“I cannot hold you like this and not have my cock on you,” he says in a strangled voice. “It is too large, and you are too tempting.”
I want to scream. I take a deep breath instead. “Fine, I’ll spoon you. You roll over.”
Nydo gently extracts his arm from under my head, then rolls over to his other side. Grumbling, I scoot closer to him.
Like this, my face to his back, it’s easier. Less intimate.
Gingerly, I throw an arm over him. I go stiff as he catches it, tucking it around his waist. Oh no. Now my hand is on his abs. They feel nice.
I don’t want them to feel nice!
“You are tense,” he remarks.
“I am sharing a bed with my enemy.”
A soft sigh gusts out of him, and to make things worse, I can feel it, his chest falling, his abs moving under my fingertips. His hand is still on mine, and I’m too afraid I’m going to accidentally touch something I don’t want to to bother shaking him off.
“I can’t apologize for the things that have happened to you, Leigh. I cannot take responsibility for the things the Roth Overlord ordered, the crimes committed against you and your people. All I can tell you is that I wish things had begun differently between us.”
I don’t know what to say to that, because dammit, he seems… sincere. A swirl of dark grey arcs over his shoulder, and I trace it down his back, where it ripples across acres of muscle.
“But I cannot be too mad, because now your skin is against mine, and you are in my bed.” His voice is smug.
“You’re the worst,” I tell him, but I don’t mean it, because… well, because despite the smug tone, I think he’s sincere. And it’s kind of… nice.
Or maybe my bar for nice is so low that it’s actually chilling in hell.
He laughs at my salty response, and for some reason, the sound loosens my stiff shoulders, and a small smile curves my lips.
There’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep like this. It’s like trying to hold on to the world’s hottest velveteen pillow. Except it’s hard, and it’s literally hot, not in the metaphorical sense. Holding onto Nydo is like holding onto a furry hot water bottle. With muscles. Yards and yards of gorgeous muscles.
I swallow hard, and in the silence of the room, I wonder if he’s heard it. If he can hear my heartbeat, feel it through the thin material of my sports bra. The persistent ache continues between my legs, and I sigh through clenched teeth, forcing my thoughts anywhere else but there.
Which leads me straight back to the alien king holding my arm hostage around his tree trunk waist. He isn’t treating this like it’s fake… and it’s not like I can forget how he claimed I was his mate back on the prison planet.
Of course, one of the women on Sueva, Captain Jacks, told me that he tried to steal her away, too. So maybe I’m just convenient and available, unlike the rest of the women stuck on Sueva who are already married off.
I frown at his shoulders.
Does he actually think we’re mates? Or is this whole thing really some long con where he just uses me and I use him to get home, and sex with me would be a fun benefit?
I don’t know what to think.
I don’t know if this was a huge mistake.
But I do know there’s a handsome, deadly alien male naked in bed with me, and that it’s too late to turn back now. My mind spins on and on and on, the overhead lights dimming in the stillness of the room, until there’s nothing but the soft emergency glow around the door.
Nydo seems untroubled by the fact I’m next to him. By the fact that I’m having a sudden crisis of character, that I’m considering how good his warm body feels pressed against mine, how I even might like the way his big, calloused hand circles my wrist.
His breathing is deep and even, like me spooning him is the most natural thing in the world. I don’t know what to think about him, other than that I don’t trust him. Not at all. I’m in bed with the enemy, and I can only think of one way to keep him closer than he already is, and my body is all for it.
I don’t know how I can sleep like this.
But when the rumble of the ship’s main engine starts again, my eyes get heavy, and I stop fighting it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
NYDO
The gods have blessed me. Their hands must be upon this, must be upon me, a blessing as I reach for the throne, my birthright. This is a sign that they approve. She is a sign.
I cannot stop staring at her.
Leigh slumbers sweetly, her vivid hair tumbling around my shoulders, contrasting with the grey of my skin, fire to my ashes. Her cheek’s pressed against my chest, one arm flung over my body, a leg twined over my thigh.
She seems even more delicate in her sleep.
So breakable, so perfect. I want to stay like this forever, with her smooth skin pressed against mine, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest against mine. Even in the near-dark of my small living quarters on the ship, her hair sparkles, a deep, vivid red that I long to reach out and touch.
I know if I touch her now, she will make me regret it.
Just as I know the exact moment she wakes, her body stiffening next to mine.
As for me, I’ve been hard since I woke up to find her sweet, intoxicating scent all around me, now mingled with mine.
I cannot remember a morning I’ve ever been so happy to be breathing.
“Hello, fair one,” I tell her softly, holding out hope she magically softened towards me in her sleep.
Instead, she jerks up, her gorgeous hair falling all around her sleep-slackened face as she scuttles away from me and towards the wall of the ship.
My chest aches.
I paste a smile on my face, the lights flickering to full power as they detect our movement and change in breathing.
“Come now, was I so bad a sleeping partner?” I smile harder to take the edge off the hurt in my question.
“I—” She rubs a hand over her face, blinking rapidly. “I forgot where I was.”
“You’re with me, mate,” I say, watching her carefully. “Today we go to the Hernus-12 Space Station to begin selling the lie of our mating. To dress you according to your new role, as my chosen queen and future of the Roth.”
Her pretty eyes narrow, and she rubs her hand over her forehead, then through her hair.
“You are stunning in the morning,” I say quietly, unable to help myself.
“Ha,” she says, frowning. “Very funny.”
I blink. “It was not a joke. You are the only thing I ever want to wake up to again.”
She tilts her head, a lock of her crimson hair falling across her face. My fingers twitch with the need to tuck it behind her ear, to relish the softness of it against my skin. For a vivid moment, I imagine how the tips of her hair would tickle my thighs, her mouth around my throbbing cock.
“Do I smell? Like you?” she asks. “Was it worth it?”
I am the worst kind of being, because I know exactly how I’m going to answer her question.
“I can’t tell, because you are too far away,” I lie. “Come to me so I may scent you more thoroughly.”
Cautiously, as though she distrusts me, she crawls closer.
She should distrust me.
“Closer,” I purr, desire lashing me. “I still can’t tell.” She stops just short of where I lie, one arm under my head, feigning casualness.
I am anything but casual where this female is concerned.