The Claiming (11 page)

“It’s the flowers,” Alain murmured gently. “They emit a drug when you pluck them. Some people are more susceptible than others—obviously you are.”

Jana smiled faintly. “I want you to kiss me.”

Alain shook his head slightly. “You don’t. Come. We need to leave.”

Jana threaded her fingers through his hair, cupping the back of his head and tugging. He resisted. She slid her other arm around him, rose up, placed nibbling kisses along his throat to his chin, kissed the corners of his mouth. “You don’t want me?”

Alain wanted to make love to her until she couldn’t move, but unlike Jana, he was only intoxicated with her, not the drugs the flowers produced, and he was not so caught up in his desires as to have lost all sense of their surroundings—yet. Kissing her would be a very bad idea in his present state of arousal.

Reluctantly, he pulled her arms loose and rose, helping her to her feet. She swayed. He lifted her into his arms and started back toward the Zells.

Jana locked her arms around his shoulders and nuzzled his neck.

“Jana!” Alain said through gritted teeth.

She smiled and bit down on his ear lobe.

Alain stopped abruptly, set her on her feet and then pulled her roughly against him. “Have it your way,” he muttered, claiming her mouth with his own.

Dizziness shot through Jana with a flash of heat as his hard mouth came down on hers. She gasped, parting her lips beneath his, welcoming his invading tongue as it raked across hers, caressed the sensitive inner recesses of her mouth, touching off jolts of pleasure that snaked through her body and caused her belly to clench with anticipation.

She rose up on her tiptoes to press more fully against him, tightening her arms around his neck. Her breasts flushed with heat, with sensation. She felt her nipples hardening with the desire for his caress, felt her femininity weep for his possession.

He released her almost as abruptly as he’d taken her, breathing heavily.

Reluctantly, Jana opened her eyes and looked up at him in disappointment.

“Don’t look at me like that unless you want me to take you here and now,” Alain murmured hoarsely.

Jana smiled. It was exactly what she wanted.

Alain gripped her arms, but in the next moment stiffened, lifting his head.

Jana frowned, but then she heard the sound as well … a wagon was coming along the road.

Alain started toward the tree where he’d left the Zells, dragging Jana along with him. Reaching the tethered beasts, he grasped Jana around the waist and lifted her, settling her on her saddle. Untying the animal, he handed her the reins and mounted his own.

The wagon rounded a curve and came into view as they urged their mounts forward.

Jana felt a headache descend upon her as the euphoria dissipated, but it was not altogether the effect of her body throwing off the drugs the flowers had infused into her system.

She knew now why Alain had seemed so familiar to her when she’d met him for the first time. He’d seemed familiar because it wasn’t the first time she’d met him.

Alain had been the last client she’d serviced before she’d left Earth.

Chapter Six

Jana was so stunned by the realization that it took a while for the implications to set in.

At ‘the House’ Alain had chosen her because he’d been looking for a woman not overly experienced.

Both Alain and Blane had harped on the necessity of behaving as a virtuous woman.

Alain was going to be absolutely furious when he discovered she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a virtuous female.

She felt faint, and more than a little sick.

Alain, she discovered, was looking at her in a very piercing way.

She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind. She could not think about that now, not while Alain studied her as if he could read her thoughts.

In any case, she had a more pressing problem. She had come to find her friend to see if she could arrange a way to escape Orleans in case of need--a need she could easily foresee, given her new insight. Even if it transpired that she did not find herself in need of fleeing from Marty, it seemed inevitable that Alain would eventually remember, as she had, their very first meeting. She was fairly certain she did not want to face his wrath when he did remember.

Her current problem, however, was how to arrange a meeting with her friend, with Alain breathing down her neck?

“I’m curious,” Alain began presently.

Jana sent him a startled look, but she wasn’t about to hand him an opening--not that he needed one.

“Do we have a destination?”

