Chapter 10:
“It’s so beautiful here.” Tara stared at the grass she sat on, and her hand went down to run across that turf. The grass swayed and waved, and the smell of flowers and trees and the wind all lifted her spirits.
Jenny, who was mated to Marik—a Revant who, like the human Jenny, was a natural healer—smiled at her. “Oh, I know. Every time I look about myself, I think how lucky I am that I no longer live Below.”
Below. The underground section of Old Earth, where the poorest and most miserable had lived because of their caste. Tara looked down, suddenly ashamed of the fact that she had never known hardship like that. “I was sorry to hear that Old Earth was destroyed.”
Jenny sighed, but she smiled too. “We all were, but maybe it was necessary. I hate that so much life was lost. We tried, we did. It was awful—the war and the destruction—but the lives we saved were worth it. That and the fact that we stopped the Gorlites and killed off their entire race, something that should have been done centuries ago.”
Tara’s head came up. “I can’t believe that the Federation really had a pact with them. I mean, I know that they did, but…Gorlites?”
It was true. The Federation had made a pact that had allowed that loathsome race to take ships and kill off entire planets without consequence, and all while calling them a menace that needed to be stopped. She knew that, but it still boggled her mind. In the weeks since she and Blade had arrived at Revant Two, which was now acting as a meeting place for those who would rebel and fight, she had been stunned by all the stories of all the ways that the Federation had betrayed its citizens.
Talon and his mate, Jessica, stepped out of a building nearby, and she raised a hand, but they turned the other way and kept walking, their heads bent together and clearly unseeing of her gesture.
Jenny said, “How are you and Blade doing?”
Tara shrugged. He had basically avoided her like the plague since they had arrived on Revant Two. He was always busy, working hard on making plans for the first strike, which would happen in just a few days, and she knew that he was busy and worried with the things that war would mean, but she still found herself rushing toward him and trying to get his attention whenever she could.
“Not very well. I finally heard about his lover, the one that the Federation killed, a few days ago from his father and I wonder, I really wonder, if whatever was between us was just a matter of convenience for him. If it mattered at all.”
She had not meant to make such an admission. She really had not. Yet she had, and she knew why. Jenny’s nature, so sweet and kind, and her natural ability to pull out whatever harmed a person had loosened her tongue.
Jenny patted her knee. “I know how you feel. Men can be hard to figure out. It seems what they want most is the thing they run from the hardest.”
Was that what Blade was doing? Running from her because he wanted her? If only there was a way to find out for sure.
There was one, but it would involve the heavy risk of rejection, and she was not sure she was ready for that.
But if she wanted him, and she did, perhaps risk was the only thing that would win him over.
She said, “I think you may be right. I have to get going. I’ll see you later.”
Jenny stood. Her blonde hair glinted in the sunlight, and her walk was easy as she headed in the opposite direction. Tara watched her go for a minute, then her attention was diverted by the sight of Blade striding out of the same building that Jessica and Talon had exited just a few moments before. She headed for him, her feet working quickly to take her across the grass and dirt paths to where he stood.
He stopped, and a small smile came upon his handsome face, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. She lifted a hand and said, “You look tired.”
“It’s been a trying few days,” he admitted softly. “How are you?”
“Good. I…” Oh, what the hell? It was either risk it or never know. She leaned in, her mouth landing softly on his.
For a moment, he just stood there, his arms at his side and his mouth loose, and then he was kissing her back so hard that her lips felt pulped and bruised, and she loved it.
He broke the kiss off and growled out, “I…I have been avoiding you because I thought that perhaps you needed time to recover and grieve, and because…because I was not sure why you ever slept with me in the first place. I did not want to take advantage of you.”
Her breath caught, and her bold answer made her heart pound like someone had shot it full of some drug. “I want you to take advantage of me. A few times.”
His eyes lit up. The smile turned to real laughter. His hand found her waist and slid around it. He leaned against her and the loose tunic and trousers he wore transferred heat from his body to hers. “Then we should probably go somewhere far more private.”
“I have a hut to myself. It’s small but…but there’s a pallet.” It was true that her hut was small. Revant Two was a primitive planet that was just beginning to sprout into something. She led the way, walking fast because desire was pouring through her and making her whole body react.
They reached her hut and went inside. The door closed and he swung her around and into his body for another kiss.
That kiss left her mind whirling and her body traced with fire. Their bodies collided and the urgent press of him against her made everything else fade away. His hands trailed down her body. His fingertips pressed into the highly raised knobs of her spine, traced the column of her spine before dropping lower to the pert slopes of her ass cheeks.
He gathered those full cheeks into his large hands and kneaded them through the fabric of her dress, lifting and massaging them as her crotch met his, and the thick hardness of his member pressed into her belly.
Her gasp was one of sheer delight. His tongue slid into her mouth again, bringing the taste of the water he had drunk earlier and the faint tinge of mint and herbs. The shape of his teeth met her tongue for a moment, and then their tongues were parrying and thrusting, meeting and parting. Every breath was a precious thing, all sweetness and heat that made her nipples stiffen and her juices start to flow from within her core and spread along the puffed surfaces of her inner and outer lower lips. She wriggled against him, her eyes closing as that kiss grew even deeper and his hands went lower, yanking at the hem of her dress before tugging it upward.
