Page 43 of Alien Jeopardy

The bands holding me to the chair finally slither away, a gross sensation which makes me full-body shiver in disgust.

Sitting up, I cross my arms around my chest and rub at where the restraints dug in. Okay. I’m okay, and I’m going to get a delicious dinner.

I can deal with explaining that serving cunt has nothing to do with what Rex thinks it does.

“Ellison…” Billie’s voice is cautious, and when I glance up, I startle.

Rex’s body is flexed, primed for violence. Something drips from the talons at the ends of his wings.

“We’re going to go prepare your meal and accommodations. Just, ah, go through that door there to clean up, and then your meal will be served when you’re ready.” Everything about her voice is faux positive, somehow upbeat and soothing, like she’s talking to a cornered wolf.

Except she’s talking to me, and the Draegon alien I’m mated to stares at me with a wild-eyed expression.

I can’t look away from him.

The sound of a door closing follows the sound of feet filing out of the room, and I don’t have to look around to know we’re alone.

“You’re scaring everyone,” I chide him.

“My mate is distressed and in need of my cock,” he responds.

My jaw drops. “Oh.”

“Yes, that is a sound you might make when I make you come all around me.”

I squirm, looking away from him, my body firmly agreeing that yes, I would like to test that theory out.

“Er, listen—” I pause. How the hell am I supposed to tell him we’re not going to bang? That I didn’t sign up knowingly—well, with all my faculties—to be his mate?

“I can scent your arousal, female.”

I whine because damn it, I am sopping wet. Like, never been so wet and ready in my whole life, could probably lubricate an entire waterpark at this point.

I wouldn’t mind a test run on his log ride.

I lick my lips, shoving the thought away.

“I didn’t know that I was going to be mated.” I wince at my blunt words because he’s been nothing but kind and I would be a liar if I said I didn’t like the way he looks, much less that I’m not curious about taking that alien six-speed for a test drive.

“If things were different, you know, I wouldn’t… I mean,” I stumble over the words.

I’m not sure I even know what I’m trying to tell him.

His expression hasn’t changed. If anything, he looks even hungrier, and not for chicken nuggets.

“What I am trying to say,” I clear my throat and toss my tangled hair with a confidence I don’t feel. “You seem like a wonderful guy, but I’m not ready to be mated. That’s like forever.”

I swing my legs over the side of the chair, ready to move along and eat and sleep and forget this awkward-ass conversation ever fucking happened.

“I know this already.” He crouches next to me, in between my legs, so large that he’s still taller than me.

I can’t look away from him when he’s right here, in front of me.

“Wait, what?” I ask. “How?”

“Billie, the other human, she told me if you wanted to break our mate bond after this, she would be helping you do that.”

I shake my head in disbelief. Why would Billie tell him that?