Page 63 of The Alien Warlord's Fated Mate

She waved that away. “I trust you not to hurt me. But I don’t forgive you for the way you acted. And I’m sleeping in the living room tonight. Can’t very well kick you out of your own bed.”

“I forbid it,” he snarled. “Your place is beside me.”

“No, Zoran. My place is exactly where I think it should be. Tonight, that’s in the living room.”

Mia walked away before he could respond, slipping out of her clothes and into the shower with the door firmly closed between them.

Later, after supper and a quiet evening spent studying a report sent to her by thejutji’s agricultural team, Mia grabbed her pillow, found a spare blanket, and arranged the living room cushions into a makeshift bed.

Zoran watched her quietly, his eyes hooded and dark. “You truly mean to separate yourself from me?”

“What separation?” she demanded, beyond exasperated with him. “You’re sleeping less than fifteen feet away.”

“What if a not-dragon enters our home?”

“Then I guess you’ll regret not installing those doors I asked for.”

His stare bloomed into a full-blown brood. “Is there nothing I can do to sway you?”

“Not a thing,” she said cheerfully. “Dim the lights on your way to bed, please.”

She curled up on her designated cushions, stuffed the pillow under her head, and closed her eyes, pointedly ignoring him. Fabric swished. The lights dimmed. His footsteps receded.

Great, she thought.Now I can get some sleep.

Something trilled in the jungle, startling her. The image of a not-dragon popped into her head, and fear ran an insidious finger down her spine. She rubbed her eyes, shifted on the cushions. They made great seats. Not such a great bed.

The report she’d studied that evening popped into her mind. She grabbed onto it with a relief born of desperation, reiterating the details to herself in the hopes of boring herself to sleep.

It must’ve worked. She woke in the darkness, pressed against a warm chest as Zoran gathered her into his arms and lifted her high.

At her dismayed groan, he gently murmured, “There is plenty enough time for anger on the morrow,pjora-la.”

He snuggled into bed with her, and she drifted off again, smiling.

When the day was little more than a glimmer along the horizon, Zoran petted Mia awake with his hand between her thighs and his fangs buried in her shoulder.

She moaned and arched against him. “I’m still mad at you,” she murmured sleepily.

Gently, he disengaged his fangs and lapped his tongue along the bite mark. “Then I shall not-mad you.”

Her laughter kissed his skin in a sensual caress. “That translator needs work.”

Zoran grunted. Such was immaterial at the moment. Touch had proven itself to be their most valuable communication tool. What need had they for words when a kiss conveyed so much more?

She twisted around, facing him, and hooked a finger in the waistband of his pants. “These displease me, mate. I command you to take them off.”

“Command?”

“Yes, command,” she said haughtily, not quite hiding the spark of humor in her expressive eyes. “Off.”

“If it so pleases you.”

He rolled off the sleeping pallet, stripped the loose pants off, and folded them across the chest where he stored his weapons and armor. When he turned back to her, she was kneeling on the bed, her gaze drifting over his nude body, her tunic pooled across her thighs. His tunic, the one he’d lent her the night she discovered her lack of clothing. The one he had ripped off her so that he might mark her again. Her clever fingers had sewn the front closed with an even hand, in a folded seam that would not irritate her sensitive skin during sleep.

Perhaps he should have insisted on her nudity as she had insisted upon his.

“Do you remember the day we met?” she said, her voice soft and uninflected.

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