Gateway To Xanadu (27 page)

“She’s coming with me,” he told Val, the professional pleasantness in his voice beginning to be strained around the edges as he looked down at my “uncle.” “If you’re worried that something will happen to her while you’re occupied with Talla, you can set your mind at rest. I’ll see that she’s looked after. ”

“Is that all you intend doing with her?” Val asked with all the pettiness of his characterization, pushing Talla away so that he could stand up to face us. “Just looking after her? Or is that ‘happening’ I’m not supposed to worry about included in the looking after?”

“She’s too young to have a slave assigned to her,” Greg came back with more calm than Val was showing. “A slave would take advantage of her lack of experience, as you know since the matter was explained to you. I’ll see that she has just as good a time as you do, which is, after all, the reason she’s here and one of the reasons I am. You don’t have any objections to that, do you, Mr. Carter?”

“Of course he has no objections,” John Little interrupted, shoving his slave out of the way as he climbed hastily to his feet. “There’s no reason for you to object, Val, so tell the man you don’t mind.”

“I didn’t bring her here to be spread by every heavy breather to come by,” Val muttered, but he was clearly backing down in the face of Little’s obvious but unexplained fear. He had looked away from Greg Rich’s penetrating gaze as though he were afraid of the Management rep, and to my critical eye he hadn’t done it as convincingly as he should have. I could see he hadn’t wanted to back down, but happily Greg Rich saw nothing but the end result.

“What did you bring her here for, Mr. Carter?” he asked very softly with only a hint of triumph in his eyes, the picture of a man who was used to being deferred to. “If you didn’t expect her to be given pleasure, what did you expect?”

“That’s my business,” Val muttered, glancing at him while ignoring Little’s very low words of urging.

“She’s my niece, and what I do with her is my business.”

“Only under certain conditions, Mr. Carter,” Greg Rich answered as he put a hand in the middle of my back. “The Management tends to be rather strict about the actions of their guests under all other conditions. Ask your friend Mr. Little to explain what I mean-before you run into trouble you weren’t expecting. I wish you an enjoyable evening.”

The hand in my back then moved me out of confrontation position before anything else could be said, the body attached to the arm following along beside me as we headed toward the exit, stage left. The thought was a stranger one than usual for me, but that’s exactly how I felt, as though I were wandering around a stage after having missed all my cues. I now knew what Val had been trying to tell me with the odd routine he’d started, but I didn’t know what to make of it. The Management didn’t want me using their slaves was the message, probably given to Val while I was being shown the sunset, but the real reason behind the decision was a mystery. And what had Little been whispering to Val, and why had Radman’s lieutenant been so afraid’? And now that Val had put himself close to the top of Greg’s shit list because of the need to pass on information to me, how was I going to get him off it again?

I spent so much time letting all those fascinating questions fight each other back and forth in my mind, that before I knew it a door was being opened in front of me and I was being guided into my cabin. The room glowed with a soft, pearly pink radiance that must have made the vessel look like a mirage ship from shore, but I wasn’t given much time to admire the prettiness.

“You’ve been awfully quiet the last few minutes,” Greg said as he closed the door, drawing my attention to him. “You weren’t upset by what your uncle said, were you?”

“That all depends on which part of what he said you’re referring to,” I answered, deciding I’d better decoy him away from thoughts about my “uncle.” “And as a matter of fact, it was more what you said that really reached me. I may be young, Mr. Rich, but I’m not entirely stupid. It was nice of you to walk me back here, but I don’t need to be done any favors. I’m sure you have ‘experienced’ women waiting for you, and there’s no real reason to keep them waiting.

I turned away from him and walked toward the open wall of my cabin, hoping my injured-dignity speech bought me more than the solitude I’d pretended to ask for. I needed to know what was going on around there, but demanding the answers would have gotten me nowhere. I stopped a foot away from the invisible force field and stared out over the darkened water, holding myself around against the stiffened lake breeze, and a minute later two wide, warm palms were moving down my upper arms.

