The Intergalactic Duke's Inconvenient Engagement Read online

  So arrogant. For a guy who’d been shocked at her tongue in his mouth the first time, he’d gotten over his shyness with impressive thoroughness. She thrashed her head against the soft puff of her cloud, and the diadem of crystals strung across her brow caught the watery glow through the scrambler to send soft-focus bokeh lights gleaming over his rapt expression.

  Arrogant but giving, alien but still she wanted him.

  She held out her arms with a pleading sound, and this time he lifted himself toward her. The cloud dipped her into his hard body as he kissed his way up her body. The delicate tissue frayed under his ravaging mouth where his tongue swirled into her navel and when his teeth teased her nipples into hot, wet peaks.

  His uniform was far tougher than her gown, but when she pawed desperately at his chest, he yanked the seals apart with a groan, the silky white material of his cravat unraveling. She splayed her hands across the furnace of his skin, delighting in the hard flex of muscle in his bare chest as he yanked her closer.

  When their lower bodies bumped, she realized his trousers were gone. “What happened to your bombproof pants?”

  “You,” he said thickly. “You happened.”

  With a moan, she reached down to wrap her fingers around him. Maybe not human, but fully, completely, arousingly—and aroused—male. She gave him a slow stroke, watching the flush spread across his cheeks as he tipped his head back with a harsh breath. Oh yeah, he liked that. When she shifted her grip and deepened the pressure, his hips thrust into her hand with an uncontrolled spasm, and he pinned her with a glare. And with his erection.

  “You are torturing me,” he accused.

  “Give in to my Earthy charms, Your Grace.” She smiled with as much sultry insouciance as she could muster considering her whole body trembled with yearning for his.

  The wide, blunt head of his erection eased into her slick folds. “You charmed me with your boldness and beauty from the very first when you faced me in the conservatory.”

  “When you saved me,” she whispered, bearing down on his cock.

  They both inhaled sharply as the thickness of his shaft stretched her. He widened his stance, bracing her cloud against the railing as he pressed forward. She keened softly as her body softened and pulsed, guiding him deeper, weeping for him as he pulled away and easing him back into her hidden core with every stroke.

  The bokeh lights blurred in her half-closed eyes as she lifted herself to him, a wordless plea for more. He obliged, so noble, and she took him with greedy lust, banging her mound up into his pubic bone, grinding her throbbing clit into his strong body.

  His blue gaze fixed on hers with an intensity that sent another rush through her veins. Not just simple earthy lust but something even more, something that might’ve scared her if she hadn’t known a spaceship was coming to take her away, that he was a duke destined for a fate she couldn’t imagine. The yielding cloud under her ass was like a reminder that they’d both just float away after this. It was just a one-night stand.

  The thought made her hold him all the more fiercely, inside and out. Her body had been abducted from Earth by an alien she’d never seen and didn’t remember, who’d kept her unconscious for a year. And now her greater fear—and deepest desire—was for this arrogant alien duke who woke her senses, whom she’d never forget…and who she rather suspected had taken her heart.

  Chapter 12

  Raz’s thighs ached with the primal urge to pound into the splayed female beneath him, to mark her permanently as his possession.

  What had happened to him? What had happened to one night until the ball ended? He was civilized, dignified—he already owned more than he could comfortably hold.

  And he would throw it all aside for this ray of light who had reached him from across galaxies.

  With slowly accelerating force, he stroked her, burying his hard flesh in the slick heat of her body. And he couldn’t look away. Her dark eyes, gleaming with the reflection of the glowglobes, were wide enough to swallow him. And he’d willingly, gladly, ardently fall.

  But not before she did.

  Watching her closely, he timed his caresses to the hitch of her breath and the slow, deep contractions inside her. Ah, the way she held him inside… To distract himself, he dipped his head to kiss her again. But that was its own irresistible delight. The taste of the ghost-mead intoxicated him more than if he’d drunk the entire decanter himself. Her sweet little gasp nearly pushed him over the edge. But he was determined they would fall together.

