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  He groaned deeply as his cock spurted onto his stomach. He came, not at the thought of her tits or pussy, but with those gleaming topaz eyes filling his vision.

  With a sigh, he let his cock flop to his belly, grabbed the tail of his shirt, and wiped the sticky mess off his skin. He grimaced. He’d never enjoyed the earthiness of bodily fluids, which was pretty ironic, considering all the blood he’d dealt with in the course of his career.

  Rising from the bed, he stripped and headed into the bathroom to shower, realizing belatedly a cold shower would have been a better choice than a hand job. After cleaning up and dressing in fresh clothes, Ja-hun watched the vid screen for a little while. The news clip about the Insurgent Alliance’s increasingly violent demonstrations against the current government confirmed that Blaine and his cabinet were right to be worried. Whether one agreed with the I.A.’s principles or not ‑‑ and it so happened Ja-hun thought they made some good points ‑‑ they were a dangerous force.

  Turning the vid off, he checked his appearance in the mirror, then headed back to resume his post at the princess’s door. As he turned the corner to the short hall leading to her quarters, his heart jolted in his chest.

  No one was stationed in front of her suite, and the door was ajar. Ja-hun raced down the corridor to the room and threw the door open. The layout of the room was open, so her living area and bedroom were one. He stared at the tumbled purple bedcovers on which she’d recently sprawled like a hologram fantasy.

  “Leelah?” He checked her bathroom to make sure she was really missing. The entire suite was empty. Fuck! He’d had one simple task to fulfill, and he’d failed.

  Ja-hun shouted into his comset for Pratt.

  Chapter Two

  It was easy to give Pratt the slip. When she opened her door expecting to tease Ja-hun for the position he’d caught her in and found Pratt instead, she realized it was her chance to escape. He was part of the regular house security staff and didn’t hesitate to allow her to go down to the kitchen on her own.

  “Just hurry back, please. Ja-hun will have my head if he knows I let you go alone.”

  “Ja-hun is an overprotective idiot.”

  Although she felt guilty about the flak he’d catch, Leelah raced down the stairs, heading for the underground passage out of the mansion, a way she’d used as a teenager. Sometimes she’d made it back home before anyone had known she was missing. Other times, she’d been caught outside the compound walls and punished for putting herself in such danger. Of course, she’d always been able to talk her father into giving back her comset and vid privileges long before the grounding was supposed to end. And if she’d wanted Trianne to come over, all she’d had to do was let her eyes glisten with tears and tell Dad how lonely she was and that his job made her miserable.

  In recent years with security being lighter, she’d gone to university classes and pretty much everywhere, so long as there was a bodyguard or two in attendance. She hadn’t needed her secret route. But with Ja-hun’s over-the-top protective measures, it was her only option. Poor Pratt. She’d make it up to him somehow.

  Passing through the empty kitchen, she entered the vast storeroom beyond and descended the steps to the lower level. When she was a young child, her mother had shown her the escape route the pirate dynasty that built the house had once used. Of course, she hadn’t intended Leelah to evade authority through it. But by the time Leelah had made use of the passage, her mother had been dead, and there was no one else who knew about her secret exit hidden behind a panel.

  Emerging from the tunnel amid brambles and bushes on the other side of the compound wall, Leelah brushed cobwebs and dirt from her clothes, rubbed a bramble scratch on her arm, and called for a skycab on her comset.

  A glow of victory swelled in her heart as the cab whisked her away from the estate and her zealous bodyguard. Take that, Ja-hun! I can manage my own life, and I don’t need you or my father to make decisions for me.

  * * * * *

  Burdah Garan’s home was an elaborate structure with myriad flexglass plates that reflected the sun, turning the house into a sparkling gem perched above the sea. Leelah loved the panoramic view of the blue-green ocean from the vast wall of windows that overlooked it. People talking, laughing, drinking, playing games, or dancing crowded the rooms, and spilled out onto the patio and gardens. In the evening, when it wasn’t so hot, they’d move the whole party down to the beach. She waved and smiled at friends, and grabbed a glass of pinje from a table as she passed. Taking a long, sweet drink, she let her hips sway with the music and her head bob with the beat, glad to be free at last and ready to network as well as have a good time.

