The Princess on the Glass Hill

Author’s Note: This was one of my favorite stories as a young girl. Though I can’t really put my finger on why it was a favorite, I have decided to put my own twist on the story. Since my three favorite genres are fantasy, romance, and science fiction (in no particular order, though I do enjoy combining romance with the other two), this time I’m going to rewrite the tale with a sci-fi twist. My deepest thanks go to my friend Iulia for sharing her great knowledge of chemistry with me; she was the professional, thus any mistakes or oddities are entirely my own.

VICTOR Amariei, captain of the Închiriat, knew his cousin had a dare for him when Ston swaggered onto the bridge. Sighing, the muscular captain sat back in his chair, temporarily abandoning his search for the next round of cargos to deliver. Most of the time he was good at lining up business, ferrying supplies and goods from space station to spaceport throughout the solar system and usually doing so in a profitable chain of connected locations. But in the last five runs, his luck had run out.

He didn’t want to dip into their savings fund, since that money was earmarked for ship upgrades. So it was either take on disparate runs, which would send his ship bouncing around the system with no intermediary stops, wasting time and money, or sit in port until a good string came along. If necessary, he’d take a single, high-paying run that would get him into a better position to set up a new chain of runs. But that meant sitting here and staring at the trade channels, looking for work. He didn’t have time for more pleasurable things.

Unlike Ston, who had vanished for five hours onto the local space station, Liberty VII, no doubt to drink and carouse. The last thing Victor wanted to do was go onto the space station in search of relaxation. Mining outposts like this one had a peculiar sense of what was acceptable behavior and what was not. What a “local boy” could get away with was not the same thing as what an outsider such as the two of them could . . . though it looked like Ston had come back unharmed.

His cousin’s unabashed, smug grin did not bode well. Nor did the way he lounged insolently against the navigation console.

“You look like the cat that swallowed a whole rabbit,” Victor muttered, folding his arms across his chest. The movement made the metallic fabric of his shirt gleam in several shades of red.

“Maybe I did,” Ston agreed.

“Spit it out, cousin,” he ordered. “What trouble are you trying to get me into this time?”

“It’s a contract, not trouble. And it’s worth half a million credits . . . if you take on the additional, mmm . . . side-quest, shall we say?” Ston offered, rubbing at the short, neat beard darkening his chin.

Even though they were sixty/forty partners and had been working together for years, Victor didn’t trust his cousin implicitly. “What is the regular contract worth, without the side-quest?”

“Eighty thousand,” Ston admitted, shrugging carelessly. The amount wasn’t bad, but the jump to half a million made the younger man’s words suspect.

Like his cousin and captain, he wore a metallic shirt—currently the fashion of choice back home on their family’s portion of Earth—though Ston’s shirt was a dark metallic blue, making him look more enigmatic. Deliberately, no doubt. Victor narrowed his eyes, and Ston pressed his hand to his heart.

“There you go again, making with the fox-eyes. You’re about to ask me what’s illegal about the rest of it, aren’t you? Well, there is nothing illegal about it. My word of honor as your cousin.”

Victor sighed. “You may be a pain in the asteroid, but you are an honest pain in the asteroid. What is the cargo, what is the side-quest, and why is the side-quest worth so much more than the main contract?”

“The cargo is a rare isotope of bismuth 209. Normally they mine it on Earth and Mars and the inner asteroid ring, but not in very large quantities. The miners here at Liberty VII have found a substantial deposit of it, and they’ve been working to refine it into a pure metal.

“The side-quest involves a certain special lady whom the isotope needs to be delivered to. Hand-delivered, to be specific,” his cousin clarified. “Her name is Dr. Evanna Motska, chief researcher at LUCI, the Lunar Ceramics Institute. If you accept the contract for the cargo, you will have handcuffed to your wrist a case about the size of your head that can only be unlocked by a combination of a personal code, which you yourself will enter, and by Dr. Motska’s personal security thumbprint as well—I have been reassured the isotope is not dangerous, just very, very rare and very, very expensive, leading to these security precautions.”

“And the side-quest?” Victor asked, still skeptical. Part of his mind was already leaping through the trade channel information he had been perusing, trying to line up at least one other cargo toward either Earth or its sole natural satellite, or to one of the stations orbiting Saturn, which was sort of on the way to Earth. “What about it and this lady make it worth nearly half a million?”

Ston grinned. “You have to kiss her, for a start.”

“A kiss is worth nearly half a million? Who pays that kind of money for a simple kiss?” Victor demanded, scowling at the insulting thought. “You just do it!”

“According to the friends I made, the friends who are offering this contract . . . fifteen miners here at the station, twelve previous couriers of various other supplies and goods, forty-three chemistry lab workers, seventeen ceramics engineers, thirty-seven . . . no, thirty-six former lab assistants, and twenty-seven relatives and friends of the good doctor,” Ston recited, lifting his gaze toward the low ceiling of the bridge as he recalled the count. He smirked. “It seems they have all pooled their betting money together as a reward for the man—or even the woman—who can make the Ice Princess melt.”

That made more sense, though it still disgusted him a little. Victor folded his arms across his chest. “I only kiss willing women. Or anything else, for that matter. What if she doesn’t want to be kissed?”

“That’s the problem. According to her coworkers and her family members, she’s never been kissed,” Ston related, shifting to drop into the navigator’s seat. Swiveling the chair, he stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles. “It’s not Dr. Motska, you see. It’s the Lunar Ceramics Institute, and the group she belongs to, the Lunar Intelligence Trust. They had the largest hand in raising her since she was about seven or eight, from what I was told . . . and they have been so determined to keep their greatest ‘brains’ isolated in their ‘brain trust’ that they have very carefully raised their little geniuses to have zero interest in ‘biological activities.’ ”

“Zero interest?” Victor asked, curious in spite of himself. “How is that even possible? She is a Human, isn’t she?”

“Basically, the Ice Princess has never been kissed because she has never been given the opportunity to be kissed. Everyone who goes to work with her must sign a non-intimacy clause, swearing they will keep their interactions with the members of the Lunar Intelligence Trust to ‘an efficient, impersonal level of workmanship, with a neutral level of interpersonality’ or some such space-rot.” Ston scratched his beard again. “So far, Security has stopped all attempts to defy this clause by the workers employed at LUCI, even among non-Trust members. Which is why her friends and relatives, coworkers, and even the miners here, have pooled their resources to reward the lucky, handsome prince who will melt the ice from their brainy princess.

“When my drinking buddies mentioned how they needed a prince to rescue their fair maiden, naturally I thought of you.” Giving Victor an expressive shrug, Ston tucked his hands behind his head and studied his cousin, coworker, and captain with a lighthearted look. “So . . . are you going to take the bet?”

Victor eyed his cousin, sorely tempted. Bets involving women were one of his few weaknesses, though in the last year he had gotten a lot better at resisting the temptations presented by the wilder ones. Still . . . a very intelligent woman, so intelligent she’s been sheltered from passion all her life . . . no doubt from some silly belief that sex detracts from one’s intelligence . . . He knew that wasn’t true. It was a distraction, undeniably yes, but in his experience, the more a person embraced all the various aspects of life, the more likely that person was to think of innovative new ways of tackling life and all of its inherent problems.

But to be paid to kiss a woman . . .

The money was very, very tempting. With half a million added to his savings, he could upgrade the in-system thrusters for their ship to those new, fast FTL engines, increasing their speed by a thousandfold. No more having to worry about conservation of mass if we go to FTL. We can start lining up cargos for outside the home system—even if we stayed in-system, people would pay all the more for fast delivery of their goods, and Ston and I do have a good, strong customer base right here in the heart of Terran space . . .

But to kiss a woman just for profit and some ship upgrades?

His conscience dwelled a little longer on that part, chewing on it, until the weakest corner of his mind piped up. If she’s never been kissed before, then isn’t this Lunar Intelligence Trust robbing her of one of her most basic rights as a Human being? To kiss and be kissed, to hold and be held, to love and be loved? You would be rescuing the princess from her imprisonment-by-ignorance if you tried . . . thereby making the attempt the right thing to do.

It was a very compelling argument.

His cousin flashed a grin. “You’re taking the bet. The last time I saw that fire in your fox-colored eyes was when you agreed to spank the lithe and lovely Melissa Mtaube in public. Have the monks forgiven you for disrupting their prayer services yet?”

Victor gave Ston a dirty look. “I haven’t decided yet. And I’ve promised never to return to that part of New Mumbai, so it doesn’t matter if the monks forgive me. Now, what would constitute solid, bet-winning proof of this kiss?”

Ston rubbed his beard once more, making Victor wonder why his cousin didn’t just shave it off if it kept itching so much. The younger man shrugged. “According to what I heard . . . there are security cameras everywhere. Some of the lab workers have connections in Security and would be able to watch everything you did while you are at the institute. But . . . they also say that seeing her learn the importance of a kiss isn’t enough, though it might be the right way to thaw her initial resistance, if done properly. Which I know you can do.”

“They say that, do they?” Victor repeated, his skeptical side vindicated that there was indeed a catch.

“Someone else—one of the former chemistry lab workers—tried to kiss another member of the LIT group,” Ston told him. “Apparently she was fired for the ‘audacity’ of it. Which is why she’s willing to pool most of her savings on this project and why they’ve come up with the idea of getting the miners in on it, so they can give the job to the isotope courier. The courier is not bound by the rules imposed on everyone else by LIT and LUCI, you see . . . so you cannot be fired.”

“No, I cannot be. But for trying I could be blackballed, at least from picking up similar contracts, though since I haven’t heard of this Lunar Ceramics Institute before now, I doubt they have the power to shut down our shipping business entirely. And I’m still waiting for the rest of the catch.” Victor clasped his hands across his stomach, studying his cousin and shipmate. “What is so important about teaching this doctor the value of sex that all these people are willing to pay half a million for someone to pull it off?”