  He shifted his position, bracing his knees on the anti-grav gown, so they were both floating precariously. His weight strained the small devices, and the whole makeshift bed tilted toward him, angling her body sharply into his. Her whimpering cry told him he’d found the deepest heart of her pleasure. He quickened his pace, his body shivering as his control wavered. He wanted her too much, and her every glance and sigh stoked him higher. But larf it, he was a duke, and he would not fail in his duty, not to her.

  But when she grabbed his backside and yanked him close, rocking their floating divan, he almost lost it. Nearly slipped right off the petals, nearly orgasmed without restraint, nearly giggled in delight.

  He managed to control all of them, except the last, which emerged in a throaty chuckle. “You want it like that?” he rasped. “You want that much of me?”

  “Oh yes, Your Grace,” she cried. “Please!”

  How many times had he heard those words in his privileged life, and yet they never reverberated through him as they had when spilling from her lips.

  Or maybe it was the vibration straining the anti-gravs struggling to keep them afloat. He shifted her again, bearing down, taking the anti-gravs and her to the edge of what they could bear, his muscles quivering with the strain. And yet he knew he would go all night, into the next day, for all of eternity.

  With a sharp, keening cry she came. She thrust up against him three times, stoking her own pleasure. He’d never been so thrilled to be used. He’d give the universe—fine, just his solar system—to thrill in the sensation of her spasming around him, her arms locked around him as if she’d never let him go. When she whispered his name in a broken breath, his own release seized him, and he thrust into her with long, shuddering strokes that wrenched another cry from her passion-swollen lips.

  He slanted his mouth over hers, drinking her pleasure as if it was the finest ghost-mead, the most exotic coffee from her faraway Earth. As their shared breaths seesawed between them, gradually calming, the anti-gravs sank to barely above the stone tile floor, exhausted. He knew the feeling.

  Rayna held him tight for another infinity of heartbeats before her arms sagged limply to the sides and she let out a gusting sigh. The tattered remains of the last leaf of tissue clinging to her body ruffled in the breeze, and he petted the sweat-dampened curves of her to keep the scraps from blowing away. Not that he wouldn’t delightedly have her naked again.

  But he had other considerations besides his pleasure. That would always be the case from now on, since he’d stepped into his sire’s boots.

  Regretfully he smoothed out the crumpled petals and reattached them to her gown. With the anti-gravs worn down, the gauze hung limp and used around her. She didn’t look like a lady; she looked like a lover, thoroughly handled. He’d done that to her, and the knowledge roused an unacceptably primitive satisfaction within him.

  She watched his efforts with uncharacteristic passivity. “Good thing you know how to do this.” A crease appeared between her brows. His ray of light had never seemed to be the jealous sort, but he could read that expression well enough.

  “I haven’t done it many times,” he chided her. “No matter what is going through your head right now.”

  She glanced away, spots of embarrassed color riding her cheekbones so recently flushed prettily with her desire. “I didn’t mean… It’s fine. Whatever you did before, we didn’t even know each other then. And what you do now…” She gave an awkward, one-shoulder shrug that made the s
ervos in the anti-gravs whir sluggishly. “It’s not like we’re really engaged.”

  “True.” Even as he agreed, her diffidence irked him. Mostly because it too was true. This was the agreement they had made, for both their sakes, and it was better to hold a little part of themselves separate. But he preferred her flushed with passion, not with shame at her instinctive possessiveness, the same instinct that stirred in him.

  He clenched his fist against the urge to—what had she called it?—deflower her again. And again. Until the inconvenient engagement was the incontrovertible truth.

  But he had a duchy to preserve, while she only wanted to return home.

