Chapter 22
"Knock, knock!" Hope's chipper voice was like nails on a chalkboard to my throbbing head and I groaned as I forced my eyes open. The ceiling of my tent loomed over me, and it took a few seconds for the events of last night to catch up with me.
I'd gotten horizontal with an alien and I'd liked it.
Holy fuck, he'd gone down on me and I'd never be the same. My fuzzy brain wanted to insist it had all been an embarrassingly dirty dream, but the humid air swirling over my naked body argued otherwise.
"Are you decent? We're coming in."
"Wait!" I squawked, scrambling for the clothes that had been strewn around the small tent. "Just a second," I called. It took a lot of fumbling to get back into my shirt and I'd barely pulled my pants on when the tent flap whipped open and sunlight poured inside.
I shielded my eyes, grimacing as I struggled to adjust to the glare. Hope ducked inside, carrying a plate of food and Penny followed her.
"Sooo," Hope started as she flopped onto the pallet of blankets and crooked a brow. "How was your night?"
"None of your business."
I glared at her even as I reached for the food, my stomach growling like an enraged bear as I spotted mini donuts on the sheet of dented metal.
Hope held the plate out of reach with a chuckle and I contemplated tackling her for the food.
I was so hungry I'd eat a shoe right now and those donuts were mine.
"Oh come on," she laughed. "One juicy detail and I'll let you eat in peace."
"Fine, we had wild, alien sex, and I'm in love with him. The sun rises and sets on his smile and I'm carrying his child." I lunged for the plate. "Now give."
Hope relinquished the plate and I stuffed a powder covered donut in my mouth with a groan.
"We know you didn't have sex." Penny settled on the pallet next to Hope and offered me a bottle of water.
Eyeing them suspiciously, I ate another donut and wondered when I'd become the kind of girl who had a gossip session first thing in the morning. Nope, pretty sure I'd never signed up for this.
"How do you know?" I asked, spraying powdered sugar all over my shirt. It was a good thing Dargo wasn't here, I'd never felt less attractive in my life.
The moment the thought crossed my mind I batted it away. I didn't care what he thought of me. Dargo was the one that dragged me into this relationship. He was getting the real Taz, messy shirt and bad attitude all the way.
Hope rolled her eyes.
"They can smell it when you've been 'gentled.
'" She made air quotes around 'gentled' and I shared her cringe at the word.
I didn't like the idea of being broken in like a horse and that's what it sounded like.
"Dargo's been fielding challenges all morning, and that's not going away until you're fully mated. "
"Are you serious?" There really was no privacy in the apocalypse. Having an entire camp of alien males sniffing at me to figure out my sex life was not appealing.
"Dead serious."
"Yuck." I set aside the plate and opened my water.
Between my throbbing head and my dry throat, I was starting to think Dargo had been right about my level of intoxication last night.
Thinking back, I definitely hadn't been in my right mind.
Unfortunately, that meant I still had the looming challenge of losing my virginity in a tent.
"Are we still serious about staying here?" I asked. "No one wants to strike out on our own and leave all this alien crazy behind?"
"I'm not leaving Aeko." Hope eyed me like I was a fly in her pudding. "If you're not serious about staying with Dargo, you need to tell him. It's not fair to him to keep risking his life fighting for you if you're going to up and disappear."
I turned my sights on Penny, hoping her strange mood was a symptom of wanting to run for the hills with me. Anything to avoid facing Dargo after the way I'd thrown myself at him last night.
Penny's expression was a lot more understanding than Hope's, but she popped my balloon when she shook her head.
"It's really not safe out there, Taz."
I noticed she didn't declare her undying love of Adak, who I hadn't seen since I'd arrived.
There was a story there and I was going to get to the bottom of her subdued attitude eventually.
But since neither of my friends was ready to risk leaving camp, that meant I was stuck here, too.
With Dargo, my almost mate, who'd blown my mind and then turned down sex last night.
It was a blow to my ego that he'd fallen asleep so easily after treating me to my first orgasm.
I could understand him wanting sex. Somehow I doubted the dating scene was hopping when you were a slave in space.
But if he'd wanted a mate to get laid, he wasn't getting his money's worth if his plan was to service me and then pass out.
Maybe he'd been drunk, too. Alien whiskey dick? How was I supposed to know?
Something Hope had said finally penetrated my thoughts.