“Well, there is one other thing, cousin,” Ston added, uncrossing his ankles and lowering his hands so that he could sit forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Dr. Motska is the top researcher at LUCI, and the biggest brain in the Lunar Intelligence Trust. Whatever Dr. Motska wants, Dr. Motska gets. She is a modern-day princess as far as the management at LUCI is concerned. If she puts her foot down on a project she is associated with, all work on it stops until her conditions are met.

“If she can be convinced that passion and personal interaction are worthwhile . . . then that means the other people caught up in LIT’s control of LUCI can finally date each other. They can have personal lives in the same place where they work and live. As things stand, only those who are allowed to go out to one of the civilian domes, or down to Earth, or to one of the other colony worlds or space stations out there can have a personal life, and only while they’re away from the Lunar Ceramics Institute. So you would not only be doing the Ice Princess a favor by melting her with a kiss, you would be freeing many others trapped in their own glass prisons by the Trust’s anti-interpersonal policies. Stupid policies, if you ask me . . . but that’s the object of the bet. Kiss the good doctor, get her to demand the anti-interpersonal policies be revoked from all contracts, and win half a million dollars as a grateful thank-you from everyone involved.”

“They are stupid policies,” Victor agreed, thinking about it. “You say her family is in on this bet?”

“Yes.” Ston held himself still, no doubt giving his cousin room to think.

“Then I want information,” Victor stated, making up his mind. “I want to know what her life was like before she was sent to this brain trust she’s with. Plus information on what her life is like now. Anything she may have let slip to her friends and family of a personal nature. Dreams, wishes, hobbies, longings, everything she may have mentioned that they can recall, particularly anything to connect the woman she is now with the girl she used to be. Be sure you tell them in advance I will make no guarantee of success . . . but that I will try. In my own way, at my own pace, and only after I have sufficient insight into her past and her mind.

“While you’re at it, Ston, ask if they have any other, less encumbered cargo they want us to deliver to the vicinity of Saturn, Earth, or the Moon. Eighty thousand will pay for the return trip to the inner system, plus some of our operating expenses,” Victor admitted, “but the rest of that half million isn’t guaranteed. I’d rather rebuild ourselves a good cargo chain that will be guaranteed.”

“I’ll look into it, but like you said, there’s no guarantee of success,” Ston warned lightly. Standing, he stretched, spreading his arms to either side to avoid smacking his hands against the overhead controls. “Well, I should get to bed.”

“It’s supposed to be your duty shift, remember?” Victor pointed out.

Ston shrugged and scratched his beard. “I took an anti-intoxicant before heading for the bar. I’m not stupid, and I knew I’d want a clear head if I drank while on the station. But it’s going to come crashing down on my system for about two hours in just a little bit. Considering how much I drank, I’ll want a nap when it does—I’ll owe you one, right?”

“You certainly will. You can have the eighty thousand and I’ll take the rest of that half million, if I can rescue this Lunar princess from durance vile,” Victor muttered. “You’d better hope this doesn’t backfire as badly as that bet over those twins from the Ganymede settlement—and you still owe me for three pulled muscles and the red tape over the spacelane violation, you know.”

Ston made a face, but left the bridge anyway. His cousin returned his attention to the commodities channel displaying various goods, prices, and destinations on two of his viewscreens. A moment later, he shifted and called up a browsing service on a tertiary screen.

Whoever this Dr. Evanna Motska is, she’s bound to have her image posted somewhere. And maybe some trade papers published. I need to get into her head. If this LIT group has brainwashed her into thinking life is meant to be all work and no play, I’ll need some sort of leverage to get her to open herself up to new possibilities.

BUT what if the annealings were done at 14 mils instead of 17, to lighten the mass of the hull? Would that affect the shearing forces adversely?

“Dr. Motska?”

Her left hand rotated the microscopic view of the ceramic alloy projected by her headset glasses. Flicking her right finger, she applied several direct blows to the simulation, observing the results. It would still harden the plating from a direct hit, yes . . . but I think it might chip the panels with a glancing blow. That would be unacceptable for combat applications in spite of the increased in-system maneuverability due to the overall lower ship mass . . .

“Dr. Motska?”

What I need is a way to stop those shears from stripping off chunks of the plating, without adding significantly to the mass of the—

“Dr. Motska!”

Irritated, Evanna clenched her fists to end the connection between her hands and the program, and stripped off her glasses. She glared at her assistant. “What? I told you I needed time alone to concentrate on this project!”

Amanda Heatherfield gave her a patient look. “You also told me to tell you the moment the new diamagnetic isotope for bismuth came in, and that the delivery was very important to this work.”

“Oh. Right.” Evanna felt her cheeks growing warm. “Sorry.”

Her assistant sighed and rolled her eyes. “It’s all right. You have a lot on your mind. You’re in charge of a lot of projects, most of which are of importance to the Terran military. You don’t have time for social niceties. The work is what is important.”

Normally, Evanna would have taken comfort in those frequently repeated words. She was important to the ceramics industry, and she did create superior armor plating for the ships of the Terran United Planets Space Force. Lives literally depended on her work, and she took pride in her careful considerations. But the way Amanda rolled her eyes and the stiff, rote tone in her voice spoke more of impatience with such things.

Like maybe she doesn’t think this project is important? That’s not like her, but what else could it be? Evanna narrowed her eyes. “Are you belittling the work we’re doing? We are in the business of saving lives, you know.”

Amanda met her gaze straight on, her impatience replaced with sobriety. “My brother is serving on board a TUPSF-Navy starship, remember? I know we’re in the business of saving others’ lives. But I think you should take a look at your own life, too.”

That made no sense. Evanna frowned again. “What do you mean by that?”

The other woman flicked her gaze briefly up at the corner of the room, to the black bubble on the ceiling that housed the security camera. “Nothing. Nothing at all. The courier needs your thumbprint scan to unlock the canister of bismuth, Doctor. He’s waiting in the upper conference room.”

“Not the lower one?” Evanna asked. The upper conference room, with its bay windows overlooking the craters of Clavius sitting below the installation and the upside-down visage of the Earth hanging in the sky overhead, was usually reserved for visiting dignitaries. Even if the new isotope held the potential for promise, delivery personnel were usually shown to an interior conference room, one which was closer to the docking hangar. She herself didn’t visit it as often as she would have liked, but then she was often preoccupied with her work.

“He insisted on waiting in a room with a view.” Stepping back, Amanda gave her space to exit the holographic lab.

As she walked along the clean white and pale gray corridors of the institute, Evanna focused her thoughts on the isotope sample she had ordered. If Dr. Farberjiin’s calculations are correct on the heightened diamagnetic properties of the isotope when combined in his experimental compound, it could be possible to mitigate the impact of incoming projectile attacks. The only problem will be synthesizing sufficiently large enough quantities for practical applications in military hull plating, never mind the civilian sector.

Of course, bismuth isn’t the only diamagnetic element, she acknowledged, silently cataloguing substitute materials as she and Amanda rode the nearest lift to the upper levels of the complex. Dmitrium has four times the opposing polarity qualities, albeit with a half-life of a fraction of a second, which makes using the 115th element highly impractical. And bismuth has a certain thermic sensitivity, making it difficult to incorporate into the ceristeel matrix during the manufacturing process. Which means I’d need to come up with a mineral additive to bind and stabilize it with so it would not be affected by temperature or time.

Maybe if I bound the isotopic compound within nanocages and injected it into the foam as it cools during the annealing process? That could work if I picked the right matrice for the cage, though I may have to figure out how to activate the compound without requiring that it be a catalyst, Evanna thought, picturing it in her head half as clearly as the holographics programs in her workroom could project it. The lab required several terahertz of computational matrices to calculate molecular changes on both the micro- and macro-scales, but it required the spark of an idea to combine the right materials in the right patterns. But I still don’t have a solution for the shearing potential. And I’d have to have some means of regulating the placement of the isotope in its copper cages . . . Wait . . . copper?

Copper was the color of the courier’s clothes. She was supposed to be thinking about carbon, not copper, but the moment she entered the conference room, it was hard to think about anything else. Not when he wore tight-fitted leather pants that looked like they had been dipped in liquified copper and a sleeveless tank shirt which looked like the remaining metallic paint had been poured down his shoulders and chest. His muscular, lean chest.

Evanna couldn’t remember when she had last seen a body that well defined. Everyone at the Lunar Ceramics Institute kept themselves in good shape, of course; despite the acquisition of artificial gravity technology fifty years before, allowing comfortable, normal-gravitied life, it was still imperative that anyone living in space exercise to ensure optimum health and motility. But no one exercised so hard that even their minor muscle groups could be discerned and identified at a glance. Usually, they had too much work to do to waste their time on such frivolous pursuits.

Even his skin was somewhat tan, either naturally or enhanced by solar treatments. The courier made a colorful, eye-catching statement, surrounded as he was by the shades of gray carpeting, black table, matching chairs, and white-enameled walls framing the equally monochromatic view behind him. That view should have been arresting, given its stark, black, star-studded sky, the sliver of the Earth currently illuminated by the sun gleaming off to the left, and the white-gray-black landscape of the airless Moon. But no, the man captured her gaze first and foremost.

Normally, she liked looking out this window. The landscape was crisp and clean. It reminded her of her work, straightforward and methodical. Neat and tidy. She had asked once, a handful of years ago, if the marks left by the institute’s construction crews could be covered up. Someone had cobbled together a grit-scattering machine, powdering over and filling in the boot prints and tire treads that had spoiled the view. But now, all she could see was a man with dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and copper-painted clothes. He didn’t look like a member of any courier company she was familiar with, not in that outfit.

“Captain Amariei, this is Dr. Evanna Motska, who ordered the bismuth isotope. Dr. Motska, this is Captain Victor Amariei of the Închiriat, who is here on behalf of the Liberty Mining Corporation,” Amanda said to introduce them. Then—uncharacteristically—Evanna’s chief assistant retreated. The pneumatic door hissed quietly shut behind her, leaving the two of them alone.

