Blue Knight (8 page)

And damn, there it was, an impossibly long red carpet, running between far too many people standing and waiting for her to walk the length of it. Her father patted her hand as she gripped his sleeve. “Dad….” she moaned. This sort of limelight had never been her thing.

But then Minnie saw Duardo, standing and waiting for her at the end of the carpet, looking so impossibly handsome, tall and alive. His eyes were on her and he seemed stunned and happy to see her. His gaze was full of love.

Minnie floated down the carpet, her eyes on Duardo. She forgot about her train, the people watching her, even her father. When Duardo took her hand, she sighed. “Hi,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he murmured.

“Probably just as well, huh?”

He smiled and turned her to face the priest.

* * * * *

After dinner Olivia found herself in the same club chair, facing the same
National Geographic
and she wasn’t sure she could stand it. She considered going straight to her room but endless hours of staring at her walls wouldn’t be any better. She had read everything worth reading in the small library and the gift shop in the hotel lobby had been closed by the
insurrectos
.

Theresa had appeared among them again. Just after lunch, she had come into the bar, looked around for a while, then settled at a table by herself. She had pointedly not sat next to Daniel at the bar. But then, Olivia couldn’t remember any of Daniel’s friends openly associating with him. To do so would have given the
insurrectos
far too much leverage. Daniel would have warned each of his bed companions in turn.

Ernesto drifted over to Olivia’s chair a few minutes after she had sat down and sank onto the edge of the chair next to hers, his big hands between his knees. “She looks so despondent,” he muttered in French.

“Theresa?” Olivia clarified.

“She’s clearly upset about something,” Ernesto insisted.

“She was up all night being questioned about who she was. They came at her about it from every conceivable direction, over and over again,” Olivia pointed out. She recalled the grueling hours of questioning she had suffered through. “You would be depressed, too, if you’d had no sleep and put up with a night like that. She didn’t say anything, Ernesto, or we would not be sitting here yet again as we do every night.”

Ernest was actually wringing his hands as he watched Theresa sip at the sour punch some of them seemed to find so appealing

“Why don’t you go and talk to her?” Olivia suggested. “Gently,” she added. “She has had a rough night.”

Ernesto nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, standing up. “I will do that.” He nodded at Olivia and walked across the room to sit next to the young brunette.

Olivia hid her sigh. Ernesto needed the comfort more than Theresa did. She picked up the
National Geographic
magazine again and pretended to read it, while she tried to figure out how she could invent some novelty for the evening. She was in danger of going stir crazy and this latest thing with Daniel merely underlined the problem.

She was aware of him. Like metal filings could feel the pull of a magnet, from across the room she could feel him sitting at the corner of the bar as usual, even though she had not once looked at him. Despite not sparing him a glance, his presence was affecting everything she did, from how she sat to the way she pushed stray hairs from her face. Even as she was conversing with Ernesto, she had been wondering if he was watching her talk to the man, if he cared that she had other concerns besides him.

It bothered Olivia that she was obsessing even a little bit about Daniel. Yes, she had so little to do here and she might hold that up as an excuse for her mind leaping upon the one truly novel event in the last few weeks and clinging like a limpet. But that didn’t come close to explaining why her body was joining the party. Was it simply a matter of forbidden fruit? Not only was a liaison distinctly high-risk in this situation, she was so clearly not his type to begin with, lusting after him was safe. She could even tease him and know he would do nothing about it.

Olivia stared blankly at the open page of the magazine, her eyes unfocused, as she considered this new idea. Hadn’t she made absolutely certain this morning that she was invisible to him, before she had taunted him sexually with a breakdown of her preferred underwear choices?

She closed her eyes, self-loathing running thick through her veins. She had been playing it safe with a new toy. How despicable.

She looked up at the bar, searching him out, hating herself. But Daniel wasn’t sitting on his usual stool. Olivia scanned the room quickly and found him sitting at the same low table as Theresa and Ernesto. His head was close to Theresa’s as they talked quietly. Ernesto was listening, but clearly sitting back and separated from the two.

