Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories (66 page)

When she looked up to see why there was so much silence in the room all of a sudden, she saw that the official’s mouth was hanging open and he had freshly broken out with a sweat. “What?” she demanded.

“Um... Can you excuse me for a moment?” the official said before scurrying past the guard and out of the room like he was a squirrel who had just noticed a cat.

She grumbled and stared up at the blank ceiling. She supposed she would have to get used to that—a lot of blankness, lots of silence. Lots of time to reflect on all the blankness and silence...

She heard boots approaching and figured that the guard must have come out of the hallway and into the room. She turned her head, keen to say something especially snarky to him like she had yesterday, but then felt like she was actually choking on the words when she saw a seven-foot-tall, strangely dressed, black-finger-nailed and purple-eyed alien standing in the room. “Stop being ridiculous,” he snapped at her in an accent that was very different than the Martian beeps and clicks that she’d been expecting to be their language. The fact that one spoke English at all was quite a surprise.

“Get on your feet and come along,” he demanded, pointing to the floor next to him.

She blinked long and hard. She hadn’t seen them close up at all when she had seen their spaceship the week before. He looked like... well, a person. A big, muscular person, but still...

“Move it,” he demanded through the silence, snapping his fingers at her.

She was having trouble snapping out of the shock, and shook her head. She should really be more emotionally prepared to see an alien after seeing a spaceship, she told herself. She shook her head. “No,” she told him.

“No?” He squinted at her. Then he looked up at the camera in the corner and said, “See? I told you she’d choose Plan B!” He turned back to her and stepped forward. “They said you’d do better with choices, so I’m going to give you a real choice this time: you can come with me the easy way, or the hard way.”

Oh, fuck this. She was not going to be spoken to that way by anybody, not even someone she didn’t think even existed ten days ago. She folded her arms across her chest and then wrapped her shoes and legs around the leg of the steel bedframe that was bolted to the floor.

“The hard way it is,” he stated simply, and then reached out for her.

She was a pastry chef, not an American Gladiator, and even one of those probably couldn’t have fought off this creature. Needless to say her fight was short and noisy, but in the end she was thrown over his broad shoulders like she was a fur shawl. She proceeded to try to squirm off anyway, or at least pinch him hard enough that he’d drop her, but to no avail. He just grumbled, growled, and walked faster with a parade of people trying to open doors for him.

“Fuck all of you!” she screamed at them as they looked up at her with a plethora of troubled expressions. “When I get home, I’m going to kick all your asses!”

All the swearing, kicking, pinching, biting, and overall fight in her was quickly depleting over a fifteen-minute walk through an underground tunnel he was taking before she, out of breath, panted, “What is this place?”

She didn’t think the alien would answer, but after a moment, he looked around. “This is your species’ government base still. How you could have overlooked something this large is beyond my ability to understand. Malo said that humans spend a lot of time ignoring things.”

“Who the fuck is Malo?” she demanded.

“Malo, you feisty little thing, is one of your new mates. You need to learn how to relax.”

Her head spun at the word
mate
. Suddenly things were coming together, so much so that she felt like she was going to pass out for the first time in her life.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked, wiggling her leg slightly where he had a hold on it. “Hey!”

“I’m a... a...” she slurred for a moment, and then reprocessed. “Wait—
one
of my new mates?” she asked weakly.

“Right. There are three of us. I’m Dax, and—”

She passed out this time. Apparently her brain had limits. Trying to put together the fact that the aliens wanted her as a mate to share between them was a little more than it could handle. And the interesting thing about blacking out was that she couldn’t account for the passage of time. She woke up on a squishy foam mattress in front of a gigantic window that looked out on the night sky with a warm body behind her, petting her hair, and her first thought was, “Where’d the hallway go?”

Her second thought, of course, was that her world was over. Or, to be especially specific, her world was probably somewhere lightyears in the distance by now.