  When Trianne spotted Leelah across the room, she shrieked loud enough to make heads turn. She jumped up from her seat by her boyfriend, Burdah, to run toward her friend with open arms. “I knew you’d find a way to make it. Come on. There’s somebody you’ve got to meet.”

  Leelah groaned. “I just got here, and you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get out. I just want to sit and get Blissed for a few minutes; then I’ll be ready for some dancing.”

  “You got it.” Trianne reached into a dish on the table where white Bliss tabs were piled like candy and handed her one.

  Leelah popped the tab into her mouth and let it dissolve on her tongue. Almost instantly a melting feeling like warm butterscotch syrup fired through her synapses as the potent vitamin and mineral blend hit her system. Bliss heightened the senses, but with no letdown at the end of the ride, and the high wasn’t addicting.

  The bustle and noise of people having fun and the repetitive thumping bass of the music was usually a balm to Leelah’s soul. She was generally a social person who loved parties and people. But as she sipped a smooth pinje and listened to Trianne and Burdah sell her on this guy she was about to meet, all she could think of was the furor her disappearance would cause. As usual, she’d let her own stubbornness guide her. Perhaps there really was a good reason for her confinement, and Ja-hun wasn’t the stone-hearted bastard she’d cast him as. Was he really as cold and emotionless as he seemed?

  He’d kept a perfectly blank face when he’d caught her masturbating, but she couldn’t believe it hadn’t affected him at least a little. It certainly had her. The memory of her embarrassment coupled with intense excitement sent a flash of heat through her that settled warmly in her crotch. Her Bliss-enhanced arousal had her craving to either fuck someone or dance. The latter seemed the more prudent choice.

  “Enough with the sales pitch. I’m ready to meet your boy, but only if he knows how to shake it.”

  “Trust me, Danje can dance…or just about anything else you’d want him to do.” Trianne laughed. “Here he comes.”

  Danje was a golden statue of a man, with the most beautiful, symmetrical face, flowing hair, and golden eyes that put Leelah’s to shame. He was obviously a pureblooded Anuvian with the height, grace, and physical perfection of the race. Sometimes Leelah wondered what had drawn her Anuvian mother to leave her home planet with Rogent Blaine, a common man from OldEarth stock. It must have been true love between the pair of them. Too bad she’d never been able to ask her mother about such things, for Sun-shi Blaine had died when Leelah was still too young to be interested in hearing her parents’ courtship story, and Daddy couldn’t bear to talk about his lost love. He changed the subject whenever Leelah asked questions about her mother.

  Trianne made introductions, and Leelah took Danje’s warm hand. “Ja,” she greeted him. “I hear you’re quite the dancer.”

  “Come on and I’ll show you.” His smile was like sunlight shining on all of them. No wonder OldEarth primitives had thought the Anuvians were gods when they’d first visited the blue planet.

  Leelah followed his lead onto the dance floor in the center of the room where most of the gyrating couples wore little more than their swimsuits.

  Danje pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside, giving her an eyeful of sculpted chest muscles and biceps that made her pussy
clench. Leelah followed his example, throwing her light sundress aside to dance in her bikini.

  She’d always loved music and had considered majoring in dance at university until she’d realized she could contribute more to the Worlds by studying social issues. The rhythm quickly wrapped her in its embrace, and the melody carried her away. Her eyes half closed as she swayed to the tropical beat, thrusting her breasts forward, shaking her ass, sliding in harmony with Danje in a sultry bump and grind with her bottom pressed firmly against his thrusting pelvis. As promised, the boy was a great dancer, and together they burned up the floor.

  She and Danje danced one song, two, three, before taking a break to gulp down a few more glasses of pinje. She learned her date for the day was still a student at the university, which made her feel a little old.

