Pure Desire [Pure 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (11 page)

Noor shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the revelation surfaced.

Mr. Deverill looked unsettled. “We are not here to bicker with each other, Channing and Allura. Lord knows Matt Graham will incite enough chaos into our lives that could conceivably last a lifetime. I will attempt to handle him civilly, however. If he pushes the issue, my actions will take another turn.”

Fawn looked at her husband. “Are you speaking in theory, dear?”

“I’m speaking eloquently.”

There it was said, well spoken and handled with the aplomb of a man familiar with settling matters with polished poise.

* * * *

Mr. and Mrs. Deverill retired to bed. Allura walked out of the room without giving Noor a backward glance. He wanted to go after her and smooth things over, but Channing offered brandy and cigars, and he felt obligated to accept his hospitality. They retired to the drawing room, and when they were barely over the threshold, all pretense evaporated, and Channing got straight to the matter of the contention he knew was building between them.

It was bound to come down to this eventually, and he hoped they could have a politically correct discussion. “What the hell did you do to my sister?”

“I don’t care for cigars, but I wouldn’t mind a brandy.”

When Channing handed him a glass, Noor said, “You brought me to your home, remember?”

“Not to take advantage of my sister.”

“Contrary to your belief, nothing happened between me and Allura that should alarm you.”

Channing knit his eyebrows together. “I’m not sure your answer is pacifying and too damned subjective for my taste.” He sipped his drink, brooded. “I know my sister, and she wants my head for a reason. Maybe she blames me for me bringing you home and something else ridiculous. I stopped trying to figure out the female illogical thought process a long time ago. What I do know is she is simmering about something. She was vicious tonight, more so then usual, and I was the motivation behind her attack.”

“She does have claws,” Noor said.

“Mother and Father dote on Allura to excess. Rarely, if ever, does she hear the word no. She isn’t a brat, mind you, but reared with more freedom than most females in these parts. Because of this, she tends to be reckless, I’m afraid, and does things without thinking her actions through.”

“I have two sisters, twins, actually, and Allura appears to be like Lyric. So, trust me when I say I understand your assessment completely. Lyric keeps my parents on their toes. She is strong willed, infinitely determined not to be governed, and thus, repeatedly finds herself in avoidable situations if she were to stop and think before reacting. My father had hoped marrying her husband Solomon would squelch some of her reckless tendencies.”

“What is the other one like?”

“Lovey is opposite Lyric in every way. Timid, fragile, more apt to overanalyze a situation and proceed with unwarranted caution to the point I’m afraid her life is stuck in tedium. She lacks an adventurous nature and any spontaneity, guarded to a fault. Sometimes I wish Lovey would try to live a little. You are so not her type, Channing.”

Channing grinned. “You told her no, didn’t you?”

He was fully prepared to take all the blame if it came down to it. “Things didn’t go that far,” he said noncommittally.

“Jesus, I’m not sure I want to hear anymore.” Channing finished off his drink and sat the glass aside on a nearby table. He folded his arms, leaned back, and rested against the console. He gave Noor a forbidding glare. “I don’t expect whatever
didn’t
happen to occur again. Allura can be impulsive and unmindful of what a scandal you two could cause. We are not in the city, and here a bad reputation sticks with a person, especially females. The last thing I want for my sister is an entanglement that will result in endless gossip because you can’t or won’t control yourself. There is Suzy and a number of other females at your disposal. Allura is not one of them.”

Noor put down his drink and stood up. His expression implacable, he said, “I understand your concern for your Allura. However, the last person who lectured me was my father and it was a while ago for me, to my recall. I don’t take orders very well, just so you know. Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to finish some business before it gets too late.”

“Keep your hands off my sister, or we will have a major problem, Noor.”

Noor paused at the door, turned around, and said, “We already have an issue, Channing.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Noor spoke with quiet restraint. “That is the last time you will threaten me.”

Chapter Ten

A faint bleep sounded from his saddle satchel, which he had tossed carelessly on the couch and forgotten about until now. He went and retrieved it, rummaged inside, and found the small oval device the size of an egg tucked in the inner lining where he had hidden it.

He sat on the sofa. He put the communicator on the table and touched the flat tip with his finger. Compartments opened like wings. In the center was a raised surface and an illuminant dial with symbols.

He punched in the coordinates to call the authority command center on Sanguine. While he waited for a connection, he thought about his assignment. He didn’t think for one minute it would be easy, but what he hadn’t counted on was Allura. He had envisioned the Agaci legacy, appearance, persona as things someone would normally imagine about a person. Everything he thought was dead wrong. A sassy-mouthed, fiery, lovely had no part in his imagination.

The dial blinked and connected. He sat forward—the device disconnected.

His preference was to travel with all the modern equipment Sanguine offered, technical gadgets including his interlink implant, which helped keep him connected to his family’s network and had frequencies with the authority offices. There was no way he could have kept it without drawing suspicions and a hell of a lot questions, so he had it surgically removed.

What that left him with was an ancient, unreliable transmitter with problems holding an open line, which stalled and sometimes froze. Then he would have to reboot the damned thing often.

“Come on…” He glanced at the dashing lights running through a sequence.

It was his fault for not thinking the mission through. He focused on the technicalities—at the forefront, not becoming plastic wrap—he foolishly didn’t consider anything else major. This wasn’t the first time he went undercover and had to assimilate into another environment and perform out of character, so he hadn’t realized traveling back in time had other nuances that would present a problem. Being inconspicuous was the easy part. Legend was innocently uncomplicated compared to his world. What the era had to offer was sufficient and one-dimensional for the time, everything unhurried and taken in stride. There were no great ego-powers trying to overtake their lives. The menaces of this world paled up against Sanguine’s mayhem and the chaos that habituated Sanguine daily.

