The Bid (13 page)

That, he supposed, was probably clever on her part. She would risk herself, but she wouldn’t even speak of those she loved…just in case Jhon got any ideas she wouldn’t care for. Trust, but not total trust. Ahh…

Fear. She had said her fear lay elsewhere.

It lay with her family.

How did she become the charge of her entire family when she was so young herself? Her age escaped him, but her youth was obvious in both her looks and her health, not to mention the fact that she was still idealistic in the way only the young could manage. He was not old, far from it, but he was old enough to feel the shortening of time as far as the extent to which he worked his body. Old enough to be isolated and embittered about a great many things. Enough to envy and crave the youth and optimism he saw in a black-haired beauty.

Gods, how she had gotten under his skin already! Intentional on her part or not, it didn’t matter. She occupied his thoughts, worked his brain at solving tiny bits of the puzzle that she was, an endlessly fascinating cryptology. He realized that there was little else for him to do in the boring little room; he even acknowledged that it all could be ingenious tactics meant to brainwash him into obedience, but somehow it didn’t really matter.

He couldn’t return to Wite. He realized that. Others outside of Najir and Hanna had told him so, and he had accepted that as fact. After all, the only way to get proof was to step foot on the planet and drop dead. He would opt out of empirical evidence in that instance.

Slavery he would not accept, but there was something hidden beneath the surfaces here, and Hanna was orchestrating it with a clear plan in mind. Rebellion? He could get into that. Covert deception? Hmm, a challenge for him to be sure. Jhon had been much better at out-and-out firefights than sneak and peek undercover bullshit that required a great deal of patience and inaction in the name of maintaining a cover. It had been a while since he’d had a challenge for himself he was actually afraid he couldn’t meet. It could be a blast.

So, as far as substituting one life for another was concerned, as was pointed out to him most thoroughly, it could have been much, much worse. Besides, it came with fringe benefits. Black-haired, blue-eyed, blue-skinned, curved benefits.

“I would pay a good price to know what thought has you smiling like that.”

Vejhon jolted in surprise. The woman walked on air, he swore it. He hadn’t heard her make a sound. He moved to face her, his smile lingering a little longer as he let his gaze slide down her long, lithe form. She was wearing a body-hugging suit with legs reaching to her ankles and sleeves rolled just above her elbows. It was the first time he could recall her not wearing a dress of some kind, but the way the black fabric rested snugly to her skin made it a welcome change.

She looked fit and well, far better than when he had last seen her. Jhon had to resist the urge to cross over to her and inspect her for himself with better care than he could from a distance. Najir had said she was fully recovered; she looked fully recovered, and he would make himself accept that.

“Do you own shoes? Does Najir? I don’t believe I have seen you wear any.”

“All Houses in the High City have the custom of removing all footwear in the foyer. The feet are cleansed there and then you are welcome to walk about knowing the floors are clean. It is healthful for when young children come to visit, because they spend much time on the floors. The custom also serves as a sign of peace. That you are relaxed and plan to stay a while is reflected by taking the time to unshoe yourself. You respect my home and everyone in it when you cleanse your feet here.”

“An interesting idea. A good detail to know.” Vejhon walked up to her, reaching out to smooth back a stray hair from her cheek. “I enjoy the things I learn from you.”

Hanna smiled softly at the flirtation of his touch and his words of double entendre. His closeness warmed her, as did the fact that he was trying to be charming for a change, and actually succeeding at it, in her opinion. The question was…would there be a question? Would he use this charm to further a cause of his own, like escape, for instance? What did he want from her?

“I am glad you are well. You aged me a decade the other night,” he murmured quietly, close to her cheek. “Have I mentioned how sorry I am for causing you such agony?”

Hanna’s eyes widened with surprise and she pulled back to find sincere regret in his green-yellow gaze. “You never meant to do it. It was an accident.”

“I know, but I have to apologize for it,” he explained, his voice remaining low and hypnotic, “because although I would take back every instant of pain you suffered if I could, I wouldn’t trade away the rest of it for any price.”

Hanna made a soft sound in her throat as his hand slid around her waist and up her spine, drawing her into his body with a snug pull. Jhon ground out a low response as she curved flush against him, her skin and shape making full contact with him. His eyes traced the low dip of her neckline for a moment before returning to her stunned blue eyes.

