The Challenge (9 page)

“Thanks for the advice and the warning, Dora. You should go now, okay?”

“You do realize that you always send me away right before all the good stuff happens,” the computer complained, her tone both peeved and amused.

“I’ll tell you all about it later,” Tessa promised.

Then the door opened, and Kahn strode into the room, looking bigger and more handsome than Tessa remembered. With those broad shoulders and his tapered waist, he really was a magnificent masculine specimen and had a mouth-watering appeal. But it was his aura of confidence that appealed to Tessa.

She had already tested her fighting abilities against Kahn and come up short. Her goal was to accomplish her task any way she could. And if success for Earth meant having sex with Kahn, she was willing to do so.

“Treating her this way is still wrong.”

“Sometimes we have to do what is wrong to do a greater good. Your father—”

“Corban?” Kahn spat. “You would speak to me of him?”

“He made a supreme sacrifice for our people, or we all would have starved. Can you do less?”

Kahn had no choice. He knew he had no choice. But he’d needed to hear it. No matter how much he’d disapproved of his father’s decision, the sacrifice would not be made in vain. No matter how much he disliked what he must do, duty came first.

“Thank you, Helera. You are wise as always.”

“Stars be with you.” Helera was about to sign off.

“Another moment, please,” Kahn requested.

“Yes?”

“The Earth woman . . . I never know what to expect from her.”

“Is she so different from us?”

Kahn tried to put his impression into words. “Tessa Camen doesn’t act like a Rystani woman would if taken from her home against her will. Rystani women are strong, but they’d panic, sob, and try tearful pleas to get their way. “

“That is so.”

“But from the first moment of contact when Tessa opened her brilliant green eyes and stared at me with more curiosity than fear, she’s used her resourceful brain instead of relying on emotions.”

“That’s a bad sign. Federation scientists have determined the best way to invoke psi skills is to elevate frustration. By stimulating her sexually, you’ll increase her frustration to a frenzied peak and cause her neglected psi abilities to flex their muscles.”

Kahn was grateful Helera was keeping the discussion scientific, impersonal. “But while Tessa seems to physically respond as a Rystani woman would have in her situation, the Earthling represses her frustration.”

“She’s working against you, battening down her emotional reactions.”

“Yes. Instead of strong fear, she’s exhibited merely weak anxiety; instead of panic, determination. She’s asking questions, gathering information, and assessing my answers like a field general.”

“Has she shown any loss of self-control?”

“Only once—when she attacked me.”

“Oh my. Is she blind to your muscles or just dim-witted?”

“Neither. Her attack was a systematic test of my defenses with a series of strikes to search for vulnerabilities.”

“You have no fighting vulnerabilities.”

“She didn’t know that. Yet, not once did she go for a death blow.”

Helera grinned. “I can almost admire her character, except her skills in suppressing her primitive emotions are counterproductive to what you need to evoke her psi.”

And if Tessa didn’t learn to use her psi and win the Challenge, the last of his people might perish. “Her strength of self-control suggests the process of bringing out her psi abilities may take longer than I’d planned.”

“And require more extreme measures that you find distasteful.”

“I’ll do my duty.” Kahn had no choice.

“You may need to go deeper. You may need to evoke her emotions.”

Kahn groaned. “According to the Federation manuals, programming her suit to sexually stimulate and frustrate her is the best way to teach a woman humanoid to use her psi.”

“The manual may need to retire.”

“After dealing with Tessa, I may need to retire,” Kahn joked.

Helera’s grin faded. “And don’t think of explaining your rationale to her. That would be kind, but doing so in past Challenges has led to failure. Telling her that you need her frustrated to engage her psi will only lower her anxiety level and be counterproductive to your purpose.”

“I thought you just told me to retire the manual?”

“A smart man listens to all advice and then makes his own decisions.”

Decisions? Or mistakes? “I’ll do my best.”

“Do better than your best.” Helera prodded then signed off.

Full of rigid determination, unwilling to put off another meeting with Tessa any longer, Kahn strode toward the room with the Earth woman, unsure what to expect from her next.

Using his psi, he opened the entryway into her chamber. He’d prepared these quarters after careful consideration of innumerable details. He wanted no portals, technology, or stimulation to distract her from the sensations he’d programmed into her suit.

