Page 20 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
He spun the cup slowly between his palms. “No,” he drawled out the word to give himself time to come up with a believable answer. Since she believed in making one’s own reality. “I thought you’d want to know that all security precautions are in place, and I established a direct link with the galactic enforcers charged with recapturing Blackworm.”
Her brow furrowed. “Do they haveany leads yet?”
He shook his head. “With all his Thorkon resources supposedly cut off, I suggested they contact known associates of the mercenary crew he contracted to…” He hesitated.
“To abduct me and the other women.” She looked down at her cup for a moment before glancing up at him again. “Hopefully the authorities will take your suggestion. Blackworm might not have talked, but maybe hisunderlings will.”
Since she was taking the discussion well, he said, “If you had other ideas you wanted me to pass to the enforcers, I could do that.”
She took a hard drink before she answered. “I don’t remember any of it. I told the medics before—Blackworm kept us drugged.” Curling in her lips, she bit down—blanching the skin—before adding slowly, “I only woke up once.”
He knew the Azthronosmedics and other representatives from the transgalactic authorities had interviewed the abducted Earthers and cleared them all. But he wondered how much trauma and truth hadn’t been fully revealed, coming out only with time and trust.
And did he really think she’d tellhimanything that could help them recapture the disgraced nobleman? “That must’ve been frightening.”
“More…confusing,” shesaid. “Maybe if I’d been more afraid, I would’ve moved faster. Instead, I just wandered around looking for a way out. Until he caught me again. I wish I could forget that part too, how useless I was.”
Nor let out a slow breath, an unaccountable violence churning in his gut. He didn’t know Blackworm, had never met the other male; the Thorkon nobleman had been exiled from Azthronos space beforehis own return. But the self-reproach in Trixie’s lowered eyes infuriated him.
Setting aside his cup, he leaned forward to grasp her chin and lever her face up to meet his gaze. “No shame. You were drugged, lost, and never had a chance,” he told her. “Unless you could’ve moved at the speed of light, no amount of faster, no more fear, would’ve gotten you off that space station and away from him.”
“Rayna got us out,” she said. “And Raz.” She tilted her head so her cheek filled his palm. “And you too.”
It was the final murmur that did him in. That, and the shadows in her eyes, and her soft, heated exhalation, tinted with the scent of ghost-mead.
She gazed up at him, the rumpled silk of her hair brushing across his knuckles. “You could make me forget.”