“You were unbelievably beautiful, Hanna,” he whispered against her ear. “To watch, to feel…but was that you, I wonder? Or was it just a drug?”

“It was a drug,” she replied breathlessly, “releasing me to you before I was ready. And you could have taken me, but you didn’t. Why? What did you owe me? Nothing. What did you feel for me? Nothing. So why wouldn’t you take what was so hard for you to resist? None would have blamed you for it.”

“I would have,” he confessed tightly. “And maybe you would have. Or do you blame me for not fucking you, Hanna? Is this your goal? You made it clear you have hunger for me.” Vejhon punctuated the remark with the brief drop of his mouth against hers, holding himself there in a teasing stroke only until she gasped and tried to reach for more, then he pulled away out of her reach. “But you are too complex for lust to be your only use for me. Fertility? Are you looking to breed?”

“I am not using you for stud!” She snapped out the denial, stiffening in his hold.

He simply held tighter, his hand sliding to her curved rear end and dragging her in tight to his responding body. The resistance of her squirming was erotic as hell and damn distracting, but he needed more from her than the response of his own body. However, the responses of his body had obvious effects on her. She was an incredibly sexual woman, and he was realizing quickly that it was almost as good as torture to tease her with the vulnerability of her own nature.

“Then what are you using me for, Hanna? I need to know! My patience is not my best virtue, and after seeing you like I saw you…” He braced against the vivid recall of his memory as it replayed the image of her laying bent back before him, her body and voice begging him to join her…and he shuddered head to toe with the burn rushing through him. He knew Hanna felt it, too, and he heard her throaty little whimper. “But I won’t move a single inch closer to you until you tell me what you want from me,” he said through gritted teeth. “No matter how insane it drives me, I swear…Hanna…”

“Don’t,” she gasped, her eyes liquid with emotion as she stared into his. “Don’t tease me if that is how you feel. You can’t know how it hurts!”

The word was like dynamite to him, and he released her explosively, stepping back hard. Hurts? He might have laughed, had he not seen the truth of it in her eyes. “I don’t understand! Is this held over from the stimulant? I thought you were better!” Guilt and fury chased over him.

“I am!” she gasped back, trying to recover her spinning head as she was thrust from the heat of a potent male she wanted so badly and into the empty chill of the room. She knew he didn’t understand, and she knew she couldn’t explain, and it was untenable. It was a horrible impasse that, to him, must look like a cruel game.

“Then explain! Explain it all, Hanna! What do you want me for? Why am I here? Is it because I would rather die than do what it is you wish of me? I am feeling like I am being fattened for the feast in here, Hanna, and you come in to play with me like a toy so you get your use of me before you send me to fry at supper!”

“No! I told you, no!”

“You always tell me no! Never a yes! ‘Yes, this is why I need you here, Jhon.’ ‘Yes, I am treating you as equal as promised, Jhon, instead of just paying lip service to it.’ ‘Yes, let me show you why your trust is worth it!’ Come, Hanna, tell me yes.” Unable to help himself he came close to her again and caught her head between his hands so he could brush his lips across her forehead in a coaxing caress. “Tell me now, what am I here for?”

Hanna had reached up to grip hold of his wrists, her eyes sliding closed as his mouth stroked warm and dry against her. Then she broke away abruptly, stepping back quickly. Their gazes held for a long minute, and then finally, she exhaled in a short bursting sigh and walked away from him. Vejhon watched her go until he realized with surprise that she planned on leaving the room.

“Hanna!”

She stopped short, turning to look over at him. “You asked me a question, Jhon,” she said in that low tone that sounded so much like an invitation. “Would you like an answer or not?”

It hadn’t even occurred to him that she was trying to respond to him. He had thought he was being dismissed. He’d misjudged her yet again, and was beginning to seriously dislike the habit.

“I would like an answer.”

“Then we must leave this room. Or did you want to stay here for a few days longer?”

Leave the room? Oh yeah, he wanted to leave the room all right. But he’d never even contemplated the possibility that she would let him go anywhere so early on. Certainly not without a couple of guards or Najir nearby to assure he wouldn’t attempt to run. Yes, he had come to understand the dangers they had described, and while it was unwise to trust a single source, especially one in control of everything you do, it was unwise to disregard the source completely as well.

