Page 18 of Bound to the Alien King
“Ummm, hold on a second there, Nacket.”Pete shot her a reluctant grin while some of the grease dribbled from his nipples.“Look, down on Klio-3, with the sunsets, sand, and sea, I looked like I was glowing.All of us did, but especially me.Here, under these florescent lights, it’s just not the same.I was trying to get the same effect, okay?”
Nera sniffed the air.“Is that butter I smell?”
It was the first time I’d heard her voice in days, and the lyrical sound of it wrapped around me and squeezed.She had her gaze locked on Pete, but I could tell she knew I was staring because of the hint of color rising to her cheeks.
“Well, yeah,” Pete answered.“It’s the kind you put on popcorn.Do you—”
“She doesn’t want to taste you either, Pete,” I snapped.
She darted her eyes to me and narrowed them, and my heartbeats skidded sideways at the turmoil inside her gaze, the hurt and the betrayal.She immediately looked away again and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I can taste whoever I damn well please, YourHighness,” she said through clenched teeth.
Pete held up a finger.“Uh, I wasn’t offering—”
“No.You can’t.You’remine.”I stood so she would look at me, continued my insistence just so she’d talk to me.It was better than pretending I was a complete stranger.“Minealone.”
She rose too, curling her fists, revealing that adorable wrinkle in her nose that came with her extreme annoyance.“You.Wish.I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“Watch what you say to me,” I warned.
The episode hadn’t officially started, but the drone cameras drifted closer to the stage anyway.Everyone else seemed to hold their collective breaths.
She wouldn’t divulge my secret to everyone.Would she?
“Or what?What are you going to do, Maxx?”She canted her head like she was daring me to do something about it.
So I stormed toward her, desperate to kiss her, to hold her, to heal her.Everyone cringed away from my speed and size except for her.She stood tall, waiting, her chest heaving.
Now that I had her attention, I had no idea what to do with it.She’d spun me about and wrecked me in the best way imaginable, and I was still spinning.A vortex of unyielding love.I always would be for my beautiful star.
“Hate me or not,” I rasped out, “but I love you, Nera.If I have to spend the rest of my life proving that to you, so be it.If I need to tell you a thousand times from the tops of a thousand suns how sorry I am for hurting you, I’ll leave right now to start.But please know, as long as you live, there will never be anyone who loves you as much as I do.”
Emotion flared across her face for half a heartbeat before she controlled it, molded it to fit her empty, stoic façade.Without a word, she sank back into her seat and looked to Pete.
“Butter’s a little too salty for my taste,” she forced out with a gravelly voice.“Now, if you’d slathered yourself in tacos, then we might be onto something.”
The rest of the room visibly relaxed with a chuckle.
As easily as with a pesky fly, that was Nera’s dismissal of me.None of what I said mattered, even though every single word had been the absolute truth.My body numb, I returned to my seat.
“Eh, that’s okay,” Pete said with a shrug and wiped at his melting face.
Nacket raised her hand.“Butter’s my favorite.I eat the little bars of butter in my free time.Even whole tubs of it.”
“Annnnnyway.”Pete turned his showman’s smile to the camera drones.“We’ve started this episode with a bang, haven’t we?Now, let’s talk about the next challenge, shall we?It’s one I think our contestants and you sexy audience members will like, and it’s a lot less deadly than some of the others.”
The human male contestant pushed his glasses up his nose and wagged his finger in the air.Rico was his name, at least I thought so.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“Spoken like someone who was being a little economical with the truth on their application to the show.”Pete’s biting grin snapped Rico’s mouth closed again.“Now, how about a scavenger hunt all over the universe’s classiest spaceship?What you are looking for is something heart shaped.It could be anything, and there are two of them.These two things are hidden somewhere on this cruise ship.There will be a ton of prizes for the two people who find them.This isn’t a team effort, but you can work in teams if you want to.You have six hours to find the two heart-shaped somethings.”He blinked hard, the butter pouring down his face now.“Questions, comments, maybe a napkin or two to— Oh, my eyes!”
“And cut.”A crewmember heaved an exasperated sigh.
“Told you, Pete,” the Killian said, shaking his head.
I rose to make sure our lovably stupid host was all right even though he now had a legion of female crewmembers surrounding him.