  “I’ve been out two years and don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything,” she confessed. “I wanted to really work with people, but my father’s position makes it impossible for me to have a job in the public sector. Your mother’s an ambassador, right? So you must know a little of what that overprotectiveness is like.”

  “Absolutely,” Danje said. “I’ve only recently found my own way to bring about change. I’m just like you. I want to make the Worlds a better place.”

  Leelah used the opening to bring up the D’jeering issue. “Where do you stand on the bill for penal colony reform? I understand Anu is on the fence with factions on either side of the debate.”

  Danje gazed into his cup of pinje for a moment before answering. “My mother supports your father’s bill. She believes the prison at D’jeering and others like it are an abomination, and there should be either severe reform or abolishment of the system.”

  “You don’t agree?” She probed his seeming reluctance to give his own opinion.

  He shrugged and glanced at her. “I think the dregs of society have to be housed somewhere. While some of us are focused on keeping order in the world, others seem bent on destroying it and need to be locked away.”

  “Perhaps. But do the conditions need to be so deplorable? Punishment shouldn’t include enforced labor on starvation rations in cold, lightless cells, should it? Wouldn’t efforts at rehabilitation be more useful in the long run?”

  “I think…that this topic is way too heavy for a party.” Danje shot her his sunshine grin and grabbed her hand. “Let’s dance. And maybe, after a little while, we can find someplace more private to continue our conversation.” His lowered eyelids let her know that more discussion was the last thing on his mind.

  Having fun and pushing her father’s diplomatic platform didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. When the party quieted down and everyone was relaxed, she’d find opportunities to promote her father’s agenda.

  Leelah abandoned her lobbying and allowed Danje to pull her onto the dance floor, where they engaged in another hot and heavy faux fuck, their bodies writhing. She shimmied against him, her boobs grazing his chest. Her nipples were as hard as diamonds, threatening to poke holes through the material of her bikini top, and her pussy pulsed in time to the music. There would be sex tonight. Pretty boy Danje would be a great lay, she had no doubt. But as gorgeous as he was, she couldn’t stop picturing Ja-hun’s jet-black hair and eyes and raw-boned features. She turned her back on her partner to rub her ass against him, the better to imagine her bodyguard in Danje’s place. Her eyes half closed as she twisted and thrust, getting into her fantasy of Ja-hun.

  When she saw the man himself approaching across the dance floor, her eyes flew open. Was she imagining things? She blinked, but the large, dark figure didn’t disappear. Nope. He was really there.

  Ja-hun looked like an ominous black cloud against a rainbow, his monochromatic white shirt and dark suit a complete contrast to the butterfly colors and naked flesh of the party guests. They parted before him like he was a plague carrier, and Leelah’s heart nearly stopped at the thunderous expression on his rock-hard face as he strode toward her.

  “Oh, shenje!”

  * * * * *

  The girl was practically fucking her partner right there on the dance floor. A surge of heated fury and extreme lust swept through Ja-hun as he crossed the room toward his errant charge. Leelah had stopped thrusting her ass toward her pretty-boy partner, and stood staring at Ja-hun, openmouthed. He stopped directly in front of her, schooling his expression to cool aloofness. “Miss Blaine.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  Was she kidding? He’d tracked mech-killers and deadly assassins in the course of his career. Finding one runaway party girl who’d already made it clear she wanted to go to her friend’s house wasn’t a challenge.

  “You’re going to need to come with me.” He kept his voice level and his eyes away from the tits that were practically spilling out of her tiny swimsuit top.

  “Oh, come on! Do you honestly think something’s going to happen to me here? Most of the people at this party are affiliated with politicians from one planet or another. There’s enough security personnel floating around to fend off an entire army of assassins or kidnappers. You’re supposed to be my bodyguard, so guard me, but don’t cage me like some kind of animal in my father’s house.”