Hanna raised an expectant brow, waiting for a response from him as she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Vejhon beat a hasty path to the wardrobe, grabbing the first thing that looked like a shirt out of it. It turned out to be a tunic made of a simple, light, woven fabric, with extraordinary geometric embroidery lining the hem, the V-neck, and edges of the sleeves. The color was a fair shade of olive, and he realized it was one of the colors that would accentuate his eyes and hair. He didn’t know how to feel about that. It had that “dressed-up pet” feel to it. However, in the face of escaping the boredom of these four walls, he’d wear whatever it took.

He followed her as she passed her hand over a sensor and opened the door. “It will work for you, too, now,” she pointed out casually. “It has been so ever since you made a voiceprint. The first time you do it, the system will voice-identify you and copy your palm print and retina scan. You will be free to walk the house and gardens.”

How much of an ass was he? He hadn’t even realized he’d had freedom just the wave of his hand away ever since she’d given him control over the restraints! The really funny thing was that until yesterday he had tried to mess with the door quite a few times, trying to get out. But after his experiences with Hanna, he’d been so focused on the internal, on the raging of his own thoughts, it hadn’t even crossed his mind.

V
ejhon realized as he went to step out of the room behind her that his captivity had become an ingrained state of mind over the past months. There was a silent pull of shock within him that nothing held him back from crossing the threshold of the door, and adrenaline exploded into his bloodstream when he stepped into the free space.

“The only doors that won’t work for you are secured for privacy reasons, sometimes due to the nature of my work, and the gates along the property perimeter are still out of your access. I realize that just makes this all seem like a bigger and better cage, but I can’t let you loose in the city until you have learned more about the society you have become a part of. It just wouldn’t be safe. Plus, outsiders will expect it to take time for you to be trained to obey like a proper slave. We must keep up that appearance.”

Outsiders? She made it sound as though she wasn’t a part of the world beyond her gates. Fascinated, Vejhon scanned the hallway. There were no guards, there was no Najir. He had assumed she wouldn’t take him out of his room without at least having some kind of backup guardianship in the halls. Then again, he now knew that she had every reason to trust in her own ability to guard herself.

The hallway was made of the same glossy stone that lined his entire room. Apparently, the entire house was built of the stuff. It did range in color dramatically, he noticed as they made their way past open parlors and down a set of stairs lined with mosaic tiles. The pattern depicted something different on each step, like the stages of a story unfolding in reverse order. If one had come from the bottom upward, he would have seen it open up in its intended sequence. This tale seemed to be about the cycle of a man’s life. It started with a dark image representing death, guiding the man to a distant beyond. By the time they reached the landing, the last step was of a serene mother about to give birth to the life that had crossed all its stages step by step.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” Hanna said when she noted his interest over the artistry. “It took the artist an entire year to lay the tiles and seal them. It was well worth it. You can even see the shadows of each fold in the mother’s dress. The detail is just breathtaking.”

“Very impressive,” he agreed gruffly. “I would never have the patience.”

“I think you would be surprised at your own capabilities, Jhon. It is perhaps only a matter of what you haven’t had the opportunity to explore.”

She didn’t wait for a response to that speculation, turning to head away from him. Again, how easily she turned her back on him. She didn’t seem to worry that he would make an attempt to get away from her. And perhaps it was because she didn’t act like she needed to tighten the leash that he followed her so easily. Even obediently. The word in his own head made him tense. Was this all some sort of clever training method, he wondered again, and was he falling for it so quickly?

On guard a little more sharply because of the pattern of his own thoughts, Vejhon followed her across a wide foyer with an enormous full-colored chandelier hanging above a center medallion inlaid in stone on the floor. The medallion looked like a sun with multicolored stone rays, and the light cast by the chandelier sprayed a shower of colors over it.

The house was incredible. Huge, but easy to map in his head. There were markers of unique forms of art everywhere, like the stairs and the chandelier, and while they served to make it easy to navigate the huge mansion, it also spoke of the Mistress of the house. She clearly liked to keep herself surrounded by original and beautiful things. It was also a great deal of house for only one person, so again he was forced to wonder about her family, its size, and where they might be.

Hanna reached to put her hand over the sensor that would open a set of double doors she was approaching, but abruptly she pulled back and curled her fingers into her palm in hesitation. She paused to glance over her shoulder at him, her delicate black brows swooped down in concern. Thinking better of entering the room, and likewise making Vejhon incredibly curious, she turned to face him.