Evanna wasn’t used to being left alone with outsiders. She was always surrounded by people whenever strangers were present, whether it was assistants, lab workers, support services, or security personnel. I suppose Amanda has something to do, she allowed, lifting her chin a little as she moved forward. And Security will send someone here shortly, I’m sure. Besides, this is just a delivery. As soon as he hands over the isotope, I can have someone from Accounting pay him for his trouble.

She almost hadn’t spotted the package; it was white and gray, and tucked into the curve of his left arm, blending into the rest of the room and its view of the Moon. An odd, sudden thought wafted across her thoughts. I think I’m getting tired of everything being soothing, pastel shades of white and gray. I think I want more color in my life . . .

But isn’t color a distraction? Distractions were discouraged, because distractions weren’t productive. Evanna had been given the opportunity to explore her intellect; she knew she had an obligation to pay back all that the Lunar Intelligence Trust had done for her. So. No more wit-wandering.

Pulling her wayward thoughts back into order, Evanna lifted her chin a little more. “Thank you for delivering the isotope, Captain. If you’ll hold out the container, I’ll release you from the security cuff, and you can be on your way.”

His light brown eyes warmed with what looked like humor. They were very alive, flicking down over her plain white lab coat and the gray slacks visible beneath its mid-thigh hem. The rest of him looked like a molten copper statue, sculpted and still, but those eyes moved. So did his lips. “No.”

That checked her mid-stride. Fumbling to a stop, Evanna stared at him. Not only had her assistant deviated from procedure, leaving her alone with this courier who didn’t look like a courier should, he had . . . he had said no to her. No one said no to her. Not when she was in charge! “What do you mean, no? I ordered the isotope, I am paying for the isotope, and I shall receive the isotope. Hold out the security cuff so I may receive the goods I am purchasing.”

He shifted the arm cupping the oblong container, hitching it a little higher against his waist. Not protectively, just pointedly. “No.”

She stared back in confusion. “Why not? You can’t go around forever with my purchase shackled to your wrist. It’s mine!”

“No, I can’t. And no, I won’t. You will receive your goods,” he stated, his eyes flicking up over her hair, which she had pulled into its usual knot on the top of her head. A knot which she realized was coming loose, thanks to the unruly nature of the fine blonde strands. The corner of Captain Amariei’s mouth curved up. “In due time.”

Like her hair, this situation felt like it was coming loose when it should be neat and tidy. Evanna frowned at him. “Nonsense. You have no control over whether or not I receive my goods. I hold the personal access code, and the thumbprint to unlock it from your wrist.”

“Your delicate hand holds the lovely thumb meant for the scanner to read, yes . . . but the miners gave me the correct access code,” he corrected, smiling.

“Nonsense,” Evanna repeated. “Why would they do that?”

“Can I show you something?” the copper-clad man asked, gesturing with his free hand at the bank of triple-paned plexi windows.

Bemused by the non sequitur, Evanna moved across the conference room. He made room for her to pass by the end of the table, stepping up behind her as she faced the windows. This close, she could feel the chill of space seeping through the layers of tough, transparent material, despite the narrow vents blowing warm air up from the edge of the carpeting and the stark glow of the sunlight slanting in from the left. It reminded her of how fragile and precarious her existence was, how dependent she was upon the stout, sheltering, atmosphere-sealed walls of the compound for her survival.

The strange copper-clad man stepped up close behind her, forcing her to edge closer to the windows, until it was either risk chilling herself on the white-enameled grid framing the view or let him touch her. As it was, she could feel the heat of his body warming hers. Warmer than the sun, and more enveloping than the air of the vents toying with the loosened wisps of her hair.

“What . . . what exactly are you trying to show me?” Evanna asked, firming her voice so that she could retake control of the situation. “That you come from a culture that has no appreciation for the boundaries of personal space?”

She felt him lean in closer, felt his body brushing against the back of her lab coat. Felt the soft heat of his cheek barely brushing against hers. “I’m trying to show you a heavenly body.”

His right arm slid around her waist, fingers splaying lightly over her belly. Evanna sucked in a sharp breath, startled by the uninvited, unexpected touch. No one touched her there. The hand, the shoulder, those places yes, but not her stomach. She backed up instinctively, but that bumped her spine against his chest, and her backside against his thighs. He wasn’t that much taller than her, and a corner of her mind catalogued the way their torsos fit together. An odd comparison flitted across her mind. Like two complementary electron orbits bonding chemically together . . .

Don’t be silly! This is a distraction, she reminded herself sharply. Distractions detract from all the good I can do��Ooh . . .

Somehow, without dropping the oval container from the crook of his elbow, Captain Amariei had managed to cup the fingers of his hand around her left hip bone, pulling them closer together. Those fingertips had managed to find nerve endings Evanna hadn’t known about. She certainly didn’t expect the sympathetic tingling that zinged out to her navel and dropped straight to the bottom of her pelvic girdle, making her clamp her thighs together. The action didn’t contain the feeling, but rather enhanced it somehow.

The feel of his right hand lifting, gliding up, and brushing against her white-draped breasts distracted her further. His arm didn’t linger—she might have had cause to protest if it had—but instead moved to gesture at the shades of gray before them.

“Every single day of your life is surrounded by the dullest rocks of the Moon,” he murmured. “Barren. Dead. Lifeless. Black and white. You have been told over and over by your colleagues that your mind needs to be equally black and white, focused solely upon your work. In fact, you have been told this so much and so often since being handed over to the Lunar Intelligence Trust that you have come to believe them. You have been told over and over that there are only black, white, and shades of gray, to the point where you now refuse to believe in colors like red and green, gold and blue . . . things they don’t want for you. Every single day, you are told how important your work is, and how you don’t dare let anything distract you. Isn’t this true?”

Evanna craned her neck, pulling away just far enough so she could frown at him. “How did you . . . ?”

“How did I know? Ask me instead, how do I know what your favorite story was as a child, back when you were still allowed to live a life full of color and potential?” he murmured. His light brown eyes glowed with an almost copper warmth. “Do you remember why you liked that story? Do you even remember what story you liked best? Or has everything you ever liked in your young life been shoved and exiled so far away, it’s now farther away than the Earth itself in that empty, barren sky?”

His questions were confusing her. Evanna blinked and tried to gather her scattered thoughts. She wanted to demand the release of the isotope, knew she should demand it, but his questions about her childhood disrupted her thoughts. So did the return of his right arm, which he wrapped around her ribs just below her breasts. Old memories surfaced, making her blink and look out at the barren stretch of powdered grit and sun-bleached stone.

My favorite childhood tale . . . I haven’t thought of childhood tales in . . . in twenty years. I haven’t had time to think of such foolish things, she told herself, shaking her head. Or rather, she tried to shake her head. Captain Victor Amariei pressed his cheek against hers, stilling her denial even as he soothed her distress with his next words.

“Your mother told me which one was your favorite. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. She read it to you every night when you were little. You used to have fifteen different books of it, too—real books, with illustrations painted on their pages in the fullest of colors.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his mouth quirk in a smile.

“She said your favorite part was when Snow White was lost in the forest. You always stated that Snow White should have been happy to be among all those trees, not frightened . . . remember? Do you remember why you thought she should be happy?”

Overwhelmed by his odd embrace—by the first embrace she could remember since she was a child—Evanna licked her lips. “I . . . wanted to be Snow White. I wanted to . . . to walk among a whole forest of trees. To go to the Motherworld and see and hear and . . . smell everything.”

All she could see was barren lunar rocks, and all she could smell was . . . No, not all she could smell was the same slightly dusty, recycled scent of the ventilated air. Evanna realized she could also smell something warm, something slightly soapy and a little musky. The scent of the copper-clad man holding her. Unless it was a chemical that she needed to pay attention to in the labs, or the food on her plate, Evanna couldn’t remember the last time she had paid attention to smells. Certainly not how a particular man smelled.

“I see that even then, you were a very smart little girl,” the courier who wasn’t a courier murmured. “Books and videos and holograms aren’t the same as the real thing . . . and books and videos and holograms are all too easily shoved aside and locked away by the people who try to control you.”

“They’re not controlling me,” she countered, feeling the need to assert that fact. “I am here of my own free will.”

“I read your employment contract.”

That wasn’t expected, either. Puzzled by the change in topic, Evanna twisted to look at Captain Amariei. The movement caused the canister to drop, since it dragged his fingertips along with the twisting of her hip. As the canister dangled on its security chain, she ignored the bouncing of the lump against her thigh, in favor of demanding, “You read my contract? Why? And how?”

“By Terran law, you are legally entitled to a minimum of three weeks of paid vacation every single year . . . and yet according to the work logs of this lovely little prison . . . you haven’t once left the Lunar Ceramics Institute.” His eyes, alive as they were, pinned her in place. “Not in the ten years you have worked here. You earn more in a single year than I can earn hauling cargo around the solar system in five, even with the best of cargos . . . but not once have you bought a shuttle ticket, or booked a hotel room, or traveled to see in person the forests you longed to visit as a child. And I’ll bet you every single atom in this can of bismuth that your colleagues and superiors in the Lunar Intelligence Trust were the ones who convinced you that you didn’t need to go anywhere.”

Evanna flushed at his words. “It’s not that I don’t need or want to go elsewhere. It’s that I’m needed here. And I’ll have that can of bismuth from you, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what, have me thrown off the Moon? With your precious can still attached?” he said mockingly. “You know as well as I do that you specified the isotope should be delivered in a catalytically encrypted container. If it is removed from my wrist by force, or by anything but the right code as well as your thumbprint—a code which you do not have—then according to what I was told, the liquid bismuth in this can gets mixed with the compressed oxygen in the outer shell, turning this stuff into a very expensive version of a fire-starter. Until you can separate out the pure metal again, it won’t be good for anything involving the extremely high temperatures of the ceristeel ceramics manufacturing process your LUCI requires it to endure.”

Evanna stared at him. “You’re just a courier! How do you know all this chemistry?”

