It might’ve been her imagination, but at that moment Cade lifted his head, his nostrils flaring, and looked directly at her. She froze in shock. There was no way he could have smelled that. Was there?
He broke away from the rest of the group, motioning Jay to follow him with a jerk of his head. The human major smiled as he saw her. “Ms. Beaufort, what a pleasant surprise. You’ve not come to recall me to the Miisan’vuis. Have you?”
His expression, akin to that of a young boy who didn’t want to come in from playing just yet, made her smile and shake her head. “No. Actually… I’m here for Cade. But I brought enough, if you’d like to join us?”
Jay’s smile broadened as he clocked the sandwiches and the drinks on the grass next to her.
“Oh no I… have a thing. Thank you anyway.”
Cade frowned, looking sideways at his human friend. “No, you don’t.”
Jay’s expression set. “Yeah, I do. That debrief with General M’rln. Remember? I told you earlier.”
Cade shook his head. “No, that is tomorrow. At eleven a.m. I remember you telling me clearly.”
Elise was forced to hide her smile. Cameron had said that while the emperor, Daaynal, was more than adept with nuances and subtext in conversation, the rest of the Lathar were literal to the point of obsession. It seemed their society didn’t have much use for any kind of doublespeak, not unless they were at the higher ranks and levels of Latharian Society. And it seemed Cade was far from that, not that it made a difference in how she felt about him.
“You got me,” Jay admitted. “I recognize a date when I see one, and I don’t want to be a third wheel. Besides I was going to go irritate my father-in-law. It’ll be fun. Catch you on the flipside!” he said, giving them a jaunty little salute before striding off toward the nearby access building.
Cade watched him go, a small frown between his brows as he turned back to Elise. “Humans confuse me sometimes. Irritating the emperor’s champion is like baiting a Krin, suicidal at the best of times. Yet Jay seems to think it's high sport?”
She chuckled and patted the grass next to her. As signals went, she couldn’t get more obvious than she wanted him to sit next to her.
“It’s… just a thing we do? If we’re fond of somebody, we’ll often banter with them and insult them… Men will anyway. Women are a little more subtle than that.”
He arched an eyebrow as he levered himself gracefully to the ground next to her. She couldn’t help but watch out of the corner of her eye, her higher brain functions on hold as she paused to admire the lean, masculine grace of his body. She'd never known a man who moved the way he did. It was both thrilling with the power and lethality she knew he was capable of, and exciting because she knew how he used that power and grace in the pursuit of pleasure.
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a selection,” she said, sitting forward as to spread the sandwiches and other snacks out in front of him. She’d garnered a few odd looks when she collected so much food, but she’d ignored them all. It wasn’t often that she had to collect food from the canteen.
She usually ate with Cam, or from one of the VIP dining rooms. But she hadn’t wanted anyone to report back to her brother, so this time she’d used the main dining hall and grabbed takeout food instead of ordering anything specific.
“You did this for me?”
Surprise showed stark on his handsome face and then he smiled. It was wide and filled with genuine happiness. He paused in the middle of perusing the food to look up at her. The front of his hair had flopped down over his face, and she couldn’t resist the urge to brush it back. After last night, she figured she could claim the right. Couldn’t she?
“It pleases me that you brought me courting gifts.”
Selecting one of the sandwich packs, he settled back, lying half on his side on the grass next to her with his long legs stretched out in front of him. For a moment she was fixated by the size of his feet. They were huge in his boots. And… yeah, that was one saying that was one hundred percent accurate.
“I have some in mind myself, but I will need a little time. This is not my world and I’m not familiar with where to get supplies.”
“Huh?” she asked, his words registering. “Courting gifts? You don’t have to get me anything.”
He finished off a sandwich in a few large bites, watching her with a smile in his eyes. They crinkled at the corners appealingly, and for a second she had a vision of what he would look like when he was older. Her breath caught in her throat, heat pooling low in her belly. He’d make a very sexy alien silver fox.
And… she wanted that. Wanted to wake up like they had this morning, wanted to see his face change throughout the years. Wanted to spend a lifetime together with a desperation she hadn’t realized she was capable of.
“Of course I do,” he said, reaching out to slide a hand into her hair.
He pulled her closer until his lips almost grazed hers. The move was so panty-wettingly sexy that if she didn’t know him, she’d swear he was some kind of trained alien lothario, but she knew better. It was just him. Just Cade. He really was that sexy.
Reality came crashing back. She might want to spend a lifetime with him but he was an alien, bound by rules she didn’t understand. If she wasn’t careful, she could easily fall in love with him and then when he found his match, she would be left heartbroken. She had to protect herself.
Her cheeks flushed as he broke the kiss, the murmur of voices getting her attention. She looked around, Cade’s hand still in her hair, and groaned. Phillip Courtney and her ex Josh were headed across the parade square, sparring pads in their hands. She knew they’d seen her and Cade from the easy grin on Phillip’s face and the tightness of Josh’s jaw.
Of all the people to turn up here and now, she’d never even thought of Josh. Although she knew he was assigned to the base, he was an intelligence analyst and his clearance only extended to the intelligence suites over on the separate west side of the base. To see him here was definitely Phillip’s doing.
“What’s wrong?”
Cade’s hand tightened in her hair. Not in a cruel, or controlling way. More it was like he cradled her against his bare chest protectively. For someone who’d had to watch her own back most of her life, it was a heady feeling. One something inside her craved with a passion. For a moment she wanted to curl against his bigger, hard body, close her eyes and revel in it.
“Don’t look now,” she murmured. “But that’s my ex over there.”
“X?” he murmured so that only she could hear. His breath was warm against her ear and the side of her neck. “What’s an X?”
Oh shit, that was right. The Lathar didn’t have divorce.
He didn’t stiffen or show any other sign of recognition as he swept his gaze up to look.
“The male with that draanthic from the club the other night?” he asked, his voice dripping with venom.
She smiled to herself. The way he said it, draanthic must mean asshole. Forcing herself to put a hand on his chest, she moved away from him. Josh had always been a jealous son of a bitch, and even though they were over, she couldn’t see him reacting well to seeing her plastered all over another guy, especially an alien one.