Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Zhur stands just outside my door, breathing hard on the other side. "Maeve," he growls, voice ragged.
My hackles rise.
Then, to my horror, he starts jerking off on the bedroom door.
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
ZHUR
Dawn.
I squint at the light pouring in through my cracked eyelids and raise a hand into the air to block it. I smell wet dirt and dew, and my back is damp. Confusion trickles through my mind, and for a moment, I'm lost. Why am I outside, on the grass between the barn and the house?
Then I remember—the noli.
Not just any noli, but a potent strain that seems like it was spiked with something a bit more. I've heard that noli is the best aphrodisiac for praxiians. That it will make a male turn into a warrior and he can kef his female for days on end with just a whiff. Either this particular brand was spiked with something, or I had a bad reaction, because my memories are hazy.
I vaguely remember nuzzling Maeve's neck.
And then I realized I needed to mark her door, and attacked it with enthusiasm. I sit up on the grass, and every muscle aches. My hand aches, too, which is embarrassing, and my cock throbs as if it is worn out, too. The scent of sex and sweat is all over me, but I don't recall Maeve in my memories after I abandoned her for the door.
Just me and the door and my cock.
With a tired sigh, I pick myself up off the lawn. I'm not entirely surprised to see that my ill-fitting jumpsuit is unfastened down to my thigh, the sleeves loose and trailing instead of on my arms. Everything around the groin is encrusted with leftover spunk from last night. I peel it off my skin, grimacing, and then glance over at Maeve's front door.
It looks as if it's been through a war.
The metal of the door is more battered than I remember it being, and the dull gray has been, ahem, coated. Dried on rivulets are everywhere, but heavily concentrated at waist height, and I grit my teeth at the sight of it. My diplomacy education has not prepared me for a situation like this.
...at least her door is marked? No one will doubt she is mine now.
I reach for the handle of the door and pause, because it, too, is covered with a dried-on crust. I use one of my dangling sleeves to wipe it clean and step inside the house. "Maeve?"
Silence. The house smells like stale sex and her table has been pushed aside, the chairs flung out. The rest of the place looks relatively undisturbed, though. That's a good sign.
I think.
"Maeve?" I call again, moving toward the bedroom. The door there is closed, and I grimace to see that I attacked this one in my noli-haze. It's covered with leavings, too. Lovely. "Are you in there, Maeve?"
"Fuck off," she calls through the door. "I'm not coming out!"
"I think I am myself again—"
"Prove it!"
How do I prove it? I stare at the door, annoyed. "This is your fault, you know. Why would you open a vial of drugs from a stranger? Not knowing what it was?"
"Well, I guess you are back to yourself," she grumbles. "Ya dick."
There's the sound of furniture scraping across the floor, and the door cracks open a moment later. Maeve scowls at me through the crack but doesn't open the door more than that.
"Are you going to molest my door again?"
My face heats. "I was not myself. The noli was too strong."
She just blinks at me, her expression hard. "Mmmhmm."
"I've heard of noli being an aphrodisiac, but I don't think it's supposed to affect your mind," I tell her in a stiff voice. "As for your door...it needed to be marked anyhow."
"You don't say." Her voice is dry and flat.
"Yes. Praxiian custom is that a male courting a female marks her threshold with his scent. It's to chase off other males that might show interest. For our marriage to work, I would have needed to mark your door at some point anyhow."
"Mmmhmm. The bedroom door, too? Custom dictates you shower that one with jizz as well?"
My face grows hotter. "Well. No. I think that was simply the noli."
"And the bathroom door?"
The...bathroom...?
I turn and gaze down the short hall. Sure enough, the lavatory door has been as heavily anointed with my scent as the bedroom door. "Ah."
"Yeah."
"I am going to blame that one on noli as well."
She tilts her head at me, her expression skeptical. "You also ran outside at some point. Should I guess that you marked the barn doors as well?"
Kef me, I hope not. This is growing more humiliating by the moment. "As I have said, Maeve, I was out of my mind with the noli. There is no need to rub it in."
Maeve gives me another hard look. "Do you know the hell I went through last night? You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were tripping on mushrooms or something. I thought you were going to hurt yourself. How am I supposed to explain that to anyone? Yes, I married an alien yesterday, we got home and he jizzed on my door and then drowned himself in a puddle of water."