Page 20 of Alien Jeopardy (Mated & Afraid #1)

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Ellison

Maybe if I close my eyes, I can get some more sleep. I can just pretend I’ve passed back out.

“Ell?” Rex’s rough voice says my name, but his hand is oh-so gentle on my forearm. “We won, so now we can enjoy a meal, yes?”

The translator in my brain is working, though the words are all slightly stilted and delayed as I process the sounds.

My stomach rumbles, and I open my eyes.

I don’t think I’m going to get more sleep right now.

Billie’s grinning at me, a satisfied cat-who-ate-the-canary expression on her face.

It pisses me off, and my fingernails dig into the arm of the chair. “You did a bad job naming the challenges on the wheel,” I tell her.

Billie’s grin disappears.

“You are hungry,” Rex interrupts. “I hear your belly.”

“I am hungry.” Why lie?

His orange eyes narrow, and I’m unable to look away from them. They swirl and move like molten gold, and a fresh wave of heat moves through me.

“I have not taken good care of you, little human.” Rex leans down so he’s nearly nose to nose with me, and I grimace, remembering that absolutely impulsive kiss.

How embarrassing.

“I’m not little,” I object. “I’m thirty-three.”

“You are little compared to me.” He nods his head, agreeing with himself.

Billie smooshes her palms against her cheeks, practically starry-eyed as she glances between us.

I scowl at her, uncomfortable from the heat making a nuisance of itself again, and uncomfortable with the gathered Roth, and the careful perusal of one of the most gorgeous specimens of malehood I’ve ever seen.

He blinks at me, his wings rustling.

Something winds around my ankle, and I gulp.

It’s his tail.

Everyone is quiet, still watching us, and it dawns on me that they’re waiting for me to respond.

“Food.”

I grimace. Ah yes, I am dazzling my forced mate with my intellect now. Maybe I should grunt and gesture some more, so he can do whatever the hell it was he did back at me.

A laugh threatens, and I clamp it down, making myself smile manically up at him.

“Yes, you want food?” he asks the question slowly, like I’m a toddler set to tantrum at any minute.

Maybe I fucking will!

A little menty b doesn’t sound so bad right now!

“It better be chicken nuggies and mac and cheese.” Oh for crying out loud, why did I say that?

Billie, however, snorts. “ That’s what you want? I thought you were thirty-three, not three-and-a-half.”

“I mean, I’ll eat anything.” My throat constricts, and I force myself not to look at the alien hog in Rex’s pants.

Stupid heat. This is mortifying.

“If she wants these chick nuggies, then she will have them,” Rex roars.

Billie winces. “Can you tell him not to yell at us?”

The Roth host shoves himself between her and Rex, and she peeks out around his arm.

“I can understand you fine, human,” Rex retorts, his tail squeezing my ankle. “If she wants this maccheese, then she shall have it.”

“She shall have a girl dinner,” I add, deciding to shove my emotions down in favor of pure humor. Yeah, that’s healthy, right? “She shall be serving cunt.”

Billie bursts out laughing, then slaps a hand over her mouth as a growl rumbles, louder and louder, from Rex’s chest.

“I am the only one who will be feasting on your cunt.”

My eyes widen as what I’ve said registers.

As what he thinks I’ve said sinks in.

Oh, sweet alien misunderstandings.

Well, the fanfics had those right. If I ever have wifi again, I’ll have to tell Rothv1llainFer890 she did a damn good job when it came to accuracy.

I reach for my nose, wanting to pinch it, but my arms are still strapped down.

“That’s not what that means, Ka-Rexsh.” Billie’s voice is high, and she’s turning bright red in an effort not to laugh. “Okay, you two, listen. The translator helps you both understand each other, but idioms? Yeah, I’m not sure there’s a way to program that thing with enough nuance.”

He glares at her, his wings slowly ruffling outward, his eyes practically glowing. “Give my female what she wants?—”

“What I want is to be let out from this chair.” I interrupt.

“And then I think I do want chicken nuggets, lobster mac and cheese, steak, medium rare, and a Caesar salad, dressing on the side, and truffle fries.” I pause, thinking.

“And a huge slice of chocolate cake.” My stomach growls in agreement.

