Read Braden for Free Online Page B

irises widened, blue filling the
white.
    “Damn, I wish I could have been there to see you open the
package,” he said.
    Elisa wished he could have been there too. He’d have watched
her as intently as he did now, and she’d have gasped in pleasure and flung her
arms around him in thanks. She imagined landing against his hard body, right
into his strong arms. He’d be warm and protective, and maybe he’d press a kiss
to her hair, accepting her thanks.
    As though he read her thoughts, Braden reached out and
touched her cheek. The caress was light, feather-soft, but it made her blood
sing.
    I should tell him to stop. I should demand to know why he
thinks he can put his hands on me without my permission.
    But the touch wasn’t sexual. Was it? Elisa’s mother
sometimes touched her face. Close friends did as well, and so did her spiritual
advisor. What difference did it make?
    The difference was that Braden was male, he was Shareem, and
he made Elisa’s body heat in delicious and forbidden ways.
    His touch made her feel good, not dirty, not wrong—but this
was all wrong. He should stop .
    Elisa didn’t want him to stop.
    “Pretty librarian,” Braden said in his dark voice. “I need
to ask you a question.Since you’ve already asked so many of me.”
    She supposed that was fair. “Very well.”
    His sensual tone fled as he chuckled. “ Very well .
Damn, I love how you talk.”
    “How I talk?”
    “ Very well. Mustn’t. Library systems and information
science. It turns me on, sweetheart.”
    “Why on earth should it?”
    “If you don’t know, I can’t explain.” Braden’s voice became
the seductive drawl again. “Tell me, Elisa n’Arell. Why are you celibate?
You’re not a cold woman—your body has responded to mine since the moment I met
you. So why the hell did you throw away your beautiful sensuality to meditate
on rocks? I want to know why, pretty lady.”
    Goddess, he was melting her. She wanted to lay her head on
his shoulder and confess, I don’t know. Teach me about what I’ve lost.
Please, before I die.
    “It’s an honor to be welcomed into the Way of the Sky,” she
said, her standard answer. “Being an official celibate is the highest
achievement a woman on Bor Narga can reach.”
    “Uh-huh. Sure.” Braden sensed the lie just as Elisa had
sensed his unspoken lie about the library terminal.
    He leaned toward her, his arm across the back of her chair
again, the warmth and scent of him so good. “All my secrets are in a database
somewhere, for all the world to see. But I can’t look up yours, Elisa, so you
have to tell me. Pretend you’re my lady, pretty librarian, and tell your
Shareem why you don’t want his touch.”
    * * * * *
    On the opposite side of the hill from Pas City lay a flat
plain, and on that lay Bor Narga’s main spaceport. The landing area for
shuttles that took passengers up to the liners was far enough from the
Serestine Quarter to not bother the highborn with noise, but close enough for
their convenience. The freight docks were farther from the passenger terminals,
out of sight of the rich in the Serestine Quarter and the nouveau-riche on the
lower hill called the Vistara.
    At the spaceport, a stranger stepped off a shuttle that had
come down from one of the cheaper passenger liners. He was nearly seven feet
tall, had pulled his rich brown hair into a single braid and had blue eyes. He
wore a simple tunic and leggings and carried one bag slung over his shoulder.
    Inside the stadium-sized port building, he approached one of
the many vendors and bought sun-blocking robes and a breath mask, apparatus he
hadn’t needed for twenty-five years. The lush greenery of Sirius III had never
seen a sandstorm, although the mountain ranges in the southern hemisphere could
get pretty dry. But the part of Sirius where he’d lived had been soft, sweet
and quiet.
    “Ident card.”
    A narrow-eyed patroller stopped him. Stun gun at her waist,
handheld ready, the tall woman looked