  Again, Ja-hun wished her father had allowed him to share with her a few of the messages that had been transmitted to his comset. The tenor of the coms had made it clear that the person or organization had intimate knowledge of the Blaines’ lives and would as soon kill Leelah as kidnap her to make the point that they could strike anywhere at any time. The girl was merely a card in their show of power. Ja-hun had a gut feeling a member of this group might be part of the president’s household, and since he didn’t really feel comfortable leaving Leelah alone in her own house, he certainly wasn’t going to allow her to stay here.

  At a party like this, something could be slipped into her drink so easily. She could be killed when she went to use the bathroom or even in the middle of the crowd with so many bodies pressed together. Ja-hun had used all three of these methods at one time or another to eliminate a target. And if the author of the threats wanted to take her, that could easily happen, too.

  “I know this seems extreme, but you’ve enjoyed some free time, and now I want to get you back home.” He hoped she wouldn’t get stubborn and force him to manhandle her out to his waiting car. “I’m sorry,” he added as an afterthought.

  For a moment, he thought she was going to do exactly what he feared, throw a loud tantrum and literally dig her bare heels into the floor. Rather than toss her over his shoulder and carry her kicking and screaming from the house, he might have to consider backing down and actually spend some time at this noisy bacchanal. This girl was more trouble than Crin-tai at his worst. At least the mogul had listened when Ja-hun had warned him of danger.

  “Fine!” Her arms folded just under her breasts, pushing her cleavage even more dangerously out of the bikini cups. Considering he’d seen her entire chest bared earlier that day, he didn’t know why cleavage should seem just as provocative. “Let me get my things.” She turned away, pausing to talk to her dance partner. “Sorry, Danje. I’ve got to go.” She jerked her thumb at Ja-hun. “My bodyguard is having a meltdown.”

  After locating and slipping on her dress and sandals, Leelah walked stiffly past Ja-hun toward the door. She waved across the room at a dark-haired girl and activated her comset. “Trianne. Yeah. Sorry to leave so early. I know the party’s just getting started, but as you can see, I’m being arrested. Talk later, okay?”

  Trianne stared at Ja-hun as she waved back and her lips moved as though she was speaking into her comset.

  Leelah laughed. “Yeah, I know. Scary, yet strangely sexy.”

  Ja-hun’s heart leaped. She thinks I’m sexy. Almost immediately, he trampled the thought with a mental grind of a boot heel. Such a childish and unprofessional feeling didn’t deserve to live.

  Ja-hun gathered his focus and drew out his zynpher in case something happened between the house and the car. Of course, his
weapon was useless against snipers, so he scanned the mid- and long-range distances for any sign of a scope as he walked Leelah to the relative safety of his vehicle.

  He opened her door and watched her skirt ride up to reveal long, shapely legs as she slid into the seat. Damn, the sight of her dancing half naked, writhing against her partner’s body had been nearly as erotic as walking in on her masturbating. At the same time, he’d felt an urge to slam his fist into the other man’s face and drag Leelah away. Where were these animalistic urges coming from? He didn’t recognize himself and didn’t like the sex-addled, hormone-driven primitive he was turning into.

  His gaze still scanning the area and the sky for danger, Ja-hun slipped behind the console of his V-1 and engaged the screen. He dictated his course, and the intelchip kicked in. The car slid smoothly down the drive of the Garan estate, past the security post, which was lax as hell with this party going on, and onto the street. While skycabs flew overhead, privately owned vehicles were magnetic driven and land-bound. The V-1 ate up the miles, carrying them back to the Blaines’ presidential compound.

  “You didn’t do anything to Pratt, did you?” Leelah asked after a moment. “It wasn’t his fault that I got away. He’s good at his job, but I’m even better at getting my way.”

  Ja-hun believed that. He hadn’t reprimanded Pratt yet. He hadn’t had time. But he imagined he’d cut the man some slack. Pratt couldn’t have guessed Leelah would slip out of the house. “He should’ve followed orders. I told him to stay with you until I returned.”

  “Seriously, don’t blame him.” Her eyes widened and she looked alarmed. “I wouldn’t want him to lose his job over this.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that before you left the building.” He focused his gaze on the road. They were passing the city center, where bright holo-signs clamored for attention.