Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 110600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“Me?” I sputter. “I’m not! Don’t be ridiculous.”
He jerks at the cuffs. “Then let me go.”
“No.” I study his big body. In addition to his gargantuan junk, he’s got huge thighs and enormous muscular arms. This is the absolute opposite of safe, and I’m not sure what Bethiah was thinking. “I’m afraid I might have to kill you.”
He stiffens for a moment, and then a soft, wheezing sound escapes him, almost like a kittenish sneeze. It takes me a moment to realize that this is the praxiian version of laughing. He’s laughing at me.
Well now I really want to kill him. “What’s so fucking funny?”
“You can’t kill me. You can’t even look me in the eye right now. You keep staring at my cock.”
“That’s because it’s staring right back!”
He just laughs harder. “So now you want to kill me? What, so I don’t tell on you? Are you a flesh peddler, little human? Is that what’s going on here?”
Indignant, I straighten. “Of course not.”
“Then what are you trying to hide?”
“Nothing! I’m not hiding anything.” I hesitate. “I’d only kill you because I have to. It’s not that I want to kill you—though I’m mightily tempted right now,” I grumble. “It’s because if it’s a choice between you and me, I pick me.”
That makes him stop laughing. He grows silent, and the look on his face is thoughtful. “So you’d kill me.”
“If I have to.” Just the thought makes me queasy.
“How would you do it?”
“I don’t know! I’d have to think it through! Don’t pressure me!” But I’m already thinking about it. I don’t think I can carve him up…or starve him. Poison?
“You know…” He leans back in the chair, his body entirely too big for it. He looks obscenely large, and when his hips arch again, I suck in a breath. His movements are positively, alarmingly distracting. “You don’t have to kill me to buy my silence. You can buy it another way.”
Oh. I consider this for a moment, pacing. I don’t want to empty what little is left in my savings, but I also don’t want to kill a man. I know he’s a trespasser and he’s been sending me threats, but the thought of chopping him into tiny pieces and tossing him into the compost heap makes something inside me die. “Blackmail? Fine. How much do you want?”
“I’m not interested in credits.” His eyes gleam. “I’ll let you earn my silence between the sheets.”
9
NASSAKTH
I don’t know why I suggest that. It has to be the flowers making my mind turn to sludge. There’s no way that Kim will ever take me up on the offer…but I throw it out there anyway. As an ex-gladiator, I’ve learned that you have to make big moves sometimes. You have to surprise your opponent and keep them guessing.
And I’ve definitely done that to this sweet little human.
She’s looking at me as if I’m insane. “Sleep with you?!” I can hear the outrage in her voice.
“There would be very little sleeping involved,” I promise her. Ah, my cock aches at the thought. Of Kim, naked with all that strange pink skin, her body moving underneath mine. I even like her hair like this. It makes me think she’s trying to look praxiian to please me…which isn’t the case, but an old gladiator can dream.
She sputters. “Absolutely not.”
“Then you’ll have to kill me to earn my silence,” I bluff. I doubt Kim could harm a single living creature. There’s too much of a fascinating innocence to her, despite all that she’s been through.
She huffs angrily at me and then storms out of the room, as if my suggestion is so repellent that she cannot even stand to look at me.
I sigh, disappointed. I knew this was too easy. Even though I paid the bounty hunter to “capture” me instead of another, I knew Kim would be surprised. I just didn’t realize she loathed me. Is my courting so offensive? My form? I glance down at my body. I wear a dark, form-fitting tunic and trou, my clothing standard so I can blend with the assortment of agricultural-enthusiast aliens on Risda III. My tail is freshly brushed and my fur is still as thick and dark as it ever was.
It must be me that is the problem. My personality. I am not as kind as she wants.
I twitch in the chair, the scent of pollen making my body ache everywhere, but especially in the groin. I am…very disappointed at her reaction. I didn’t think she would climb onto my lap and fling herself into my arms with joy, but I also didn’t expect this. I flex my hands in the cuffs. I could rip them free of the chair, crush the object with an easy movement, and head back to my own farm a few leagues away. Forget all of this.