Katie, The Touchstone, Planet Everis

      Hours of preparation. Days of seduction. Flirting and batting my eyelashes and pretending that my soul was as pure as my virgin body.

      All for nothing. My beautiful ball gown was in a heap on my soft bedroom carpet two floors below. The hours spent on my hair and makeup, nothing but a huge disappointment. Bryn had escorted me to the ball, told me I looked beautiful, danced with me. Held me. Tormented me with his body, his scent, the heat he allowed to show in his gaze when he thought I wasn’t looking. But when it was time to take things to the next level? Nothing.

      Again.

      “Stubborn jerk.” The words were barely a whisper, but I couldn’t be more committed to their truth if I’d shouted them from the top of Mount Everest back on Earth. The Elite Hunter, Bryn of Everis, was mine, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. I’d dream shared with him. The marks in our palms heated whenever we drew close. What more proof did he want?

      I stared at the man sleeping soundly in his bed a few short steps away. Yes, it was crazy to be here in his room—even worse, roaming the unmated males’ floor of the Touchstone in just my nightgown. What was the saying? Desperate times called for desperate measures. And I was desperate. And needy. And horny.

      I slid the thin straps off my shoulders and let the material fall silently to the floor so I stood naked in the light of the two moons. They were beautiful, one a small silver disk in the sky, held a prison colony. The other was the palest green, the color said to be caused by miles and miles of farming structures built into the moon. Both moons were glowing, the light on Bryn’s face making him look too beautiful to be real.

      Ethereal. Mystical. I wasn’t one for romantic notions, but as I stared at his sleeping form brought to life by dips and shadows of moonlight, he looked like something out of legend. A vampire. A god.

      Too perfect to be real.

      I’d sneaked into his room, the formal ball over hours ago. The dancing over. The dreaming?

      Over.