When the shove never came, he did, however, push back against her stubbornness.
He leaned down, capturing her lips in a gentle, teasing kiss. The general's arms closed around her perfect body, savoring the moment when Naima relaxed into the motion, letting him pull her up to kiss her better, deeper. Their tongues brushed against each other, more passionate with every moment. Small moans escaped his gesha's lips as she gave in, inch by inch to the desire that Braen knew was making her blood burn in her veins.
He ached to take it further, to take Naima right there against the wall with only stars as their witness, but it would have been a short-term victory and Braen was after the grand prize. He wanted all of her, no hesitation, no doubt, no holding back. He wanted both of them to win. Equally.
In that moment, it was enough to know that her body at least was his and his alone, responding to him easily. Now he could start making his way to her heart.
The general pulled back, releasing his gesha who stared at him with that lovely temper, ready to call him out. He cut in before she could do so.
"I will teach you all the controls of your room tomorrow. And I will show you soon that sometimes, there can be equal victories. In the meanwhile, I think we should adjust the course. Are you ready for that?"
Naima smoothed down her gown, biting her lip. It was the single sexiest thing Braen had ever seen, his gesha being completely unrattled by him. He resisted acting on it – at the cost of his own sanity, it seemed.
"Yes," Naima said, a little out of breath. "Yes, I think it should be fine. Can you give me Audrey's report about the Fearless afterward? I should read it while I have time."
"Of course."
They turned in the direction of the bridge, leaving the stars behind. The next time Naima brushed her hand against his, it definitely wasn't an accident.
13
Naima
It was amazing what a few short weeks could do to a woman’s life.
Before signing on for the expedition to search for the lifestone, Naima would have said that the weirdest thing to ever happen to her was the time she fell out of a third floor window when she was seven years old. She'd walked away from that happy accident completely unharmed, hadn't even broken any bones.
It seemed obvious to Naima that life had taken that simple incident as a challenge to heap everything it could think of on her, adding a few impossibilities along the way just for fun. Maybe it was trying to finally get a few broken bones out of her, she couldn’t be sure.
Yeah, she thought, waking up in her quarters aboard the Brion warship. My sense of the uncanny has been stretched pretty thin recently. I don't think anything could surprise me anymore.
She got up, distantly remembering that they were going to rendezvous with the Chali trader ship that day, hoping to receive the first good news of their mission. Considering Braen's reaction to the offer of help, Naima doubted it would be a very fruitful meeting, but at least the general hadn't completely refused.#p#分页标题#e#
It was interesting for Naima. She’d rarely had a chance to meet the trader race and whenever she had in the past, it had been an event to remember. Now, considering the circumstances, she couldn’t help but expect fireworks.
He had asked Sinetha – the woman who had contacted them – to impress him. That was very unlikely, given how little the general was prepared to change his opinion of the traders.
Naima could understand his unease, but it didn't change the fact that the Fearless was growing faster than anything either of them could have anticipated, considering the amount of work it took for Naima to keep the beast out of her mind even with the Palian devices aiding her. Any help they could get would be good. At the very least, the Chali would be another distraction.
All of it was almost enough to make her forget the rest of her ridiculously complicated life. As if being some sort of a conduit for an ancient evil and a lifestone that seemed more and more sentient to her wasn't enough on her plate, Naima still couldn't entirely wrap her head around the concept that she was also a Brion general's gesha.
After her initial surprise, rejection and the following denial, Naima had read up on the sacred bond as much as she could. Apparently one of the phases of acceptance, at least for her, was finding out as much as she could about it. Her father would have been proud.
Her mother would have sighed and told her to trust her heart. Then, her father would launch into an argument about not trusting one’s emotions when something could be studied instead.
Luckily, Brions had tons of material about it, since it was the most pivotal part of their lives. And like every other Terran, Naima had naturally heard of the other human geshas, all brides of the powerful generals. Isolde Fenner, the first of them, had called it an amusing trend, but Naima wasn't sure she was ready to joke about it.
To her it was a bit too mystical, especially considering the other factors that were trying to rip every bit of control out of Naima's hands. It was like the universe had decided to turn on her once more and bring all her worst fears to life. Not only was she holding the balance of the universe in her palms, but she was faced with an individual that her wrong choices could obliterate on more than the cellular level as well.
It was all further complicated by her body's clear desire to give in to the general right away. In various positions and degrees of clothing, she might have added. Though she would have been a liar had she tried to claim that her attraction towards the man was purely physical.
Searching for her clothes, she stumbled on a low couch right in front of her bed. A small scream escaped her lips as pain shot through her, radiating from her toe.
It's true what they say. Bullet wounds are nothing compared to paper cuts and stubbing your toes. Damn Brions and their darkness!
A second after Naima had let out the scream, a voice sounded, seemingly coming from the walls:
"Are you alright, Miss Jones?"
What in the name of gods? Are the walls made out of paper here?
"Who is asking?" Naima shot back. "Show yourself. I've had way too many visions and voices in my head to want the walls to start talking to me. If you have a body, appear!"
The outer door to her quarters slid open and Kerven, the young Brion warrior who had escorted her to the bridge and guarded her ever since, stepped in, spear at the ready and body tense. Naima knew she was being needlessly melodramatic, summoning the poor boy like a genie.
On the other hand, her words were also true. Every time she took the bracelet off, Naima felt the teeth-clattering cold and the brightness of the lifestone scattered all over the galaxy washed over her. It wasn't a pleasant experience, just like Audrey had promised. At least so far Naima found the pain to be tolerable, even though the course adjustments had been frequent. Braen’s presence held her together at the seams. Keeping her sanity in check was another matter entirely.
She didn’t need any extra help in questioning the lucidity of her mind at this point.
She put the fact that she found herself dealing with the physical pain firmly down to the fact that her personal lifestone laid neatly in the pocket of her uniform pants, tucked in a box so Naima never touched it. So far, she'd miraculously managed to hide its existence from Braen. And felt monumentally guilty about it, too.
It was probably aiding in her mind being as frazzled as it was as well, both lying to Braen and being so close to the mystical stone.
The young warrior took one look at her and turned on his heels so fast it made Naima's head spin.
She pulled the folds of her sleeping gown more tightly around her, staring at the warrior's back and the hefty battle spear in his hand that Brions apparently never parted with.#p#分页标题#e#
"If I have a case of pillow face or a really bad hair day, just tell me," Naima told the guard. "No need to be rude. I'm not some hideous being."
"My apologies, Miss Jones," the guard said in the common tongue.
Naima was thankful for that courtesy, at least. Just a few years ago, Brions had been too stubborn to speak any of the artificial languages the union used to communicate. It had taken some of their generals leading the way to change the trend.
"I meant no offense. You are a very beautiful woman," the warrior went on. "My general is a lucky man, but he would kill me just for saying that if he knew. The commander has forbid us to look at you when you are undressed. You are his gesha, after all."
Naima's gaze dropped to her bare legs, very visible from underneath the short gown, but she wouldn't have thought her clothing to be indecent. Apparently Brions didn't agree.
"That's a bit ridiculous, if you don't mind me saying," she said.
"Not at all," the warrior said without any hint of being insulted. "The bond between a gesha and a gerion is sacred and private. The commander demands nothing unusual. He wouldn't look upon my fated either unless it was an absolute necessity."
What a way to live.
"Can you turn on the lights in here?" Naima asked, choosing not to comment further, aware that she was a guest on a ship that lived by a wholly different set of rules. "I've tried to learn the controls, but apparently they dimmed down again when I fell asleep."
"Of course," the guard replied, rushing to type something into the console by the door.