“I won’t pretend to understand how your society works, but I do feel for you, Captain. Losing your family is not an easy thing.” She made a move to cover his hand with hers, but checked it. Maybe he didn’t want her reaching out to him. They were enemies, after all.
But he saw her slight motion and tilted his head, reaching out to take her hand in his.
“We have both suffered a loss that nobody should ever have to suffer. It changed the course of both our lives. I am amazed to find I have so much in common with someone I thought of as the enemy until now.”
She liked the rich tone of his voice as it dipped to compassionate, almost intimate, levels.
“Me too, Captain,” she agreed softly.
“You might as well call me Val,” he replied in that same intimate tone.
“I’m Lisbet, but my friends call me Liz.”
He reached out with his spoon, not letting go of her hand, and scooped up a small bite of the gel substance in the dish before her. He held the spoon up to her lips and smiled encouragingly. His dark gaze smoldered as she parted her lips and allowed him to feed her the small dollop.
Flavor burst around her mouth in a display of bright notes that made her lips tingle. She swallowed, enjoying the cool sensation of the sweet confection as it slid down her throat.
“That’s delicious,” she admitted with a grin.
“I thought you’d like it.” His answering smile lit a fire in her belly that had nothing to do with dessert – or at least not the edible kind. She’d like to make a dessert of him. She’d lick him like an ice-cream cone.
The look in his eyes seemed like he might be agreeable to that. Before she knew what she was doing, Lisbet leaned toward him. Was he leaning in toward her too?
His eyes grew closer until the dark gold of his gaze was all she could see. Then his lips touched hers and time stood still.
Breathing became optional as his mouth covered hers. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and dragged her out of her chair and into his lap. By slow degrees, he deepened the kiss.
His tongue bathed her mouth in his taste, his mastery. Her body squirmed against his, not trying to get away, but wanting to be closer. Her clothes were in the way. As were his.
She wanted nothing more than to feel his skin on hers, his hard muscled body against her softer skin, his hardness mastering her responses.
But it was not meant to be.
An urgent noise from the comm panel broke them apart. Her senses were fuzzy with desire and, for a moment, she didn’t know exactly where she was. In those stolen moments, Val had ceased to be the captain or her enemy. He was simply a man.
An entirely too attractive – some might say devastating – man.
Val stood, straightening his jacket as if he were uncomfortable, and went to the door. He left as if all the hounds of hell were on his heels.
Five
The captain disappeared and did not return that night. Nor did she see him all the next day. Her meals were served in silence and taken away just as quietly by a warrior who looked at her with curiosity but made no overtures toward her whatsoever. Neither friendly nor hostile, he merely brought the trays and took them away at regular intervals.
The food continued to be of gourmet quality, which surprised her. She’d understood being served the good stuff when she ate with the captain, but on her own, she expected rations. Instead, she continued to be treated as some kind of weird mix between prisoner and honored guest. She was locked in her quarters, but she had some limited access to the computer for entertainment and learning. No communications to speak of, but she was able to occupy her time discovering more about the Jit’suku culture.
Of particular interest was the concept of the nij’ta. It seemed so foreign to her, but the Jit’suku actually mated based on a single kiss. Some of the romantic fiction she’d been able to access from the computer was built around the idea of a mating based on a single kiss – even if the kiss was considered totally inappropriate socially, it had to be accepted by the respective families because true mates could not legally be kept apart. A Jit version of Romeo and Juliet – with a much happier ending, because nobody could deny a true mating in Jit’suku society.
It was kind of amazing. Humans really had no clue about these strange, oddly noble people.
Nor did the Jit’suku seem to have any real understanding about humanity.
So many misconceptions on both sides. It saddened her to think that countless numbers had died based on incomplete or misunderstood information. One thing was clear, though – the Jit’suku were a race of conquerors who had expanded to the farthest reaches of their own galaxy and beyond. Even had they fully understood humanity, chances are the war would still have been waged because they needed more room for their growing population, and the Milky Way was the next logical place for them to go. Humans didn’t like being invaded, and Jits didn’t respect those who operated on diplomacy alone.
It was an inevitable conflict. She didn’t have to like it.
Her thoughts kept turning back to the sexy captain and that devastating kiss. Had he been as affected as her? Was he thinking of her while he ran the ship and did who knew what? She’d only spent a few hours in his company, but already she missed him.
She almost . . . pined for him. Such an odd concept for a woman who’d thought she would live the rest of her life alone. She wanted to be with him, and she didn’t care that he was an alien or part of the enemy army. Lust – or could it actually be love, so quickly? – didn’t care about such things.
All she knew was that she missed him and wanted to be with him. After only a single kiss it was like she’d become addicted to his presence, his touch, his taste.
On the third day of her confinement, the captain sent a message with her silent server, along with some clothing for her. She’d been able to freshen her flight suit using the sanitary chamber’s cleansing unit, but she was getting a little tired of only having one set of clothes.
The outfit he sent her was confusing at first, until she realized it was female attire in the Jit’suku style she’d seen in images on the computer. She wondered where it had come from. Had some warrior on this ship been tasked with making women’s clothes in her size? One thing was certain – she would never have fit in any spare Jit’suku uniforms.
All in all, she was glad of the new clothes that didn’t make her look like a child playing dress up, even if the style was different from what she was used to. There were wide-legged pants in very soft fabric, covered by a tunic of sorts, and a jacket that tied at each hip, layered over with a wide sash. There weren’t any shoes to go with it, so she continued to wear her boots. It looked a bit strange, but she couldn’t very well go barefoot, and the long legs of the pants covered the tops of her boots, so just her feet showed.
Not too bad, she thought, twirling in front of the mirror in the bedchamber. She looked better than she had in a long time. The soft fabric emphasized her figure and the curves her flight uniform had hidden. She didn’t look like an androgynous pilot anymore. No, now she was definitely revealed as a woman, with all the usual curves and bumps.
She looked forward to seeing what the captain thought of her new look. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t been so impressed with a man since her first boyfriend back in high school. She felt as giddy as the teenager she had once been, though she knew she shouldn’t.
The man was an alien. An enemy. She’d been blasted out of her fighter on his order.