“Hey, sweetheart,” a voice over her head crooned, surely one of her many ‘mates.’ Apparently, he had noticed that she had become much more rigid as she wished that the government had just killed her and been done with it, because he petted her more quickly and gently, saying, “I know how you might be feeling. But everything’s going to be okay. We have all your stuff, so there’s no reason to be upset.”

She had never cared less about her stuff than she had in this very moment. She didn’t want to turn around and look at who was behind her. She knew it was going to be a complete stranger who she’d never met before, and that was all she needed to know.

“Do you want to talk? I’m sure you have some questions. I’m your guy. Lay it on me.” She was just considering how human and sensitive that sounded, much to her surprise, when he then ruined it by saying, “Or lay on me. That would be okay too,” with such a pervy tone that he could have been doing an impression of a college frat boy.

She sat up, disgusted, and turned to give whoever it was a piece of her mind. This alien looked very different than the first—instead of a short, kempt haircut, he was a little shaggier in appearance. He wasn’t ugly; in fact, if it wasn’t for the purple eyes he probably could have passed for something between a personal trainer and a guitar bum. His grin was teasing. “Why, hello, gorgeous,” he said.

Well, it was interesting to know that meatheads were universal. “Look, buddy—the last thing I want from you is a pickup line. I demand to be taken home right
now
.”

He watched her stand up from the strange-shaped mattress that looked more like a three-dimensional ameba than a rectangle, but he made no move to get up himself. He stayed resting back on his elbows as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “I know that you don’t particularly want to hear this right now,” he replied, “but you
are
home. There’s nothing for you back on your backwater planet. If you knew what I knew you’d say ‘good riddance’ and get that sweet ass of yours back into bed.”

“Where the fuck did you learn English?” she snapped.

“We don’t learn languages,” he answered frankly. “We download them. It’s more efficient that way. There’s a little bug implanted to our brain right here,” he said, tapping his forefinger against his head right behind his left ear. “And downloaded languages easily pair with our...” He waved his hand dismissively when he looked at her expression. “Ah. You don’t really care right now. That’s cool.” He squinted. “Do you want some alone time?”

“I want a
lot
of alone time,” she assured him firmly.

“Are you sure? Because I’m really good at sex and I’m happy to share the wealth of my experience,” he told her, deadpan.

She made a show of shuddering with disgust. “I threw up in my mouth a little just now,” she assured, then turned to look for a door. To her displeasure, she had to spin around a few times before she realized that she was not going to find a door on her own.

When she gave up, she looked back at the alien who smiled smugly at her, seeming to love that she couldn’t avoid asking him a question.

“Where’s the door out?”

“Would you like me to show you?” he asked, grinning widely.

“If you must,” she said dryly. Apparently, he wasn’t very good at realizing that she wasn’t interested in playing games, and she definitely wasn’t interested in flirting with him.

“You know,” he continued as he pulled himself slowly to his feet, “it’s not all bad being away from Earth. Actually, I can’t think of anything you’ll miss. Watching them fiddle with technology has been like watching a toddler play with building blocks. There’s a lot you can do. Let me show you.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “No, please don’t show me,” she said with exasperation, but by then he had already walked to the side of the room and clicked what looked to be a small panel in the wall, swiping it downward. The wall seemed to somehow fade away, and it was replaced instantly by a balcony that looked out over an ocean with a city on an island visible in the distance. The air was suddenly more humid and had the smell of wildflowers, and a light, warm breeze swept through the room.

She gasped and stepped forward, reaching out until she grasped the side of the balcony in her hands. It was just like she was on a tropical island—she knew she couldn’t actually be on one, but she couldn’t see any differences between whatever program was making this illusion around her and reality.

The alien stepped up behind her. “See? Pretty neat, huh? I have, like, fifty different sceneries loaded,” he said in a cocky tone.

She turned around and he put his hands on either side of her, pinning her against the iron trellis of the balcony. He looked like he was hoping she’d kiss him. “You’re in my personal bubble,” she warned him.

