Page 38 of Alien Jeopardy (Mated & Afraid #1)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

Ka-Rexsh

Ellison is sunshine in human form. Her body is soft against mine, and I’m astonished by the fervor of her embrace.

She isn’t in heat, and still, she chooses me.

She chooses this.

Finally, she pulls back, a self-deprecating smile on her face.

“I stink,” she says, and the wrinkle in her nose paired with the frank admission makes me laugh.

“Luckily for you, I know how to take care of that particular problem.”

“I don’t want you to lick me clean,” she says tartly.

A laugh booms out of me as I throw my head back. My wings rustle against the floor, pain shooting through the one still being repaired by the medical gel. “I was thinking a bath.”

She balances on the tops of my legs, her arms thrown around my neck as she runs her fingers through my hair.

I could happily stay just like this the rest of the night, our arms around each other, the easy sound of her laugh tangled with mine.

“I don’t see a bath anywhere in here. Is that another thing you can get out of the insta-pantry?”

“It will be on the underground floor.”

“How do you know?” Her eyebrows quirk, her face so full of expression that I can almost hear the thoughts racing through her brain.

“This is modeled like a typical Cranyx home.”

“Cranyx?” she asks, tripping over the word.

“Another species,” I tell her. “They were… populous here.”

Alarm bells sound, a klaxon in my mind—talking about the species who were on this station all those years ago feels like a very dangerous proposition. The station’s sentience, the one Ellison named Ken, is surely listening in to all our conversations.

The being is not stable, or it would not have taken over this competition.

Bringing up the missing population won’t help matters, of that much I’m sure.

“Come on,” I tell her. “I will show you. The sleeping quarters are typically below ground, where the Cranyx are more comfortable. There will be a bath there as well.”

“And no cameras,” she says. “We’ll be alone.”

“That’s what Ken No Privates said,” I tell her seriously.

I hope the sentience was telling the truth, because what I have planned to help my Ellison relax tonight is just between me and her.