“You don’t have to be the pawn of a brain trust to have the brains to spare, Doctor,” he drawled. “I just did a little research in my free time before I came here. My point is, you designed the security system to avoid risking the sample being contaminated by industrial espionage, but the miners gave me the correct access code. That means I can make whatever demands I like, and either you fulfill them, or you wait another eight months before they can mine and refine enough of the ore under their current production methods to send your way again.”

“You’re trying to blackmail me?” she demanded. She craned her neck again, this time peering at the black bubbles in the ceiling. Why isn’t Security here yet? Why haven’t they leaped in here to rescue me from this . . . this . . .

“Actually, I prefer to think of it as ‘rescuing’ you.” Cupping her cheek with his free hand, he brushed his thumb over her lips, stilling her next protest. “I want three things from you, in exchange for the correct release code. Three simple things.”

“What do you want?” Evanna asked warily, wondering why his thumb should be causing the same electrified feelings his fingers had on her hip bone.

Warm brown eyes gleaming, he murmured, “The first is a kiss, here and now.”

Disgusted that he was interested in something she had been told over and over was nothing more than simple, crass, useless biology, Evanna wrinkled her nose. She did want that isotope, and she didn’t want to have to wait eight months to get it. But she also didn’t want to commit herself until she knew the full extent of this blackmailer’s demands. “And the second thing?”

“Oh, no. First, the kiss. Nothing less will unseal these lips,” he murmured, smiling.

His thumb brushed her lips again, confusing her. Oh, come on. Evanna chided herself. It’s not like you haven’t kissed anyone in the past. The very distant past. She vaguely remembered kissing her mother at the end of each bedtime story, though it had been a good twenty years. Sighing, she puckered her lips and leaned in, bumping them against his cheek. “There. Your kiss. And you’re a blackmailer, not a rescuer, Captain Amariei. If you are a captain.”

His mouth quirked up at the corner. “I am a captain, but that is not a kiss. And I will rescue you, as you will see.”

“Rescue me from what?” Evanna demanded.

“This place. This is like that other fairy tale, the one about the princess whose father dumped her on the top of a glass hill. Your father said you didn’t like that one so much, though your little sister asked for it often enough . . . You’ve been isolated from everything and everyone for too many years, Evanna,” he told her. “Including that forest you used to long for.”

A nudge turned her around to face the stark, lifeless moonscape beyond the triple-thick windows.

“Trees don’t grow on glass hills. Nothing grows up here, because life needs color instead of black-and-white. Life needs freedom and fresh air. Life needs everything you don’t have . . . because you’ve been told over and over that you need to stay on your precious glass hill. Entirely alone, up here.”

One moment she was all but wrapped in the warmth of his unorthodox, uninvited embrace. The next, he stepped back, abandoning her to the cold, impersonal air of the conference room. She couldn’t feel the warmth in the air puffing up from the vents, or the heat of the sunlight streaming in from the left, an unrelenting part of the weeks-long lunar day. All Evanna could feel was alone, just as he claimed. Alone and bereft. An electron torn from its rightful path and sent careening without control through the interstitial void between atomic orbits.

That is a silly piece of mental imagery, she scolded herself after a moment, striving to collect her dignity. You are not a free radical! Free radicals are dangerous! They cause trouble, and . . . and . . .

The view of the crater, stark and lifeless, mocked her. Barren. Lifeless. A glass hill on which nothing could grow. She remembered that fairy tale, too, as well as her favorite. Evanna hadn’t liked it because she had always thought the father of the princess had been unnecessarily cruel, abandoning her on top of that hill with nothing but three apples for company.

She had always liked this view, since it was the largest section of windows in the complex, but the transparency of the tough plexi sheltering her from the vacuum of space was too glasslike now for comfort. Worse, this not-a-courier captain was right, now that she thought of it. Every time she had made a comment about taking a vacation elsewhere over the past ten years—no, the past twenty years, Evanna realized—the others in the Intelligence Trust had convinced her out of it, often coming up with a solid, logical, school- or work-related reason why she should stay.

I do love my work, she admitted silently. I didn’t mind staying . . . after a while, honesty prompted her to add. And I did use my holoprojection programs to simulate being in a forest . . . but I did long to see a forest for real.

I still do. Now more than ever, now that I’ve been reminded of everything I’ve been missing . . .

Turning, she half expected the copper-clad captain to be gone. He was only a couple meters away, lounging against the side of the long, black conference table like a sober statue. His hand cradled the canister of bismuth against his hip, silently reminding her of why he was still there. For one wild, irresponsible moment, she was tempted to toss aside her quest to explore the potentials of adding diamagnetic repulsion properties to military starship hulls. Only for a moment.

I’m not abandoning my work, she asserted silently, staring at him. I’m not! But . . . I am going to take a vacation. A real one. On Earth, no less. And soon. I’ll do it very soon.

He hefted the canister, balancing it on his palm. “Care to try again? Or do you not want this after all?”

“I already kissed you once, Captain Amariei,” Evanna pointed out, flustered. “Is that your second demand?”

“That wasn’t a real kiss. You’ll have to give me a real one to know what my second request is . . . and you should call me Victor. You are about to kiss me, after all,” he added. His somber appearance seemed to melt away as he smiled. The copper statue was alive once more, and though he wasn’t even within arm’s length of her, she felt warm again. Warm all over.

She regathered her wits and moved closer. She even put her hands on her hips in an attempt to assert some authority over the situation. “Well, if that wasn’t a real kiss, then what is, by your definition?”

Pushing off the edge of the table, he lifted his free hand to her chin. Tilting her head slightly, he tipped his the other way and brought their faces so close, she had to shut her eyes to keep from crossing them. His lips brushed against hers, lingered, and lifted a fraction away. Then they came back, pressed a little more, and nibbled. Just a little.

It was an intriguing feeling, rather than the disgusting one she had been told it was. Curious, Evanna moved her own lips. He nibbled a little more, encouraging her to respond, and startled her by licking her bottom lip. The moment her mouth parted in exclamation, he swept in and claimed it fully. It would have been unnerving in a bad way, if part of what unnerved her wasn’t more of that strange twisting in her nerves. This time, instead of connecting a short, understandable distance, it speared from her mouth all the way down through her groin to her toes. Neither of which were near anything he was actually touching.

Her knees buckled. Victor let go of her chin, though not her mouth, wrapping his free arm around her back. That snugged their bodies together, once more giving her the feeling that the two of them together formed some unknown, exciting, yet somehow stable compound. The kind rife with possibilities. She just had no clue what those possibilities were, other than that he was now sucking on her lower lip and her hands were exploring the warmth of his throat and the texture of his short-cropped hair.

Her nerves were buzzing like an unstable element when he finally ended the kiss. Evanna felt like half of her life was suddenly going into decay, transforming her into something unexpected. She tried to frown at that. Another silly mental image. I’m supposed to be focusing on my . . . Ooh, his thumb again . . .

This time, with the moisture of their kiss still on her lips, his thumb tickled her as it glided across her flesh. “That,” Victor Amariei murmured, “is what I’d call a kiss.”

She blinked, feeling a worrisome urge to lick the pad of his thumb. It was entirely unlike her to think of such things.

Victor smiled. “So . . . are you going to give me one? I’ve given you a good example of a real kiss, but I gave it to you. I want one from you to me, of your own free will.”

Evanna blinked. Not only was he demanding a kiss from her, he was demanding several of them, in a sneaky way. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea . . .”

“Why not? It’s perfectly normal, and perfectly natural, and perfectly not what that brain trust wants you to do. And why not?” Victor asked rhetorically, shrugging as he leaned back against the edge of the table. “Because they want to control you. They want to enslave you. They want every last iota of your life plugged into this institute, so they can suck it out of you. There’s only one problem. You’re not a machine. You’re a Human. And Humans are allowed to have fun. We are supposed to interact in personal ways.

“Anyone who tells you otherwise, who demands that you give up your humanity ‘for the good of humanity’ . . . well, I’d say they’re not Human, but that runs the risk of comparing them to the other races in the Alliance. Even the aliens don’t believe in sucking the joy out of their lives, whatever their versions of joy may be.”

That distracted her. “Have you met an alien?” Evanna asked. “The Lunar Ceramics Institute does a lot of research for the Terran military, so visits from foreign races have always been discouraged for security reasons . . .”

“Have I met an alien?” the copper-clad captain repeated, touching his chest. “Every time I go to Earth, I run across aliens! They’re all over the spaceports! Gatsugi scientists, Solarican ship crews . . . even the occasional K’katta tourist or two. They’re also at Ganymede, and the domes on Mars, and plenty of other places.

“There aren’t many of them, I’ll admit, but they do visit this system.” Victor shook his head slowly, giving her a pitying look. “All those weeks of vacation you were never allowed to take, you could have been rubbing elbows with the other sentient races. You could have been conversing with their scientists. Being inspired by outside ideas as well as your own, bouncing potential theories off of colleagues who have different life experiences and thus different perspectives on a suggested problem.

“But no. Instead, you’re stuck here. A princess on a glass hill, isolated and alone.” He hefted the container manacled to his wrist and twisted his mouth. “According to what I read of that fairy tale, that poor princess wasn’t even allowed to eat her three apples, was she?”

That made Evanna fold her arms across her chest. “No, she wasn’t. She was forced to give up all three of them to whoever could reach her.”

“She wasn’t forced, when one finally did reach out to her. She gave two of them as a gift,” he pointed out.

“And got nothing in return for it,” Evanna pointed out.

Victor shook his head. “She gained something far more precious than mere apples. She gained her freedom.”

“Well, that’s where your analogy breaks down, Captain.” Flipping her hand at him, Evanna indicated his clothes. “You come here all dressed in copper, which if I remember right was the color of the first suit of armor, and you’re asking me to give you my three apples. But a canister of liquid bismuth isn’t equivalent to my freedom. And I’m not buying it for three kisses. Two of which you’ve already had from me.”

“I never said it was the equivalent. And I never said I wanted three kisses from you. Just the one. But it has to be of your own free will; given, not taken or demonstrated. Give me that one kiss and I’ll tell you what the second apple is,” he bartered, tucking the canister under his elbow once more. “And not for a mere can of metal, however rare, but for your freedom from this barren glass hill.”

