Royal: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 5) Read online

  “That’s true. Usually, I take my shoes off when I’m here,” she said defensively, “but—”

  “I’m not scolding you, Brenna,” he murmured softly and stopped squinting at the toe box to give her a pointed look. “I’m simply thinking aloud.”

  “Oh.” She fidgeted with a dry cuticle of her middle finger and forced herself to hold his potent gaze. It was mature. All-knowing.

  Sometimes, it made her feel small or want to shrink in on herself.

  When he looked away, she ran a hand over the burning skin of her cheeks and neck. “I…have others for you to look at if you want to. I mean, they’re not in great shape at this point, but if you want to take a pair apart to see what’s inside them, I can let you have some. They’re so beat up that I’d be embarrassed to try to hand them down to anyone.”

  “Yes, I think that would be most educational.” He handed her shoe back to her. “If it’s no inconvenience.”

  She held the shoe on her lap, wondering if she should put it back on, or just hobble to bed carrying it. “None at all. I’ll root them out of the crate in the morning.” She cringed. “I mean, later. If I forget, remind me. I’ll probably forget. My memory has been unremarkable lately.”

  He twined his fingers and tilted his head in a knowing way. “You should sleep more.”

  “I know. I’m trying to get caught up, though. I’m so close to clearing out the applicant backlog, and I keep telling myself that with just one more hour, I can finally make a dent. Then three hours later, I’m still bent over the computer with my spine aching and my eyes burning.”

  He reached over and gave her knee a playful tap. “You should take the day off.”

  “Ugh, I want to.” She slouched and lifted her glasses to rub her eyes again. “I guess that’s the one thing I miss about life in Buinet. Everything there was structured and orderly. I’d wake up at the same time every day, go to work, get home before dark, and then I’d have evenings and weekends to do what I wanted.”

  “Yes, entrepreneurship has certain pitfalls.”

  “I guess you’d know.”

  He nodded gravely. “My sire had a very well patronized shop. He had a way of making even the simplest shoes lovely.”

  “Is that what you want? To open your own place in town?”

  Another slow nod. “If I could find a suitable location. I’ve enjoyed living here at the farm and around people who’ve cared about me in spite of my ongoing…” His grimace was so quick she would have missed it if she hadn’t been staring intently at him. “My…ongoing retreat from socialization. I believe that to be successful in my business venture, I need to be permanently situated in Little Gitano.”

  “I’ll miss you,” she blurted and quickly turned her face away to roll her eyes at herself.

  Dork.

  He chuckled. “I’m not going anywhere yet. I have much work to do to prepare, and still a great deal of practice to get in before I’m comfortable taking commissions again.”

  “Well, when are you thinking you’ll go? Weeks? Months?”

  He was right that he’d been something of a ghost on the farm since their emigration from Buinet, but he was a familiar ghost to her, and she cared about him.

  He turned his hands over in an I don’t know gesture. “I’m still researching. Planning.”

  “Oh. I hope you’ll tell me before you make any moves. That way I can adjust.”

  “I think you’re more resilient than you give yourself credit for.”

  “I just do an okay job of faking it.” She clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle the yawn that seemed to come out of nowhere.

  “You need sleep,” he said. “Go. Don’t get up until your body wakes you.” His lips quirked up on one side, and she realized then that she’d seen never a full-out smile from him. She’d never seen him genuinely amused or happy enough to show his teeth when he grinned.

  She was sad that he didn’t smile.

  “If you’d like,” he said drolly, “I’ll sit outside your door to guard you from would-be vandals of your time.”

  “Oh, I could see that now. Ara hunting me down because I forgot to submit some site approvals or something, and you sitting in the hallway telling her that she may not pass. I could imagine the argument that would ensue.”

  He chuckled. “She’s indeed a feisty one, but I think I could subvert her well enough. I’ll tell her you’re sick. The lie is probably close enough to the truth. You’re much too young to wear such pronounced exhaustion as your most common accessory. Perhaps you should try jewelry instead.”

