Page 10 of Matched to the Alien King
He leaned over the table with his long, purple-scaled fingers sliding away keys, searching with intent instead of at random.
“Fifteen seconds!” Pete yelled.
Maxx plucked a key free, one that looked like all the others, except the two prongs at the ends had tiny half circles attached to their bottoms. Quickly, he plugged the key into the lock and turned it. The rusty spring at the top popping loose made me melt into a puddle, but no one else noticed he’d won or my brand new puddle status.
Maxx chucked the lock and key at Pete. It landed at his feet with a heavy clank, and he looked down at it in surprise.
“And we have our winner,” Pete announced. “King Maxx and Captain Nera, whatever our audience has decided about you two, you’ll at least have one romantic night together in the honeymoon bungalow.”
The other contestants groaned and hissed and tried to decapitate me with their death-ray glares.
But I hardly noticed because Maxx had locked me into his sinful stare, puddling me even more, his purple lightning eyes flashing all the night’s possibilities. An echoing pulse curled between my legs and summoned me closer to him.
“Think you can handle me for a whole night?” I whispered, fanning my fingers across his broad, naked chest.
Pure, unadulterated desire heated his stare, so much that a tide of fire blazed underneath my skin.
“I’m sure I can keep up.” He lifted his hand to my shoulder and smoothed my dress’s strap down as though he was going to take me right here. Right now. Like he couldn’t wait any longer. “No one understands your body like I do.”
Swear to god, I almost came.
Pete tapped me on the shoulder to snap me out of my Maxx-induced haze. “If you could please wait to strip each other naked, that would be much appreciated.”
“So says you,” June purred over Maxx’s shoulder, already peeling his pants off with her one eye.
Maxx’s gaze dipped to my lips as he fixed my strap and then threaded his fingers through mine on his chest. “Later,” he rumbled.
That one word weighted me down with so many aches for his touch. I felt heavy with lustful need while I dragged my heels across the stage back to my seat. My mind spiraled around tonight, but what Pete was already saying snapped me back to reality.
“…twenty-eight billion votes came in from all over the universe.” He spoke in a hushed, dramatic voice to really play with everyone’s emotions.
Kind of had to admit he was good at it, his pecker outline in his jeans and all. Even I found myself perching on the edge of my seat.
“Alien Love Islandhas shattered reality TV records, and it’s all because of you: the contestants willing to risk it all for a chance at love. Who will win? Who will be sent home? Who do they most want to see you matched with as a couple?”
He casually walked to the edge of the stage, turned, and posted his hands on the banister behind him, the camera drones swarming his every blink.
“Now, the viewers have spoken, and what they saidwillshock you. So let’s hear it.”
He waved his arm, and a holographic viewscreen immediately appeared with all of our names printed across it. Beside our names, numbers calculated too quickly to make any sense of.
This was it. After tonight, would we be staying or going?
But then, everyone whirled to face behind us, stood, and froze, cutting straight through the tension and expectancy. They stared with wide, scared eyes like something was prowling toward us from the thick jungle foliage.
I swallowed thickly. “Uh, Maxx?”
Chapter four
Maxx
Amasculinebellow.Atense one. A frightened one.
It had come from behind us, from the direction of the jungle.
And then it had come again.
At the same time, I leaped up out of my hoverchair and whipped around to face the wall of jungle, which was too dense to see inside. Someone in there was in trouble. I’d heard screams like that before during battle. Nothing that sounded like that ever ended well.