Amanda’s words came back to her. I know we’re in the business of saving others’ lives. But I think you should take a look at your own life, too . . .

At your own life . . .

Did she mean . . . ? If this man is right, then logic dictates I’m not the only person constricted by LIT’s policies of discouraging “personal distractions” in its members and, by correlation, LUCI’s employees. Evanna frowned in thought. Wait, wasn’t there that scandal about a year ago of some lab worker over in Dr. Priznell’s lab behaving in an unprofessional manner, of her being dismissed and then trying to sue the institute? I wondered about that, because she’d always seemed like such a competent lab assistant . . .

Looking up at the author of her disquiet, she found him once again waiting with silent, statue-like patience. The only things that moved about him were the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathed and those tawny brown eyes flicking down over her lab-coat-clad body and back up to her face. Until he licked his lips. The simple act of moistening them, the subtle glide of the tip of his tongue, reminded her of his demonstration kiss.

She wasn’t even touching him, yet she could feel that tingling once again inside her skin. It defied logic and the explanations of science . . . and yet it was chemistry.

Acting on impulse, Evanna swayed forward. She hesitated as their bodies almost brushed together, then daringly closed the fractional gap between their lips. At first, she just pressed her mouth to his. When he didn’t move, she tried an experimental nibble, followed by a tentative lick. He responded by opening his lips just a little and nibbling back. It was encouragement enough to make her try a bolder touch. A deeper taste. An angling of their mouths and a burrowing of her fingers in his crisp, wavy, dark brown hair, until his tongue met hers, helping her to repeat the same excitement as before.

This time, both of his arms wrapped around her, pulling her breathtakingly close. That left the canister dangling awkwardly against her backside, but she didn’t care. All she could do was agree. This was a kiss. It was delicious, it was invigorating, and it was exciting. Full of any number of unknown variables just waiting to be catalogued and explored.

Researcher at heart that she was, Evanna wanted to explore every possible permutation. Unfortunately, the door hissed open. Alarmed by the noise, she pulled back, blushing furiously at having been caught in a very nonprofessional act. It was only Amanda, but the sober look her chief assistant gave her unnerved Evanna.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve run out of time. You have about a minute, maybe two at most, if you’re lucky.”

Frowning, Evanna looked from her assistant to her . . . well, kisser, for lack of a better word. He definitely wasn’t a courier, despite the isotope chained to his wrist. Victor grimaced. “Damn. Okay. Here’s the second request. Come with me to Earth. Right now. Take a leave of absence, go on vacation, and walk on the Motherworld. Walk in a real forest, not in a holographic one. Visit the beach. Gawk at some aliens. But go now. No excuses, no waiting, no prevaricating, and no letting anyone else convince you that your work here is so vital you cannot leave it for a week.”

“He’s right, Doctor. Every project you currently have going can be put on hold for a while,” Amanda agreed. She started to say more, then touched her ear with one hand and held up the finger of the other. Evanna believed her assistant must be listening to the same sort of earbud comm piece that Security used. When Amanda rolled her fingers in a hurry-up motion, Evanna knew her guess was right.

“A simple yes or no,” the courier who wasn’t a courier urged her. “Make up your mind. I would have worn silver for this next part, but you haven’t much time.”

Evanna looked between him and Amanda, grasping the conspiracy they had formed. “You have everything all figured out, don’t you? Except, how do I know I can trust you?”

He shrugged. “Your family does. Your assistant does.” Victor paused, smiled, and hefted the canister chained to his left hand. “And your bismuth does.”

The absurdity of that made her laugh. The reaction wasn’t at all what she would have expected, but even more jolting was the realization that she liked laughing at an absurdity. She sobered as she tried to recall the last time someone had joked about her work in her presence, and had to silently confess it had been at least three years.

Because jokes are inappropriate in a serious workplace, she thought, parroting all that she had been told. He’s right. They have stolen my humanity from me. Lifting her chin, Dr. Evanna Motska gave him her reply. “Yes. I’ll need to go back to my quarters first—”

“It’s all taken care of,” her assistant interjected, enduring Evanna’s startled look. She flicked her gaze up toward the dark bubbles of the security cameras in the ceiling, a pointed look much like the one she had given earlier in the holographic lab, and nodded. “If you’ll leave the canister with me, I’ll see that it gets to the lab while Captain Amariei shows you those astro-survey charts of the regions containing the bismuth isotope, so you’ll know the scope of what can be extracted in a potential larger scale production in the future.”

“Yes, I’d bring them into the complex, but they’re proprietary charts,” Victor added smoothly, not showing any sign that the abrupt change in subject had fazed him. “The Liberty Mining Guild has only loaned them to me temporarily. They insist I can’t even take the datapad storing them off of my ship. . . .which I took the liberty to mean my shuttle, which is parked in your hangar,” Victor added.

Evanna caught on to her assistant’s smooth babble of words, and the captain’s equally smooth reply. She’s giving us a cover, an excuse for me to go to his ship. Nodding, she headed toward the door, only to hear him clearing his throat behind her.

“Your thumbprint, Doctor?” he asked, lifting his oval, white burden.

Returning to him, she flipped open the little door covering the sensor panel and pressed her thumb to the scanner. A second panel slid open, revealing a grid of buttons. He punched in the combination . . . which looked like the code she would have used herself. A sharp glance at his face showed his eyes all but gleaming with a lively sense of humor.

“And the third apple?” she couldn’t help but ask under her breath.

“All in good time, Doctor.” Tossing the canister at her assistant, who hastily caught it, Victor rubbed at the reddish marks circling his wrist. “That feels really good.”

“What, lobbing a can of priceless bismuth 209 at my assistant like it was a sofa cushion?” Evanna demanded.

“Freeing myself of a cumbersome, unnecessary restriction. You should try it sometime,” he added, gesturing for her to join him in heading toward the door. “This way to the mineral charts, Doctor.”

Aware that they were being watched by Security—though she would have to interrogate her assistant at a later date as to why she hadn’t been watched before now—Evanna managed a cool, professional nod. “Thank you, Captain. I appreciate the troubles you are taking on my behalf.”

“I hope you do,” he muttered, escorting her out of the conference room.

VICTOR worried about the security guard who had insisted on accompanying them into the shuttle, unsure how to get rid of the other man. It was true he couldn’t be fired for kissing their genius chemist—and what a kisser she was—and he was the captain of this shuttle, but they were still on Lunar Ceramics Institute turf. There was only so much he could do without getting into trouble.

He didn’t have to worry for long. After the third time the man tried to wedge himself between Victor and Dr. Motska, trying to get a closer look at the datapad she was perusing, the good doctor lost her patience.

“Enough!” she snapped, shoving back on the elbow that had intruded yet again on her shoulder. The sudden, hard act knocked both men back, but she didn’t apologize. Instead, she surged to her feet out of the copilot’s seat and glared at the gray-uniformed man. “Get out!”

“Excuse me?” the guard asked, blinking as he righted himself.

“I said, get out! There isn’t enough room in here for all three of us, and your presence is not necessary!”

“But I’m here for your safety!” the man protested.

“Captain Amariei is not going to do anything to me which I do not wish him to do—isn’t that right, Captain?” Evanna asked.

There was only one safe reply he could make to that. Touching his chest, Victor promised, “You have my word of honor, I will do whatever you wish me to do. All you have to do is tell me.”

“Really? Good. Throw him out.” She kept her hazel eyes on Victor’s face as the security guard spluttered. “I want him off this shuttle, and as you are the captain of this craft and I am his superior, he has no right to object to my wishes, or to your carrying them out in the course of your duties. Will you comply?”

“Whatever you wish, Doctor.” Grabbing the other man by the elbow and the collar, Victor shoved him out of the small confines of the cockpit. The guard struggled, but the captain out-massed him by several kilos of solid muscle. Manhandling him around the corner to the access hatch located between cockpit and cargo hold, Victor shoved the still protesting man through the opening, then blocked it with his own body, folding his arms over his chest.

“You can’t do this! I’ll have a security detail here immediately, and I’ll have you arrested for . . . for . . .”

“For what? Kidnapping? I could hardly be accused of such when Dr. Motska is on board my ship entirely of her own free will,” Victor pointed out. “For throwing a disruptive element off my ship? While on board a ship, all passengers are subject to the decrees of its captain and/or pilot by Terran law. And I happen to concur with Dr. Motska. Your presence is unnecessary and unwanted.”

The thinner man scoffed. “Unwanted?”

“Captain, I cannot concentrate on these mineral charts with all that noise outside! Please seal off the ship against all unwanted intrusions.”

Victor smirked as the guard spluttered again. “You heard the lady. Your presence is most definitely unwanted.”

Jabbing the buttons on the control panel, he closed the hatch, then locked it with a scan of his thumb. Returning to the cockpit, he found her seated once more at the copilot’s station, nibbling on her lower lip and staring out the viewports rather than perusing the datapad in her hands. “Are you all right?”

She looked down at the pad, then up at him. “I’ve never done that before—I’ve had, well, tantrum fits from time to time, but . . . that was work-related. This . . .”

“You’re having second thoughts,” Victor summarized. “You’ve always been a good girl, always done what you were told.”

“Well, of course! It was logical. This is . . . this is impulsive, and irrational. Maybe I should—”

Blocking her with a hand on her shoulder as she started to rise, Victor pressed her back down into the well-padded chair. “Read what’s on the datapad, and tell me if leaving really is as irrational as they wanted you to believe. Go to the data menu and look at the other folders, the ones not involving astrogeology. I think you’ll find the eighth one down the most interesting.”

Thumbing the controls, she scrolled through the menu choices, and frowned. “Depositions of known instances involving breaches of contract?”

“Read,” he urged, settling into the pilot’s chair on the left.

She did so, frowning and thumbing through the paragraphs. A couple of times she paled at what she read; other times, she flushed red, brow furrowing in a mixture of shame and aggravation. When she came to the end, Evanna set the datapad in the flat depression of the mid-console projecting out partway between their seats.