"He's fighting?"
She smirked. "Three challenges so far."
“These guys are really committed to getting a girlfriend, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yeah. Before I came back for you guys, Aeko got jumped by a whole band of turochs. He almost got killed because they could tell I wasn’t gentled and that meant I was up for grabs.”
“I can’t believe you ran them over,” Penny said.
I choked on my donut. “You ran them over?” Hope was turning out to be quite the fighter.
She shrugged like it was no big deal. “I couldn’t let them kill Aeko.”
“I mean, you could have.” I shrugged and ducked the swat Hope aimed at my head. “Hey! I’m joking, obviously.”
These two should know better than to talk to me when I was hungover.
It took me several minutes to escape my tent while my friends continued to grill me for details. I was forced to say I wanted to talk to Dargo before they finally let up.
It wasn’t a total lie. I didn’t want to look him in the face, but I did want to touch base.
This whole mate thing had me feeling lost as hell, and he was the one that knew what was going on.
I wandered through camp, steering clear of every turoch I saw, cringing as a few of them flared nostrils in my direction and gave me wide, hungry smiles.
No one approached me, but now that I knew they saw me as fresh meat, I felt like there was blood in the water and I was surrounded by sharks. Big, alien sharks.
I spotted Dargo standing by a barrel of water, pouring a cup over his head and shaking the drops off his face. In the daylight, his bulky frame and red skin looked even better than it had last night.
He looked up and grinned when he saw me, and my heart stuttered at the blatant happiness on his face. He’d completely destroyed my ability to ignore him and I forced myself to stand still and let him come to me.
Dargo's arm wound around my shoulders and he smashed my head to his chest in an enthusiastic hug.
"Good morning, little Firebrand." His skin was slick with sweat and there was a bleeding cut on his arm but his expression was nothing but pure excitement.
"Why are you bleeding?" I demanded.
"This?" He twisted his arm and looked at the cut. "It's nothing, not even worth keeping the scar."
"Keeping the scar-" I cut myself off before I fell down one of his rabbit holes. "Hope said you're fighting because of me."
"Of course." He waved a hand at a turoch slumped over next to the fire. The male's face was a puffy, bruised mess and he was grimacing as he cradled his ribs. "Four challengers and more to come. You're very sought after."
"Why?" I stared at the male and wondered what had possessed him to get the snot beat out of him over me. I didn’t even know his name.
“You’re a beautiful female, full of fight. What male wouldn’t want you?” he asked, his expression confused. I decided not to mention the fact that no human man had ever wanted anything serious from me, and no one had ever gotten his ass handed to him for my attention.
“If any male would want me, why didn’t you?”
He froze. “What are you talking about?”
“Last night?” I prompted, wishing his lack of interest hadn’t stung me so much. “I was naked and willing and you went to sleep.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t I please you? Weren’t you moaning my name while I licked your cunt? Why would you think I didn’t want you?”
My face was on fire as several males turned to stare at us as Dargo kept talking.
“That-I...” I stuttered. “Stop talking!”
His shit eating grin told me he knew exactly what he was doing as he ducked closer and stole a kiss.
"I enjoy the chase," he murmured in my ear. My traitorous body lit up at his touch and I clenched my jaw to keep myself focused. “As long as you resist me, I’ll keep pursuing you.”
“I wasn’t resisting you, that was my point,” I gritted out.
"Not physically, no. You'll soften toward me eventually, I'm more than willing to wait." He ran a hand down my back and patted my butt, and despite myself, I leaned into him. There was something about the way he pushed my buttons that I loved and hated.
He could piss me off faster than anyone I’d ever met, but I couldn’t deny I enjoyed our sparring.
"I was naked last night, I'm not sure what you're waiting for," I muttered, wishing a dozen males weren't watching Dargo put the moves on me. I preferred my solitude, and the constant activity and noise of the camp was already wearing on me, and I’d only been here one night.
It was never quiet here, someone was always fighting, or shouting, or just looking at you. Dargo and I may be the newest gossip but would it kill people to pretend they weren’t staring?
"Naked, but not eager. I could sense your fear."
"I wasn't afraid." I pushed his chest and he backed up a few steps. "I was nervous, there's a difference."
“Is there?” he mused. “Or do you say that so you don’t have to admit you have fears?”
He was more right than he knew, but I’d eat glass before I admitted it.