Page 58 of Single Stroke

Louella sighed. “Good. I’d hate to think that some pervert is recording us and blasting the video all over the galaxy.”

“Anyone who does such a thing would soon be dead,” he promised her.

She leaned back. “How would you find out? I mean, how would you figure out who took the video and released it?”

“I have an extremely capable team,” he assured her, rubbing her back. “Ahn’hudin’s military has more at our disposal than warships and weapons.”

Louella leaned forward and rested her forehead against his pectoral, deciding to believe him because it made sense. After all, every government on Earth had technological capabilities that exceeded her ability to understand them, so it made sense that an alien planet as technologically advanced as Ahn’hudin would, too.

Her belly rumbled. She felt her cheeks heat.

“You’re hungry,” Jax commented. He lifted her, spreading his legs. Since she was straddling his thighs, the spread of his legs widened the spread of hers. Their mixed passion dribbled from her body and splattered on the ground.

“Oh, God,” she muttered in embarrassment.

Jax did not know why the release of their fluids embarrassed her, but he’d learned enough not to comment upon it. Instead he simply set her on her feet and stood. Taking her sticky hand in his, he led her to a door across the courtyard and entered the royal family’s private quarters.

“Holy hell, what isthat?” Louella gasped when a mechanized spider resembling a nine-foot-tall daddy long legs greeted them inside the palace.

“Welcome, Emperor Yas’kihn mek Kuresh’Zha and Empress Consort Louella Cordelia Jefferson,” the robot said. “I am the central command for the palace.”

“Um,” Louella tugged on Yas’kihn’s hand, “does that thing have a name?”

He tilted his head in puzzlement. “It needs no name.”

“Then how will it know I’m talking to it specifically?”

He said nothing because he did not know how to answer her.

Knees knocking, because—despite Charlotte—Louellahated, loathed, despised,anddetestedspiders, she squared her shoulders and faced the robot. “Ahem! Robot! Do you have a name?”

“You need not shout at the droid. It hears you,” Jax murmured.

“Acknowledged,” the robot replied. A small panel on its carapace flashed blue.

“No, acknowledged is not a name,” Louella muttered. She took a breath then said, “I’m the empress consort, right?”

“Acknowledged.”

“Then I have the authority to give you a name, right?”

“Acknowledged.”

“I don’t think this metal monster likes me,” she grumbled under her breath. She drew in another deep breath and said loudly as though issuing a proclamation, “Beginning now, your name is Jarvis.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Jarvis?”

“Acknowledged.” The panel blinked blue.

“Please have a bath drawn for me.”

The panel flashed blue then a series of other colors before ending with a final flash of blue light. “Acknowledged.”

“Jarvis,” Yas’kihn said.

“Acknowledged.”

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