Free Talent For Trouble by Bianca D'Arc

eyes as serious as she’d ever seen them. “They will want to see the crystals.”
    “I thought as much.” She blushed at the thought of so many eyes on her bare body.
    Darak moved a step closer, holding the strange garment before him. “I know you were raised to be modest. I had this made so you could keep some of your modesty and still allow easy viewing of the crystals in your skin. Won’t you at least try it on?”
    “You did that for me?”
    She was touched beyond words. She’d thought he least of all would worry over her discomfort with showing her naked body to strangers. They were so free on this planet, as she’d learned the hard way, having walked in upon multiple couplings in the past days between all sorts of people who lived on the large estate. She wouldn’t have thought he would worry over her foreign sensibilities, but apparently, he did. Wonder of wonders. He had actually thought ahead to what the interrogation by the Council would mean to her. The idea left her momentarily speechless.
    He moved closer. “Try it on. Please?”
    Tears in her eyes, she took the slinky garment from his fingers. She held it between them for a long moment, questions in her eyes that he seemingly didn’t want to answer.
    Without speaking, he turned her by the shoulders and patted her butt to get her moving toward the bathroom. She went, as if in a daze. She closed the door and spent more than a few minutes trying to figure out how the odd garment was supposed to be put on. She got it eventually, after a few false starts, and what she saw in the mirror floored her.
    The gown was modestly cut, except for the huge swaths cut out all along her right side, where the majority of the crystals sparkled in her skin. The clever drape of shimmersilk covered the strategic points of her nipples and the apex of her thighs, but each and every crystal shard was clearly visible, exposed to the air and the hungry gaze of the man standing behind her in the bathroom.
    This time, he hadn’t even knocked on the door before invading her space.
    “It shows them all.” She said the first thing that popped into her mind.
    “To great advantage.” His eyes sparkled, and the focus of his gaze on her body turned her insides to mush. “You’ll probably start a whole new fashion trend once a few people see you in this.”
    “It’s so formfitting, though…”
    She was uncomfortable showing this much skin. Darak moved closer, and his warm hands skimmed her midriff, just below her breasts. She didn’t object as he pulled her back against his hard chest. Her eyes were glued to their reflections in the large mirror.
    “It’s either this or expose your lovely nipples to every member of the Council. Which would you rather do?” His hand lingered under the exposed curve of her right breast, rubbing over the stones permanently set in her soft flesh. He traced the fine web of shimmersilk that held the dress in place over her hardening nipple.
    “Darak.” Her voice was nothing more than a shocked whisper as he let his fingers roam under the gossamer fabric, stroking and touching, pinching and teasing.
    “You’re beautiful, Jana. Just let me touch you. That’s all I want. Just to touch you.” His voice was ragged as he turned her in his arms. His tortured gaze said even more than his words. “I dream of that day in your room when you came apart in my arms. I lie in bed at night and stroke myself, thinking of how you looked, how you sounded, how you tasted. I want to taste you again.”
    His lips moved toward hers slowly, with great deliberation. She knew he meant to kiss her, but she didn’t turn away. She wanted it, too. She dreamed of him in the dark of night and, sometimes, even during the day. She dreamed of the pleasure he had shown her, knowing she had never felt such fierce passion before and never would again, if not with him.
    Darak was the only man she could imagine letting this close to her. She worked daily with Master Toombs, but