Then there was the result of completing his assignment. What it entailed left a sour taste in his mouth. The more time he spent with Allura and her family, the more bitter the pill became to swallow. The effort of it left a huge lump in his throat just to think about it. He would be responsible for ripping Allura from her world and putting her into the arms of strangers, and he hadn’t quite figured out whether they had her best intentions at heart. Something else he missed or overlooked, he thought wearily. Either way, he was solely responsible if this entire endeavor turned out to be another underhanded government deal, which meant Allura would become collateral damage, a pawn to barter in the power struggle between planets.

Allura was the intended to Oridus. Her child held the power to dethrone Emperor Agaci. An unborn child, he thought sourly, realizing somewhere within the scheme of things she would be impregnated. What bothered him more than anything was how the guardians intended this to happen—artificial insemination or the good old-fashioned way?

The device connected.

Sterns’s voice came through the microspeaker. “You were expected to check in hours ago. What fucking delayed you from making contact?”

“I had technical difficulties. I’m not working with state of the art equipment, sir.” He lied and didn’t feel an ounce of remorse.

“What about the target? Have you identified her or not?”

“I can’t confirm the target at this point.”

“Meaning what, Rynoir? Don’t you dare try to jerk my chain with half-assed responses.”

“Surveillance is tedious in this time period. A brain scan isn’t possible. You have to ask strangers many questions, and some become instantly suspicious, not to mention tight-lipped. Their nature is protective, sir. The townspeople are serious about a right to privacy, especially when questions are being asked by a stranger.”

Sterns was breathing heavy and hard before sighing disgruntled. “Do I have to remind you your window of opportunity is short, Rynoir? You don’t have days to dick around.”

Noor pinched his lips. “I’m aware of that, sir. Under the circumstances, I’m working as diligently as possible to identify the target and bring her back quickly. This place is not my idea of a vacation, if that’s what you are thinking.”

“You don’t have a clue what I’m thinking. My foremost thought is you’re feeding me some bullshit. Now, you get your ass moving and handle matters swiftly, or I will screw your career so hard you will feel like my size twelve boot is secured in your ass the rest of your employment at the agency. Capiche?”

“When I have something to report, I will make contact,” he said, and then disconnected. He had about enough of Sterns’s bullshit.

The communicator bleeped. He ignored it, shut down the device, and shoved it back into his bag.

An unsettling feeling surfaced about the government’s intentions. He considered the niggling thoughts again and revisited the information about the mission. No matter how he summoned it up, his doubts still won out.

* * * *

Noor stood on the porch and leaned against the railing, taking in his surroundings. He took shallow breaths until the light and woozy feeling the thick air caused eased. He was accustomed to pureaire on Sanguine. The temperature-controlled mechanism used to maintain the degrees necessary to keep your body cool and pleasant, no matter the weather. The weather at home was so different from Texas it didn’t leave you to suffer under the sweltering heat, which left him feeling drained. He went through three shirts already, and finally didn’t bother putting one on.

The air was one nuisance he had yet to get used to, and the ritual they called bathing. He wasn’t averse to the practice. For the preservation of natural resources, Sanguine outlawed using water to cleanse when he was young, so long ago he forgot about its use in such a manner.

At first, the feel of running the sudsy cloth back and forth over his skin felt strange. The action made him aware of the sensitivity of his flesh, attuned him to the constant stroking, and eventually he began to enjoy the way his skin jumped alive, tingled, and he admitted a measure of arousal resulted from the cleansing. He relaxed, closed his eyes, leaned back against the basin wall, and concentrated on the motion and his reaction to slowly dragging the towel over his nakedness. When he wrapped his cock in the hot moisture, stroked it, and visions of Allura popped into his head, it intensified the experience. To the end, he jacked off and erupted into the water violently, feeling the ejaculation in his toes and making them curl.

Then irritation consumed him when he saw his cock breaking the surface, the head fully exposed, still hard, aching, unsatisfied with his effort.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t masturbated before. He done so countless times when he wasn’t able to have female contact while on assignment. Normally it eased the tension in his cock and offered some relief, but not this time, and he remained with a stiff dick he doubted would deflate until he released in the object of his attention. The stunning Ms. Deverill, mother to the next Intended of Oridus, he feared would keep him continuously hard and suffering until he fucked her and got her out of his system.

Noor shifted, grimacing at the hard-on rising in his jeans. He worked to concentrate on something besides Allura. The more he thought of her, the harder he was getting. That was not good. So bad, so damned bad, it sucked in the worse way. He never had a problem separating lust from business, until now. He had to get her out of his head. He looked up, noticing their one moon glowed brighter than the two on his planet. No hazy aftermath diluted the light that happened when manufacturers released impurities into the air and invalidated one of the reasons for the creation of pureaire.

A cow’s moo caught his attention and caused Noor to change direction and stare across the open plains at the large, four-legged animals that sauntered lazily in the pasture. He had eaten one of those for dinner, and he was still trying to wrap his head around why people consumed their pets. He knew cows weren’t literally pets, like the domesticated animals on Sanguine that lived in people’s houses, but he considered the concept the same.

He heard a moo again. “Moo,” he repeated, testing the word on his lips. He did his best imitation, and then grinned, feeling silly. He had no idea what the term meant.

The soft pitter-patter of slippers and the swish of cloth brushing over the wood boards reached his ears. He could have disappeared inside, locked the door, and pretended he was asleep. That would have been the sensible thing to do. With Allura, he had long since lost his sanity and instead stood waiting for her to come around the corner.