Jana flushed, then felt the blood rush from her face. She had been too unnerved by her discovery to think up a convincing tale. It would have been easier, of course, to simply tell him she’d decided to visit her friend, but she hadn’t yet given up the hope that she might shake Alain at some point and make the visit alone, where she could speak more freely. She forced a tight smile. “I’d thought I might visit a shop I heard about in Jaxon. A friend told me they had lovely ribbons.”

It was nearing noon by the time they reached Jaxon and Jana had begun to feel panicky again. She still hadn't hit upon a way of ridding herself of Alain long enough to visit her friend. If that weren't dismaying enough, she neither wanted nor needed the ribbons she'd used as an excuse. Worse still, she had no credits to buy and knew Alain was bound to be suspicious about her motives in riding so far only to look.

She was not surprised, therefore, though a good deal alarmed, when she saw that Alain was looking more than a little annoyed after she’d spent twenty minutes looking at first one and then another and discarding it. No sooner had Alain led her from the establishment than he gripped her firmly by the elbow and guided her into the alley between the stores. She looked at him in surprise and not a little trepidation, deciding with a faint heart that perhaps it would be best to allow him the opening salvo. It didn't help her feelings one iota to see that Alain was controlling his anger with a visible effort.

"You came to shop but brought no money?" he asked tersely.

"Money?" she repeated blankly, completely at sea.

Alain's eyes narrowed dangerously. He studied her for a long moment and tried a different tact. "I hope you can explain to me why we rode ten miles in this abominable weather to buy ribbons when you didn’t bring money to make the purchase."

"As if I asked you!" Jana gasped indignantly, deciding immediately that the best defense would be to turn the tables and attack.

"I know very well that you were not exactly enthusiastic about my coming along," Alain said coolly. "The question is, why?"

"Why what?" Jana asked evasively, immediately sorry she'd tried that ploy since it seemed to have had such an undesirable effect.

Alain ground his teeth and curbed an insane desire to shake her till her teeth rattled. He wondered, sickly, if his suspicions had now been confirmed, that she'd arranged a tryst and had, perforce, abandoned it for this lame excuse of a trip. When he decided he had his temper firmly in control once more, he asked coldly, "Do you mind telling me precisely why we are here?"

"Yes," Jana replied maddeningly, more than a little angry herself by now, and too disturbed in any case to think up a convincing lie.

His brows snapped together. "Yes, what?"

"I mind telling you."

Alain gripped her by her arms purposefully. Upon glancing over his shoulder and noticing several interested spectators across the street, however, he turned instead and hauled her none too gently along the side of the building and around the corner. Thrusting her into a secluded corner afforded by the outcropping of a spare room and a large oak, he planted a palm on either side of her head and glared down at her. "Now," he ground out, "what I wish to know is, what has become of the money I left for you?"

Jana stared at him blankly, but she knew money was credits. What she hadn’t known was that he had arranged for her to have credits. It was an intriguing possibility for solving at least part of her dilemma, but unfortunately she was not currently in a situation to consider it.

"My dear wife," Alain said in a voice of deadly calm that didn't sound in the least as if he found her endearing. "If you make me lose my temper, I can practically guarantee that you will be extremely sorry. Now, once more.... Have you or have you not spent the money I arranged for you?"

"No.”

"I can always check, you know," he warned her.

"If you weren't going to take my word for it anyway, I can't think why you asked," Jana said indignantly.

"Perhaps I only wished to see if I could trust you to tell the truth."

Jana blushed, acutely conscious of the lie her very presence on Orleans was. It occurred to her after a moment that it might be better to tell him at least a half-truth as to why she'd come to Jaxon now rather than to spring it on him later.

"I thought I'd visit a friend while I was here. Not," she hastened to assure him when she noticed his brow darken once more, "that I hadn't intended to look at the ribbons. It's just that I figured that as long as I needed to shop anyway, I might as well come here so that I could visit my friend."

Alain released her. "Who is this friend?"

"Val-risa Kor. She said she and her husband lived just a couple of miles out of town."

He didn't much look as if he believed her, but at least he wasn't scowling any longer. She relaxed, perfectly willing to forgive him for scaring her silly if he would only go back to being his usual coolly remote self.

