Chapter 6
I wouldn’t say my new roommate was hoarding food, but he was doing his level best to touch every morsel that made its way to my mouth. In the time I’d been in Carn’s cell, we’d achieved a strange state of pseudo normalcy.
He didn’t try and talk to me, and he rarely responded when I spoke to him. But he watched my every movement like a cat eyeing a bird through a window.
Maybe that wasn’t the right comparison.
He watched me like a dog watched a dollop of peanut butter on their nose. Close enough to see, but impossibly out of reach.
As soon as the lights went out, he’d bundle me into his arms, plunk down on the cot and squeeze me like a teddy bear until the lights came on again. Despite the raging erection that felt like a third roommate, he never tried to touch me sexually.
I knew I should be relieved about that, but my emotions felt distant and out of reach. As if my mind refused to truly feel anything until it was safe to have a total breakdown.
A breakdown that might be closer than not if Carn didn’t hand over his damn bread.
“Seriously?” I whined. “We both know you’re not going to eat it, why are you taunting me like this?”
He clutched the last morsel of stale, flavorless bread to his massive chest and frowned down at me.
I was sitting cross-legged at the head of the cot and he’d sprawled himself across the foot.
There was a languid casualness to his pose that made it impossible to ignore the sheer amount of lurid red muscle on display.
I didn’t know if I had a type, I’d never spent enough time thinking about my nonexistent dating life to figure it out. But if asked at gun point, I would not have guessed this inhuman, over-muscled bull monster would make my mouth water.
But he did. He was just so huge and blatantly male. Every primitive feminine instinct I had screamed he was the top of the mating food chain. Even slumped against the wall, he easily held the bread out of reach, just like he had for the last five minutes.
A twinge of guilt flared as I realized I was nagging him for the literal last crust of his food after he’d been splitting his meals with me for two days.
There was no way the big guy was supposed to maintain a 2000 calorie diet.
Not with his build. Carn was probably starving himself to feed his unexpected human pet and I was whining about half a mouthful of bread.
I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.
“I’m sorry, it’s your food, I shouldn’t be bullying you over it.”
Carn let out an indistinct rumble and his tail thumped aggressively against the bare cot between us. I peeked up at him from between my fingers and watched as he slowly offered me the bread.
“You don’t have to share, it’s bad enough I’m stealing half your food as it is.”
I did feel bad, but my other option was crawling back into the ceiling and rolling the dice that I escaped, starved to death in the walls or fell right into a tentacle alien’s lap.
Two of the three options sucked ass, so I was sticking it out with the big guy until I came up with a workable plan.
Besides, I was getting weirdly attached to him.
He was the most respectfully handsy person I’d ever met.
He was always naked, always hard and always trying to cuddle me, but there was almost an innocence to our interactions.
As if he didn’t know what to do with a female, despite his raging boner, and all he really wanted was affection.
Carn reached out and waved the bread right under my nose coaxingly and I couldn’t help but laugh as I reached for it. A laugh that turned into a squeal of fury as he snatched it out of reach.
“Hey!” I lunged for the bread, even knowing I’d never reach it at the end of his stupid long arm. “You tease.”
My voice echoed off the metal walls of the cell and Carn’s face froze. Before I could process what was happening, he stuffed the bread in my mouth and shoved me under the cot. His fingers caught in my hair and I winced as he ripped out a few strands in his hurry to jam me against the wall.
A second later footsteps pounded up to the door.
Half a dozen guards burst inside, dressed in the space equivalent of riot gear.
Five of them held long forked spears, the ends spitting electricity as they waved menacingly towards Carn.
The sixth guy was fumbling with a shorter pole, the end of which held a long needle at the tip of a glass and metal canister.
I didn’t think it was a tetanus shot.
The guards shouted orders at Carn, herding him toward the back wall with their spears as the guy with the needle shuffled hesitantly in the big male’s direction. He didn’t look like the rest of the guards, instead of sky blue, his skin was closer to periwinkle and he looked slimmer than the rest.
Carn’s big hooves ground against the floor as he reluctantly moved back, and I had a feeling the only reason he wasn’t trying to murder everyone was me.
