that rebounded to her exposed core. He framed his hands in a diamond around her labia, spreading her legs wider. When he dipped his head between her knees, she had half a heartbeat to draw a shocked breath before his tongue delved inside her.

  With a strangled cry, she bucked up into him. Her petal cloud seemed to take that as invitation to lift her higher, or maybe it was his hands under her ass. She clutched at the pieces of her gown, feeling the soft buzz of the anti-gravity devices hidden within. It was like a full-body vibrator. And his tongue…

  She arched back as he traced her slick folds with a hungry groan and ended with a suckle at her throbbing clit. “Raz,” she whimpered. Not caring if she fell off her cloud—hell, she’d probably just keep floating right on up to the stars—she reached for him.

  He resisted her grasping fingers. “You like this kind of kiss,” he said with smug satisfaction. “I can tell.”