He said nothing more but took her arm and guided her around the back of the building and through the alley. "I saw an inn as we came into town. I expect we should dine before we try to locate this friend of yours.

Jana realized that, despite everything, she was hungry and, since she’d never dined in a public eatery before, she enjoyed that almost as much as she did the food. She had hoped, as well, that it would buy time for her to come up with the best way to approach her friend for answers, but nothing came to her. However, they'd scarcely left the inn when she received a jolt that gave her thoughts an entirely new and appalling direction.

They hadn't gone ten paces when she looked up at the clatter of hoofbeats along main street and, to her utter horror, saw Marty bearing down on them. Her heart gave a sickening lurch, leaving her chalk white and in imminent danger of fainting. Without a single coherent thought, but the instinctive need of a cornered animal to escape, she whirled abruptly and headed down the walkway in the opposite direction at a good clip, leaving Alain to stare after her in stunned amazement. In a moment he recovered himself, however, and in two long strides had caught up with her and jerked her to a halt by the simple expedient of grasping her arm in a vice-like grip. It very nearly jerked her off her feet since she kept walking and her body didn't accompany her. "Where are you going?" he snapped in exasperation.

"Oh!" Jana gasped breathlessly, trying to conceal her face and at the same time keep a weather eye out for Marty. For once in her life she was fervently glad she was so small, for she was almost completely shielded by Alain's much larger frame. "I ... I forgot my purse," she whispered, inspired by the panic of the moment to that ingenious prevarication as she was totally incapable at present of coherent thought.

"It's in your hand," Alain replied dryly.

As Marty had by this time rounded the corner of the inn and disappeared in the direction of the stables, Jana was quite eager to put as much distance between herself and the inn as possible and she merely replied very brightly, "Oh yes!"

She immediately turned and struck out in the original direction they'd taken, leaving Alain to stare after her in bemusement once more. Aside from favoring her with a penetrating glance when he caught up to her again, however, he made no comment.

Having recovered their Zells, they mounted and took the road out of town, much to Jana's relief.

They arrived at last at the Kor estate and were conducted by the butler to the back parlor. Val-risa, an elegant brunette of medium height and slender build, rose gracefully and greeted them with warmth.

Jana, knowing this might be her only chance, rushed forward at once. Hugging Val-risa with all the apparent impulsiveness of a long separation from a dear friend, she used the moment to whisper, “Can we talk alone?”

Alain was instantly alerted by the whispered exchange, though he didn't catch what had been said, and regarded the two intently from beneath deceptively lazy, drooping lids.

"It's so good to see you again after so very long," Jana exclaimed breathlessly as she pulled away, frowning significantly. She was relieved to receive an understanding squeeze from the hands she retained. She turned slightly to include Alain. "This is my ... my compan--husband, Alain Camar.”

Val-risa turned to acknowledge the introduction, surveying Alain with open interest and obvious appreciation as she inquired if they would care for refreshment. Jana frowned, half in puzzlement and half in dawning indignation as Val-risa ushered them to a seat and settled herself opposite them, favoring Alain with a smile Jana considered just a bit too warm before reluctantly returning her attention to Jana.

There might well have been many who considered that Val-risa had any number of disagreeable faults, but no one who knew her well would have accused her of being short on wit. She adopted her most featherbrained pose, gushing for a full ten minutes on the 'my, I haven't seen you in simply ages', and 'whatever have you been doing with yourself?' routine, while Alain looked on with an air of bored amusement that effectively disguised his keen watchfulness.

Fortunately for the ladies, who were rapidly running out of commonplaces, Val-risa’s husband, Vin, entered the room by way of the glass doors that opened upon the terrace before they'd quite run dry. Leaping instantly from her seat, she danced lightly over to grasp his arm affectionately and gave it a warning squeeze as she introduced him to their guests. She scarcely gave them time to murmur the proper replies before suggesting the men would doubtless be more comfortable if they took a turn on the terrace where they could discuss man-talk and not be bothered by her and Jana’s silly chatter.