by V. K. Ludwig
“What if—”
He throws a hand up. “No payment plans. I’m in slave trade, not financial services.”
My entire body tenses, muscles contracting so hard I’m waiting for my fist to punch something. What am I supposed to do now?
I drag fingers through my knotted strands and yank until my scalp burns. “Okay. Look. How about you return me some of my money, at least?”
Keg’rik goes back to his chair, lips pouting for an overlong moment before he nods. “I will pay you four-hundred.”
“What? That’s half of what I paid less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“Well, there is a restocking fee. Additional expenses for bookkeeping. Intake procedure. Health scr—”
“Restocking fee,” I say on a scoff. “You’ll literally throw him back into a cage with two buckets.”
My stomach clenches at that.
Great, now I feel bad for the stud sitting on my truck bed like a picture of misery. He apologized profusely. Am I naive to believe that he isn’t a sexual predator? That it was just a misunderstanding?
“Five hundred,” Keg’rik says. “Final offer. Take it or leave it.”
As if I can afford that deal.
“Honest slave trader my ass,” I bark, bunch the contract into a ball and toss it against his forehead.
I turn on my heels, letting my shout shatter through the corridor. “Steph! I’m out of here!”
Her high heels clap-clap-clap behind me, and she’s heaving by the time she catches up with my stomps. “The other Vandalar is unresponsive. Didn’t see any ridges. What did he say?”
“I’m stuck with an alien concubine who made it his career choice to make me come so hard I pass out from it.” Great, my nips are pebbling. “Apparently, he went to school for it. Studied the female body.”
“At least he isn’t a high school dropout,” she says, her voice turning earnest when she adds, “Do you think his Vandalar parents are proud of him?”
I huff and turn the corner, not in the mood for Steph’s ‘glass half full’ attitude. She’s got a comfy trust fund. I got a decrepit farm and no life to return to back on Earth.
My eyes burn with unshed tears, and I squeeze them shut when I step back onto the parking lot. Please be gone. Please be gone. Please be—
Aaand he’s still sitting in the back of the truck, spine rounded, shoulders slumped, staring at the same hole in my bed liner that caught his attention half an hour ago.
Good. He should feel terrible for making me come like that…
“Be careful what you wish for,” I mumble to myself, my temples throbbing. I wanted a slave who wouldn’t run. Great, I got it. Now I have no clue how to get rid of him.
Steph cocks her head. “Aww… he looks so sad. What are you going to do now?”
Good question.
I can take his collar off, point the shotgun at him, and tell him to run until the sun sets. But then I don’t have a slave, and Keg’rik’s right about one thing: he is able-bodied.
“Buy me the best noise-canceling headset out there?” I grab my keys and head over to the truck. “Before I drop you off, I’ll stop at the community center and place an ad. The moment someone stops by with credits in hand, he’s gone. Until that time comes, he’ll seed my fields.”
The moment I approach Jax, he stiffens, his purple eyes nothing short of dull. “Are you going to sell me?”
“First chance I get,” I say. “Until then, no more growling, or I’ll pull that trigger. Got it?”
He pouts away his smile. “No more growling. Promise.”
“No pulling your junk out, no jerking off,” I clarify. “I get you’ve been a saikh before. Well, not here. Not with me. Let’s pretend last night never happened.”
“Never happened.” He rubs his hand along a horn I faintly remember pulling during the night that never happened. “I promise I will please you. Cook. Clean. I know many ways. Different ways.”
“Let’s just hope plowing fields is one of them,” I mumble and climb into the cabin.
And I can’t forget those ridges.
Seven
Jax
The air inside the greenhouse hangs thick with the smell of moist soil and static, the sun only now coming up.
Lilly runs her slender fingers over the kernels of the potted whillwheat. “This is what I need you for. I have to turn two hundred acres of weeds into an income-producing crop.”
