He bent to give me a close up view of his smug grin. “I am wealthy as well, Patty. And you had access to that wealth the moment I knew you were actively pursuing me, and that I would gladly accept your suit.” He gave me a sly look. “There was never a reason for your betting pools, but I admire your enterprise.”
I kissed him, just a quick peck and waggled my eyebrows at him. “Rema, the elf sugar daddy. I approve of this message.”
Chapter 10
Rema
Patty’s ass was acrippling distraction. It was a good thing that this maze was not the battlefield or else he would have died a thousand times by now. It had been a calculated move to be at her back during this challenge. Mostly to admire her form— a form he now knew was heart stoppingly beautiful nude, thanks to her strip show earlier, of which he would never ever recover from— but also to protect her. It was only the maze, but one could never be too careful. Not that he was much use as aprotector right now. The image and feel of her small, pert breasts were seared into his mind's eye so vividly that he could have painted them from memory if asked.
The maze was much the same as he remembered it, chilly enough to cause his skin to pebble, and it had the feeling of dampness that always made him grumble later when his usually manageable hair was a frizzy, tangled mess. The cold red walls lit with torches made it seem as if they were walking down some great artery, even the floors were red. The maze was veins, and the heart was the arena.
He drew in a breath through his nose, letting the wet rock smell of the maze run through him, and let it out slowly through his mouth. Patty was still sashaying her way forward, one hand reaching out every now and again to run along the glass smooth wall. His heart ached to look at her, but in a pleasant way, as if it was too full of emotions to simply beat inside his chest as it normally would. He wanted to gather her up and hold her to him, and bury his face in her neck to breathe in her scent.
He was learning what she liked. How to please her outside the bedroom was just as important to him as learning how to please her inside it. His Patty liked the finer things in life, of which he would shower her with many. He was going to make it his life's mission to turn her into a spoiled brat that barely remembered what it was like to touch her bare feet to the ground, much less remember the feel of inferior cloth touching her skin. Or fake jewels. Already there was a list forming in his mind of what she needed.
“And what of music? Or hobbies? Do you enjoy dancing? Painting? Reading?”
Patty’s laugh filled his heart to near bursting, and he found that the feeling of wanting to crush her to him in a hug that would threaten her bones intensified until his fists clenched.
“I’m a pop girlie, through and through. The more lively the beat, the better I like it. You know I used to dance on stage, right? You aliens have clubs where the dancers remove their clothing, yeah?”
His blood heated, and he had to adjust the fit of his pants to accommodate the erection the image of her dancing nude did to him.
“Yes, we have those. Did you enjoy it?”
Please, by the ancients, say she enjoyed it. He would give all of his credits to see this female dancing under the lights, her eyes teasing him as she slowly removed each piece of clothing that hid her body from his view.
“Oh yeah, it was fun! The money was good, and it was a good alternative to selling myself.”
There was a test in her voice. Was this a taboo thing on her planet?
“Patty, I hold no judgment in my heart or mind for your past. I am not sure if humans have a different view of sex than most of this galaxy, but trading sex for credits is a common thing. It is not something we frown upon. As long as it is consensual, there is no harm.”
The soft smile she directed at him as they made a left turn down another corridor had his heart stuttering in his chest.
“Well, then aliens are way ahead of us Earthlings then. It’s something you can go to jail for in my country. And in others? People are killed for it. It’s a problematic trade, mostly because kidnapping and enslavement are so prevalent in the industry. There are some seriously dark sides to sex work. I was treated like trash for it, shunned and spat at, and that’s not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the abuse sex workers receive. I honestly got lucky that was all that happened to me,” she said, with a casual shrug of her shoulders, as if this news was not bothersome.
He felt an irrational urge to blow her planet into teeny tiny pieces.
“Earth needs to be conquered and shown the error of its ways,” he said, trying to keep the growl out of his voice.
“Maybe we can put that on the To-Do list after this war,” she responded with a laugh.
“Patty, I hope that my people's ways of courtship and my own inexperience didn’t give you the wrong impression of how we would view your past. There are certain expectations of the males in the more influential Houses, but the females of my kind are still free to do as they wish. Many of them court multiple malesandother females. There are matings that have multiple partners. Casual matings, trading sex for credits, even favors, are still a part of our culture. And while the elder sons of certain Houses are strongly discouraged from these things, we are not forbidden from them. We do not usually interact with other species, so there are many misconceptions about the Neldre, some of those that we encourage.”
Patty grinned at him, pausing at the intersection of four corridors to stare up at him. “So they just hate me because I’m a different species then, and not because I used to be a whore?”
“Yes, though I do not like the sound of that word, and because my aunt and family are vile, contemptuous, power hungry creatures that can’t stand that I did not fall into line with their ambitions for our House.”
They chose the corridor that went straight in front of them and continued down it. Something skittered ahead, and Rema’s ear twitched to catch the sound again, but the maze was quiet except for the sound of their own footsteps.
“Someone should tell them that the Rijiterans are going to be back on top soon and I’m besties with the daughter of the biggest, baddest, probably soon to be leader of them. So I’m kind of like a princess, and that could be an even bigger advancementto your House than some dusty ass Neldre princess who’s not even the Queen’s kid.”
Humor surged, a laugh rumbling in his chest at her total lack of a humbleness, something that he greatly admired in her, only to be dampened by the skittering sound again, this time from the direction they’d just come from. He looked over his shoulder, but saw nothing but narrow red walls. He narrowed his eyes at the corridor before turning back to continue their conversation.
“They can not be changed. It’s within their nature to be horrible. We will just be sure to never see them again after we are married,” he told her, turning back to watch ahead. There was a torch out in the distance.
“Noted. Well, what about you, Rema? What do you like? What makes you tick?”
