In Other Worlds Read Free Page A

his jaw, she could tell he didn’t want company.
    He tugged at the black gloves over his hands as he eyed her with malice.
    She should get up and leave, especially since he had a fierce scar that ran across his cheekbone to his hairline and then down along his jaw. It looked like someone had intentionally carved it there, which made her wonder just what kind of man he was.
    What had he done to deserve such a wound?
    Biting her lip in indecision, she glanced back to the guard who was steadily headed this way.
    What should she do?
    Adron arched a brow at the woman, who had yet to leave him. He was drunk, but not so drunk that he didn’t realize the wet little mouse sitting across from him didn’t belong in this dive. He could smell the innocence on her.
    And it turned his stomach.
    Her dark-brown hair was loose, spilling over her thin shoulders in waves.
    She had large, angelic eyes. Brown eyes that had no past haunting her. They were completely guileless and honest.
    A shiver ran over him. Who in this day and age had eyes like that? And what right did she have looking at him with them?
    â€œI’m hiding from someone,” she confided. “Do you mind?”
    â€œHell, yes, I mind.” He gestured to the door with his bottle. “Leave.”
    Livia frowned at the stranger. His angry tone set her back, and if it weren’t for the fact that one of the guards was scanning the booths, she would have left.
    Think of something. Because if she didn’t, she was sunk. The guard stopped two booths up and held out a small digital palm frame she knew had to contain her royal portrait to the aliens sitting in it. “Have you seen this woman?”
    Her plan in ruins, she knew only one way to thwart her father. She got up from her seat and sat next to the stranger.
    He scowled at her.
    Before he could say anything, Livia leaned forward and kissed him.
    Adron sat in stunned silence as she placed her tightly closed lips over his. It was the most chaste kiss a woman not related to him had ever given him.
    By the way she held his head in her hands, he could tell she thought this was the way a kiss should be given. But worse than the innocence he tasted—he hadn’t kissed a woman in over eight years, and the feel of those plump, full lips on his was more than his drunk mind could handle.
    And her smell . . .
    Gods, how he’d missed the sweet, intoxicating smell of a woman. The warmth of a warm body pressed up against him. The feeling of a gentle hand on his flesh . . .
    Closing his eyes, he let go of the bottle and cupped her face in his hands as he took control of the situation.
    Livia trembled as he opened her lips and slid his tongue into her mouth. She’d seen people kiss like this in plays and movies, but no one had ever dared such insolence with her before. She tasted the sweet, fragrant alcohol on his tongue, smelled the warm, clean scent of him as he ran his hands over her back and held her so gently that it made her shiver. Her body burned from his gentle kiss.
    He’s definitely the one. This was the man she would give her virginity to. A man with tormented blue eyes and a tender touch. A man who made her breathless and weak, and at the same time hot and strangely powerful.
    In his arms, she truly felt as if she had control of her life. Her body.
    And she liked it.
    Adron had never tasted anything better than her mouth. He felt her inexperience as she hesitantly met his tongue with hers. His body roared to life with a long-forgotten heat that demanded more than just her lips. The fact that she could arouse him through his pain . . .
    That in and of itself was a miracle.
    No, it was heaven, and he’d lived in hell for so long that he’d forgotten the taste and feel of it.
    â€œExcuse me,” a man said as he stopped in front of them. “Have you seen this—”
    Adron broke away from the kiss only long enough to pass a lethal glower at the newcomer. “Go