“Well. I have been manipulated, haven’t I?” Her tone was flat, somewhere between bleak and angry. “All these people knew my employers were deliberately blocking any interest I might develop in leaving the institute . . . and they never spoke up.”

“I’m sure they thought they had the best of reasons. Such as, your superiors believed most of those reasons involved the bottom line and whatever they could milk out of you, and your inferiors believed if they did speak up, they would lose their jobs and be blacklisted out of the industry. The real point, Doctor, is that you have legal leverage in your hands now, with those gathered depositions,” Victor stated. She glanced over at him and he nodded at the pad. “They have breached their contract with you, violating the Terran United Planets ordinances governing the limit of how many hours any company may work its employees in a single year, whether it is private, public, or government-run.

“Worse, they have isolated you from your friends and family, and from making friends and family. They have robbed you of your right to have a private life . . . and with the same contractual obligations they have forced upon you with those clauses about ‘maintaining a strictly professional atmosphere at all times,’ they have forced these unnatural, restrictive viewpoints upon everyone else who works with you.” Victor knew he was playing with fire by admitting his own role so bluntly, but something within him prompted him to be honest with her. “Your friends, family, and colleagues all know that you are a force to be reckoned with at the institute. They asked me to ‘wake you up’ to your situation and everything you’ve missed knowing as a result.”

“Including being kissed?” she asked, giving him a suspicious look. “Was that really necessary, Captain?”

He met her gaze steadily. “As necessary as breathing. At least, to me. You’re still learning the possibilities of what it could mean for you.”

His honesty took her aback. “Really?”

“Really. I will admit I’ve been dared into doing any number of things involving women,” he added, that same inner urge prompting him into possible verbal suicide. “But I was only asked to wake you up to all the things you’ve been denied by your captors. Including the fact that you are a real person and not the creative little robot the Lunar Intelligence Trust has tried to make of you.

“I have done that, as requested. You are aware of your glass hill prison, and you have met me at least halfway, which means you are halfway to your freedom. Whatever I do from this point onward, I do of my own free will. Not because of a bet, or a dare, or a contract, but because I honestly want to do it.” Pausing to let her absorb his words, Victor smiled slowly at her. “Would you like to know what I want to do next?”

He watched her nibble on her lower lip a moment, then lift her chin. “Why not? What do you want to do next, Captain?”

“Well, first, I’d like to be able to call you Evanna instead of Doctor, and hear you call me Victor instead of Captain,” he told her. “Titles distance you from people. Yes, they induce a certain respect which can be needed, but they also rob you of emotional intimacy. After that, Evanna . . . I’d like to shuttle you over to Earth, to a place called Sol Duc. It’s in a rich, lush, evergreen forest on the North American continent, and it has a series of mineral hot springs, a hotel with several private cabins, some restaurants, and all the peace and privacy and reality a woman desperately in need of a vacation could want.

“Once we’re down there and have rented a cabin for a few days, I would like to change into a silver outfit,” he teased, referencing the fairy tale, “and take you hiking in the woods, since I’ve been there a few times before. I want to take you somewhere far away from your glass hill, somewhere colorful and filled with an excess of life. Or if you prefer a mix of civilization with your wilderness, we can go to visit some forested land my family owns near Bucureşti. There aren’t quite as many trees, since the land is a bit more developed in that region, but you could see how a normal family lives.”

“What about my own family? Why shouldn’t I visit them first?” Evanna inquired.

“Because they still live on the Moon, and that’s far too close to the influence of your precious Intelligence Trust to risk,” Victor reminded her. “You can visit them after you’ve had a taste of real life, which you will only find far from this lunar glass hill. I’ll take you myself, if you like. To Sol Duc, to Bucureşti, and even to your family, but the latter only after you have visited at least one of the others.”

“Only after I walk among real trees . . .” she murmured. “You keep referencing the story of the princess on the glass hill, but what about Snow White and her seven friends? Are you going to take me to meet six other men in these woods of yours?”

Hesitating, Victor shrugged and gave her the truth. “I suppose I could scrounge up six more men, between my brothers and cousins and their friends . . . but I’d rather spend my time with you figuring out just how quickly you can master the art of kissing. After all, you can only kiss one person at a time. You’re very good at it, for someone who has never been properly kissed before. A natural, even. But . . . there is still plenty of room for improvement.”

“Is there really that much more to learn, then?” Evanna asked.

“Quite a lot left to learn.” He started to say more, but the comm beeped, warning him the Lunar Ceramics Institute was attempting to contact them. “I believe you are being paged by your overeager, earnest, well-meaning captors, Doctor. Would you care to reply?”

Picking up the datapad, she thumbed a few commands into it, studied what came up, and nodded. “Yes, I would. And I’d like to go see that forest you recommended. The first one, with the hotel and the hot springs. And then I’d like to see the second one, where your family lives. After that, I want to visit my own family. And after that . . . we will see. Because my contract does not specify I have to use each year’s vacation time solely within that year. With twenty years of vacation accrued, I could take off for a whole year and then some, if I wanted to.

“I’m not sure if I want to, just yet, but I do want to get away. With your help, Captain,” she allowed, giving him a courteous nod. “Erm . . . Victor.”

Plucking her nearest hand free from the datapad, Victor lifted it to his lips for a kiss. “I am pleased to be of any service you desire, Evanna.”

With his other hand, he flicked on the comm unit, connecting her with the image of one of the institute’s administrators.

“A webwork! That’s what I need!”

The exclamation made Victor blink. Evanna pointed with her free hand at a spiderweb glistening with dew from the fog misting the forest. He dutifully peered at it, though he didn’t know why. “What about it?”

“Right before you arrived, I was working on a problem with lightening the mass of the ceristeel hull platings for the military. The problem is annealing the thermal layers of the ceristeel for strength and durability while still permitting sensor integration,” Evanna explained, her attention more on the orb spider and its web than on him.

She was also smiling, which she hadn’t stopped doing since arriving at this resort last night, with its damp, mossy rain forest waiting to be explored. Still, she had a lifetime of thinking about work as a habit, and this was an important idea to explore. And to think, it’s because I’m here that I thought of this solution to my problem.

“If I patterned the foam with a webwork of intercrossed annealings—vertical ones as well as horizontal,” she stressed, “it would mitigate the shearing stresses of a glancing impact while cutting the overall mass of the thermal tiles. Not by as much as I’d hoped, but it would be enough to . . . I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

“Not by that much,” Victor teased. “I do fly a spaceship, so the protective factors of its ceristeel plating are important to me. Besides, wouldn’t long lines of annealment cause the potential for parallel stress fractures? If the manufacturing process can be pattern-worked as you suggest, wouldn’t a honeycomb be more efficient? There aren’t any long straight lines in a honeycomb pattern, so any potential fracture would find itself blocked after fissuring only a short distance.”

“Of course—why didn’t I think of that?” she murmured, hazel eyes gazing somewhere beyond the boundaries of the trail they were following. They weren’t far from the two-bedroom cabin they had rented, having just begun the morning’s walk in the woods. “It’s an incredibly simple solution to the problem, so why didn’t I see it earlier?”

Victor wrinkled his nose. “Because you’ve been isolated from life too much?”

Facing him, Evanna smiled. “That I have. Care to de-isolate me again, Capt—Victor?”

Happy to oblige, he shifted closer and met her upturned lips with his own. If kisses were apples, he had shared a basketful with her so far, never mind a mere three.

Evanna sighed happily, returning each touch and taste. As the kiss progressed, her arms ended up looped around his silver-clad shoulders, and his wrapped around her flower-printed waist. Colorful, patterned clothes were among the first things she had bought after arriving on Earth. She had yet to find a supplier of the same metallic shirts he preferred, but that was all right; she had discovered the allure of nature, and liked how her flowery shirts and dresses reminded her of the real world. This world.

Laughter from a couple of kids broke them apart. The kids were at that age where they weren’t really children anymore but not quite teenagers, and they pushed at each other, racing to be the first one up the trail. Behind them, their parents followed at a more sedate pace. The indulgent look the adults gave Victor and Evanna made her blush, because it was the kind of look that said the two of them just had to be a couple, given their intimate closeness.

She might not know much about interpersonal relationships yet, but she was learning, and she was learning that she liked the idea of being a couple. Looking up into the light brown eyes of her host, she found them moving over her face with that same penetrating sense of life. “You know what?”

“What?” Victor asked, distracted by the sight of her hair, left down this morning. Last night they had shopped, dined, talked—and kissed—and parted to their separate rooms to sleep. This morning, she was a different woman, much more approachable than the crisp, impersonal, lab-coat-wearing scientist she had been yesterday. Now she was as soft and silky as her hair looked, and he was the one who seemed colorless by comparison, clad in a silver shirt and matching pants today. He didn’t feel colorless inside, though; just watching her delight in these new experiences refreshed his own view of their birthworld.

“I have just realized I can research microannealing patterns and the integration of bismuth isotopes into ceristeel compounds any old day. Today, I am on vacation, and I am on vacation with you. And you promised to teach me more about kissing. You . . .” She broke off as a large drop of water plopped onto her forehead. It was accompanied by the pattering of several more starting to fall around them. Glancing up through the trees, she wrinkled her nose. “I see that a real forest has real drawbacks. Holographic ones don’t get you wet.”

“They also don’t have bugs. But we can get an umbrella and better coats, and the rain will chase away the bugs,” he offered. “You didn’t get much of a walk in the woods last night when we arrived.”

“I’d rather not overdo it on my first day, and the forest will still be here in a few hours, when the rain has hopefully faded. Why don’t we go back to our cabin, and you can show me all the different ways someone can kiss?” Evanna asked, flinching as more drops pattered down through the trees, cold and wet. “We can do that indoors, where it’s nice and dry.”

