Page 70 of Star Champion

Back in the noisy bar Theeran undulated past the team with a dazed air about her, and heaved a dreamy sigh. “I have to say, boys, that Kes Aves remains undefeated.”

Their wide-eyed gazes followed her all the way out of the club then shifted back to Jemm, who swaggered back to the table to join them.

Jemm expected Klark to be waiting for her like Ma used to do when she came in late from a night out. But Klark was nowhere in the main house. She moved outside to the deck, under the vast and starry sky. The sound of churning water came from below.

He was swimming? Surely, he had heard the speeder overhead, both incoming and departing. But he chose to remain in the pool.

She descended the wooden staircase in her expensive dress boots, stopped at the edge of the pool, a female trill rat dressed in fashionable menswear, watching aVashprince swim laps. In the back of her mind she decided it had to be one of the most incongruous scenes imaginable. And one to which no one but the trustworthy staff of this household could know.

He exploded to the surface at her feet, water sloshing over the ground as he propped an arm on the edge of the pool. Steam rose from his shoulders and the heated water. Droplets of water thrown onto her new boots glittered in the moonlight. “I thought you would come looking for me,” she said.

Out of breath and tired from the exertion, Klark smoothed his hair back with one hand. His gold eyes were intense. “I wanted to. You have no idea…”

“I sure do. I know how ya are.”

At that, he barked out a laugh. “I didn’t see Skeet’s message until I was about to leave the city. My first instinct was to protect you. To control. But, I reasoned that if you couldn’t handle a night out with teammates, then you’d never last in the league. You did the right thing, going out with them without me hovering around, as much as I hated being left behind.”

“So, you went swimming.”

“Yes.” Self-deprecating humor pushed his concern out of the way as he swept his gaze over her. “I’ve been swimming for quite awhile now.”

She tipped her head and grinned. “Help much?”

“Hardly. Come here.” He reached for her, but she skipped backward, out of reach.

“New clothes. Don’t I look handsome?”

He snorted and pushed up and out of the water, mist rising from his sculpted body, until he smothered it with a towel. “You’ll look incredible and delicious once I undress you.”

Smiling, she evaded his damp embrace. “They set me up with a sex server. A high-class sex server.”

“Xirri,” he muttered and she laughed.

“I paid her three times her tip and we chitchatted about our families and such. Afterward she pretty much told Xirri I was the best she ever had.”

“The sex server and I share something in common, then. You’re the best I ever had, also.” Again he said, “Come here,” and extended his arm, his desire revealed in his face.

She almost walked the last few steps into his arms, every part of her begged her to do it, but she couldn’t let his hot, damp, half-naked body and his sexy earnest self distract her. He tipped his head. “Is there something amiss?”

“How was your…business?”

“My business in the city? Fine. Uneventful. Until I got Skeet’s message.”

She didn’t share his smile. “Skeet knew you were at the Governor’s reception. The entire team knew except me. A garden party ain’t business. It’s pleasure.”

“It was not pleasure.”

“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but you didn’t think to tell this trill rat about it. You could have shared what you were doing. We share everything else.” Admitting it and revealing her wounded feelings rekindled her anger. It boiled inside her, but she did her best not to let it show, and failed.

Startled, he blinked at her. “I do not see you as anything less than myself. Nor anyone else.”

“Would ya take me on your arm to a swanky affair…if I weren’t supposed to be a lad? Would ya?”

Klark scraped a hand over his face as he tried imagining Jemm in his world, at the palace. “Boxed in” by all the rules, as she had once so vehemently and accurately described it the day she walked off his ship and returned to Barésh.

The sound of her boot heel scuffing dragged him out of his thoughts. “Jemm…” He caught her in an instant, pulling her toward him. Thankfully, she didn’t resist, but the hurt in her eyes about killed him. “You had to think about it?” she accused. “I saw you. I can’t say I blame ya. I—”

He crushed his mouth over hers, the kiss angry at first, until he poured his love into every stroke of his tongue, every caress, as he held her head between his hands, so that she would not run away again. When they finally separated, they gasped for air. “If I were lucky enough to have you on my arm at some ‘swanky’ affair, I would be the most envied man in the room.”

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