“I’m devastated that you found me out,” he said in a half-amused murmur, letting his hands slide slowly down my arms until he was holding me around. “Now you know that the only reason I’m here is to do you a favor and perform my job. Sometimes duty can be hell, but I’m strong enough to take it without flinching. ”

“You expect me to believe you want to be here?” I demanded, but with the tremor in my voice that his arms would have produced if I really had been less than seventeen. “You asked me if I wanted to try a slave, all the time knowing I wouldn’t be allowed to even if I did. And you told me I could have a slave closer to my own age if I wanted one, and that was an out and out lie.”

“It wasn’t a lie, Jennifer,” he said very gently, the amusement gone from his voice as his arms tightened around me. “I could hear in your voice that you didn’t really want a slave, and I discovered that that pleased me. I wanted you to want me, and I didn’t want your uncle interfering. He was the one I lied to, not you, and I intend using the rest of this evening proving what I say. Come tomorrow morning, you won’t want anyone but me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said shakily, turning in his arms to look up at him, very much afraid that I did understand. “After all the beautiful, experienced women you’ve had, you can’t be interested in me! I know what I look like and I know how I affect men, but you’re different. You’re used to looks like mine.”

“Used to them and just short of tired of them,” he agreed with a wry smile, raising one hand to stroke my hair. “I also never expected to be attracted to a child half my age, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, it’s to not waste time fighting natural urges. After the first five minutes with you I knew I wanted you, and also became determined to make you want me. There’s something about you that makes you different from any other female I’ve ever met, and if I have to use every ounce of authority I have on this world to protect you from that uncle of yours, I’ll do it.”

“To protect me?” I repeated, and this time the shakiness was all too real. “What do I have to be protected from?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he answered, the smile turning to a frown. “I’m convinced he brought you here with a specific purpose in mind, and his being in the company of John Little makes me even more certain.

Little isn’t the sort to be friendly with, not if you’re looking for nothing but a good time, but this isn’t something you have to worry about. Little knows exactly how much power I have, and he won’t take the chance of crossing me. If things go the way I want them to, your uncle will get the same message and back off permanently.”

“I see,” I muttered, and it sure as hell was no lie. Rather than being in danger of enslavement on that world, I had acquired a champion who was determined to see to it that nothing unpleasant happened to me-which meant that he would be watching me closely to make sure that no one took advantage of me.

It also probably meant that he was ready to turn thumbs-down on Val at the first sign of game-playing on my “uncle’s” part, and that was just ducky. I now knew why Little had been so frightened, and I couldn’t really blame him. Greg had officially classified me as a guest, and if he and Val tried doing anything unpleasant to another guest, my protector would make sure the Management found out about it—and that would be it for Val and John Little. At that point I wasn’t even sure if Little would take the chance of introducing Val to Radman, which would make every effort I’d made until then one big wasted effort.

“I think you’re doubting me again,” Greg said, and his hand came to my chin to raise my face. I’d looked down and away from him without realizing it, and that wasn’t something he wanted. “I told you you had nothing to worry about, and I meant it. Now I’d like to see how much l have to worry about. ”

“How much you have to worry about?” I repeated, beginning to feel like an echo. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve never been captured by a woman before,” he said, and the amusement was back stronger than it had been. “I’d like to find out how tight the chains are-and just how strongly I’ll be held. If I manage to break loose-which could happen-we’ll still be friends, but we just won’t be any more than that. Are you ready to help me find out?”

I gave him a shy smile and a nod, but I really felt like laughing out loud in relief. Greg Rich was catering to his infatuation in the hopes of negating it, and that was just fine with me. As soon as he had his taste of innocence his curiosity would be satisfied, and then he’d be able to wave a fond farewell to the young girl who had momentarily tickled his fancy. Val and I would be able to continue along the trail to Radman, and all of us but Radman would live happily ever after.

“Well, if you’re ready and I’m ready, then let’s get to it,” he said, letting me go so that he could take my hand. He led me over to the wide, comfortable bunk, sat down on it, then pulled me into his lap.