I tug on my stiff collar, the skin underneath itchy with all this humidity. “I wish you would have told me that when you first brought me here.”
She pulls an elastic bracelet from her wrist and wraps it around her hair, forming everything into a funny ball at the top of her head. “Yeah, well, I wanted to show you all this the morning after, but you left me no time.”
My throat narrows to the width of a grain stalk. She probably thinks I’m a pervert or something. “I am truly sorry for what happened.” Wouldn’t mind repeating it, though.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” She turns away, pulling a rusty piece of machinery from underneath a shelf. “We’re pretending it never happened, remember?”
She hangs the entire weight of her tiny body on the frayed rubber handles, bracing heels against the dirt as she pulls. “I need at least half of the fields seeded before the next monsoon.”
I wave her aside. “Show me where, show me how, and I’ll get it done.”
Whatever pleases her.
The mantra of a Vandalar male.
I pull on the machinery. No wonder her fields are so overgrown. This piece of junk is at least three times her weight. Why is this female alone out here with no male to protect her, care for her?
Except for me, of course.
I’ll do all that and more.
Once at the edge of the first field, cracked from drought and strewn with fist-sized rocks, she activates the holographic control panel. “The engine kicks ass, but it only has two rows of ten blades each, which means it takes a looong time to plow all this. Each time I do it, I’ve got new weeds coming up the moment I reach the end of the field.”
“You plowed these fields?” A Vandalar female would never lower herself to physical labor.
She punches her hands into the pockets of her gray overalls, the fabric stained with soil. “I know they don’t look it, but I sure tried my best.”
“You understand that, if this machine were to tip and bury you underneath it, you would never make it out, right?”
But she just spreads her elbows wider than my back, and I’m brawny for my kind. “I might be small, but I’m not weak. That comes with carrying around fifty-pound feed and seed bags all day.”
So much to learn about human females. “I’ll get to it then. Step back.”
I set the language to Vandal and work myself through the menu. One tap and the engine roars up, while Lilly picks up rocks and stacks them in a pile beside the field.
Five sun cycles of penetration angles, breathing techniques, anal stimulation, rhythmic motion, and sensitivity staging — but I’m plowing a field. What irony!
Not plowing a field, Jax.
Pleasing your female.
Right, right, right.
Let’s call it professional development. Or an extracurricular activity? An elective course on studying a human female living alone on a farm on one of the hottest planets in this solar system. It’ll look great on my resume.
I till row after row, the violent shake of the machine tensing my muscles. The more that thing bucks, the harder my veins gush with determination. She wants to sell me? Good luck, because by the time a buyer shows up, she’ll be addicted to my touch.
A growl only triggers arousal: it doesn’t alter how she perceives pleasure. Lilly did enjoy how I veked her with my mouth. And I dare say she likes the ridges on my cock, because she flinched at every single one rubbing over her sex.
This place?
Doors hang crooked, shingles need replacing, and the field stones are a hazard if they
catch in machinery. But the soil is dark and rich, not to mention there isn’t another male in at least a five-mile radius.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at having a female all to myself. Eventually, she will recognize me as her saikh, even if I have to plow the entire damn planet to convince her.
By the time the sun stands beside the red barn, the first field is plowed, my joints searing. My torso is sweat-slicked, so I take off my shirt to dry myself, throat so sticky I can barely swallow.
At the upper edge of the field, Lilly carries bag after bag, expertly stacking them beside the feed storage. For a creature half my size, so veking beautiful it hurts, her strength and determination is impressive.
She looks over to me, stares, jerks out of it, and waves me over with a shout. “Time for a break.”
I deactivate the plow and trot up to her, shirt draped over my shoulder. “After this, I will start with the second field.”
“You’re super-fast.” Her pupils fractionally drop to my naked torso. And again.
My tail starts flicking with excitement.
Does she remember how she stroked my chest during that thing we pretend never happened? How she dug her nails into my skin, snarling at me because I didn’t let her come?