“Vejhon Mach, your life is going to change drastically once you enter this room.” Just the graveness of her tone convinced him of that. “Do you think being kidnapped and sold into slavery was a severe change of life? It is nothing compared to this. The difference is, I believe this will suit you far better than that did. But…” She took a deep breath as she held his gaze using all of the connection and intimacy they had developed so far to communicate with him. “But I also believe that this time you deserve a choice. Something no one has given you in some time. It isn’t much of a choice, but it will be yours to make just the same.”

She rested her hands nervously against her hips as she smoothed over them in what he realized was an anxious habit. She had talked of fear before, and for the first time he could truly sense she was afraid of something. His sense for it caught it radiating off of her in waves of energy, and the scent of chemical spikes in her bloodstream that accompanied it. What was she so afraid of? Of what choice he would make? Was she afraid of what was in the room beyond? Or did she fear his reaction to the room behind the doors?

To say he was completely captivated was an understatement. He had never been so amazingly curious in his life. He wasn’t usually the curious type. He’d always been more interested in following directives, orders, and mission plans, straightforward actions with straightforward goals. It was odd, but she was uncannily on the mark when she said he hadn’t been used to having choices. In the military there was no choice. Not really. You obeyed commands and that was it. At least, for the most part. He’d never been a maverick, but neither had he ever been afraid to improvise when necessary.

“Your choice is this,” she said in her rich, solemn alto. “You can either enter this room with an open mind and a total commitment to what you will find, even though you will be completely blind to what is inside, or…” Hanna picked up the tail of her hair, probably without even realizing it, and began to sweep the broom of the ends over her palm. Another nervous habit. “…or I will allow you to be sold to another household where you can try your luck at a bid for freedom or whatever else it is you think you want. However, once you leave here, your actions and your well-being will no longer be my responsibility.”

Her tone fascinated Jhon. She was being cold. Methodical even. She had drained her voice and expression of all emotion, something so dramatic on her it was impossible to miss the difference. It was as though she were trying to completely detach herself from the moment.

“And before you ask it,” she continued flatly, “I cannot give you freedom. I have power in this city, but not to break those laws. Not yet, anyway. Your value to me, though very high, is not worth the damage that particular kind of lawlessness would bring to my House.”

Hanna watched Jhon carefully as she exploded the bomb of impossible choice on him. She knew it was unfair, and at least she had said as much. It was a choice between potential horrors for him, at least from his current perspective. This was why Hanna had wanted him to fully appreciate the possible ramifications of the choice to be resold. Had she not made his potential fate clear to him, he might have been cavalier in a bid to be rid of her. She prayed he had come to realize that what was beyond her gates was far worse than what was possibly behind the doors before him.

“So, I either trust you that the world outside your gates is as brutal and impossible to navigate as you and Najir have represented it to be,” he said shrewdly, watching her carefully for her reactions, “or I don’t.”

“Trust is everything, Vejhon,” she said, her voice rising in intensity just a little. “Without it, you and I can go no farther. If you cannot invest complete trust in me, this becomes an insurmountable situation and the only thing we can do is dissolve our relationship. You cannot know this, but believe me when I tell you that there are so many people who would love to see this House destroyed. I need you to understand one simple fact. Please. Realize that I am risking everything on you at this moment, Jhon,
that
is how badly I want you.”

An intriguing turn of phrase, he thought as he watched her breathing hitch up faster and harder, like a woman becoming increasingly afraid…or aroused. It was at the point where he wasn’t sure of the difference on her. It was fear, excitement, and pheromones he scented on the air, the combination heady and intriguing in so very many ways.

Vejhon moved toward her abruptly, his hands reaching to hold her captive around her sides as he roughly backed her up against the door in question. She gasped, the sharp indrawn breath accentuating her neckline as her breasts rose against it. To his surprise, she turned her head and looked away from him, not meeting his eyes. She held her hands up against the door and curled them into fists as if to touch him would burn her. It was as though she were refusing to acknowledge the way his body was crowding hers. He meant her no harm, the bracelet around his biceps remained dormant, so what was she afraid of then, if not him hurting her? Why turn away?