  “What I’m putting myself through right now is a walk in the park compared to what happened to some of the people on this planet.” Him included. He’d walked through hell, and probably still did. “I don’t get to complain.”

  “You can complain to me,” he whispered, tapping her knee again. “I won’t mind.”

  “I’d feel stupid.”

  “Why, if I asked you to?”

  “I don’t want to bog you down.”

  “But your worries distract me from my own. Share them with me, please.”

  Oh.

  She stared down at the cuticle she was picking. She couldn’t see it well in the dark, but she’d needed some tactile stimulation—a distraction so she didn’t speak too fast, and then spend the day groaning about how tactless or gauche she’d been.

  She was always at a loss on how to behave in social situations on Jekh because she’d never had the proper guidance. She worried constantly about making gaffes with both Jekhan people and the Terran settlers and all too often mixed up the protocols for the two.

  But Herris was asking her to share, and perhaps there was no one else who could understand what she was feeling, at least on some rudimentary level.

  She swallowed hard and dragged her tongue across her lips. “I… I’m supposed to do some sort of courtship lunch thing later with Rajan, and I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t think he cares what I have to say, anyway.”

  Herris’s half smile fell away as he laced his long fingers together. “Why do you think that?”

  “He’s so weirdly polite. I don’t think he’s patronizing me, but I don’t think he’s particularly interested in what I have to say, either. That’s probably par for the course. In the scheme of things, I’m not that exciting. That’s probably why Restaden likes me. I won’t be a problem for him.”

  “Hmm. I seem to recall having several awkward luncheons with my late wife before we agreed to cohabitate. We were compatible but naive. We certainly had to work hard at becoming comfortable around each other.”

  “So, this is normal?”

  The muscles at his jaw hinge twitched ever so slightly.

  Brenna didn’t know if that boded well.

  “In arranged matches, it’s absolutely the norm,” he said.

  “Oh.” She picked at her cuticle some more and chewed the inside of her cheek. Knowing that it was normal didn’t ease her anxiety any, because the truth was that if Rajan had a greater wealth of choices, Brenna probably wouldn’t have hit his radar as an acceptable match.

  “Brenna?”

  “Yes?” She cut her gaze over to him, wary.

  There was a deep crease furrowing between his brows. “You don’t have to go if you’re not ready. He’s young. He can wait until you’re ready. I assure you, he’ll still be there when you are.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I’ve watched him.” He reached over and pried her nervous fingers away from her raw cuticles and then clasped her hands in his warm ones for a moment. “He wouldn’t refuse his mother anything. She believes you’re a good choice, and he’s not going to argue. In Jekhan culture, that’s the highest endorsement one can give.”

  He set her shoe on the floor by her foot.

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.” She put her shoe back on, just to be doing something.

  “Sleep in,” he said, squeezing her shoulder and kneading his thumb skillful
ly into the muscles of her neck.

  She put her head back and swallowed down the sigh of bliss that had been building in her chest.

  “Should anyone seek you, I’ll divert them.”

  “I wish,” she said in a whisper.

  “No wishing necessary. I’m being sincere.”

  “I’m so tempted.”

  And so tired.

  He notched his fingertips into a tight knot beneath her shoulder blade, deftly working loose the kink with such remarkable attention that she wondered if he was trying to undo her on purpose. Or perhaps that he was trying to hypnotize her for some unknown reason. It didn’t make sense, but nothing did. She was too tired for sense.

  “Let me deal with Restaden,” he said. “I believe she’s ripe for distraction. She’s in need of a new pair of shoes.”

  “God, I’d owe you such a big favor.”

  He grunted noncommittally and smoothed the flyaway hair beneath her ponytail. “Perhaps not so big.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alex endeavored to get back to his ship as quickly as possible for dinner, but unfortunately, Autumn had the same idea. Before the ship’s door could motor all the way down, she shoved her foot beneath the sensor and triggered the halt routine. He put his forehead against the wall beside the door and banged it a few times.

