GALLANT (The Innerworld Affairs Series, Book 3) by Marilyn Campbell Page A

puzzle.
    Cherry strolled around behind the captain's chair and peered over his shoulder, knowing it bothered him when she did that. Purposefully, she exhaled close enough to his neck for him to flinch in reaction. "I'll stop pacing if you'll play with me."
    Gallant's hands stilled and for a moment Cherry thought he may have stopped breathing as well. She eased away and sat on the bench, facing him. "We can even play for credits this time. Of course, if I lose, you'd have to take me home before I could pay you back."
    "Cubit," Gallant murmured then took a breath as he turned toward her. "You're challenging me to a game?"
    "Well, there sure isn't much else to do, is there? But if you're too busy, I'll just—"
    "No," he interjected before she got up again and quickly pulled out the table between them. He couldn't believe his mind had detoured that way. It had been a mistake to even allow certain thoughts to enter his consciousness earlier. It was almost as if just considering sex with Cherry was more than he could handle. What would happen to him if he actually—His body's sudden strong response finished the thought for him and acted as an alarm at the same time.
    He quickly began setting up the game. Aside from the infrequent, impersonal encounter, his experience with adult females was pretty much limited to his adoptive mother and Dot, neither of whom would help him analyze Cherry's behavior. But even without extensive knowledge of how her mind worked, he had the distinct impression that Cherry had not only been teasing him but had guessed his reaction as well. Since he couldn't imagine why she would tease him while she was still angry with him, he decided she must be up to something.
    Reminding himself that he needed to gain her trust, he politely asked, "Are you sure you want to play for credits already? Yesterday, you accused me of trying to... to..."
    "Con me," Cherry supplied. "Yesterday, I was a novice but I think I can hold my own today. After all, winning cubit takes more luck than skill and I'm due for some good luck after the way this week started."
    Gallant frowned. "Is that a hint that I'm supposed to apologize again?"
    Her eyes twinkled with a life of their own. "If you feel the need, then by all means, get if off your chest." She instantly regretted her choice of words, as she followed his gaze down his partially covered chest. Up to that moment she had been doing her damnedest not to notice what a perfectly splendid body he had. She forced her eyes back to his face again. "Sorry. Another Terran expression. I've never completely abandoned my roots, I guess."
    With his plan to befriend her uppermost in his mind, Gallant picked up the colored cubes and rolled two reds and two blues. "Tell me about your roots. I'm familiar with Terra and its people in a general sense, but even when I attended academy in Innerworld, I didn't get to know any Terrans." He rerolled the two blues and got another red and a green, which he immediately rolled again.
    Cherry smiled when the last cube came up blue and he had failed to make his quad. As she scooped up the cubes, she asked, "You lived in Innerworld before?"
    "Yes. That's how I know Romulus." He watched her make her first roll and try to decide which color to go for since there were no matches. "What was your life like on the surface?"
    Cherry left the purple and retossed the other three, but failed to get another purple. "Damn!"
    "You should have thrown them all."
    She picked up the same three cubes, rolled them between her palms, blew on them then dropped them on the table. When all three turned up purple, she let out a squeal. "You play your way and I'll play mine."
    As she set aside her purple marker, he snatched up the cubes. "You haven't answered my question."
    "What do you want to know?"
    "Everything."
    She laughed. "You must be more bored than you look. All right, you asked for it. The first eighteen years of my life was spent on a farm in Georgia—that's in the