Chapter 5 #2
My hand stung from slapping him; the scales that covered his face made him a hard target.
I was still reeling, confused, turned on, and a little scared.
It wasn’t every day that a guy angrily told me I was not his “mate” before kissing the living daylights out of me—all while we’d never been introduced and weren’t even the same species.
I was still shaking from the adrenaline of that confrontation, and from the cold, too.
If I had thought it was cold inside the ship, that had seemed balmy compared to outside.
Not that I had much chance to appreciate the change of venue or the shift in my circumstances.
No, my savage native had decided, apparently, that I was the perfect target to practice his kissing on.
My body was not entirely opposed to the idea, either.
His scent was like catnip, and something else had been added to the blend now.
Something salty and sweet, like caramel popcorn.
It was delicious and made my mouth water; it was so tempting, I almost wanted to reach out for more.
When he told me he’d try again, I hissed, shocked by how badly I wanted that—when I did not even know him.
He jerked back, his one amethyst-colored eye growing wide in surprise.
He didn’t think I’d put up a fight? Well, he was dead wrong, even if he had my libido revving like never before.
I didn’t kiss on the first date, damn it, and this didn’t even remotely count.
He had fangs, and he bared them, hissing back at me in a much more impressive manner.
He was all blue-purple scales with a matte finish, thick black hair, and sharp ivory horns, a pair of them that jutted from his chin.
He also had an eyepatch, the right eye covered by a scrap of deep purple leather held in place by a leather strap.
Very rakish, very much like an alien, feral pirate.
“No,” I told the pirate alien, “I’m not your mate, remember? ”
His eyebrows went up—sharp and nubbed. They were a very interesting texture that made me want to test if they were rough or soft.
I tightened my fists, then discovered, much to my mortification, that they were still clinging to his fur jacket.
I started to let go, but it wasn’t like I could go far—he still held me in his arms, my feet dangling in the freezing breeze.
Part of his bizarrely long body was also pressed against my back, as if he’d raised a coil of his tail to hold me to him. I was sort of not quite sitting on it.
“No,” he snapped at me, but confusion danced in the dark purple of his one visible eye.
Something shifted in his expression, shutting away the heat of passion and making room for sharp intellect.
“Who are you, human?” he demanded, his tone sharp enough to cut.
His tongue flicked out from between his soft lips, which I had felt personally.
It was split at the tip, just like a snake’s.
He’d stuck that in my mouth, and I had liked it a hell of a lot.
It was far too easy to fantasize about what that would feel like if he licked me in other places.
My thighs pressed together, and I squirmed in his grip.
“I’m Jolene,” I said, to cover the sharp arousal that rushed through my veins.
So he was hot and sexy—and far too bossy—but that didn’t mean I needed to let that get to me.
I was definitely not offended by being told I wasn’t his mate.
I knew that mates, or husbands—even boyfriends—weren’t my thing.
My own bossiness always interfered. I was too headstrong, had too much sass, and never enough time.
“Jolene,” he mouthed to me, not quite vocalizing my name but shaping it with his sexy lips.
I saw a hint of fang again, and that made my belly twist with another sharp lance of arousal, one that bordered on pleasure.
Geez, this guy was potent. I hoped he didn’t know that, but maybe he had a whole harem of ladies somewhere.
What the hell did I know about these natives?
He opened his mouth again to speak, but a gust of wind blew straight through the thermal blankets poorly wrapped around me.
It cut through my stasis clothes and made me all too aware of how dangerously close I was getting to hypothermia and frostbite.
Even wrapped in his arms, pressed up against his warm, muscular body, I was still too cold.
Holding up a finger was enough to make him pause.
“I’m going to die from exposure if I don’t get warmed up soon, just so you know.
So if some part of you wants to keep this “not-mate” alive, you’d better think of something quick. ”
I wasn’t sure why I brought that up again.
I’d used it to tell him to stop kissing me, but now I used it as a barb.
It was obvious it struck home, he winced, and his expression grew flinty.
It was ballsy to demand he save me, but the truth was that there was nothing I could do on my own out here.
I didn’t have survival skills like Jasmine; I had no clue how to save myself out here.
It was all too obvious that Thor had been right, staying in stasis had been my only chance at survival.
I’d gambled and lost, waking myself too early to have a true chance at escape.
His eye narrowed suspiciously, his mouth growing tight, but then his gaze dropped from my face to take in the rest of me—not with any haze of desire, but with a calculating expression.
Either this was when he’d drop me and leave me to freeze to death, or he’d do something about it.
I was hoping for the latter, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
My savage pirate seemed to keep his cards—and his feelings—close to his vest.
“You do seem inadequately dressed for a human in these temperatures. Don’t worry, spring is coming.
” As if I could wait around for spring to thaw me, I’d be a human-shaped popsicle by then.
He didn’t make me point that out, though, but shifted me in his grip with warm, gentle hands.
His tail got very handy then, coiling around me to shelter me from the wind while he took a big pack off his back to rummage around in.
In just a short time, I found myself bundled in extra furs, my silver thermal blankets wrapped tightly around me.
I was rather helpless this way, but the warmth spreading through me was well worth the loss of a little freedom.
He swung me into his arms—bridal style this time—then tilted his head into the air and flicked his tongue into the wind, perhaps catching scents.
“This way,” he said, as if I had any choice in the matter, and then he was moving fast. His long, agile body coiled across the snow beneath the trees we were under.
He did not leave a single trace of his passage, the snow appeared undisturbed by anything but the wind.
It was very impressive. It also made me aware of just how big he was.
Somehow, that hadn’t quite sunk in when I’d met Nala’s native before.
“How did you get here? Why were you inside the ship?” I asked.
My body was starting to warm up a little, and I was beginning to shake again.
That was a good sign, but everything stung, especially my hands and feet.
The shaking was violent enough that he had to hold me tightly, and I could see that it was distracting him, especially when my teeth chattered between words.
They clacked together, and that made him hiss.
“What? Do you not shake when you get dangerously cold?”
His expression said he wasn’t stupid enough to let himself get into a situation like that.
At least he was tactful enough not to answer the question.
I waited, hoping he’d at least answer the first few, but he was awfully good at being quiet.
After he’d gotten over his initial reaction to the weird way my body was warming itself, he focused his gaze on our surroundings, and that was it.
Perhaps he thought this was good enough, and he was taking me somewhere far away, his home, his friends.
If he did, I had news for him: I was warming up, sure, but I needed more if I wanted to keep my toes and fingers.
Mostly my toes, they’d gotten the worst of it so far, and I was trying not to let fear get to me about that.
I wasn’t prepared for the darkness that suddenly swallowed us, not prepared one bit.
“What the hell?!” I shouted, blinking rapidly and hoping my eyes would adjust. Not fast enough.
We’d gone down some kind of hole, and the light from outside was rapidly growing smaller and less effective. Where the hell was he taking me?