Though her eyes were closed, she knew Doran was watching her. She could tell by the way he circled her navel with an index finger. He didn’t seem to share the opinion that she looked ridiculous in her makeshift bikini of shorts paired with a cutoff T-shirt. It wasn’t long before his touch began to wander, straying to the ticklish curve of her waist.
With a giggle, she rolled onto her stomach and rested one cheek on the towel. “When you promise a vacation, you really deliver,” she said. “If I get any more relaxed, you’ll have to scoop my melted body off the sand.”
“It’s no private yacht in the Caribbean, but it’ll do.”
“No private yacht,” she repeated, mocking him. “This room is a wonder.”
Squinting against the light, she opened her eyes to take in the turquoise water gently lapping at the sand. The wave pool was designed to mimic the ocean, an effect achieved by its sloping floor, and it resembled the real thing if she didn’t look too closely.
“I changed my mind,” Doran said, walking two fingers along her lower back. “Forget yachts and snorkeling in the open sea. This vacation is perfect because it gives us the one thing we can’t find on Earth.”
“Hmm?” she asked. “What’s that?”
He leaned down until the warmth of his bare chest met her shoulders. Then his mouth was at her ear, whispering, “Total privacy.”
Before she could agree with him, he brushed his lips along the sensitive bend of her neck and rendered her speechless. With his body so close, a new kind of heat settled between her hipbones, quickening her breaths in time with her pulse. She rolled over for a kiss, but instead of lowering his mouth to hers, he lay on his side and propped on one elbow, gazing at her with the expression of someone seeing the stars for the first time.
The shift in him caught her off guard. “What’s the matter?”
At first he didn’t say anything. He brushed back a stray tendril of hair that had escaped her braid and caressed her cheek while his eyes moved over her face. Then he wrinkled his brow as if trying to solve a quadratic equation. “Sometimes I look at you, and it feels like my chest is caving in. How do you do that to me?”
Solara’s lips parted. How did she do it? She could very well ask him the same question, but she didn’t. Because like so many other times when she was alone with Doran, the words wouldn’t come. She didn’t know why, only that there seemed to be a disconnect between her heart and her voice. Maybe she loved him more than words.
Instead of talking, she threaded her fingers in the dark hair behind his neck and pulled him down for a kiss with all her heart behind it. She hoped that someday she would be able to turn feelings into conversation. Until then, she’d have to show him. And she did. They were so tangled up in each other that they didn’t hear the door open.
“Aw, come on,” Kane drawled. “Take your burning love somewhere else.”
“Seriously,” Cassia agreed. “Some of us are trying to keep our lunches down.”
While Solara threw them a withering look, Doran groaned, keeping both eyes shut as he swiveled his face in their direction. “Didn’t you read the sign?”
“What sign?” Kane asked, glancing around for the best spot to plant his folding chair.
“The one I hung on the door this morning,” Doran told him.
“Oh,” Cassia said. “The board that says ‘Stay Out’?”
“That’s the one.”
“I thought that only applied to pirates,” she told him, and spread a blue-striped towel on the sand. “Or the Daeva.”
“Public beach, guys,” Kane added with that flirty grin—the one he knew didn’t work on them but insisted on using anyway.
Solara exhaled long and slow. She asked in Doran’s ear, “What’s that you were saying about yachts and privacy?”
He laughed without humor. “The open sea isn’t looking too bad now, is it?”
“Neither is that grassy spot behind the barn on Cargill.”
“Before I forget,” Cassia said while digging inside her beach bag. “I have something for you. Renny gave me these before he went topside with Gage to refuel the ship. He said to return them with the usual spiel about how he’s sorry and he can’t help it.” She twirled a hand. “Blah, blah, blah.”
Since private time was over, Solara sat up to find out what was in the bag. She didn’t expect to see a pair of silvery bracelets, and it took a moment to recognize them as the indenture bands that had once linked her to Doran as his servant.
“Look,” she told him while taking the bracelets in her hand. They were heavier than she remembered, but she had no problem recalling the high-pitched beep that used to call her in the middle of the night. “I wonder how long Renny’s had these. I forgot all about them.”
Doran frowned at the bands, reaching out to touch the MASTER emblem and then pulling back. He didn’t seem to enjoy looking at them. When his gaze shifted to the birthmark at the base of Solara’s throat, she wondered if he was thinking about that day in the ticketing station.