Wrage (Galaxy Gladiators #11) - Alana Khan Page 0,11

experience with my last four owners.

Perhaps ‘nightgown’ is a misnomer. It’s a voluminous flannel number dotted with little purple flowers. It’s so big and ugly it could give a sensitive person nightmares. Although it has no writing on it, it screams ‘stay the fuck away from me’ at fifty paces. It’s meant to counteract his lust, my interest, the fragrance of my pheromones, and the fact that this room is equipped with only one bed.

My brand was throbbing by the time we got back to the room, so I’ve applied the salve and the pain is gone.

He put on his pants for his hasty trip from the shower to the bed, but slips everything off before he slides under the covers.

“Commando?” I ask pointedly, my eyebrow arched in rebuke.

“Gladiator,” he replies, apropos of nothing.

He looks at his left deltoid. It must be throbbing. Feeling sorry for him, I climb out of bed, grab the salve and hand it to him.

“For your mating brand. Topical analgesic.”

He dabs it on and around the branding site, wincing with each soft touch. I feel a pang of guilt. I’ve put the painkiller on several times since the ‘ceremony’. He’s been without.

After taking a deep, relieved breath, he says, “You’ve had this? Kept it from me?”

“Sorry,” I say. The tone in my voice says, ‘not sorry’.

“We got off to a bad start.” He turns toward me.

Climbing back into bed, I swivel to look at him, leaning on my elbow so I don’t put pressure on my wound. “You could say that.”

“Hating each other is a luxury we can’t afford,” he says gravely, his gaze never leaving mine.

When he’s serious, his eyes are so gorgeous I could dive into them.

He’s right. We’re going to be together forever, unless a nuclear blast blows planet Paragon to smithereens.

“I know why I hate you, but are you saying you hate me, too?” I ask, baffled. “Why?”

He sighs. “You want to know?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“Let’s change sides of the bed so we can look at each other without pressing on our brands,” he suggests.

I get up and am at the foot of the bed when he slides out. Now’s a bad time to recall he’s sleeping commando.

I don’t know how the mind has the ability to do this, but somehow the world decelerates to slow motion. I’m less than two feet from Wrage. Naked. Naked, naked Wrage. Gorgeous, glorious, otherworldly male.

Don’t look at his cock. I command myself. Don’t look. Don’t look. Oh crap, now you’ve looked! That which has been seen cannot be unseen.

Gorgeous, huge, and with the same mottled appearance as his body. The killer feature that is making me want to fan my face as if I was Scarlett O’Hara during a heat wave? The buttons!

Although my glimpse was quick, I saw stationary buttons marching up his cock in at least two lines, maybe more. The buttons toward the base were larger than the ones near the head. As grandma used to say, ‘Lord have mercy’. What female from seventeen to seventy, if in my place, wouldn’t be imagining what those buttons would feel like during sex? No one. A dead woman couldn’t help but wonder about those damnable buttons.

I don’t know how the whole ‘smelling arousal’ thing works, but my mind imagines Wrage as a cartoon character with his dreads blasted back, his eyes wide and pupils blown.

He tips his chin, hurries to his side of the bed, and climbs in.

“This situation is ridiculous,” I mutter as I close my eyes trying to erase the picture of his cock even as I conjure it back into my mind to swoon over.

I shake my head and bring myself back to the present. The picture of his naked body hovers at the edge of my mind, tempting me and promising me many long moments of droolworthy imaginary fun, but later, after this conversation.

“Why do you hate me?” I demand through dry lips.

“You said you were Morganian. You evidently know humans and Morganians can’t be told apart without DNA testing.”

I nod.

“I was a gladiator. Snatched from home at age fifteen and forced to train and then fight. I lived in a barracks with other males, only being allowed access to females as a reward after I won a match.

“My owner tricked me, talked me into putting money in an account so I could buy myself. I never saw the credits, it was all deceit to give us hope so we wouldn’t rise up against him like other gladiator schools