  She shook her foot. “Could you open this, please, Mr. Hauge? Thanks.”

  The door wouldn’t open without a command from him. The security system was programmed to prevent exactly the sort of intrusion Autumn was attempting, but if his plan had been to take off soon, she could have made departure impossible. Without an override, the ship wouldn’t launch if anyone were standing outside within five meters of the ship. He didn’t like overriding the code. He always had to spend two days retraining the system not to count the activity as typical. If he did it enough, the computer would make “educated” guesses and start overriding functions without him telling it to.

  Luke stepped out of the bathroom, shirtless and barefoot, scrubbing his face with a towel. “What’s going on?”

  Alex shook his head.

  Luke looked down at Autumn’s wriggling foot.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Alex cleared his throat. “How was your shower?”

  “Pretty good. Water pressure is better when you’re parked. Did you know that?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Hi, I’m still out here,” Autumn said. “Would you please let me in? These bags are getting heavy.”

  “Then perhaps you should go set them down in your tent,” Alex told her sweetly. “I happen to know the site manager provided you one.”

  “You know,” she said blithely, “I’m not all that thrilled about the tent thing, maybe because I never got into scouting and such. I can make do, of course, and will probably be cursing the state of my mangled spine all week after having slept on a flat-as-a-pancake foam pallet, but I don’t want to leave my stuff in a tent. Some of this gear is expensive, and I have no good way of replacing it on Jekh.”

  “Pity. If you’d like, leave it outside the door there and I’ll store your things inside the ship later.”

  “Oh.” Her laugh was like fingernails being tapped against an empty water glass. Pretty, but phony as fuck. “Don’t trouble yourself. I can put them away.”

  “Unfortunately, now’s not a good time.”

  “Really? You just walked into the ship. What busy work did you find so quickly? Must be something quite pressing. I won’t hold you up at all, so if you don’t mind…”

  Alex closed his eyes and took a breath. The woman was relentless. She wasn’t a take-no-for-an-answer sort of woman, and—unfortunately—Alex had never been a liar. He wasn’t going to start lying just to get rid of her.

  “I’d like some privacy,” he said.

  “This will take me thirty seconds.”

  “Yes, thirty seconds for you to put the gear away, and how many bruises will I gain from trying to remove you from the space without harming you when you refuse to leave afterward?”

  Luke chuckled behind him. His footsteps padded against the floor and back toward the bathroom. “You may as well let her in. Go ahead and get the argument out of your systems while Oreva’s not in earshot.”

  Alex sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t know where, precisely, Oreva had bounded off to. He’d dropped his things into a tent and had gotten into an engineer’s hover truck to go find a good reception spot to make a call. “Fine.” Alex slapped the door switch and watched Autumn’s feet step back a few paces as the retracting panel rose.

  Need to get a faster fucking door.

  She ducked beneath the rising door and gave him a cherubic smile.

  He rolled his eyes. Perhaps that twist of her lips fooled some people into thinking she was harmless, but she was a Ray and he knew better.

  She sauntered over to her former seat and set her bags behind it.

  He hit the door switch again.

  “We were going to have dinner,” Luke said from the bathroom. “Right after Alex showers. The dust here clings like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Oh really?” She took a seat and crossed her legs as if she was entirely too certain she’d be getting comfortable. “The showers at camp are portable units with water I’m pretty sure has been recycled.”

  “Probably, but Jekhan water recyclers are on the whole pretty good. Their water technology is superior to anything we had on Earth.”

  Since she didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, Alex pushed away from the door and moved about the ship activating the darkening sequence on the windows. A far superior privacy system than curtains or shades, in his opinion.

  “You’d probably end up showering longer out there as opposed to here, though,” Luke said, laughing. “Alex’s shower has a sandblasting setting, or something close enough to one, anyway. Would have loved having something like that in our RV during all those summers we went to the beach.”

