Lady Lure (25 page)

“I haven’t been this relaxed in years,” he
said.

“I am glad to know you are happy,” she
snapped. “I, on the other hand, am still hungry.”

“I want you to be starving,” he whispered,
leaning closer. “Aching with emptiness. Absolutely ravenous. As I
am.”

She could only stare at him, her emotions
seething, her cheeks uncomfortably warm. She would have leapt to
her feet to run away from him, but Halvo prevented her from moving.
He did not take her hand or her arm. He simply placed one of his
hands on her knee, then let it slide slowly up her inner thigh.

“You are playing a game with me,” she
said.

“It is no game, I assure you. Perri, you have
been trained to gratify a man’s need instantly, with no regard for
what you might want. I would like you to begin to appreciate the
full range of possibilities between a man and a woman.”

“Another Demarian custom?” She sounded
spiteful, but she did not care. Looking down at him she could see
that he did want her. She lifted her own hand to lay it on him.

“The custom of a man who cares about his
woman,” he said mildly. Catching her hand before it could make
contact with his eagerness, he lifted her fingers to his lips.
“Self-restraint can be exciting. Don’t you agree?”

How could cool gray eyes hold so much heat?
How could a quiet voice throb with tightly leashed passion? Halvo
got to his feet, pulling Perri up with him.

“I do think it is about time to put Rolli to
bed for the night,” he said, “since I prefer privacy.” Still
holding Pern’s hand he began to walk across the meadow to the
Space Dragon,
where Rolli stood beside the ship, watching
them.

Perri held back, dragging on Halvo’s hand
until he paused. The day was drawing to a close, the sun sinking
lower in the western sky, while both moons had risen. Over the sea
a soft purple haze was forming and on land the shadows were growing
longer and deeper.

“Do you think they will come for us tonight?”
Perri asked.

“I hope not.” His teeth flashed white. “I
intend to feast on stale bread and stream water. And on you. I have
been dreaming all day of your shining hair strewn across those pale
blue sheets in my cabin.”

“What?” Perri cried, thinking his words were
yet another piece of teasing. “Even when you were saving us from
the Regulans?”

“Especially then,” he said. “I thought about
your soft body and your hot kisses – and your impatient eagerness –
and I knew it was not time for us to die just yet.”

“Oh, Halvo.” She could see how serious he was
and her heart melted, every bit of irritation with his delaying
tactics vanishing in a wave of tenderness.

“My sweet, precipitous enchantress, can you
wait just a little longer?” he asked.

“I will try,” she whispered, “though my knees
may give way at any moment.”

“My own problems lie in other areas,” he
murmured, his face alight with laughter and another, warmer emotion
that sent a thrill through her and made her tremble.

Halvo’s method of putting Rolli to bed
consisted of pushing the disconnect button, after which he and
Perri lifted the robot back into the
Space Dragon,
settling
it in the cockpit for the night. That done, Perri expected Halvo to
take her in his arms at last and lead her to his cabin or hers.

“A bath is next on the schedule,” he said,
peeling off his jacket as he spoke.

“A bath?” Perri said blankly. Her own hands
were at her belt buckle in expectation of immediate disrobing. She
tried to remind herself that Halvo had his own ways of doing
things, but she wanted him. She was quivering with longing. And he
knew it.

“There is plenty of water in the stream.” His
eyes were glittering when they met hers.

“That water is icy cold,” she said.

“Stimulating.”

“Admiral, you are a sadist.” She saw the
smile he quickly repressed as he stepped toward her.

“Actually, I have recently become something
of a sensualist.” He wound his hands through her hair, pulling her
closer. She put up both hands to fend him off and they landed on
his bare chest. Beneath her fingertips she could feel his strong
heartbeat.

“If you grow cold in the water, I will
discover a way to warm you quickly,” he promised.

“Couldn’t we just stay warm, as we are right
now?”

“We were both overheated during the landing,”
he said. “A bath will be refreshing.”

“Will it stiffen your resolve?” Pushing away
from him, Perri headed for the private cabins. Behind her she heard
his full-throated laughter, but he did not follow her as she hoped
he would.