Something stabbed hard and sharp in Olivia’s chest. Cold tendrils drilled through her. Even before she had processed it as an action she was going to take, she was on her feet and moving toward the bar. The barman was native Vistarian and young, which made him abundantly good-looking, with dark eyes, dark hair and olive skin. He watched her approach and smiled a cautious welcome.

“Dry martini,” she told him. “But put it in a soda glass,” she added in Spanish, dropping her voice.

His eyes slid toward the guard at the end of the bar and back. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said quietly.

“No olive,” she added as he walked away. She sat on the stool closest to her and stretched out her legs under the foot bar of the next. Her long legs weren’t earning her any attention tonight, clearly.

The barman slid the tall, plain glass of liquid in front of her and stepped back with a nod. She picked up the glass. “Saluté,” she murmured to no one in particular. She drained the glass in three big swallows. It stung going down and burned in her gut and the back of her throat. Good.

She pushed the glass at the barman. “Another,” she said in Spanish, blinking to clear the tears of pain from her eyes.

* * * * *

Téra Alejandra Peña y Santos smoothed down the fabric of her bridesmaid’s dress and blessed Calli Escobedo once more. The gown was glorious, an apricot-colored raw silk creation that made her feel wonderful, even while taking nothing away from the bride. If she had to wear a dress, this was the dress to wear, for it was the perfect tool to help her seduce a man. The dress clung to every curve, while sweeping the floor with modest drapes. It made the most of her figure.

She spotted Lucas, finally, at the table where the drinks were laid out, at the far end of the temporary flooring, just after the formal speeches. Hastily, she leaned over to Calli. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she murmured and slipped out of her seat. As the second bridesmaid at the head table, it was possible her absence wouldn’t even be noticed. She tried to hurry across the floor without looking like she was rushing, her heart thudding.

Lucas was pouring himself a glass of red wine while talking to other officers. His back was to her. Some conversation about Duardo’s exploits at sea that day, with the newly formed aquatic teams. Téra barely processed it. It seemed more and more the men spoke of her brother, or perhaps she was simply around them more and noticed the chatter, like one did when focused upon a subject.

She took the few seconds to calm herself and appreciated yet again the width of Lucas’ shoulders and the hard, trim hips, even as she was grateful for the conversation that kept him at the table and his back turned so that he did not notice her approach.

“I’ll have one of those, too, please,” she told him.

He didn’t even turn his head. “Don’t you have your own waiters slaving to your every attention at the head table, little one?” His face in profile was sharply delineated in the light from the huge bonfires that had been lit on either side of the floor, showing the high forehead and gleam of his brushed-back hair. Captain Lucas De la Cruz was almost savagely masculine. His body was corded with muscle and sinewy tendons, as Téra well knew from watching him working in the camp, when a generator had got bogged in wet sand and he’d stripped to the waist and dug out the tire when his men had not worked fast enough for his liking. He drove himself and his men hard. From watching Lucas De la Cruz for the last few weeks, Téra knew that in both his mind and body there was no quarter given anywhere for the softer passions. Everything about him was unyielding.

Except his mouth was made for the giving and receiving of pleasure. The lips were full and sometimes, when he was deep in thought, he pursed them in a way that made them pout. At moments like that, Téra wanted those lips to press against her body. Anywhere. Everywhere. She was in a silent, hidden fever to have Lucas De la Cruz and had been since he had hauled her, literally, to her feet three weeks ago.

She had been climbing the wooden stairs from the army camp to the big house, her mind on the tasks Duardo had asked her to complete that day, following the steady trail of people up the long flights. There was always a river of people going to and from the house and everyone had learned to stay to the right. Because the speed of the climb was determined by the slowest person in the line, Téra had learned patience was the only way to tackle these stairs. She had also learned to multitask. She often climbed them while reading or scribbling notes, keeping her right hip brushing the guardrail as a guide.