  “Oh, what beaches did you go to?” she asked him.

  “Well, mostly—”

  Alex cleared his throat and poked his head into the bathroom to glower at Luke.

  Luke mouthed, “Just play along. Can’t hurt.”

  Alex mouthed back, “Bullshit.”

  Luke edged around him. “Take your shower. I’m starving.”

  “What’s for dinner?” Autumn asked.

  “Probably spaghetti. It’s fast and it’ll be hot, at least. If you want something else, though, you can go see what they’re cooking up at camp.”

  “They’re having sandwiches. Turkey and cheese, I think, with chips. I’m fine with spaghetti, actually. In fact, I eat it all the time at home when I’m left up to my own devices. Sometimes, just noodles with butter and a few shavings of cheese on top while I sit on the sofa with my feet up on the coffee table.”

  “How very provincial,” Alex said. He tossed his dusty clothes into the rapid-washer with Luke’s and turned the machine on.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Autumn asked.

  “Come off it. Don’t pretend now that you’re just an ordinary girl who eats plain pasta after work.” He turned on the shower and stepped inside, ever grateful that the hot water heated instantly. There was a chill inside the ship, and he wasn’t entirely certain the ambient temperature was completely to blame.

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” she asked. “The truth is, on most days, I just want to be normal. I want easy things that don’t take long. I don’t want to fuss over things that don’t matter. Not every meal has to be filet mignon.” She snorted. “Or steaks that have been lovingly served with sauces that probably have gold flecks and diamond dust mixed into a ketchup base.”

  Growling quietly, Alex scrubbed his hair. He wasn’t going to let her goad him, and that was obviously her goal. She was trying to get him angry and foaming at the mouth in front of Luke, and he wasn’t going to fall for it.

  As he rinsed out the suds, he pondered if he could
n’t just do that exact thing to her. Luke wouldn’t be so eager to mediate if she went ahead and exposed herself as the trifling wretch she was.

  He cleared his throat. “Luke? Babe?”

  “Yeah?”

  Alex soaped between his toes and wondered how he’d managed to get so much grit in his boots. “Can you come soap my back, please? The water pressure can only do so much.”

  Autumn murmured something indistinguishable.

  Luke appeared in the tiny bathroom a few seconds later wearing a scolding look and holding out his hand for the soap.

  Alex dropped the bar into his hand and, blinking innocently, turned his back to Luke.

  “You two are going to give me a headache,” Luke whispered. He rubbed the soap in circles over Alex’s neck and shoulders, and then downward.

  “I happen to know some good headache remedies.”

  “Oh?” Luke smoothed his hand over the small of Alex’s back and played at the crease just below. “Like what?”

  “Gentle exercise, for one. Slow rocking of the hips, for instance, perhaps with some assistance from a supportive workout partner.” He wrapped Luke’s soapy fingers around his cock and thrust into them suggestively.

  Not that Luke ever needed suggestion. His lips quirked up at one corner and he began gliding his hand up and down Alex’s thickening erection. “I dunno. I think that would escalate the ache.”

  “Only if the exercise is…completed in an inexpert fashion.”

  Christ.

  How Luke could always make him go from soft to rock hard in a matter of seconds boggled the mind. It might not have even been specifically anything that he was doing, but just his presence was enough to get Alex hot and bothered.

  He put his forehead against the shower wall and pressed his hands to the tiles as Luke tugged his cock into compliance.

  Alex spread his legs more for balance, and Luke glided the bar of soap between them, swishing the end over Alex’s balls, his taint, and past his hole.

  The soap hit the floor with a quiet thud and Luke notched the tips of two fingers into Alex’s hole.

  He clenched around it, not sure if he wanted them in or out. On one hand, he knew that Luke would find a way to make him lose his mind with pleasure, but on the other hand, the bathroom door was wide open and Autumn was in the main area probably with a keen ear tuned to the happenings.