Page 33 of The Brightness Between Us

“‘I want your love, I need your love,’” I quote to him. “I guess it’s not the freshest line ever written.”

He grins. “Ambrose Cusk, we’ve only just met and you’re already teasing me. It’s a lot.”

“Ah,” I say, absently running my hands over my new skinprints, the glitter raised on my skin. “‘A lot’ is sort of a hallmark of mine.”

I watch his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he downs the rest of his drink. “Most would say you’re the more famous of the two of us. Unless you’re polling thirteen-year-olds. I have them locked down. Anyway, I do know who you are. And you know that I know. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come to the Cusk Suite. The rumor that you fled here after the rescue mission was canceled is actually the reason the Heartspeak Boys made the last-minute agreement to play this quinceañera after all.”

I flush. That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, and being flattered is one of my favorite sensations. I open the fridge and pull out another cocktail glass, rip off the secure seal and watch the glass frost up in my fingers. “On that note, I should warn you, since I’m not supposed to be here it’s just a matter of time before Cusk corporate stooges bash down this door to haul me home.”

Devon Mujaba accepts the glass, in the process letting his fingertips rest on the back of my hand. Staring into my eyes all the while. It’s an awfully obvious seduction dance we’re performing, but he’s executing the steps very well. “A ticking clock,” he whispers. “How dramatic!”

I nod ruefully. “I’m on a bit of a bender. You’re the climax before everything comes crashing down. I just felt I should warn you, in case you’d rather not be in the newsreels. Also, I might be hiding it well, but I’m quite drunk.”

He rubs his hands up and down his arms. It’s a nervous gesture that makes our act of theater fall away. Little danger hairs on the back of my neck prickle. “You’re not hiding it well at all, actually. And you’re warning me that I might be in the news for being found in the private quarters of the handsome spacefarer who’s also the world’s great hope? If that’s the sort of gossip attached to me, my publicist would deeply approve. Especially when I leak the explosive tidbit that it’s your academy lover who arranged it all.”

I slap the couch. “Sri! That’s how you found out soquickly that I was heading to Disponar?Srimade this happen? That dog!”

Devon Mujaba grins.

Of course. Bits of Devon Mujaba’s biography come back to me. A reel of him singing at a piano that made him a teenage celebrity, a poor kid turned rich who remembers his humble roots. Donating his income to charities fighting for human rights and animal welfare. Devon’s the hot-boy face of everything Sri cares about. Including... “You’re the global ambassador for the Union for a Better Earth!” I exclaim. “That’s how you know Sri.”

“Oh yes,” Devon says. “Sri and I go way back.”

By its own inscrutable logic, grief about Minerva comes from nowhere to knock me back. The sudden reminder of the great gulf between alive me and dead Minerva stops my breath. Devon Mujaba’s sexy smile disappears when he sees my face. “I’m sorry,” he says, standing up from the windowsill. “Did I say something wrong?”

I get my Cusk veneer back up, beam a bright, confident smile that I hope is worthy of my sister. I stand beside him at the window, my shoulders and hips meeting the heat of his. “No. Nothing wrong. Nothing at all. So tell me, Devon Mujaba: What’s your usual postshow ritual?”

“Oh, you know,” he says. “My boyfriend and I have a free-pass policy for concert nights. I do sometimes pick someone out of the audience to invite to my room.Normally I have to look a little harder, send my fixer out to get bracelet details. I don’t usually have a celebrated beauty dressed and skinprinted like a Roman demigod and presenting himself on a dais, delivered to me by his generous academy lover.”

“Demigod?” I say with mock outrage. “Excuse me!” Then his words sink in and I blush. He came here just to meet me. And Sri made it happen. My drunken fingers drift to my new decorations, the gold and silver vines. When they reach my temple, they knock my circlet askew. “I was feeling impulsive. Do you like the look?”

He lifts the circlet off my head. My hair rises, made temporarily weightless by the gentle pressure of his hands. Devon Mujaba’s hands. “I do. Very much.”

I flop dramatically onto the couch, letting my body lie flat, arms overhead like a bathing vixen. The couch is the pink scallop design that was popular in the 2450s, nearly the length of a bed. Perfect seduction furniture. “Would you like to kick off your shoes, lie down for a bit?” I ask.

He removes each sandal with the heel of the opposite foot, crushing the expensive leather in the process. It’s so charmingly irresponsible; I can’t help but grin. He lies beside me. Triggered by his changing pulse, new, bright notes rise from his fragrance mods, far more sophisticated than the locker room assault from before. What’s it closest to? Dragon fruit and... is that fennel? “You don’t wastetime, do you, Ambrose Cusk?” Devon asks.

I shrug, then allow myself to run my hand down his arm. “Who knows how much time we actually have?”

He strokes my face, then leans in and kisses me. It’s a slow start but then, once his tongue is in my mouth, the intensity doubles. The PepsiRum, the sumptuousness of the pleasure satellite, the softness of Devon Mujaba’s lips, the elegant angle of his neck, the glow of the skin I just touched—it’s almost enough to make me forget the sorrow and anger inside me. Almost.

“I want to feel you closer to me,” he says.

I lie on my side, so our thighs press.

“Closer.”

Our robes fall open as we line up our bodies. I feel the soft, smooth heat of someone I’ve long fantasized about. Whom I’ve actually had sex with in avatar form, though it was nothing like this. I decide that would be too awkward to bring up. From the sound of it he’s probably had sex with my avatar already, anyway.

“That’s better,” he whispers. He nuzzles my neck, then moves up so his lips are right in my ear. “I have something I need to tell you, Ambrose Cusk.”

“Mmm,” I say, with a catlike stretch of my body. “What do you have to tell me?”

“It’s about why I dropped everything to come see you,” he whispers. His voice is almost inaudible, no more than aslight rustle. The sound makes my hair stand up, whether from lust or something more like fear, I don’t know. “Don’t speak back,” he says. “The lice in this room can pick up anything. Just listen. And keep making out.”

What?

This is not a sexy thing he has to tell me. Shit. I’m still turned on—making out with a stranger is always a bit of a performance, anyway, so this isn’tsomuch of a left turn—but I’m also on high alert. I sigh as he nibbles my earlobe. Why couldn’t this just have been about getting it on?

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