Page 57 of Star Champion

“I told ya, I ain’t afraid,” she said.

Did she mean about the deep water? Or taking up with him? He was dying to ask, but was equally worried about the answer. Steam floated around them. Her gaze was as dark green as the nighttime forest. The reflection of the water created dancing lights on her lips. He fought the roaring impulse to wrap her strong thighs around his hips and claim her mouth in the kiss he had been thinking about all evening. But then she would feel quite intimately the full consequence her proximity had on him. That would send him careening past the point of no return.

And scuttle the swim lesson, too. He had promised her that swim lesson.

“Once you are able to put your face in the water, you can float.” He kept his tone casual and upbeat. Although he wondered who he thought he was fooling. When had he been able to hide his intentions from her? She could read him as easily outside the bajha ring as she could inside it.

Standing where he could feel the bottom, he positioned her crosswise in his arms, her face above the water. “I’m ready,” she said.

“You’ll hold your breath, then just let yourself go.”

Her face dipped into the water, her cropped hair fanning out, her arms floating. The strong muscles in her shoulders and back flexed then she went still, as calm as could be. She was doing so well that he released her. She remained in place, her body buoyant until she needed to breathe and made the mistake of drawing her knees to her chest. He had forgotten to warn her about that. He caught her before she floundered, taking her by the hands and pulling her along to lengthen her body as he walked backward. “Instinct makes you want to move into a fetal position. Keep your legs extended this time. Pedaling your hands and legs will help you tread water, but that skill will come in time.”

Her face was alive with joy. “That was crattin’ fantastic—I mean, blasted. Let’s do it again.”

He wanted to hear those words after he made love to her. It took a steadying breath to counteract the mental image of her naked in his arms; nonetheless, he was hard in an instant.

He concealed it all as they repeated the floating maneuver. This time she recovered without flailing. “That’s it, Jemm! Just like that.” He laughed at her triumphant whoop, took her by the hands and pulled her upright. Momentum carried her to him, her legs loosely encircling his hips. She appeared to realize her mistake and tried to splash backward. But without enough experience in the water to counter her movements, she wound up pitching forward.

He caught her arms and looped them around his shoulders, bringing her chin and soft lips so close they filled his vision. Water lapped around their necks, her breasts brushing his chest.

Neither of them moved, or wanted to.

“This could be a problem,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” she whispered back.

He skimmed his knuckles over the side of her face, and erased water droplets from her cheekbone with his thumb. Then he bent down to give the lightest of chaste kisses on her cheek. It made her shiver. That honest response nearly made his knees buckle.She wants you, too.

The realization came with a heady rush of desire. In his world, the risk of rejection was never an issue; the answer was always yes. The women he had enjoyed over the years were employed to please him. While he had gained a vast amount of sexual know-how to draw upon with which to pleasure Jemm, his experience being with a woman he cared about was nil.

There was no rule book, no prior personal relationships to reference, no passages of ancient text to guide him. Damnation.

He was on his own. Just him, his instincts, and the drop-dead-gorgeous star player of his bajha team. Luckily, he trusted the instincts that now urged him to kiss Jemm Aves senseless, and then some.

He cupped her bottom with both hands and walked forward until her back bumped gently against the side of the pool. He used the leverage to draw her to him, seating himself firmly between her wide-open thighs.

Her eyelids fluttered half-closed, her breath shuddering, her hands contracting on his shoulders. “Klark…”

She had never called him by his given name before. Was she warning him off or pleading for more? He clung to his last shreds of control.

More, he decided, when their mouths came together in a crushing kiss.

CHAPTER18

Jemm returnedthe kiss with all the pent-up desire she had collected for him since the day she first laid eyes on him. If he had any doubts as to what she wanted from him, by the time she was done, well, then not a speck of passionate blood rushed through those veins of his.

But he was right there with her, his hungry hands stroking, his kiss fierce, reckless, and nothing like their first. This time he embraced her like he meant it to go somewhere, and to hell with the consequences.

Like a true Baréshti. Savor now, worry later.

With a gush of water, he lifted her out of the pool, hoisting her into his arms to carry her across the lawn, steam coming off their damp skin in the night air.

She was not a small woman, but he carried her as if she weighed nothing as he swept her away in his arms. “You’d better be taking me somewhere to finish this,” she teased.

“Finish this?” HisVasheyes blazed with heat. “I’m taking you somewhere to start it.”

Her body reacted immediately to the utter carnal confidence of his statement. It was just what she had imagined aVash Nadahprince would say, and how he would say it. Deep inside, she clenched with anticipation of making love with him, while at the same time her mind whirled with runaway curiosity. “Good. Because if ya were planning on changing your mind, I was gonna—”

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