“Let’s have breakfast really quick and get right back to it,” she says. “We won’t be able to do any work outside during noon.”
How well can she pretend? “Let me cook for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I insist.” I stroke my chest, slowly, testing her reaction. “After all, I promised to please you. Can I still do that at least? Please you?”
The moment I casually trail my palm down to my abs, her lips part with a small gasp, and my balls tighten. Pretend it never happened my ass. What if I tug on the waistband of my pants like this, lowering it—
“Okay, you cook,” she blurts, wiping imaginary wisps from her forehead.
It’s settled then.
She can’t pretend for shit.
I march straight into the house, leaving soil-dusted boots by the door. I scavenge for frying pan, spatula, and what she calls eggs. I spent half the night reading up on human foods on the cosmikin — and that little bud called the clitoris.
“I will need a change of clothes.” I crack the eggs before I whip them up with a blob of cream, a dash of flour, and finely chopped rosemary. “Unless you want me to wash what I have and keep reusing it.”
Even with the AC blasting, she fans herself, the flush on her cheeks adorable. “You’re right, I should have thought of that. Let me…”
She disappears and returns a few moments later with a stack of clothes. Male clothes. “They were my husbands. The shirts definitely fit. We can turn those jeans into shorts, but…” She eyes me up and down. “You’ve got a tail.”
So she did have a male at some point.
Did she get rid of him? Sell him?
Feed him to the terrorhogs?
I fill the omelet with roasted peppers and fold it, letting it slip onto a plate before I start on the next. “I assume a woman with a shotgun also has scissors?”
“Yup.”
“Problem solved.” I hand her the plate, sprinkling some chives over it. “What’s a husband?”
She takes the plate with a dip of her head and sits down at the table across. “Not sure what Vandalar call it, but most species I met call it a mate.”
Good thing the sizzle of grease hides the gnashing of my teeth. “If you have a mate, why is he not here plowing your fields? Tending to you?”
“Oh, he did plow a field,” she snorts into her answer. “Once. Then he said his body isn’t built for hard labor, and it’s too hot, and too rural, and too whatnot. He packed himself a little carry-on the same day and went back to Earth. Even left his PlayStation behind.”
I swing around, fingers so numb the omelet is seconds from slipping off my crooked plate. “He left you?” Unheard of where I come from.
“Uh-huh.” She takes a bite of her food. “Jesus Christ, this is delicious.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” My hand raises all on its own, like a reflex to something so unnatural my body revolts. “So, you are saying that he left you? The male walked out on the female?”
Her brow arches so high her forehead grows wrinkles. “Yes, Jax, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“How long ago was that?”
She shrugs. “A little over a year, maybe?”
Lilly made it all alone out here? For a sun cycle?
I stand rooted, staring at a creature no less sweaty from hard work than me. How could a male possibly leave her? Less than two days with her, and I can tell she’s resilient and hardworking. Downright cute when she isn’t out to kill you.
I suck in a lungful of air and sit across from her, staring at my plate, mumbling, “Your husband must be an idiot.”
“Fucking shitback is what he is.” Now her entire forehead wrinkles with the brightness of her grin. “And it’s ex-husband. As in, he isn’t my mate anymore.”
Good, because I have no intentions of sharing her for as long as I can avoid it. “Well, you have me now. I’ll plow as many fields as you want me to. Help you seed. Harvest.”
Her eyes soften at the corners, that deep green almost hypnotizing. They carefully trail over my kuchi, my horns, and my hair, braided once more so it won’t dirty.
Her pupils dilate. Ever so slightly, but I’m trained to spot it since it’s a sign of sexual arousal, and my heart throbs faster.
Pretend away, female.
For now.
Eight
Lilly
Steph glances over the rim of her coffee mug, lipsticked mouth pouting. “What the heck is he doing?”