I was guiltily relieved he was controlling himself.
It wouldn’t take much of a scuffle to reveal my half-assed hiding spot and I really didn’t want to be found.
The guards crowded forward, the periwinkle runt hesitantly moving with them until he was less than an arm’s span from Carn, a very dangerous place to be. My heart thudded against my ribs as I watched the big guy’s breathing pick up.
He was behaving, but you didn’t need to be a genius to see that being surrounded was triggering his fight or flight.
His short tail was lashing behind him, his ears were pinned and his eyes were dilating wildly.
Muscles twitched in his arms and torso and I swore I watched as veins bulged under his skin.
Shit was about to go down.
Periwinkle lunged forward.
The pole stuck Carn’s side and I cringed as the massive needle plunged into his flesh.
Carn let out an enraged bellow and batted the pole aside as he lunged for the open door.
There was a flurry of shouts and activity as the blue aliens scrambled to shut the door before the enraged male beat it down.
The lock clicked into place and Carn went mad. He charged the battered door over and over, his horns crashing into the metal, sparks and shards of bone flying off his head. My heart climbed into my throat as I watched my cuddly roommate turn into a rabid monster.
Huge fists pounded on the door, muscles swelled and veins twisted all down his back as he snarled and roared so loud the cot above me vibrated with the volume.
For the first time since I toppled into his cell, I was scared of Carn.
He was unhinged. He’d been tense and erratic before, but somehow I doubted a couple of coos and pets would make this meltdown go away.
I needed a tranq gun, or a baseball bat.
After what felt like an hour, he finally quit attacking the door, stalking the length of his cell as he huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf. Every time those massive black hooves stomped across my line of sight, I felt my muscles clench tighter and tighter until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I snagged the edge of the cot and pulled myself out of my little haven.
“Carn,” I forced my voice to stay calm as I stared up at his bloodshot eyes. “Hey, you can calm down now, they’re gone.”
His nostrils flared and he stared at me like he’d never seen me before. Keeping my movements slow and non threatening, I stood up and cautiously took a step towards him.
“It’s just me, big guy.” Something flickered in his yellow eyes and the hairs on my arms stood on end. Primal instincts screamed in my head. I twisted on a dime, ready to hurl myself back under the cot and two huge arms looped around me and snatched me from the air.
I stared at the giant red hand clutching my left boob and an embarrassing squeak escaped me. Behind me, Carn was shaking like he was going into shock, and his hold on my ribs was crushing my lungs.
But all I could focus on was the heat of his palm seeping through my thin bra, and the subtle tension coiling behind my belly button.
No one had ever touched me there.
I definitely hadn’t planned to let my new alien friend get to second base. In fact, despite his nudity and constant raging hard on, I’d done a good job pretending we weren’t compatible that way. After all, I couldn’t be interested in the horned, hoofed guy. That would be way too weird.
Right?
My thighs pressed together as a shuddering breath from Carn skated over my neck and my skin tightened like lightning was about to strike. I hung in his arms, my foot dangling uselessly over the floor and wondered whether or not I was having a panic attack or getting turned on.
Regardless of the brewing arousal I felt, sex should not be on the top of my mind when Carn was clearly having a bad reaction to whatever injection they’d given him. It could have been poison, or a weird space experiment, he could be dying while I squirmed against him like a cat in heat.
Get it together Naomi.
His hot face pressed against my neck and Carn let out a guttural groan that lit up my private places like a Christmas tree.
“Uh, Carn?” I squeaked, my clammy hands clawing pointlessly on the bulky arms that held me captive. “Are you okay buddy?”
He grunted, as eloquent as ever, and shuffled backwards until I felt his back hit the wall. His grip on my ribs didn’t loosen and I sucked in a nervous breath as his hooves slid forward, lowering us both to the floor as a unit.
A few seconds later, my head was crammed under his chin, my knees pinned between his huge thighs and I could feel his heart beating a mile a minute against my spine. I was firmly back in the teddy bear slot and I didn’t know how I felt about it.