Page 53 of Star Champion

“Sometimes, I find myself thinking, are we crazy, doing what we’ve set out to do?”

“Sometimes? I think that all the time.”

“Damnation, Jemm. Why did you have to be so talented?” He tipped her head up, his lips so close. “Why did you have to be so gorgeous?”

“In my short hair? In my men’s clothes?”

“It was an ignorant remark. You’ve proved it so a thousand times over.” His mouth grazed over her jawbone to her ear. “You’re a beautiful woman,” he whispered. A shiver zoomed across her skin, raising bumps on her arms. “I wish I had met you outside of all this. Then we could have had more.”

“As aVashlady of the court? With no knowledge of bajha? You’d have found me boring.”

“If I met you in Narrow Margin, then.”

“Then I’d have foundyouboring. Some stuffy, uppity elite, looking for a one-night bed-warming with a trill rat girl. No thanks.”

He shook his head, his laugh quick and quiet. “And so, here we are, and who we are. In this quandary…”

Her stomach fluttered as he brushed his smooth, sun-warm lips across hers.

“About our agreement,” she whispered, “You’re not making it any easier, by doing that.”

“I know.”

She flattened her hands on his chest, brushing her thumbs over his pectorals and the nubs of his nipples hidden beneath the fabric of his shirt. His body gave a single tremor, his fingers convulsing around her skull as she ran the pointed tip of her tongue across his lower lip. She never made it to the corner of his mouth before he tipped her head back and kissed her fully.

Her knees almost gave out, but he held her upright, bringing her to her toes. Her lips parted, his tongue searching out hers. Heat coursed through her, her hands caught between their bodies, his fingers buried in her short, soft tufts of hair. He smelled of spice and the musky, masculine scent that was uniquely his. Combined with the sweet heat of his kiss, it was downright intoxicating, warming her deep, deep inside. She imagined them tumbling down to the soft grass, making love to the sound of the waterfall under a domeless sky…

But as quickly as the kiss happened, he ended it. She swallowed a moan of protest as he dragged his mouth from hers. Taking a deep breath, he slid his hands to her shoulders and moved her back. “I take full blame,” he said, a little out of breath, too, his golden eyes dark and regretful.

“No. I do.”

“I let it happen, Jemm.”

“Aye, ya did. But it was mighty good as kisses go.”

A hint of amusement and also pleasure at her remark glimmered in his eyes. “Which is exactly why, from now on, we have to be strong.”

She nodded. “With what we’re trying to pull off, me fighting as a lad, it wouldn’t be a good idea to be making yipwag eyes at each other.”

He gave her a startled glance. “What are yipwag eyes?”

“It’s a Baréshti expression for when you’re soft on someone. Yipwags are the shaggy little creatures you see running loose all over the colony. Wagging tails and wet noses. Cute little dozers with big brown eyes.”

“No, it would not be a good thing to have yipwag eyes for each other. Soon I have to start playing you against the other pros on the team. I’m good; I can teach you the league rules and whip you into shape, but I’m nowhere near the level they are. I’ll invite them here, one or two at a time. It will get you the practice you need, while protecting your privacy.”

And their secret.

“I think it’s time to get back to work,” he said. “Do you agree?”

Smoothing her shirt and then her hair, she took off after him before he got too much of a head start across the lawn. The focused, all-businessVashwas back in all his aristo glory. But this this time she knew it was his valiant effort to protect them both. She was not on Barésh anymore, where any impulse could be acted upon. No, she had entered a new world. With that came responsibility, and willpower.

It meant playing this game by their agreed-upon rules. But it was not going to be easy.

Over the next few days, Prince Klark was a taskmaster of training. They both knew why he drove them both so hard, but neither of them mentioned it.

Jemm learned to play with her new gear: a beautiful brand-new sens-sword and custom-made helmet and bajha suit. She demanded so much of herself that by the end of each day she ached from head to toe. When they were not practicing, Prince Klark coached her on table manners, terms of address, proper etiquette, and readings from the Treatise of Trade, the Federation’s holiest document. It would take a person years to slog through it all. He had been at it all his life, and still he did not know everything it contained, a fact proven many times over when she saw him studying it late at night or early in the morning. In fact, she caught him reading the book every free moment he had.

The Book of Everything, she dubbed it. It contained the entire, eleven-thousand-year-long history of the Trade Federation, as well as what little knowledge survived the war of the Time Before and, prior to even that, the scarce details about the Ancients, the long-vanished civilization whose priceless legacy was the gift of advanced technology: most importantly worm hole space travel. Besides the rules regulating intergalactic trade and commerce, there was a virtual forest ofVashfamily trees, fusty, old-fashioned views on men’s and women’s roles inVashsociety, detailed (and illustrated!) passages of instruction on sex—which Prince Klark briskly avoided showing her—politics, etiquette, rights of ascension, rights of passage, rights of way, human rights, and nearly everything else imaginable.

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