There were two landings, both of them switching the stairs back upon themselves, making the flight a three-phase climb up the steep, sage-covered hill. Téra had been deeply involved in figuring out a better training schedule for Duardo’s men when, at the second landing, closest to the top, someone had come around the landing on their way down, bearing something large. It wasn’t back-breaking, but heavy enough to catch Téra’s left elbow and wrench her around.

Caught completely by surprise, for her attention had been on her notepad, Téra spun on the narrow step she had been standing on. She had already lifted a foot to step up onto the landing. Her notebook flew from her hand and down the steps as her arm thumped up against the person behind her, on the next step down. She might have hit him in the face with her arm but he reacted quicker than a cat, grabbing her wrist to stop it from hitting him, ducking under her arm, thrusting his foot upon the next step and leaning forward to catch her weight as she fell.

She landed against him, her heart going a million miles a minute, with no clear idea what had happened for she had been so thoroughly absorbed in what she had been doing.

“I have you,” he told her, his other hand lifting to her waist.

As the people up and down the line murmured and muttered concerned comments, she drew a recovering breath. Her chief impression was how solid the man was. She was resting against a rock. A nicely upholstered rock. Her breasts were pushing against him. He smelled male and good.

Her heart had been slowing. Now it seemed to skip a beat and gallop again. Her nipples hardened. Téra pushed against his shoulders, trying to lift herself away from him but gravity, adrenaline, the acute angle she was leaning at and her shaky muscles wouldn’t give her the power she needed to do it.

His hands came around her waist. Both of them. She was lifted and placed back onto her feet like a child, not on the step she had been on, but on the landing. He climbed the two steps up to her level and shepherded her out of the line of people waiting to move on, so that traffic could continue on its way up the hill.

For the first time she saw Lucas’ face, with its relentless planes, almost cruel jawline and the unexpectedly soft lips. His black eyes moved over her face as she stared at him, then travelled down her body, examining her. The frank appraisal had felt like a lover’s caress, even though she knew he was checking her for injuries. She had clenched the stair rail, fighting back a moan. Her body was hot and pulsing for him, this captain.

“Thank you, Captain…?” She managed to speak more or less evenly, but her voice was hopelessly hoarse with arousal.

“Captain Lucas De la Cruz, at your service, Miss…?”

“Téra,” she said cautiously. It had only taken her a week to learn that her connection to Duardo and through him to Nicolás Escobedo was one many people would exploit if they were aware of it.

His eyes narrowed. “Miss Téra,” he repeated. People brushed past him on the small landing and he stepped farther out of the way of the main stream of traffic. It brought him closer to her.

Her heart leapt again, thudding against her chest. She could barely pull her gaze away from his lips.

“You should perhaps not read as you climb these stairs. I might not be here next time to catch you.”

“That would be a pity,” she breathed and dared to look up into his eyes.

Someone thrust her notebook into her hand, interrupting her, making her look away. She murmured her thanks, gripping the now-tattered pages. Then she looked up again.

He was staring at her and Téra found breathing suddenly difficult. Molten lust pooled in her body, centered between her legs. The wanton sensation spread out through her limbs, making them heavy and hard to lift. She trembled.

“The pity would be falling for me,” he said, his voice a low rasp.

She reached out for his hand where it lay on the railing next to where she gripped it. Her fingers shook as she tugged at his wrist. He let her lift his hand and place it over her upper breast, so that he could feel for himself her runaway heart and trembling body. The touch of his big, hot hand, even with her directing it, was electrifying. She caught her breath, drawing it in quickly in a gasp. “Too late, Lucas,” she told him.

He snatched his hand away and flexed it, like he had been burned. “Adrenaline,” he assured her. “You just had a scare. Go fixate on someone else, little girl.” He made to step past her, but the human chain shuffling past wouldn’t let him merge with it so easily. He cursed under his breath.

“I compete in triathlons,” Téra told him. “I know what an adrenaline rush feels like.”

He muttered something.

“What?” she asked.

He glanced at the people around them, then at her. Then, in English, he said carefully, “I would only hurt one like you. Stay away from me, do you understand?”