“We can do that,” Billie says, somehow managing to regain her composure. Good for her, because if I weren’t locked into this chair, I think I would be rolling off of it and trying to melt into the floor.

“Is this being recorded?” I ask, my voice slightly hoarse.

“Of course it is, we take our entertainment seriously.” The Roth looks affronted.

Billie elbows him in the ribs. “Shut up, Ayro. Good grief, they’re not the easiest to talk to, are they?” The last bit is addressed to me.

“Better when you can actually communicate with them.” I glare at her.

“She needs food,” Rex intones. “So she can serve me cunt. I will eat this girl dinner.”

He crosses his arms, fangs gleaming where the light hits them.

I sigh, which is absolutely preferable to the moan of longing that’s trying to get out of my body. Squeezing my thighs together, I try to ride out the wave of pure lust caused by him saying that.

This is absurd, and there is literally nothing I can do but go with it until we’ve finished this damned competition.

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?

A faint buzzing sounds as a drone flies slightly closer.

I squint up at it.

Oh. That’s why Billie told him that—because she’s just as meddling as any producer on Earth’s reality TV. Well! I haven’t spent a lifetime watching reality TV to not know all the little games she and that Ayro are going to play with all of us.

“I will prove to you I am the best mate for you.” He thumps a fist over his heart, and my own heart beats faster in response. Whether it’s adrenaline or fear or good ole lust, I’m not sure it even matters any more.

“What if I don’t want a mate at all?” I whisper.

His hand stretches out, fingertips gentle against my cheekbone. “Then I would say it is because you have not yet spent enough time with me to know what you would be missing.”

My nose crinkles up as I smile, because damn it, that was really cute. I lean slightly into his touch because he’s right.

I have missed being touched.

Not even sexually, though my hormones are definitely all about that, but simply touched, like he is right now, on my cheek.

Like he cares about how I feel, not just that I’m some… breeder. Ick.

“You will let me try to… romance you?” he asks, derailing my train of thought.

“Romance me?” I echo.

“Yes,” he bobs his head, eyes eager on mine. “Romance you. Show you that you would like to be with me, after this is over? So that you do not let Billie separate us?”

I bite my lip, dropping my gaze to the thickly muscled abdomen in front of me, slightly shy.

I want to tell him no because I swear, just being this close to him has me breaking out in a heat-induced sweat, and I’m afraid I’m not going to want to let him go just because of whatever chemicals are currently having a rave in my bloodstream.

Yeah, a full-on hormone rave, glowsticks, EDM, and a bass that would probably be perfectly timed to some perfectly aimed hip thrusts.

“Why did you sign up for this show?” I ask him. One million and three points to me for asking a coherent question instead of impaling myself on his disco stick.

He tilts his head, gazing into my eyes for so long I wonder if he’s heard me at all.

I could just kiss him again.

It would only take the slightest of movements to close the distance between our faces, to tilt mine up and press my mouth to his.

“I did not sign up for a mate either,” he says, the words heavy and unexpected, falling like a hammer on my ears.

I blink. Translator problem?

“I did not think about having a mate,” he continues. “I volunteered because my planet is not… it is not a good place sometimes.” His eyes narrow, and his orange gaze slips to the drone still buzzing overhead.

Oh. Oooooh. He’s afraid someone will hear him trash-talking his planet. Interesting.

Also, concerning. The last thing we need is some political interest in this show.

There was a season of WME where one of the contestants trash-talked the Earth Federation.

By the time the dude was off the show, his life was in shambles, and there had been so many hit pieces on him that I can’t imagine he was ever able to find work again.

“I have a chance at a home and a place in the new colony on Sueva, and that was enough to entice me.”

I nod slowly because I didn’t even know what the reward is, but a fresh start sure as shit sounds good to me too. I hold his gaze because I want him to know I mean what I’m about to say.

“I want to win.”

“I want you,” he says at the same time.

“What?” I sputter.

“I didn’t want a mate, that’s not why I signed up—” He pauses, a grin pulling the corner of his mouth up, making him look ridiculously handsome.

My heart swells. “Until I saw you, standing there in your strange human outfit, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And when you chose me?”

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 on display… 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.