He rolled his eyes and pulled one of his hands off the rail so that he wasn’t pinning her in anymore. “Go ahead and play hard to get. Admit it, you’re beginning to dig me. You’re realizing how good of an accessory I’d look on your arm when we go out. You’re beginning to wonder what your little babies would look like if you mated with me.” She couldn’t help but give him a deeply alarmed look at this. “Admit it,” he repeated with a grin.

“Um... what’s your name again?” she asked, wondering where he picked up all this delusion. “Malo, right?”

He snorted and scrunched his nose slightly. “No! I’m
Tick
,” he said, as if that should be obvious.

“Ah.” She gave a nod. “Are there more of you?”

“Just me, Dax, and Malo,” he assured, and then he lowered his voice, unfortunately once again intent on seducing her. “Dax is piloting the ship and Malo’s in a conference call, so it’s just you and me, baby.”

She pursed her lips. “Joy.”

“You might be playing hard to get, but we both know where this is going to end up,” he said, once again invading her space bubble as if she were in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon in which she starred as the unfortunate cat with a white stripe painted down her tail. “You, me, the moonlight...”

“And my vomit all over you,” she interrupted. “I’m just not that into you.”

“You are, trust me. You just don’t know it yet.” He winked at her.

“Tick—stop torturing her,” an exasperated, flat tone said from across the room. Another alien she hadn’t met before strolled toward them, apparently having come through one of the other ‘walls.’ This one was impeccably dressed and well-groomed, and he walked with perfect posture and a smooth, sophisticated gait. “She’s had a rough day. I don’t know if she can take the full brunt of your personality right now.” He smirked when he looked over at her directly and actually offered his hand to her. “Chloe—it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Malo.”

She looked down at his hand. She almost took it into her own out of habit and shook, but then she remembered how angry she was that she was even here and she slid her hands into her pockets. Malo seemed to grasp the fact that she was blowing him off, and frowned. “I can’t say I blame you for feeling a little out of sorts right now. It’s a lot to take in. Did Tick show you your room?” he asked congenially.

Pressing her lips into a flat line, she turned to glare at Tick. “No,” she replied, unable to help noticing that he didn’t look at all guilty. “He didn’t.”

Malo sighed at this, but he didn’t look surprised. “I’ll show you the layout of the ship, then, if you’re up for it? Or do you just want to be alone?”

“Alone,” she assured firmly.

He frowned, looking disappointed, but he shrugged his shoulders, not looking surprised by her lack of cordialness, either. “Alright.” He gestured toward the opposite end of the room and both she and Tick followed him. He pressed a place on the wall that looked similar to the one Tick had manipulated earlier. In front of them the scenery vanished and was quickly replaced by a well-lit hallway.

“The guys worked really hard to make it perfect for you,” he told her, glancing at her over his shoulder. “And that’s saying a lot since Dax isn’t exactly what you’d call a touchy-feely guy.”

“Nor did I confuse him with one,” she grumbled back.

He opened a sliding door nearby and she walked in. She blinked at it, walked in, and spun around.

It was her apartment, or at least it looked exactly like her apartment. “It’s real,” Malo said, watching her. “They made sure everything was where it was before. The view and wall colors are an illusion, but most of your items and furniture are actually there.”

“Took hours to get it right,” Tick added, puffing his chest out proudly. “We had somebody back at the base get your stuff and take pictures and then we set it all up here.”

She was impressed, and her anger felt slightly deflated. Her apartment was one of the things she had thought she’d miss. If she could only stay here and never leave, she was certain she’d feel much better about things. Alas, she knew the deal. Dax and Tick had made it pretty clear that she was to be a mate. And, unless she was sorely mistaken and the word ‘mate’ meant something different to them, that meant they wanted to fuck her.

She might have been a cross between a recluse and a workaholic—meaning her social life didn’t exist—but she had had plenty of sex before. She had gone to college in Paris, after all. And the aliens, although not exactly human, surely would have passed as handsome men with the right type of sunglasses. However, they had kidnapped her and played a part in ruining her life, and that couldn’t be ignored. Like hell she was going to have sex with any of them.