“If that is what you wish.” Victor wanted her full cooperation before he went as far as a kiss could be taken. He just wasn’t sure she knew what that meant yet. Walking faster and faster as the rain started falling in earnest, they reached their cabin quite damp, though not actually soaked. Shutting the door on the now hissing drops, Victor turned to face her, only to find himself crowded against the door. Startled, he eyed her warily.

“I did some research, you know,” Evanna murmured, rubbing her hands over the slippery, damp fabric of his silver shirt. “Last night, while you were sleeping, I crept out here and used the workstation to look up all manner of kissing techniques. Some of them were . . . very personal.”

One of her hands slid down his chest to his stomach as she spoke, and slipped a little lower still. Victor sucked in a sharp breath. He caught her wrist. “Evanna . . . are you sure about this?”

She looked down at his silver-clad chest for a few moments, then shrugged. Her free hand rubbed gently over the material as she spoke. “Well, as I said, I did some research. The descriptions for the things I’m feeling apparently fall under the category of adult interpersonal interactions. I find you an attractive specimen of male humankind, I admire your wit, I am aroused by the way you kiss me, and I am intrigued by the passion you invoke in me.”

Her other fingers fluttered slightly, making him stiffen. Evanna smirked.

“Judging from your reactions, you find me equally arousing, and my intelligence hasn’t scared you away. At least, as far as I have been able to tell. Given that we are attracted to each other, it makes perfect sense to pair up as research partners. After all, the things you’ve said and done suggest you do have some empirical experience in researching passion between men and women, which would make you an exemplary assistant in this matter. You do, don’t you?”

Nodding, he released her wrist, allowing her the opportunity to cup him fully. “I’m sure I could instruct you. I, ah . . . nice . . . In fact, the first lesson is all about hands-on research, which I see you’re already eager to explore.”

“Hands-on?” Evanna repeated, lifting her brows. “I thought this was supposed to be lips-on.”

“Hands-on first,” Victor corrected her. Catching her hands, he tugged them up to the top button of his shirt. “In order to kiss your research partner everywhere, you first need to remove any and all impediments to your lips, and that usually involves using your hands.”

Nodding, she began unfastening his shirt. “Yes, I see you’re right. I also understand that the best research environment—or at least the most comfortable—is a bed. Do you have a preference for which one?”

Lifting his fingers to the buttons of her own dress, Victor started removing it. “I think the nearest one will do.”

She looked up at that. “I read that a sofa also works, if you really want the nearest comfortable surface.”

“I think we should stick to traditional comforts the first few times,” Victor countered wryly, amused by her pragmatic approach to passion. Sweet scientist-lady, you have a lot to learn, don’t you?

She was staring at his chest with a bemused look. “Victor . . . if I may ask, why do you have all these muscles? Surely you don’t use primitive, brute force to haul around all those cargos you carry?”

“No, my cousin and I use exosuits and hydrolifters, just like any other crew. But we fly an in-system ship, so we can literally go days and weeks between destinations—Please move your arms like . . . that, yes, thank you,” he murmured, navigating her shoulders and elbows out of the constraints of her garment. “As a result, hauling cargo gets rather boring at times. There are only so many hours one can spend watching netshows, so I bought some fitness equipment a couple of years ago and have used it ever since.”

“You must get bored quite a lot, to have developed all of this,” Evanna observed, shoving his shirt off his shoulders so that it joined her dress on the floor. She skimmed her palms over his chest until her fingers reached his waist and began figuring out the intricacies of his trousers. Then she stopped and shook her head. “I almost forgot a step. We have to remove our shoes, then I can take off your pants and you can remove my underthings. After that, I have to give you a ‘blow’ or whatever it’s called, and then . . . what?”

Wincing, Victor shook his head. “You do not have to give me one, Evanna.”

She frowned at that. “Why not? Admittedly I didn’t research the topic of sex exhaustively, but the preliminary research I did suggested it’s best to satisfy the man first, so that he’ll last longer the second time. It also suggested that a male should take extra time preparing a virgin female so that the pain is minimized and the experience overall is as enjoyable as possible. Logic suggests that if men are so quick on the first round as all that, then the man should be satisfied first. And the best way to satisfy a man the first time around is to blow him.”

He stared at her a moment, then rubbed his palm over his face. “I can’t believe you’re turning me on with a dry, clinical recital of what we should do . . . Regardless, I’m afraid your research is incomplete.”

“It is? But I read seventeen articles and watched twenty-three vids,” Evanna pointed out. “That should be a sufficiently large enough sampling for preliminary instruction, at the very least.”

“Passion is not meant to be treated like mixing up a batch of chemicals, even if it’s been compared with chemistry for centuries,” Victor corrected her, amused. She really does throw herself into her research projects, doesn’t she? “And I don’t need to be satisfied immediately. Such things are more for men who haven’t bothered to put in a lot of research on self-control, which I have done. Besides, until you know what real passion is, how will you know if you’re giving it adequately?”

Evanna tilted her head, thinking about that. “You mean I have to empirically experience passion in a practical application before I can grasp the theory correctly for future usage?”

“Exactly. Real life isn’t a hologram, or a set of formulas on a screen,” he agreed. Before she could react, Victor scooped her off her feet, hefting her into his arms. She was average in height and average in weight, and not too difficult to carry the few meters across the sitting room of their cabin to the nearest of the bedrooms. Once there, he laid her on the bed, knelt beside it, removed her shoes and socks, and pulled her undergarments down her legs.

Squirming up onto her elbows, Evanna watched him toss her clothing aside and remove his own shoes, though he left his silver trousers on.

His eyes, which she had heard his cousin call “fox eyes” during their brief meeting on the trip from the Moon to the Earth, flicked from her face to her pelvis. She could see why his cousin had said that, for while the rest of the man kneeling before her parted legs was controlled and methodical, those light brown eyes were as free as a wild animal, roving all over her. The mixture of control and freedom fascinated her; Evanna realized that the dichotomy between the two made her want to make his body just as free as his eyes. I wonder what he’d be like if he unleashed some of that physical control . . .

Curiosity prompted to her to ask, “Now what?”

“Now I kiss you.”

Evanna watched avidly as he shifted to match actions to words. He didn’t start with the obvious, though. Instead of going straight for her mouth or her loins, he lifted her right leg and pressed his lips to her ankle. Pressed slow, succulent kisses up the inside of her calf. Lingered at her knee and licked her inner thigh. Just as she started to squirm in anticipation, he retreated and caught her other ankle, beginning his salutations all over again.

By the time he finally claimed her lower lips, Evanna wondered why the hell she’d ever thought anyone at the logical, passionless, work-only Lunar Intelligence Trust was a genius. Particularly for throwing passion out of life. Yes, it disrupted her concentration. Yes, it destroyed her ability to think. But this was worthwhile, even if it never spared a single ship in combat. Her colleagues and so-called superiors were all idiots. Every last one of them.

More than that, this man was the right man with which to research all the things she’d missed so far in life. Evanna was sure of it. He was just like her: dedicated, methodical, and thorough. Knowledgeable, skillful—a veritable genius. Particularly as he gently inserted his finger, working it into her in a way that taught her hips—or perhaps just reminded them—a movement she instinctively knew was as old as life. Every touch of his hands, his tongue, and his lips drew her deeper into the mysteries of her own body, and she wanted more of it.

He was certainly good enough to turn that twisting feeling of pleasure inside of her into an explosion of bliss. Particularly when he eased a second finger inside, curled both of them up, and fluttered against something that sent her mind reeling with explosions of pleasure. Nor did he seem to mind when she grabbed at his head, alternately tugging and pushing and pulling, encouraging the swirling flicks of his tongue. A tiny, somewhat still rational corner of her mind worried that the shouts and cries he evoked from her were going to disrupt the other vacationers, but the rest of her did not care. In fact, part of her hoped they could hear her all the way back on the Moon, enjoying her freedom to its fullest and then some.

It helped that Victor kept at it until her belly was a cramped, trembling knot. Only when she was panting and flushed, soaked with her own sweat, did he climb onto the bed and stretch out beside her. Smiling, he soothed her flesh with gentle strokes of his left hand. The other, she noted when she pried open her eyes, propped up his dark-haired head. As her panting eased, she could hear the pattering of the rain outside and the slow, steady breathing of the man lounging smugly at her side. Once again, he looked controlled and calm, save for the wild life visible in those golden brown eyes . . . and the lump in his pants now prodding at the side of her hip.

Her mind, briefly quieted by passion, leaped into action. By the time her breathing had calmed and her abdomen no longer spasmed, she had picked through several possible choices. Evanna drew in a deep breath and let it out as a deep sigh.

Victor quirked one of his brows. “Well? Do you like being kissed that way?”

Evanna snorted. “Even an idiot would like that, and I’m no idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” Victor agreed. His left hand stroked up from her stomach to her breasts, gently cupping one, then the other.

As pleasant as that was, Evanna focused on a more rational thought than passion. It wasn’t easy with his thumb circling her nipple, but it was necessary. “But . . . I do need to know something.”

“Ask,” he prompted, wondering what she had on her mind. And wondering if his touch was effective enough if she could still think so much while he was caressing her.

“How much time are you willing to spare toward researching passion with me?” she asked. His smile broadened, making her frown defensively. “I’m serious, Victor! I’m asking you because I tried kissing your cousin yesterday, while he was showing me where the restroom facilities were on board your ship.”

Victor stilled. He did not like the sound of that, and wondered at the strength of his reaction.

“As obliging and skillful as he was, I didn’t like kissing him,” Evanna stated. She watched him relax slightly, glad she had made the attempt, since it had helped secure preliminary confirmation of a hypothesis she was currently pondering. “It was much more enjoyable with you. I therefore see no reason to search farther afield when it’s clear you and I interact very well. Which leads me to wonder if you feel the same way.”

“I do.” He flushed a little at the words, recognizing their significance, but otherwise didn’t let himself react to the idea forming in his mind.

“Good. So, if we’re both agreeable . . . would you be willing to extend our research association? I mean, beyond this visit in the woods?” she asked.

