Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
I groan and swear and go to roll out of the bed, but I find myself stopped by the firm and unyielding body of Cir next to me.
“Good morning,” he says, opening his eyes. God, he’s beautiful. He’s absolutely stunning. The way he shines. The lines of his face. The hard beauty of his cheekbones and the slight narrowing of his eyes when he looks at me.
“Is it?” I sit up.
“For now,” he says, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me down to his side. “Let’s just take a moment. For one second. Let’s just be together before…”
I close my eyes for all of one second. I take the moment of peace he offers for a small moment. Then I open them again.
“Before what?”
“Before I have to deal with your insubordination.”
“I fucking knew it,” I curse to myself, getting back up again. “I knew you wouldn’t let that go.”
“Of course I’m not going to let it go,” he says, rising naked. That’s a very distracting sight, his scaled, shimmering body and his two cocks promising double the pleasure.
I am naked too, I realize. He looked after me tenderly last night, but the morning has come and mornings always bring some kind of reckoning.
Cir stands next to the bed, not bothering to clothe himself, which I, for one, appreciate.
“I told you specifically not to leave the room, and you not only left the room, but stole the shuttle and went to Earth just in time to share their punishment. But you are going to get a second punishment from me, Jessica. I will not be disobeyed.”
He’s so imposing. So stern. I am in some serious fucking trouble with this guy. I stare at him, my mouth kind of moving, trying to formulate words. Instead, my stomach growls.
“Can I at least have breakfast first?”
My question dispels the tension. His shoulders drop and he gives me a patient smile. “Yes,” he says. “You can have breakfast first.”
“Great, because I’m fucking starving. Shall we go to the food court?”
“I think we will eat here today,” he says. “You made quite an impression yesterday. Do you remember meeting the captain?”
“Who is the captain?”
“Talos. Green hair. Captain’s uniform.”
“Oh yeah. I remember. That fuckin’ guy.”
“I was planning to introduce you to him as part of announcing our engagement. But you introduced yourself by telling him that you were going to fight him.”
“I did, huh? Well. He probably deserved it. Who unleashed all that bullshit on the world? Was it him?”
“It was the captain’s call, yes.”
“In that case, I am glad I said that.”
That statement earns me a pre-game swat to my ass, landing hard and scaly against the soft flesh of my curved rear.
“Ow!” I squeal. I was reaching for the food machine, but instead both my hands are occupied by shooting back to cover my ass. “You said I could have breakfast!”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Yes. You can have breakfast.”
I start ordering food off the machine. I start with donuts, go onto a banana split, grab some toast, just to make a semblance of breakfast, then some coffee, cereal, croissants… at that point, Cir stops me.
“We’re having breakfast. Not a banquet.”
“Or is it more like a last meal?”
He shakes his head at me with a wry smile. “You make everything harder than it has to be.”
“Of course I do. I’m a human, and I’m from New York. You aliens picked the wrong planet to try to help.”
“That has been a sentiment shared several times recently,” he smirks. “Eat your breakfast, and don’t make yourself sick. You don’t want to be thrashed on a full stomach, or an empty one.”
“You’re really a pain in the ass,” I comment. I start with the donuts. They’re the kind with pastry covered in icing sugar on the outside and then a gooey jam center on the inside. There’s berries, which makes it healthy.
Cir doesn’t eat. He has some water, which is just such a perfect alien thing to do. Look at him, hydrating. That smug, beautiful bastard. I wonder if Cir has ever done anything wrong or bad in his life, or if he just stepped out of the womb, thanked his mother kindly, and asked where his office was.
“What are you snickering about?” Cir asks the question sternly.
“I was just imagining that when you were a baby you probably didn’t have a crib, you probably had some kind of business bassinet.”
A small smile plays at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what you think of me, Jessica? All work, no play?”
“I mean, you’re just waiting to punish me for doing what any human would do under the circumstances, so…”
“No,” he says. “You didn’t do what any human would do. We have over five hundred humans serving on the Halo in various capacities. You were the only one who decided to rush down and get in the middle of things by using yourself as a human shield.”