Page 63 of Star Champion

A second of astonishment ticked by, then he barked out a laugh. Months back, her Baréshti bluntness would have shocked him, but now it merely made him laugh. He loved the way she took his side without hesitation. No one had stood by him like that before. Well, aside from Katjian, but she worshipped him and Ché blindly. Jemm was not in the least bit blind. She would turn and walk away if she felt he deserved it, as she had done once before. He respected her strength and also dreaded it. In the short time he had known her she had done more to help him become a better man than the Warrior’s Code. “But,” he continued, “as much as I don’t want to fail my father, I don’t want to failyou.”

She came up on her toes to kiss him. “You won’t.”

As her lips lingered on his, he unfastened the top few fasteners of her bajha suit. “It’s why I’ve been poring over the Treatise of Trade day and night. I cannot stomach someone of your talent being held back because of an unnamed rule. I’m determined to find a way for you to play openly as a woman.”

Her voice gentled. “You’d do that for me?”

He would do just about anything for her. “If it’s in there, I will find it, Jemm.

I want to find guidance that would allow you to compete. Or that prohibits it. In the meantime, our training cannot let up. You can’t stop improving.”

“Ya know I won’t.”

They tugged at the remaining fastenings of each other’s bajha suits.

“Ya can’t let your Da or anyone else make us doubt. Doubt will tear this apart. We either believe in our dreams and move forward, or we walk away from this.”

“I’m not walking away from anything. I’m seeing this through to the end.” He had never been so sure about anything in his life. He shoved her bajha suit down over her shoulders.

“Seeing this through to the end,” she breathed, arching into his caresses. “I like the sound of that. How about you seethisthrough to the end first?”

“That is exactly my plan, sweetheart.” He pushed up her T-shirt to lavish attention on her two, perfect little breasts. Her sighs were his fuel as he stroked her body. The utter darkness magnified the scent of her clean musk, the silken texture of her hair, her strong athletic body and the feel of her sleek muscles moving under his hands. He had never caressed a woman who felt like she did. She was real, and she was his.

More clothing scattered. He pulled her down on top of him on the padded floor in the midst of a tangle of half-discarded clothing, gloves, helmets, and boots. He was inside her seconds later. In his rush to have her he had forgotten all about orchestrated foreplay and every other rule about lovemaking he had been taught to follow from day one of his adult life. Instead, he had followed his instincts. But she was ready. The pleasure of being inside her as she straddled him was beyond belief, the darkness intensifying everything. It was like bajha, and lovemaking, mixed together; the physical plane, the mental, all at once. He felt her inner pleasure as if it were his own. He was awash in it, his entire body, from his toes to his scalp.

It was frenzied, and fast. When her peak overtook her, she bent forward and sealed her lips over his. He took her moans into his mouth as she took in the full, throbbing length of him, until everything inside her was everything inside him, and he came in an unbelievable rush.

On the arena floor, they lay in the dark as their breaths slowed. He rested a hand on her soft hair, sifting his fingers lazily through the short locks as she lay on top of him, her cheek pillowed by his chest. “The bajha is for our families, Klark,” she said. “And, maybe one day, to prove something larger than we are. But this…this is for us.”

Us… He had never been part of a couple, nor had he ever imagined he would be. But here he was. No—heretheywere. “For us, yes.” He was still inside her, and growing hard again.

She let out a low laugh. “But ya really do need a warning label on that body of yours.”

He considered her words with hooded eyes then proceeded to prove her exactly right.

“Don’t get too low. That’s it. Steady now.” Klark’s voice sounded a bit tight as they soared over the trees in the speeder. Jemm had been training so hard, day after day, week after week, that they had taken to hiking the surrounding countryside as an outlet for relaxation. But today after breakfast, at almost the midway point of their time at the retreat center, Klark had suggested intriguingly, “Let’s fly to the other side of the world,” and off they went in the speeder.

Once in the air, she pleaded, “Teach me to fly.” It turned into the thrill of her life. Klark was not as relaxed instructing her to pilot a speeder as he was coaching her in the bajha ring, but his composure impressed her nonetheless.

Skimming the treetops with breathtaking velocity, Jemm gripped the control stick, grinning so hard that it made her cheeks ache. Her stomach flipped as the treetops rushed by below. A laugh of pure joy almost escaped her, but she did not want to crash, so she kept her laughter inside.

“I’m not going to let you kill us,” Klark said dryly. “I assure you.”

“Am I that easy to read?” she asked.

“I’d like to say yes, but I can tell by the way you’re squeezing the joystick.” Sun-shaders with very dark lenses hid his gaze, but she knew his eyes crinkled with his smile. “Don’t squeeze it so hard. It may break off.”

“Break off?” The blood drained from her head at the thought.

“Kidding.”

She glared at him. “Kidding? Holy craggin’ dome. You’ll pay for that, Vedla.”

“I look forward to it. Now, keep your eyes outside and not on me—although I realize that’s hard for you.”

“Cog.” She threw him another sideways, sassy glance. “I do like looking at ya, it’s true. Like last night when you—”

“Since you can’t keep your eyes outside, and you won’t make sure my mind stays on flying, you’re done. My turn.” Laughing, she allowed him to take over. With his hand curved around the control stick located in front of his seat, he banked the speeder. The right wingtip dropped as the left one came up.

---