  He eased her upright while he knelt to attach the last of the exhausted petals to her skirts. The last were hopelessly crumpled, and they rode up around her knees, exposing the glittering crystal high heels. She wobbled just a little bit, and that hint of fragility incited protective reflexes that at one time would’ve confused him. But now he understood this was what he’d been bred for, raised for, sent away for: To become a man who would do whatever was necessary to protect those under him.

  He latched his fingers loosely around her ankle and looked up at her. “I’ll take you back to the rooms via the servants’ corridors,” he said. “You fulfilled your end of the bargain in front of the recorders. I won’t subject you to further scrutiny from Octiron, my mother, or anyone else.”

  Instead of thanking him, she stepped out of his loose hold. “I know the way back myself,” she said coolly. “It was a fun ball, and I had fun with your balls. That’s good enough for me.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her unnecessary vulgarity. It wasn’t like her, as if she was trying to push him way. “There’s no need to be satisfied with just that. You have a whole universe open to you now.” He straightened in front of her, naked.

  She twisted away to look out toward the courtyard, but the view was blocked by the scrambler. He didn’t think she was even really looking at it when she said, “I never asked for the universe. I was fine where I was, not bothering anybody, nobody bothering me.”

  “But you were lonely. You said so.”

  She whirled back to glare at him—oh yes, now she was fiercely focused—on him—and her dark eyes snapped with indignation, twin clouds of color bright on her cheeks as she very deliberately didn’t glance down at his nudity. “I never said that. Exactly.”

  He inclined his head. “Perhaps I misunderstood.”

  “—And even if I did say that,” she raged on, “it’s not like you’re going to do anything about it, really.”

  “I gave you the ring,” he said.

  “For tonight.”

  For a split second, his heart soared. “Do you want it longer than that?”

  In the seething stillness between them, the muffled music from the ballroom sounded mournful. “My sister is coming,” she said stiffly. “And the Earth envoy. They are already on their way.”

  At which point they would tell her about her portion of the space station proceeds. She wouldn’t need him anymore, not for companionship or protection. She could buy her own larfing space rocks.

  When he stepped back to grab his trousers—bombproof, maybe, but no defense against his ray of light—she edged around him.

  “It’s late,” she said. “The ball is over.”

  “Rayna, wait—”

  But she was already slipping through the door. He cursed under his breath. Should he run after her with his trousers unfastened? That would give Octiron something to post. His mother could charge extra.

  Quickly donning the rest of his clothes, he strode after Rayna. But she was already gone.

  The few guests left meandering in the ballroom turned to look at him. From their glassy eyes, he guessed the ghost-mead had flowed freely. Maybe there’d be enough of the undiluted drink to drown his sorrows.

  Except… She hadn’t given him back the ring.

  Though he’d been viewing his inheritance with dread since discovering the financial shambles, he told himself he’d be fine with never seeing those particular riches again.

  ***

  As fast as her shiny crystal heels would carry her—and wishing they were rocket-propelled—Rayna ran back toward the suite of rooms where her friends and safety waited.

  Raz had protected her, a wistful part of her argued, and he’d proved himself more than a friend.

  And she didn’t need either of those, she raged back at that wistful, weak voice. Did she really want to go through those feelings again, where she relied on someone and they let her down, where she loved someone and they left?

  Oh God of Oaths, did she love Raz?

  How sad was that? How weak and needy, when she was supposed to be the strong one—

  Her heel cracked with an almost musical chime, and she went to her knees, crying out.

  Familiar big hands caught her before she sprawled.

  “Raz,” she breathed.

  “Sorry, just me.” Captain Nor gave her a twist of a smile, the same smile that on Raz was charming and on this man seemed like trouble. “Can I be of assistance since he isn’t here?”

  A wild, bitter laugh tried to claw up from her broken heart, but she choked it down. “I’m just heading back to my room now that the ball is over.”

  “Alone?” He glanced behind her.

  “Definitely.” She held onto him just long enough to yank off the snapped sandal and the other one too. Which made her much shorter than him, right when she most didn’t want to feel delicate. Damn these tall, handsome, sexy Thorkons. She glared at Nor. “Are you cousins, you and Raz?”

