Page 45 of Alien Jeopardy

He pauses, a full smile blooming. “I thought I could die happy in that moment, and the competition had not even started yet.”

I suck in a breath, my heart hammering in my chest, gaze darting between his eyes.

I don’t know what to say to that.

I want to kiss him again, but I don’t know if it’s what I really want or it’s because of the damned heat, which seems to be getting worse by the second.

“They’re pajamas,” I blurt it out, plucking at the dirty, stretchy shorts. “I wasn’t planning on getting abducted.” My nose scrunches up. “Or signing up to be abducted. If I’d known, I would have worn…”

I trail off, because I’m not sure I have one damn thing in my closet I would have picked to wear to be abducted onto an alien reality TV show. “I would have worn something more sensible.”

He tilts his head, the smile falling.

I don’t blame him. Rex just told me the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and seemed to mean it, and I responded by correcting him on his description of my clothing choice?

Oof.

I clear my throat, trying to start over. “The clothes I’m wearing? They’re for sleeping. In a bed.”

“I like to sleep naked,” he says huskily.

“Of course you do.” I squeeze my eyes shut, but that doesn’t stop the mental image of him naked, all those muscles ondisplay… and something else even harder. My eyes fly open again, only to find his face closer to mine, his nostrils flared.

And this time, he’s the one who closes the gap between our lips.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

Ka-Rexsh

She tastes like sunshine and sweat and something sweeter, something so very her that I doubt there is a name for it.

There could be no word in all the languages in all the universes for how perfect she tastes against my tongue.

I have never done this before today, this mouth-to-mouth thing she did to me, but based on the way she makes a small, plaintive sound and spreads her knees wider, I think I must be pleasing her.

My fingertips run up the soft flesh of her inner thigh, and she moans as I nip at her tongue. The spicy scent of her heat flares, addictive and overpowering, my cock beginning to skith in response to her perfection.

Her heat.

The heat she didn’t want, wasn’t even aware she was signing up for.

Guilt makes me pull away from her even as my body screams out for more.

She makes a small, piteous sound of distress, then clamps her lips shut, fire flaring in her eyes in defiance of her own passions.

In defiance of the mating bond.

I pull my head back, but I’m unable to take my hands from her thighs, the need to rut warring with my own conscience.

I despised when my choices were taken from me, simply because I wasn’t born into the right family on my planet.

I will not take her choice from her—not now, not ever.

“I have to tell you,” I pause. “The heat will get worse over time.”

She scowls, and I pause because there’s no surprise on her face, just fierce irritation. “What do you mean?”