“You certainly are a big girl,” he said, touching his lips to my shoulder as he reached across to tug loose the tucked-in end of my sarong. “Is everyone in your family as large as you and your uncle?”

“Some are bigger,” I answered with a half-muffled squirm, making no attempt to help him or reach for his own sarong. I would have to spend our time together letting him do all the work, responding innocently, and not giving him half of what he had surely grown used to having; that way the novelty would wear off faster, and we would suddenly become “just friends.” It was a shame to waste the time with a man like him, but there was nothing else I could do.

“Bigger maybe, but certainly not better made,” he murmured, letting the cloth fall away from me before running a hand over my left breast and down to my belly. “You look nothing but curved and girl-soft, but there’s real muscle here under this silky skin. I like seeing a woman who takes care of her body.”

“I exercise a lot,” I murmured back, putting my arms around his neck before starting to kiss his face softly. I hadn’t expected him to be that observant, and my excellent physical condition was another topic it would be best to avoid.

“So do I,” he said with a soft chuckle, then twisted around to move me off his lap and onto the bunk before putting himself next to me. “I exercise as often as I can, and especially in horizontal positions.

Let’s see how well we exercise together.”

His lips came to me with a strength he hadn’t shown earlier, his hands touching my body everywhere, and I suddenly knew I was going to have a problem. He was built so much like Val that my body was all ready to respond to him the way it did to Val, and I couldn’t allow that to happen. I wanted to discourage Greg Rich, not encourage him, and to accomplish that I’d have to stay completely alert rather than relax and enjoy myself. As I was drawn into his arms and up against his body, I suddenly had the feeling that I would have preferred a different set of arms, but that was stupid and entirely beside the point. I had no choice about who would be holding me right then, and even if I did there was nothing wrong with the man beside me. All he was looking for was a good time, which was better than involvement any day.

The morning sun had been shining brightly off the lake for a while before Greg began stirring, a satisfied feel to his muttering and movement. I lay quietly and regulated my breathing as though I were still asleep, but I was too disgusted with myself for sleep to really have a chance at me. Although the night had been a disaster as far as I was concerned, I was hoping hard that the man next to me would consider it another kind of disaster and separate himself from me as fast as humanly possible. There was always the chance that I had misinterpreted his reactions during the night and had gotten away with it after all, but the chance was on the same order as the possibility of taking off by flapping your arms hard enough.

I could have said it was all Val’s fault, but establishing a scapegoat didn’t do a damned thing to change the situation.

“Pretty little girl, you have given me one hell of a night,” came the words I hadn’t at all wanted to hear, whispered softly as a big hand touched my right arm the same way. I lay facing the wall on my left side, Greg cozily close behind me, and I couldn’t help closing my eyes in defeat. I hadn’t been able to keep from reacting to him the night before, not since he reminded me of Val, and although I hadn’t used anything Adept-taught, I also hadn’t been the inexperienced innocent I’d wanted him to see. I didn’t know how deep a hole I’d dug myself, but I was bound to find out in the very near future.

“Jennifer, are you anywhere near awake?” Greg asked in a slightly louder murmur, his lips coming to my shoulder and neck, his right hand reaching around to caress. “I have to leave soon, and I don’t want to go without saying a proper good-bye. ”

I’d prefer a final one, I thought as I pretended to stir partly awake, and then moaned low without any pretense at all. Greg wasn’t as accomplished as Val when it came to raising a female’s thermostat, but he was far from clumsy and was unknowingly reaching me through that stupid conditioning my time with Val had developed. I could have pretended disinterest if Greg hadn’t been in a position to check for himself, but he was and he did, so I couldn’t. He turned me to my back and kissed his way down from my neck to my breasts, all the while keeping his well-educated fingers busy, and the normally strong self-control I come equipped with suddenly became missing in action. I held to his shoulder and back, desperately searching for a way to get him away from me without getting physical or obvious, and unexpectedly found a possibility when my eyes fell on the open wall of the cabin.