She frowned. The restriction sounded like he planned to keep her jailed. She'd had enough of that.
Tapping her lips again, he made a disapproving sound. "Uh-uh. Non-negotiable. You stay in this room unless you are with me. Say it."
"I stay in this room unless I am with you." Her voice was small, unhappy.
"Good. Every male here is unmated and dangerous. I will protect you, and I will kill them, but that don't mean shit when some of them have never smelled a breeder. They may think making a play for you is worth their lives."
The statement was shocking. Where was she? Had she fallen asleep for years and woken up in the savage past?
"You take nothing from anyone else—no clothing, no food, no crap of any kind. I don't care if a child hands you a rock. Not that you will see any kids, but I don't care who or what it is. There are no qualifiers. You get me? Say it, treasure."
She repeated, "I take nothing from anyone else."
"Good girl. Don't be giving anything, either. Credits are scarce here. People trade, barter, gift. Sometimes what you think is a gift was just a chance for you to owe someone for something later. I bet you have a breeder's bleeding heart too." He raised his eyebrows in question. "You try to give someone something, they will think you’re trying to gain leverage."
"Okay."
"Last rule: Don't get in the way of how I do things. You do, you'll be punished. Actually, go ahead and get in the way. I wouldn't mind punishing you. Might be fun."
Naya didn't understand how punishment was fun or why he looked so wolfish when he said it. His hands were getting busy again and his cock felt hard.
He was relentlessly ready. From what she knew about reproduction, male cocks didn't stay in this stiff state, but Monster was always rigid, always ready for more.
Pulling her up by the throat, he inhaled against her skin before opening his mouth on the sore spot between her neck and shoulder blade.
Naya whimpered.
"Thank you for the food. Can we sleep? Will you sleep with me?"
"Wanna kiss you, lick you, taste you. Monster wants to eat up his girl."
At his words her womb gave a weak, agreeable pulse, but she just needed a moment to catch her breath. "Please, Monster? Lie down and let me feel you? Sleep with me, keep me safe?"
She tried to make it sound more appealing than going to the effort of putting his cock in her again.
"Poor baby. Worked you so hard. Go ahead, lie down. Get comfortable." He moved her to her stomach, but didn't lie beside her. Kissing the back of her neck and across her shoulders, he purred more for her, loosening all her muscles and making her forget how sore she was.
Closing her eyes, she let that purr help her drift away.
Monster was moving, the bed rocking. She was on a raft in a peaceful lake. And then his hands, covered in warm fluid, were rubbing down her spine. The musky spice-cake smell of him bloomed strong in her nose as he started working her tired muscles, hunting down knots and stress and working them to malleable softness.
That smell. What was it?
He paused, the bed gently rocked, and then he went back to rubbing.
It was pre-cum. He was using it like massage oil, covering Naya in his scent.
She was pretty sure that was something else not listed in the take-home material about mating.
Chapter Nine
Naya
Naya woke slowly.
She heard Monster's muffled talking, the sharp bite of his words, even if it was difficult to understand what he was saying. The door to their room was closed, the space lit by a single lamp.
If she listened carefully, she thought she could hear other noises—a scraping of dry on dry, a hurried scrambling, a shushing that wasn't human. There were creatures in the walls.