“My resolve is firm enough already.” Halvo
moved to the exit hatch. “Don’t be long, Perri. Daylight is waning
fast.”

To her own surprise she thought of a clever
response to his words, but she did not make it. She was not used to
jokes and teasing, and she was not yet certain just how far she
could go with Halvo. More than that, she was startled by the
workings of her own mind. Halvo was bringing out a sense of humor
in her that she had not known she possessed.

In her own cabin she undressed, and then,
recalling Halvo’s remarks about the blue sheets, she pulled the top
sheet off her bunk and wrapped it around herself in lieu of a robe.
She had no personal belongings with her except the clothes she wore
by day. All of her intimate needs – cleansers, comb, tooth
cleaners, and such – came from the regulation supplies kept in all
spaceships. For the first time, Perri wished those supplies
included perfume and face paint.

On leaving the ship a short time later she
discovered that both moons were high in the sky, though the sun was
still shining above the horizon, sending long rays of orange-gold
light across the sea, turning the foaming whitecaps to gold and
touching the land with mellow late day warmth.

The air was still soft and warm, but the
stream was cold and shallow. Halvo stood in rushing water up to his
knees with his back to Perri. She dipped a tentative toe into the
water and shivered. The stream wended its way across the meadow
from the higher land in the south and after feeling it, Perri was
convinced the water had only recently melted from the ice and snow
on the tallest mountains. Undeterred by the chill, Halvo was
splashing water about, washing himself with his hands.

Perri dropped the blue sheet and stepped into
the stream. At once her teeth began to chatter, but she went to her
knees and stuck her head under the surface, then began to scrub at
her hair. She had to admit it was an invigorating experience,
especially when Halvo noticed her presence and came to help her.
His hands were gentle on her back, sliding along her spine,
downward to cup her hips. He pulled her against him and though the
rest of him was as cool as Pern’s own skin, the rigid part that
prodded at her buttocks was deliciously warm.

With Perri leaning against his chest, Halvo’s
hands slipped around to caress her abdomen before moving upward to
her breasts. There he played until Perri was gasping and it seemed
to her the stream must be boiling. Halvo’s lips were on her
shoulder and her throat, her head was thrown back against his
shoulder, her hips were writhing. When he let his hands slide
downward again, across the water-slicked skin of her abdomen and
into the heated place between her thighs, Perri cried out her
raging need.

“So soon?” he murmured, tasting the edge of
her ear with his tongue. “Well, then, if you insist.”

“I must insist? If I did not want you so
much, I would hate you,” she said, pulling away from him.

“It is your uncontrolled passion I find so
irresistible.” With an unexpected swoop of his arms he lifted her
off her feet and lightly set her upon the grass before climbing out
of the stream himself.

Perri stared at him, surprised by his easy
movements, waiting for the inevitable complaint about his back, but
all he did was bend to spread out the sheet she had dropped. Halvo
lay down on the sheet, waiting for her. Perversely, she decided to
make him wait. Realizing that her long hair was dripping, Perri
began to twist it, squeezing the water out onto the grass.

“When you are ready, come to me,” Halvo said,
his patience apparently still intact, though his readiness was
indisputable. “Come freely because you want what I can give you and
because you want to give me what I so desire.”

How could she hesitate when her every sense
urged her to throw herself upon him, when she was half mad with the
need to feel his hardness inside her?

“You are under no obligation to me,” he
said.

She tightened the coil of her hair in an
absentminded way, wringing from it the last few drops of water
while she regarded his naked length stretched out in the blue
twilight. Awaiting her. Wanting her. Refusing to take her unless
she wanted him, too. And she understood that while he could find
physical release in her, for him there would be no soaring joy
unless she was with him in heart and mind when they came
together.

“There is no greater gift than the gift of
freedom,” Perri said, falling to her knees beside him. “Halvo, my
longing for you is a constant ache, not just in my body, but in my
heart, too.” Perhaps she should not have said so much. She thought
she saw a shadow pass over his face at her words. Or perhaps it was
only the deepening evening light.

Putting out one hand she let her fingertips
trace the contour of his mouth. His eyes reflected the silver glow
of the moons above them.

