Chapter 8

Iwake up to the heavy arm draped over my waist. It shouldn’t comfort me, but it does. Derek was never much of a cuddler. He used to get hot and thrash around in bed, and staying clear of him was sensible if I didn’t want to wake up with an elbow digging into my back.

The sounds of debauchery chased me into sleep, and it’s a relief to find it so blessedly quiet now.

The medical bay lighting was stark and bright, but the rest of the base, or whatever this is, is subdued, and the lighting in the room has further dimmed overnight—perhaps it has sensors.

He smells nice. I don’t know why I should observe this. I feel grubby. And he’s got to be dirty, too, yet he also smells nice.

His nose is buried against my hair. He’s hard. Has he been hard all night, or is this a morning thing? I swallow. It sounds unnaturally loud in the quietness and the gloom. I ask myself if he has undergone some weird cosmetic procedure because what I saw last night surely wasn’t normal. He just stood there as I stared at his junk, letting me take all that in.

My legs move restlessly together despite my determination to remain still. I feel strange there, between them, like I’m fluttering all the time from low-grade arousal pulsing in my core.

I keep telling myself what I saw was a trick of the light, except I know it really wasn’t. The strange prickling awareness that has been rising in me, ever since I was taken, tells me that what I saw is simply how he is.

I don’t claim to know a lot about animal anatomy, but I’m pretty sure he has glands on his cock like dogs, wolves, and foxes have, the sort that lock the two parties together during mating.

Why does he have glands?

Is it a form of genetic difference? A birth defect?

How would that even feel inside a woman?

A whimper escapes my lips, and his arm tightens around my waist. He stretches, spreads his fingers wide against my stomach, and grinds his cock into my ass.

“Morning, princess.”

He sounds sleepy. His nose burrows deeper into my hair, and I hear him draw a deep breath in through his nose. When he exhales, a strange, rumbly sound emanates from his chest, almost like a purr.

It stops abruptly and he rolls away and then stands up.

I miss his heat.

The room gradually grows brighter. I make the mistake of turning over only to be presented with a body that is genetically blessed even if certain other parts of his anatomy are freaking me out. Primal. He’s not the same kind of savage that those rumors spoke of, but he is nevertheless still a savage—and a beautiful one, at that. He’s looking away, toward the door, and my eyes lower to his cock. It sticks straight up from his body and is every bit as monstrous as my memories recall. Like, you could kill someone with that.

The gland is visible on this side, and while it is no more than a slightly raised swelling at present, there is also no mistaking it for a trick of the light. My stomach takes a slow dip, and for a stretched moment, my mind goes blank.

He swipes a hand through his hair, setting off thick muscles bunching in his arm, and then glances back at me. My eyes snap up to meet his. His lips quirk. “You need to go?”

I nod.

“We’ll get a shower and some food. You were pretty out of it last night. You must be hungry.”

This ordinary conversation throws me for a loop when I consider everything else. So I just nod. I don’t know the protocols here; just that I’m incredibly self-conscious as I turn over and rise to a sitting position.

I can feel his eyes are on me, and I fight the urge to cover myself up. After his liberal offloading of blunt insights into my new life, I’ve got no delusions about what’s going to happen next. He’s concise and articulate for… for whatever he is. Not a yeti, but not entirely human either.

He said he wouldn’t fuck me last night but didn’t indicate whether that might extend to today.

I reach for my clothes, needing a barrier between us, something to slow things down if he decides now is the time.

“Don’t,” he says, and I still. “I’ll get you something clean… more practical.” He makes an upward gesture with his fingers, and it freaks me out for reasons that escape me.

When he crouches in front of me and cups my cheek, I’m hyperventilating and in danger of passing out. My eyes, unfocused at first, connect with his, and my breathing slowly evens out.

“Remember our conversation about the easy way and the hard way?” His thumb slides up and down the side of my throat. It’s soothing, even as his eyes pin me, and his words damn me.

How do the nice and the asshole versions of the same man cohabit the same space?

The corners of his mouth turn up. “I don’t mind tossing you over my shoulder. But maybe we can hold off the manhandling stage until we have to.”

“You really do talk too much,” I say, in spite of myself. I’m sitting naked on a bed with a man I only met yesterday. I have no say in anything he does with me—now or ever. I’m impressed that I can find the bandwidth for snark.

His smile is broad and a little dazzling.

“There we go. Welcome back again, princess.”

A warm space blooms in my belly. He likes my snark. I don’t know what the fuck that means or why I like that he likes it. A psychologist could probably already fill a thesis paper with what is happening inside my head.

He rises and holds out his hand. I choose the easy way and take it.

My legs are wobbly, and my feet don’t feel coordinated as he leads me from the room. As far as I know, the door remained open all night. Directly opposite is another room, its door similarly open.

His hand feels big, warm, and comforting in the same way his arm felt comforting last night. My stomach does that weird tumbling thing again as I acknowledge that I’m forming an attachment to my captor, when I ought to be thinking of ways to stab him and make my escape.

But… escape to where?

I’m never going back. No one is coming to save me. I signed my agreement—thanks, Derek; you really screwed me over.

Faint sounds of conversation filter from a room on the right as he leads me down the corridor, both of us butt naked.

I nibble on my lower lip, trying to erase the sounds I heard last night from my memory, wondering when the next stage of unraveling will begin.

