Page 50 of An Alien for the Future

“I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. But my knot, it’s…” I pause, studying her face, hoping for some revelation, a look into her thoughts. “It’s large and you are small, mykahl. I didn’t want to rush, didn’t want to risk frightening you or pushing you away.”

She’s studying me now. Her gaze moving across mine.

I have no choice but to continue. “The knotting…it’s a part of being a Kari. I should have warned you, explained it beforehand. That’s my fault, and I apologize.” Now it’s my turn to look away, because if she rejects me now, while I’ve knotted her, I have no doubt I will die. “If anything, I worry that I’ve pushed you too far, too fast. This bond…it’s intense, more so than I expected. I would feast on you every chance I get, if you let me.”

My voice drops lower, a rumble that I can feel resonating in my chest. “I want you, Donna. All of you.” Frakk. Am I making this better or worse? “I read all I could in the archives. I know your species doesn’t form bonds like this. But it is different for me. I want you.” Ineedher. But will she run if I tell her that? It’s a lot to put on a female whose species doesn’t form mate bonds like this. “I want to learn every part of you, to share myself with you in ways I’ve never wanted with any other female.”

I pause, suddenly aware of how much I’ve revealed. Yes, surely, I will die if she rejects me now. But as I shift my gaze back to Donna, my core beat skips.

She’s looking at me strangely, thoughts behind her eyes that I can’t read. “So…we’re stuck like this?”

“Joined? Yes.”

“For how long?”

I hold back a groan of pleasure as she wiggles her hips, testing the knot once more. “I…do not know.”

She goes silent, studying me once more. But there’s a slight smile on her lips. The only thing that makes me settle down a bit.

“Must really be something,” she finally says and I’m tempted to tap my implant again or rip it out altogether. But then Donna laughs. She drops her chin to my chest as a chuckle makes her entire frame vibrate. “What do you do if you only want a quickie, but you end up knotting the woman?”

Quickie? “I want nothing quick about this. I want to savor you for hors. Always.”

Donna snorts. “C’mon, sweet talker. I’m talking about when you had sex in the past and were forced to cuddle because of your knot.”

My brow tightens as I stare down at her, unable to soften my glare. “I would never do such a thing.”

But despite my rough voice, despite the snarl on my lips, my Donna isn’t fazed. Her pointed gaze meets mine, undeterred.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“You are the first female that has ever taken my knot.” I grip her behind, groaning at the sensation of her flesh under my claw. “Do you not understand how special you are to me? How rare?”

She goes silent, the humor that had been building on her lips slowly dying. Finally, she rests her head against my chest. For long moments, I hold her like that and she says nothing. Her warmth, her softness, they both envelop me even as my thoughts grow chaotic, wondering what my female is thinking.

“Tovan?”

“Yes, lira’an?”

“What were you scanning for out there? The day we met.”

I shift slightly, still enjoying the way her body moves on top of mine. Her question is strange. Not the question I expected her to ask.

“Ore. Ore of the rare kind is out in these lands. We were surveying that pasture on that sol, Arnak and I.”

“Arnak?” She lifts her head now. “You weren’t out there alone?”

It feels like I’ve just opened up another well shaft to fall into. “No. I was not.”

Donna studies me and I fear she may take this as some form of deception. And she’d be right to, because it was.

“Arnak is my survey partner. We often work together on field assignments.”

Her brow furrows slightly, but she doesn’t seem upset. Instead, there’s a glimmer of curiosity in her eyes. “So…he saw me that day too?”

I nod, feeling a strange mixture of pride and possessiveness. “He did.”

She chuckles. “But you shoo ed him off because you wanted me all to yourself.”

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