“I want to be one with you,” she whispered.
“It is my wish, my own true desire. There is no coercion in what I
do here. I only ask that you wait no longer, for if you delay, I
think I will faint and then I will be of no use to either of
us.”

With a broken laugh he seized her in his arms
and rolled with her across the sheet. Her hair came undone from its
tight coil and lay in dark, damp strands over the pale fabric. As
the sun sank lower there was a growing chill to the early evening
air, but Halvo’s mouth was warm and his hands seemed dipped in fire
when he caressed her. And then at last the empty, aching place in
her was filled with Halvo’s hot, masculine strength. Perri’s hands
clutched his shoulders, her lips opened to his thrusting tongue.
Her hips moved in rhythm with his, slowly, gently at first, but
after a while with a hard need, a wild, ecstatic passion. Her cry
rent the still night, followed immediately by Halvo’s shout of
triumph. And for a little while they were truly one, joined in
freely chosen joy.

* * * * *

Perri lay beside Halvo, looking up at the
heavenly dome above them. The moons hung side by side at the very
zenith of the dark sky, their combined light washing the meadow
with silver, making the water in the stream glitter as it
flowed.

The scene was so peaceful and Perri was so
relaxed and content that at first she paid no attention to the
fluttering movement just at the corner of her vision. When it
happened again, she turned her head with a lazy sigh, expecting to
watch a cloud drifting across the sky to partially obscure one of
the moons. But the undefined shadow was too low to be a cloud, and
it was moving too rapidly. There was more than one shadow.
Squinting against the direct moonlight, Perri watched the strange
objects for only a moment more before she nudged Halvo.

“Wake up,” she whispered urgently. “Something
is coming. I can’t see it – them – clearly. Halvo, do you hear the
noise?”

“Where?” He was wide awake and on his feet in
an instant.

Perri could see that there were three objects
flying across the sky. They appeared to be heading directly toward
the meadow. The noise they made told her what they were, but
recognition did not lessen her fear. Her eyes still on the sky, she
scrambled to her feet.

“Birds?” she cried, moving into the
protection of Halvo’s arm. “I have never seen birds so huge. They
must be dangerous.”

“I do not think so.” Halvo was amazingly
calm. “My brother told me once about the birds that live on this
planet. They are intelligent and telepathic.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Not on this world. In the Empty Sector few
things are impossible.” Dropping his arm from her shoulder Halvo
said, “Stand a little apart from me and hold out your hands as I am
doing.”

“Why?” Perri was still afraid the giant birds
would prove to be enemies. Now that they were closer she estimated
that, if one of the three were to alight before them, it would
prove to be as tall as Halvo. She could not guess how wide the
wings were.

“So they can see what we are,” Halvo said.
“Think of an island in the middle of a lake, Perri. Think of a
settlement called Home.”

“I don’t know what the colony looks like,”
she cried.

“It doesn’t matter. Just concentrate your
thoughts. The birds ought to receive some sort of message from us,
and they may pass the message on to Tarik.”

She tried to do as he wanted. She tried to
think of the birds as friendly creatures, though their size
frightened her. She fought to overcome her distaste for the very
idea of telepathy, which was forbidden within the Jurisdiction. Nor
could Perri deny her reluctance to be discovered by Halvo’s
brother. Still, this was what Halvo wanted. For his sake, she would
do as he asked.

Slowly the birds circled the meadow, turned,
and came back, flying closer to the ground on this second pass.
Perri imagined the lead bird was aiming itself directly at her to
attack her. Near panic, she forced herself to think of a peaceful
lake with an island in the middle of it. There would be trees on
the island and a beach, perhaps a shuttlecraft to ferry the
colonists from the island to the spaceship
Kalina
in orbit
above.

She could see it! As the lead bird flew over
her head, coming so close to her that if she had the courage to do
so she could have reached up and touched its green feathers, there
came into Pern’s mind a vivid picture of a lake, an island, even a
gray Jurisdiction shuttlecraft sitting on the white sandy beach.
There was a round white building in the very center of the island,
with a row of white columns along its circumference and a domed
roof above. Then the birds and the picture were gone. Perri saw the
three winged shapes soaring off toward the east. She stared at
them, transfixed, until they had disappeared into the night.