“Of course.” He didn’t have to think about it. He already knew that he wanted to spend more time with her. Giving the future a moment of thought, he shrugged. “I suppose I could let my cousin buy out my share of the ship and maybe find a job ferrying supplies locally to and from the institute . . . presuming they’ll forgive me for helping you escape.”

Evanna blinked. “The institute? I was going to ask if I could have one of the spare crew cabins on your ship converted into a hologram lab.”

That made him blink and stop his gentle caresses on her abdomen. “A hologram lab?”

“Yes, a hologram lab,” she repeated. “Most of my work is done in the hologram lab.”

“But . . . what about the bismuth isotope?” Victor asked.

“Well, I do follow up holographic theory with hands-on applications, since even the best of computers can synthesize chemical reactions only so far. Real chemical interactions have an element of unpredictability . . . for all that that particular element isn’t found on the periodic table,” she quipped, pleased when his mouth curled up, enjoying her joke. “But that only happens for a few days a month, and usually it consists of me handing off projects to various lab workers, and overseeing a repeat of the occasional promising result.

“I’d need one or two crew quarters on board the Închiriat to install the processors and projectors into—and of course a mini hydro-generator to power them, to keep from draining the ship’s energy needs—but you do have four empty crew quarters, and your cousin said it was rare for you to take on passengers, so it’s not like you actually need them.” She paused as he thought about it, then asked, “Or am I presuming too much about our future interactions?”

“No, no,” he reassured her. “You’re not presuming too much. I wouldn’t object to that plan in the least. Particularly since I know you’d get to have a real life outside of your work that way. I’d guarantee it personally . . . though I think I’d have to change the name of the ship if you joined me on it.” He slid his hand back down to her stomach, teasing her navel with the edge of his thumb. “No, I’m just wondering what your employers would think of you moving all that industry-sensitive information out of their control.”

“They can stuff it down the nearest black hole if they do have a problem with it,” Evanna told him bluntly. “I am not going back to living my life on a glass hill. You’ve ridden up its slopes to rescue me, and I am suitably thankful . . . and I’ll thank you even more if you’ll continue to help me learn all the things I’ve missed out on. But I’m not going back to a prison. If they want my genius to give them their technological advances, they’ll have to deal with my terms from now on. Those depositions you gave me will ensure it, one way or another.”

Pleased his princess was determined to retain and enjoy her freedom, Victor leaned down and kissed her. To his surprise, she pushed him back. At his puzzled look, Evanna smiled and switched from pressing on his chest to caressing it with her palm.

“My turn. And I must point out that you are inappropriately attired for our little research endeavor.” Sliding her hand down, she explored the placket of his silver pants. The corner of her mouth quirked up. “As a lifelong, dedicated scientist, I must insist on following the established procedures and protocols. At least, for the initial experiments. Which means the last of your silver armor must go.”

Grinning, Victor complied. I see I’ll have to teach her how to speak sexily instead of scientifically, but the way she’s approaching this so far is enthusiastic enough to be amusing.

No sooner had he shucked his pants and undergarments than she tugged him down onto the bed on his back. Pleased by his compliance, Evanna leaned over him and kissed his chest. Some of the vids she had watched hadn’t covered this, but some of the literature had. He also smelled too good not to wonder what he tasted like.

Mmm, salty, and musky . . . and warm. I like it. Lapping her tongue across his pectoral muscles, she blinked as he shuddered and sighed. What was . . . ? Ah, the nipple. If he liked that, would he like . . . this?

Flicking her tongue across the tiny little bud made him groan and bury his hands in her upswept hair. Somewhere between him cupping her head and her sucking on his flesh, circling each nipple with her tongue, he managed to pluck out her hairpins, scattering her locks across his chest. Victor stroked her hair back from her face, allowing her to switch to his other areola. His moans faded, until all she could hear was the sound of the rain pattering on the roof of their rented cabin.

A glance upward showed why he was now so quiet. His lower lip was caught between his teeth, his face taut with silent strain. She peppered kisses down to his ribs, then licked those. His lip popped free with a chuckle, then with a squirm. The hands cupping her scalp pushed gently away, silent warning that he wouldn’t tolerate being tickled for much longer. Grinning, Evanna kissed lower, enjoying the way his stomach tightened, defining each muscle group.

His muscles weren’t the only firm thing about him. Up close, she saw that his shaft wasn’t particularly long, but it was thick, and it had a slight curve. Wrapping her fingers around it proved it was warm and satin-soft on the surface, with a firmness that belied its earlier, softer state. She knew she would have to look into the physiological reasons for the change—out of pure curiosity—but that would happen later. For now, empirical research, the hands-on, direct sort of exploration, was her main goal.

Except she hadn’t ever done this before. Seeking reassurance, Evanna glanced up. Most of his face showed signs she was pleasing him, in the flush of his cheeks, the curve of his lips, but it was his eyes that really glowed. Not quite wild, but definitely alive. Rippling her fingers, she experimented until he groaned and bit his lower lip again, head dropping back onto the bedding.

I wonder . . . Bracing herself on her side, she cupped his shaft in her hand and leaned down over his chest. A swirling lick of her tongue made him growl and shudder. One of the hands caressing her hair flopped down onto the mattress, fingers clenching and crumpling the covers.

That was interesting. Ever the researcher at heart, Evanna decided to switch position. Squirming on the bed, she shifted her head to his groin and her other hand to his chest. Except the dusting of dark hairs on his legs demanded to be explored, so she slipped her fingertips down onto his thighs and played with the different textures, soft skin, crisp curls, and warm flesh. Very warm, in certain places.

Her explorations made him shift and part his legs, made him moan softly and caress her own thighs, until he shifted onto his side and lifted her knee, making room for his head between her thighs. Confronted with the change in their positions, and the shaft prominently, conveniently placed, Evanna tentatively licked him. He groaned louder and kissed her fervently, encouraging her to do more.

Giving in to this new hunger, Evanna gave and received as much pleasure as instinct could provide, with scent and sound, taste and touch combining until she was rendered helpless with bliss. Shuddering, she slumped on the bed. She tried to return the pleasure but wasn’t sure if she was doing it right, until he cupped her hand in his and showed her the best ways to rub and stroke. It was close to what she had done, but she knew she had a lot more to learn.

With her lower body freed from his distracting attentions, Evanna shifted position so that he could lie back and she could watch their combined hands manipulating his shaft. When she dipped down and kissed the tip of him again, he growled and arched his back. Barely warned in time, she pulled back, watching him climax, from the trembling tension in his muscles to the wetness spilling over her fingers, to the way his hips bucked up into her touch. His fingers coaxed hers into gentling their grip, until with a last, mutual stroke, he tugged her palm free.

Bringing her damp knuckles up to his lips, Victor saluted them with a kiss. His breathing was still deep and unsteady, but the gleam in his eyes was both lively and calm. “Absolutely brilliant. You did that very well. I think you have a natural aptitude for passion.”

“You have a natural aptitude for teaching it,” Evanna replied. Squirming again, she righted herself in relation to him and eyed her damp hand. He grinned and helped her wipe it on his chest.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said dismissively as she started to protest. “In fact, if you do it right, lovemaking can be quite messy.”

“I’ll defer to the expert,” she conceded. “You’re quite talented, you know. And brilliant yourself. I wouldn’t settle for anything less in a research partner. I, um . . . hope you’re willing to help me research all manner of things,” she added. “Not just passion, but other aspects of social interaction. Like how do men and women live together, and which side of the bed do we each sleep on, and things like that.”

He grinned. She was definitely enjoying her freedom and definitely enjoying it with him. “I’d be honored. I do have one request, though.”

“Oh?” Evanna asked, curious.

“Yes. Could you . . . well, dare me to love you?” he asked, flushing as he did so, but forging on anyway. “I can’t resist a good dare when it involves a beautiful, fascinating, compelling woman.”

Blushing herself, Evanna grinned. “All right . . . but I won’t dare you to love me. I’ll dare you to love me forever. If it’ll help, I’ll take that dare, too, regarding you. Or at least give it a try.”

Victor grinned. Moving the hand resting on her stomach, he slid it up to her small breasts, cupping the far one. “I’ll take that bet with you. But first . . . we still have a lot more to research in the realm of hands-on passion. Quite a lot more. These things must progress in their proper order, after all.”

“I’ll defer the progression of these particular lab experiments to the expert,” she granted airily. Then she glanced down his chest to his legs and the flesh she had enjoyed. “I do have one question, though.”

“Only one?” Victor teased.

She rolled her eyes. “Only one for now, if you insist on my being accurate. No, sorry, two questions.”

“A good researcher always strives for accuracy. So, what are your questions?” Victor prompted as she twisted onto her side, propping her own head on her hand, mirroring his pose.

“The first one is, if that was how you kissed my lips while you were wearing copper, and this is how you kiss my loins when wearing silver, what kind of a kiss will you give me when you’re wearing your suit of gold?”

He smiled slowly. Wickedly and yet warmly, too. “I think I’ll save that particular kiss for our wedding day.”

Her breath caught and her heart felt like it stopped, if only for a moment. Leaning in close, he kissed her, restarting it. Wrapping her free arm around his ribs, Evanna kissed him back with everything she had. Not until she was flat on her back, panting with re-aroused passion and squirming with desire for more, did he release her lips.

“And the other question?” Victor asked, barely remembering it in time. What he wanted to do was part her thighs with his own and finish introducing her to all the delights of researching passion. But her question was important to her, which made it important to him.

“Hmm? Oh! Yes. The other question. You said if I joined you to live on board the Închiriat, you’d have to change its name. Why, and what to?” she asked, curious.

“Well, Închiriat means Rented in Romanian,” he explained. “I own the ship sixty-forty with my cousin Ston. I’m the one who picks which cargos we will carry around the system, and I have the right to name it. But with you on board, you would own me, as well as being my most precious cargo on board . . . and that means it should be renamed Vandute.”

Hands straying down to his buttocks, Evanna prompted, “And that word means . . . ?”

He leaned down and kissed her lips in a soft, brief salute. “Sold.”