Free Braden by Allyson James Page B

Justin had
come to town—he’d known even before Braden told him—but Braden had no idea how
Rees saw Justin fitting in.
    “Just trust me,” Braden said.
    “You want this woman, right?”
    “Yes.” The word was tight.
    “So go for it. Screw being level three, screw Bor Nargan
rules. Clock out and enjoy yourself.”
    “You make it sound so easy.”
    “It is easy. I broke my programming—well, most of it. You
can too, brother.”
    Break his programming. Just as Elisa was trying to break
hers. They could be program-breakers together, act like an ordinary male and
female and enjoy each other.
    Yeah, right.
    “She’ll call back,” Braden said. “They always call back.
It’s a level-three thing.”
    Justin pointed both hands at him. “You, my friend, are
fucked-up crazy.” He grabbed his robes and breath mask and banged out the door.
    Braden stared at the black terminal a little longer. Elisa
would call. She had to.
    She never did. Braden waited for an hour, then another, then
he went into the bathroom and took a freezing cold shower.
    * * * * *
    After twenty-four hours of agony, Elisa still hadn’t called
back.
    Braden was supposed to have the upper hand here. He usually
did, and the lady always called, pleading. It usually took less than an hour,
though he’d known it to go as long as forty-eight, when the woman in question
had to debate long and hard with herself. Braden usually whiled away the time
with other ladies, and in any case the waiting had never gone longer than
forty-eight hours.
    Braden would die if he had to wait two full days, and this
time he didn’t want to touch any other woman in the meantime.
    At the end of the longest twenty-four hours of his life,
Braden called Elisa at her library. Elisa’s professional face filled his
terminal screen, and Braden touched his fingers to the image. Even that
pseudo-touch relieved some of the pain inside him, if only a little.
    “Serestine Quarter library,” her smooth voice came to him.
“May I help—” Elisa broke off and leaned forward, her face-framing veil
fluttering. “Braden? Why are you calling me here ?”
    “This is what you do,” Braden said. “First, you give me your
word that this is no trick, that patrollers aren’t going to break in and haul
me off to the cells for even thinking about touching you.”
    Elisa blinked, startled. “They’d do that?”
    “You’re celibate, sweetie. Sacrosanct.”
    “But I have a dispensation.”
    “Give me your word.”
    Elisa nodded. “You have it.”
    Anyone could mouth a promise, but the look in Elisa’s eyes
told him she meant it.
    “All right,” Braden said. “The next thing you do is, when
you go home tonight, you send your servants on a vacation. I want no one in the
house with you. I mean no one.”
    Elisa’s brows shot up. “All of them?”
    Braden relaxed enough to chuckle. “Yes, love, you’ll have to
wash your own dishes and cook your own food. You send them away. You recode the
keypad on your door and you send me the code.”
    “Why don’t you just come over when I get home?”
    “Doesn’t work that way. Don’t expect me. You do what you
usually do, and don’t look for me. All right?”
    Elisa clearly didn’t understand any of this, but she nodded.
“All right.”
    “Good. Remember, send me the key code.”
    Braden touched the disconnect, which was a little easier
this time. His body knew that things were moving where they should be moving.
    He smiled. She wouldn’t be able to resist watching out for
him, waiting for him, anticipation of his arrival building up hour by hour,
minute by minute. Her wanting would build up with her impatience and her
nervousness. The power of the level three had already begun.
    Braden groaned, got himself out of the chair and went to
take another cold shower.
    * * * * *
    Elisa went home after her shift, told her staff she was
giving them a vacation to the cool mountains, all expenses paid, and sat back
to wait for them to go. She only