Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“My name’s not Julie.”
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Those three are going to come for you.”
“Okay, well, I didn’t know that.” That makes me rethink things a little. “How did I manage to sell myself so many times over if I was being tagged every time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a glitch in the system. Those still happen sometimes.”
“I’m starting to think this was a bad idea. Maybe I’ll just refund everyone, call it an accident. Maybe I’ll go to the company’s head office and explain. Would you take me there?”
He flashes me a broad smile. “You know I am one of your owners, don’t you?”
Owners… There’s something in the way he says that… there’s a note of possession and carnal intention. He just saved my life, probably. If I had stayed stuck between those other aliens… if Emrys had been able to have whatever counts as his way with me…
“What do you plan to do with your property?” My question is arch, but genuine.
His golden eyes run up and down me, and I see the corners of his mouth turn up as he makes an even broader smile. “I have to say, the packaging is very cute, but I want to see exactly what I bought.”
“And what if I don’t want to show you?”
He arches a brow and gives me a cocky grin. “Then I’d have to strip you myself, wouldn’t I?”
“I suppose you would.”
I am testing him, but I am also curious. My intimate experiences are limited. I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid this exact scenario. I swore I’d never be one of the girls who had to trade her body for favors, but the older I got, the more I realized the others weren’t doing it because they were lazy. They were doing it because it’s basically the only way to survive in a universe where the strong dominate, and the weak are forced to submit or suffer. Sometimes you’re made for something, and sometimes all creation is determined to use you for that one thing.
He puts a hand on the zipper of my jacket, but he pauses almost immediately because my hand is now at the juncture of his thighs, and there is a very sharp blade poking him where almost no male wants to be poked.
“Spicy little thing,” he murmurs down at me. “You’d pull a knife on me after I saved you?”
“I don’t know if you did save me yet,” I reply. “You could say you sneaked me out from under the noses of everyone else, but that’s about it so far.”
“What do you need in order to feel saved, hmm?”
He’s not angry. Most males of any species would be. They’d expect gratitude and submission and obedience and other things I’ve never been good at. They’d want me to fall at their feet and beg them for safe passage to a system outside the reach of the others… hmm. That’s a good idea. Maybe I should fall at his feet and beg for safe passage? No. Probably too late for that now, really.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I suppose I’d need you to tell me I was free to leave. That might make me think you’d saved me rather than just done what everyone else already did — tried to buy me for their own ends.”
Raz chuckles. “You did put yourself up for sale. What else did you expect?”
“I expected to steal everybody’s money and run away, obviously.”
He laughs more loudly, genuinely amused. “But that did not work, did it? And now you find yourself at the mercy of a number of aliens, all of whom have dark designs on you.”
“Oh, is that right? Your designs on me are dark?”
We’re flirting. This is hot. I really do love a battle of verbal wills with an equal opponent, and Raz is more than my match in that regard.
“Absolutely,” he says. “What I intend to do to you would leave you begging for mercy and then begging for more all at the same time. You wouldn’t know your name by the time I was finished with you.”
Suddenly, his hand is over my wrist, squeezing just hard enough to make me drop the knife. He lifts my now empty hand up over my head and pins me back against the wall, closing the distance between us until there’s hardly any light to be discerned. His handsome alien face fills my vision as I feel his hard, agile body pinning mine to the hull.
"You're a bad girl,” he purrs down at me. “And I know how to teach you all the lessons you need to learn.”
Before I can reply, his mouth is on mine, cutting off any response I might care to make. I breathe him in, and I close my eyes, and I feel myself starting to feel that familiar sort of haze that comes with arousal.