Perhaps, her frustration level had already grown high enough to enable her to change her suit’s transparency so he needn’t push her further, so he needn’t view the constant reminder of her sex. He found her nudity disturbing and too attractive. He didn’t want to appreciate her sleek proportions. He didn’t want to admire her toned muscles or her shiny black hair, especially the dark curls between her legs. He wanted to think of her as sexless, but with her perfectly shaped breasts alternately heaving, trembling, quivering, and standing up proudly, he was all too aware of her attributes.

He found her on her feet, facing him almost as if she was waiting for him. He tried to hide his distress that she still remained naked.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, striding toward him as if that suit weren’t still caressing every bare part of her.

For someone so incredibly stubborn, she was also perceptive to his moods. “I was hoping you’d made more progress,” he admitted.

She arched a delicate eyebrow, a gesture he was beginning to associate with skepticism. “And how do you know that I haven’t?”

“I cannot tell you that.” He sincerely wished he could. However, if he explained that he was deliberately frustrating her in order to develop her psi abilities, the explanation itself would calm her and create the opposite effect necessary for success.

“Can you tell me why you’re here?” Her tone remained reserved, and yet he sensed a whetted intensity in her like a man’s, though no one would mistake her for one, not unless he were blind. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in a straight rainfall of jet black. Her lips were lush. And stars, for a short woman she had long legs. Her attributes should not matter. But there was a green fire in the center of her eyes that he didn’t understand, that hadn’t been there earlier.

“We will share a meal.” Without waiting for her acceptance, he strode to the wall and opened several compartments.

Tessa matched steps with him, ambling close beside him, watching him perform the simple tasks, but no doubt unable to comprehend how his psi operated the ship’s technology. He gave her credit that she didn’t seem upset or consider his abilities evil as several other Challenge candidates had.

She placed a hand on his arm, the first time she’d voluntarily touched him. “I’m not hungry . . . for food.”

“Stars!” According to the Federation manuals, she should have developed her psi way before she’d actually approach him to assuage her needs. He gave her a fierce stare and ignored the sinking sensation in his gut, hoping he’d interpreted her actions wrong. “Woman, are you implying what I think you are?”

A tiny smile turned up one corner of her lush mouth. “Exactly what do you think I’m implying?”

He glared at her delicate pink-skinned hand which remained on his arm. He couldn’t believe the Federation manuals had been so wrong.

Kahn shook off Tessa’s hand and unfolded the table from the wall compartment. “I have no time for games.”

“Liar.”

He drew himself straighter and glowered at her, a glower that would have made most men cower. Annoyed that she still wore the semi-grin on her lips, he spoke harshly. “Woman, I have killed men for lesser insults.”

He expected her to back down, apologize. Instead, she held his gaze, her eyes quite lovely up close. “I spoke the truth. You have been toying with me since I arrived. Back home—”

“You are no longer at home.”

“Like I could forget.” She licked her bottom lip, the movement provocative, but it didn’t take the sting from her sarcasm. “On Earth,” she began again, “women are not touched without their permission.”

“
You
are the one who touched
me
,” he pointed out her mistake in logic.

She eyed him with her chin high, her shoulders squared, but he could tell by the flare of her nostrils, the effort cost her. A quick diagnosis of her suit’s settings told him her breasts were especially susceptible to tiny nips and hot licks. He increased the frequency, hoping he needn’t do much more.

As if somehow aware of what he had done, she arched her eyebrows. “On my world, a man would fight for what he wants with more courage.”

“First, you insult my honor, now my courage. You will learn to speak with civility.”

There. She should back down immediately. He needed her concentrating on her discomfort, but she never did what he expected.

Her chest heaved, the suit working on her elegant breasts, keeping her pink nipples tight little buds, but she ignored his threat without revealing the slightest tremor of fear, although her flesh quivered with desire.

“On my world, a man would not rely on technology alone to arouse a woman. Not unless he can’t do it himself. Is that your problem?”

Astonishment had his hands closing around her slender waist and lifting her until her eyes were at the same level as his. She didn’t know he could crush her with one blow, knock the wind out of her with much less trouble than it took to stand and take her insults. Not that he would use warrior skills on a woman. No Rystani man ever would.