“Fluffing the couch pillows.” I give a pull on my neck, a loud pop echoing through the kitchen. “He’s got that obsession with lining things up just right. Oh, and he vacuums twice a day. Apparently, saikhs do housekeeping all day and fuck you silly at night.”
Her laugh blows a drop of coffee over the rim before she takes a sip, then lowers the mug down and stares out the window. “He plowed all of them?”
“Half in five days. That would have taken me weeks. And he insists on cooking every single meal, though I’m sure it’s because I suck in the kitchen.”
“No more growling?”
“Not once.” Unfortunately. “So far, he’s been very respectful, and I dare say he’s trustworthy. Guess that night was a doozy.”
One I can’t stop thinking about…
“Not sure if I would call it that from what you told me,” she says with those signature wiggling brows. “What’s that defect on his pecker anyway? I didn’t notice anything when he jizzed all over his cell. Did you find out that night?”
Oh please, I was so far gone he could have put a rolling pin up my ass, and I wouldn’t have seen anything wrong.
“No idea,” I say with a shrug. “Everything happened so fast. Maybe it’s the ridges, but if they’re a defect, we need more of it.”
“Maybe Vandalar women are prudes.” Steph folds one leg across the other, red high heel dangling from her toe. “You’re still not taking full advantage of him, though.”
“It’s bad enough that I have a guy with a shock collar living underneath my roof, Steph. If I use him for sex, what does that make me?”
“Um, satisfied, hormonally balanced, and a fucking goddess to every divorced woman over thirty?” When I throw my head back into a snorting laugh, she adds, “Have you ever heard a man complain about being used for sex? I haven’t. Suck his cock, swallow his cum, and call it even.”
“Shhh… he’s coming.”
“I’ll go back outside and continue piling rocks,” Jax says and dips his head before he walks off. Gosh, that guy has such a fine ass.
Steph adds a spoonful of sugar to her coffee, metal clinking against stoneware as she stirs. “How can you not jump him? There are literally no dates to get on this god-forsaken planet unless you�
��ve got a tentacle kink. When was the last time you got laid?”
I cringe at that question.
Too long ago if the way I keep ogling Jax through the window is any indicator. So devastatingly sexy. I keep pretending that night didn’t happen. And it works. Until he steps out of the bathroom, the outline of his delicious cock throwing shadows on my polka-dotted towels.
I shift in my chair at the thought. And what woman with a pulse wouldn’t? That guy made me come so hard I technically died and got resurrected.
“I’ll think about it.” My body flares up at the thought. “It’s not like he wouldn’t get anything out of it as well, right?”
Steph nods eagerly. “Right. And now I’m off to get groceries, sugar bean, before the stores close.”
While she finishes the rest of her coffee, I grab the wicker basket from the kitchen counter. “I got duck eggs for you this time. Two bags of clumpleaf. Dagar roots. Cherry tomatoes. And an ugly carrot.”
“You’re too sweet.” She grabs the basket and pulls me into a hug. “Enjoy yourself for once, Lilly. Nick skipped town, so what? It’s not like he had a ridged cock.”
I open the door for her. “You are unbelievable.”
Her red lips pout into a kiss, heels clanking over the stone path before she stumbles through the gravel to her hover car.
Maybe I should enjoy myself and everything Jax has to offer. A couple months of fun. No strings attached. But how do you approach a guy you held at gunpoint only a few days ago and ask for a do-over?
I grab the coffee mugs and put them in the sink like Jax instructed me to since he’s taking care of the kitchen each night. Not something Nick ever bothered with.
Armed with my sun hat, I step outside and stroll over to the lower field, where Jax is picking rocks before plowing.
He stands leaning over, the bare-chested picture of virility, and tosses rocks toward the edge of the field. “Your hat’s pretty.”
“I’ve got another one if you want it, though I doubt it’ll fit with your horns. The sun out here is giving me freckles.” When he stares over with a raised brow, I stroke my fingers over my cheeks. “Those brown spots.”