Unable to resist, Vejhon lowered his head until his nose touched the side of her neck. He inhaled against her skin. That concentrated scent of sweetness and sensuality was so wildly churned up with the adrenaline in her blood, it was like bathing his sense of smell in an aphrodisiac. Vejhon didn’t actually know what he was doing or why he was doing it, just that it was such a strange and demanding response, the urge he suddenly had to take a deep taste of her and a great deal more.

Maybe it was because she was being suddenly so submissive, where before she had been nothing but dominant and self assured. There was something about seeing her and feeling her quake gently in suppressed emotion that made him long to take command of her. It was probably just his conquering nature or his instincts in exploiting his enemy’s weaknesses, but whatever it was, it was powerful stuff.

“Jhon, you have to choose,” she whispered, her head turned so far her cheek touched the chilled door.

What Jhon didn’t realize was that Hanna was trying hard to remain neutral. She didn’t want to be accused of trying to sway him by nefarious or feminine means later on. It was crucial that he say yes for his own reasons, not for hers. She had already manipulated him far too much for her peace of mind. Najir’s assurances aside, she knew she had been selfish with him.

Because if she let herself go the way she wanted to just then, she would already have hold of him and be wrapping herself around him as tightly as she could manage. Just his nearness set her blood on fire. She had known the instant she had seen him that she would feel this way one day. Najir had known it, too, the moment he’d seen Vejhon on that auction stage. Everything else aside, why wouldn’t she find him to be worth craving, really? He was handsome and powerful, his will all but indomitable. Even now, the instant he had seen her hesitate and withdraw, it was in his blood to take advantage of it—to regain footing and position and stake an aggressive stance. It was exhilarating to feel him revel in his own power, and her body burned with responses she forced into repression.

“Do you mind if I ask a few questions first?” he asked, his whispered words brushing his lips against the skin of her neck along with the heat of his breath. Hanna shivered, unable to help herself as gooseflesh rippled down the front of her chest, tautening her nipples against the teasing brush of his body.

“I can’t answer everything, but I will…”

“…answer as best as you are able?”

Hanna tried not to moan softly when he moved his mouth to her ear as he spoke. “Yes,” she acknowledged breathily.

“You don’t want me to be your slave, do you?” he asked, the answer having already slowly become clear as he had pieced together all that she had been saying to him, although without ever saying it directly.

“I can’t tell you any more about that than I already have. Not until…”

“…I make my choice. I think I am beginning to see a pattern here.” Vejhon drew back so he could look down into her face, those startling blue eyes still managing to stand out starkly despite the soft blues of her skin tone. “If I were a thinking man, I would think that you want exactly that, but you can’t say so until you are certain I won’t run off and spill the beans to someone else. Anyone else. Yet, you won’t force me onward when you very well could. You own me, as you said. My physical body is yours to do with what you please. You went through so much trouble to make certain I had firsthand experience with the evils of your world…my guess is you traded a little part of your soul away in the process. Why back down now?”

“I am just doing what I have to do to protect my House. But it isn’t worth much if I have to become like those…like those who…”

Vejhon watched her run into walls of conflict like hovercraft crashing full bore into buildings. She wanted to say things but her conscience was working overtime now, forcing her to edit herself so that she didn’t give away any influencing information. However, she didn’t have to say anything more for him to get the gist of the point. She wouldn’t enslave him against his will, and she would gladly enslave him if he volunteered for it.

He found himself dropping his eyes to the dark lips that had caught his fascination early on. “Clearly you are going to get things you want and need if I follow you into that room,” he remarked, looking back into her eyes, “but what will I get? What possible advantages are there for me? And I mean besides what evils I won’t have to face on the other side of your gates.”

“Isn’t that enough?” she asked, her pupils wide and troubled.

It was, and he knew she was counting on that to be enough. Thus her actions so far. “Perhaps. Humor me and tell me more.”

“I can’t,” she insisted. “I can’t tell you more. I have nothing else to entice you with. Not now.”

“But you will later?”

“Perhaps,” she echoed. “It will be entirely up to you.”

Now that, Vejhon thought, sounded all too intriguing. What was more, the color along the cheekbones of her face darkened to a shade of lilac that, if he wasn’t mistaken, was the equivalent of a blush. He reached out with a thumb, tracing over the warm shading slowly as he thought about the significance of the reaction. He decided then that since she couldn’t satisfy him with specifics, he would keep his questions to the basics.