Heart Journey (9 page)

She retreated again to near the arbor; the light wasn’t as bright here and she liked the natural scent of the flowers more than any of the perfumes people wore.

She watched Raz in one of the least intimate dances of their culture and ached with desire. Taking another swallow of wine, she wondered if she could bring him to her in another erotic dream that night. Heat flooded her.

R
az danced in between conversations with those who could advance
his career. He enjoyed the party and interacting socially, but that wasn’t as important as work.

He still wasn’t sure why Del Elecampane had come and that continued to pique his curiosity. He kept an eye on her and was amused to see that some people gravitated to her simply because she was different. Occasionally she became animated, her hands expressive, her dimples winking as she spoke of . . . maps.

A satisfying septhour passed before he gave himself another break from business.

Trillia walked up to him with a sloppy grin and a drink he knew was over her limit, another one of those pink foamy things most of the women were guzzling. She wobbled and he steadied her. She came from an acting Family and had worked most of her life, knew the inside of the business and all the gossip for two decades past. She’d been the first to welcome him on the stage of his first show and a very sweet lover. They’d remained friends after their affair had ended. Both of them had a policy of staying friends with their lovers.

Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him with a damp smooch on his cheek, looked up at him with wide blurred blue eyes, and gave a little hiccup. “Got the part of Fern Bountry in Gael City. I am hoping it will make my name, separate me from the rest of my Family.” A loud sigh escaped her. “Gael City.” She shrugged soft, round, white shoulders. “Well, we’ve never played there for long; it’s time.” Trillia tried to straighten but leaned against Raz instead. “I’ll miss the Thespian Club and you.” Her smile held deep humor. “Would
love
to see you with your HeartMate.”

“That’s me,” Morifa Daisy purred. She was a socialite Raz had broken up with the week before. She slipped her arm between his biceps and his side, giving his muscle a squeeze.

His stomach sank. He had hoped to avoid a scene, especially here. He made sure from the outset that his casual partners knew he was uninterested in just one woman for the long term. Hell, everyone in Druida knew that from the newssheets’ social columns.

Trillia hauled herself up, and this time she stood, not even swaying, her gaze sharp on Morifa. Trillia shook her newly long and dark curls. “No, you aren’t his HeartMate. You don’t have the stamina to keep up with him, not to mention the heart.” As the woman gasped, her nails digging into Raz’s arm, Trillia walked away and was scooped up by her current partner and left the party on a laugh.

“That bitch,” Morifa said.

“Trillia is one of my oldest and dearest friends.”

“Were you making love to her at the same time you were me?”

“No. I don’t believe in more than one lover at a time,” Raz said.

Morifa was spoiling for a scene and he didn’t want adverse gossip tonight. He tried an easy smile and played along with her first statement. “You’re my HeartMate?” He sincerely doubted that. “Isn’t it illegal to tell me so? Takes away my choice or something?”

Morifa’s lips pursed into a sulky pout. She lifted her chin, glanced around as if she hoped to gather a crowd. Worse and worse. With a simple turn and some pressure on her arm, he led her to the vacant arbor, though Del Elecampane stood close. His eyes met hers and he gave her a rueful smile.

She would be a minor audience but a critical one and his pride stung that such an intriguing woman would see him in a poor light. She glanced aside, took a few steps to the closest group, and introduced herself. From the tautness of her back, Raz thought she was still aware of what was going on with him.

Raz allowed a charming smile to curve his lips as he looked down into Morifa’s petulant brown eyes. “HeartMates?”

“I wouldn’t have had to tell you if you hadn’t broken it off with me last week.”

Ah, that was the problem. He had done the ending, not her. Nothing to do but to play this scene she’d set up to the finish.

He let out a soft breath, drew one of her hands to rest on his chest. “HeartMate, you know we’ve connected during those wonderful dreams.” He lowered his lashes and looked at her from under them, saw she was becoming nervous. “When will you give me the HeartGift you made for me?” His smile widened. “I could feel you working on it years ago.” Morifa was older than he, four years, five? Now that he thought on it, so was his HeartMate, but by so much? He didn’t think so.

She stilled, and he sensed that she regretted staging the scene, too.

“You know I would give you anything you wanted.” She pressed her lush breasts against him. They both knew she wasn’t wealthy enough to give him much if he’d wanted to go the gigolo route, which he didn’t. Gilt wasn’t as important as his craft and his career.

He ran his hands down her arms, then back to her shoulders, gripped her, and set her a pace away but kept his glance intense. “Isn’t the best way to claim a HeartMate to give me a HeartGift?” He dropped his hands and stepped back. “You present the gift you made for me during your last Passage. I accept it. You let me know it is a HeartGift and claim me as your HeartMate.” He looked at her expectantly, lips still curved.

Morifa frowned, but it was the most graceful way Raz had thought of for letting her save face.

She stared out of the arbor. “Tomorrow,” she said.

They both understood she wouldn’t be seeing him again. Not tomorrow, not in the future. She turned sharply on her heels and her gown swung around her. Her narrowed, predatory glance swept over the crowd, landed, and she swished away. Raz thought he’d already vanished from her mind.

He let out a long, quiet breath and found Del Elecampane watching him with interested eyes. She held out a glass of pale green wine to him, sipped one of her own.

“Excellent job, MasterLevel Actor.”

He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. Here was a woman who didn’t play games. Whom he wouldn’t have to play games with, wear masks with. Take her or leave her as she was. For the moment, she was a very nice change.

His smile went wry. “The best I could do.”