He takes an abrupt left into a room. The light gradually brightens until it casts full illumination over the space. It’s a communal shower room with shower stalls on the left and toilet stalls on the right. Directly ahead are hooks and a long bench. To the right of the door is a row of basins, mirrors running the length of them. All is very modern and spotlessly clean.

“Go ahead,” he says, releasing my hand. “I’ll grab us some clean clothes.”

He strides off, leaving me alone. I stare after him, tamping down the ridiculous urge to scurry after him.

Why do I want to follow him? Why do I want him to stay close?

As his footsteps fade, a sense of foreboding rises. I feel so fucking vulnerable, and I don’t like it one bit.

My bladder wins the internal debate on what to do next. I go. When I come back out, Seb hasn’t returned. The showers are right there, and I feel grubby, so I step into an open stall and turn the water on.

The hot water pounding over me brings everything to the surface. I make it most of the way through my shower before the sobs begin. My whole body is racked with anguish and misery and confusion, which is how he finds me.

With a heavy sigh, Seb steps into the stall and draws me into his arms. And there I stand, blubbering all over him, absolutely wretched, not having a clue how I can get through another second, never mind a whole day.

I don’t want this to be my life. I want to go back. But then who would I be going back to? Derek the asshole? To start again? I’m twenty-five years old, but I’m so fucking tired. The only reason I ever want to see Derek again is so I can commit an act of violence on him equal to this misery I feel.

Eventually, my tears peter out.

He puts a little distance between us, reaches for the soap dispenser, and fills up his palm. “Did you finish?” he asks as he shoves a handful of soap into his hair and rubs vigorously.

His cock had softened while he dealt with my tears but now it begins to twitch vigorously at the edge of my vision. It takes a momentous effort not to stare at it again.

He leans into the spray, letting it rinse off his hair.

I take some soap for myself, self-conscious now. But he’s not paying any attention to me, so although this feels weirdly intimate, I soap up my short hair.

I’m supremely aware of him—the whole time. I’ve never seen a man that big in real life. On the viewer, sure, but not a real person. He’s not particularly defined; it’s more that he has these thick, chunky muscles that seem intrinsic to him. No one could look like that without putting considerable effort in, yet there’s something off about all this, something more to him: like I’m looking at a kind of super-human. He has to be six and a half feet tall. And he’s by no means the only one like this in his group. They’re all varying degrees of oversized gods in living flesh.

One corner of his mouth tips up as he soaps his body and leans under the spray again.

I’m squeaky clean and should probably step out, but I don’t move. It’s like I’m under a spell.

His eyes slide to me before he reaches for the soap dispenser again. Only this time, he wraps his soapy fist around his cock, and he begins to work his fingers from root to tip.

My whole body locks up like an electric current is passing through me, running down my body to tighten my nipples before ejecting liquid heat into my core. I meet and hold his eyes, and keep watching his expression, all the time aware of his rough movements below.

He has me in a snare.

My breathing turns choppy, and goosebumps erupt across my skin.

He emits a low, filthy growl, and my eyes lower just as thick ropey jets of cum land against my belly.

More and more.

He grunts and jerks, slamming his other hand against the wall as the hot splats continue to shoot over me.

His hand slows, and he sighs heavily, a lazy grin spreading over his lips, and I swear my pussy spasms in a mini echo explosion of its own.

“Fuck, I needed that.” He casually reaches for more soap. “I don’t suppose it’ll last long.”

My pussy is pulsing and throbbing, and my chest heaves as I look down at my belly, then lower to where his cum trickles into the crease of my pussy and slips between.

I’m so lost in this image that it’s a surprise when his big, soapy hand palms my belly and wipes away the mess he has just made. His touch is firm. Sure. I could step away. But I don’t. I stand there, docile, as the tingles ramp up. My breasts feel heavy, and my nipples grow taut. And then his finger dips right down, sliding into my folds before he takes his hand away.

“Rinse yourself off and get dressed.”

His brusque manner snaps me out of my daze.

Only now do I hear the noises that tell me we’re not alone anymore: footsteps, voices, low laughter, and the splashing sound as someone turns another shower on.

I step under the jet and rinse myself off as he strides out and snatches up a towel. He hands one to me as I exit. I dry myself off quickly, not wanting to linger, wanting to be done so I can put on the clothes I can see sitting in a pile on the bench.

Seb tosses his towel into a bin and begins dressing. I do the same.

I ought to start feeling better as each piece of clothing goes on—more normal, more me—only I don’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with the clothes: the trousers and T-shirt are functional, nothing to freak out about, nor the black boots that are my size.

Yet my skin still tingles where he came on me, like a brand’s been seared across me there. I feel hot everywhere and slick between my thighs. The low-grade arousal I started with has ramped up to a more insistent pull that is very distracting.

My hands are shaky, and my head feels like I do when I’m coming down with a cold.

Also, I just want to rub up against something… or someone.

Cold washes down the length of my spine as I recall that second vial he spoke of in vague terms.

Has he dosed me with an aphrodisiac?

God, I think he must have. Nothing else can explain this restlessness and the compulsion I have to preen, to present, to entice…

I need to hide my response; to keep it together until it wears off.

One thing is certain, if he tries to give me another dose, I’m going to fight, consequences be damned.