  His gaze, which had drifted down her bare legs, snapped back to her face. “What?”

  “You remind me of him.”

  His jaw tightened. “A dreadnaught captain is no duke, so I suppose I should be honored. Except you seem to be fleeing him.”

  Not really him. Fleeing her need for him, her sudden, inexplicable, impractical, impossible desire to keep the ring, stay with him, forget that he needed to marry and she needed to go home. The only reason they’d even found each other was the black hole that had sucked them both in.

  And yeah, that meant fleeing him too. She glanced over her shoulder as Nor had. “I want to leave now.”

  “Let me escort you.”

  “I don’t—” She bit down the rest. What she “didn’t” was have time to waste arguing with another arrogant Thorkon. “Fine.” She marched off with an irate slap of bare feet.

  She didn’t hear him following, but she felt his looming presence, so like Raz.

  He cleared his throat. “Out of curiosity…why are you running away?”

  “I’m not running.”

  “Before you tripped.”

  She glared at him. “I cracked a heel.”

  “Something cracked,” he murmured. His gaze slanted to the ring. “Luckily you still have plenty of shine.”

  Fisting her fingers drove the wide band into her palm almost painfully. “It’s nothing.” When he grunted derisively, she amended, “Well, it’s a big damn rock, but it doesn’t mean anything. Raz and I just had”—a connection, a night, a passion—“an agreement.”

  “If the avatar of the God of Oaths, had an agreement with you, running away won’t get you out of it.”

  “I’m not…” she started hotly, but then trailed off, because really, it was pretty obvious she was running away. She slowed her headlong rush back to her rooms. “Are you and Raz close?”

  “No. He only recently returned to Azthronos. And I…ah, only recently joined the noble entourage.”

  “I know he’s supposed to get married.” She looked down at the ring, and it seemed to wink back at her accusingly. No wonder it was called the Eye. She put her other hand over it, and the big stone poked at her palm. “And I’ve gotten the sense from a few things he’s said that he has a lot of work ahead of him now that he’s inherited.”

  Nor was silent for a moment. “I’m surprised he said anything. The nobility are usual
ly so smug about their privilege.”

  She snorted. “Yeah. Those arrogant alien dukes.”

  His chuckle told her she wasn’t the only one who said that in their head. “I confess, I was…jealous before I started the system tour with him. And maybe a little blind. So much responsibility, so many people looking to him for guidance.” He gave a comical shudder.

  Rayna didn’t laugh. It wasn’t funny to have those kinds of obligations hanging overhead. Raz’s sense of duty had benefited her and her friends, but when she thought about the pressure he must be under… She’d only had a little sister to raise and one household to run. Expanding that to a solar system of eleven billion made her flinch too.

  With the ring, he’d gifted her one night of pleasure, with both of them free from expectations and the needs of others. She’d seen wonders such as she’d never dreamed of. And then she’d run away from him because deep inside she wanted more. More nights like this one, more of him.

  She was staring down at the ring, twisting it restlessly, when Nor cleared his throat. With a startled glance up, she realized they were at her door.

  She looked over her shoulder one last time, certain Raz would be striding down the hall, determined to make sure she was home safe.

  But there was no one behind her.

  Nor triggered the panel and the door slid back quietly. “The duchy comes first with these people,” he said, almost as quietly. “If you become one of them, whatever you need from them, you’ll always be eleven billion plus one.” His mouth twisted with a bitterness that hinted at some deep personal affront. And while she might not know the exact details, she understood the sentiment.

  Not that it mattered. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to let herself be hurt.

  She slipped through the doorway with a muttered thank you.

  He gave her a short bow, not as graceful as Raz but still painfully similar. “Good night, Lady Rayna,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, I think you are wise to run away.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the wry note in his voice. “Why don’t you?”