Del turned and looked at his ex-lover. Morifa had latched on to Guy Balsam. Thank the Lady and Lord that friend of Raz’s preferred men. Del studied the woman and said, “Yes, you handled that well. I think she could have turned nasty. And I think she’s going to be disappointed again.” Del shook her head, met Raz’s eyes once more. “You would have been in a bind if she called your bluff, made a firm date to come by tomorrow with a HeartGift.”

Raz hesitated, then answered openly. “She’s too old to be my HeartMate. Must be thirty-three at least. I think I felt the HeartGift thing when I was going through my own second Passage at seventeen. My HeartMate’s probably no more than three years older than I.”

“Ah? You did say that you connected during dreams. Did you make a HeartGift, too?”

He had, a tiny model of the lost starship,
Lugh’s Spear
, no more than ten centimeters long. Heat edged his cheekbones as he held her eyes. He lifted his glass, shifted his gaze from her eyes to his wine. “Your eyes are the same color as this wine and the coloring as rare. Lovely.”

“Ah, springreen wine. A nice compliment, thank you.” She smiled and downed a mouthful. He sensed she did most things in her life lustily. “You know that the grapes for springreen wine prefer higher valleys and cool, steep slopes with plenty of sun, more mountainous locale than regular white or red wines. The grapes prefer a sweeter soil.” She smiled, showing white, even teeth, raised her brows. “I’m not that sweet.”

She looked luscious to him. His pulse kicked up.

“
Your
eyes are the blue of the Deep Blue Sea, gorgeous.”

Again he felt heat in his cheeks.

“But you’ve heard that all your life, I’m sure.”

He inclined his torso, lifted his glass. “Always good to be complimented by a fascinating woman.”

Her brows lifted. “Always good to be complimented by a handsome and smooth man. Very accomplished actor.” She sipped, kept her gaze on his.

“I’m not acting.” He took her free hand, looked into her eyes with true sincerity, let a smile hover. “You are the most bewitching woman in the room.”

She gave a short laugh. “Only because you don’t know me.”

“Not only. Though you’re right, I know everyone else here and I do know why they are here—to party, to mingle, to be seen . . .”

“I wanted to meet some of the people I watched on my holos the last few years.”

He sensed that was true and untrue, which was even more intriguing. A woman returned to the city who watched holos, a deduction clicked in his head. “You have a fox Fam.”

She laughed with more amusement. “Yes, Shunuk. He told me he met you.”

“He wheedled breakfast out of me, and that Fam can
eat
.”

Her body relaxed completely, the mask over her face dissolving, and Raz congratulated himself on a good job of putting her so at ease. To have her focused on him was another boost.

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think I like that smile of yours.”

He took her free hand and lifted her fingers to his lips. Her palm was warm, her fingers strong. He brushed a kiss on the back of her hand, liked the zing of attraction between them, let his smile broaden. “My very satisfied smile that I have exclusively claimed the attention of the most riveting woman in the room?”

“That’s the one,” she said, and though her fingers tensed a bit, she didn’t pull them from his grasp. “So, I’m the new face and thus the new toy and object of conquest?”

“No one, lady, would ever think you a toy, and it is a rare pleasure to be in your company.” That was the truth, too. The air seemed to sizzle around them. He enjoyed the sensation of blood rushing through his veins. He took a sip of wine again and the vintage was less dizzying than the woman. “You are more dazzling than anyone here, more pleasurable than drinking this fine wine.”

A flush had come to her cheeks, showing peach under her golden skin, accenting the green of her eyes, her bright curls. He breathed in her scent of wild lavender, more . . .

“You are a man who works with words. You have a very smooth tongue.”

“I could show you better things to do with my tongue than to speak,” he said.

Her breasts lifted in a deep breath and he wanted to put his hands there, his tongue in her mouth. He was becoming aroused, feeling the flush of desire. Not the place, not the time. Maybe later, if he was lucky, he could taste that mouth, smell the change in her fragrance as he kissed her and her passion rose.

She pulled her fingers away. “Use that facile mouth of yours to drink your wine.”

“It’s not what I want to taste.”

Del stepped from the shelter of the arbor and gave a passing waiter her wineglass.

Raz followed her. As she’d left the shadows for the lit room, he’d seen her face go immobile just for an instant—as if she was putting on the thin veneer of a social mask. She didn’t hide much of herself, certainly not as much as most people. Again he wondered why she’d come to the party. He drank the last of his wine a little too quickly to savor, then gave the waiter his glass.

The musicians struck up a waltz and couples left the dance floor or went onto it. The first to match their steps were Cratag and Signet Marigold. Raz smiled. He turned to Del, offered his hand. “Do you waltz?”

“Yes.” She put her fingers in his, pivoted, and placed her hand on his shoulder. The touch of her, the closeness, went to his head faster than the wine, was tastier, more delightful. He was taller and broader than she. He hadn’t quite realized that until she was in his arms, she had such an indomitable spirit—presence. Once again words escaped him without thought. “How old are you?”

She threw back her head and laughed and he saw the enticing golden column of her throat. “I’m thirty-six, pretty boy.” The way she said it, laughing at herself, had him sweeping her around and around in a whirl. Her body was strong and supple and he thought he might be able to do anything with it. Her pale green gaze glinted with humor. “Eight years older than you.”

He pulled her closer. “You can’t be,” he murmured into her ear, once again catching her fragrance—the scent of lavender that wasn’t the same in the city. He was a city man through and through, but attraction wove between them as she matched his gaze with that sparking green of her own. Her body pressed along his, warm, exciting. She was completely unlike any woman he’d ever known.

And she’d be leaving Druida soon.

Maybe she was safe to make love with. He looked down into her eyes and slid his hand down her back just above the curve of her bottom, feeling the flex of her muscles. Even if she wasn’t safe, he’d make love to her.