Page 18 of The Pleasure Contract

Az rests his forearm on the wall above my head and leans in even closer, over me like a cage made of flesh and muscle – his chest still bare, his scent flooding my senses. “Has an Earth male hurt you, Lois? You must tell me. And you must give me his name.”

For a brief flash of a moment, I see Jerry in my mind’s eye. He never laid a hand on Mom or me, but what he’d wanted to do had been just as bad. “No,” I shake my head, still distracted by the wall of naked chest in front of me. “No one hurt me.”

Az looks skeptical, but he pushes off the wall with his forearm above me and then… he gets down on one knee.

“I swear to God, Az,” I say, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “If you’re going to propose to me again-”

Az grabs the hand pointing right at him and grins. “The next time I ask that question, it will be when I am sure you are going to say yes.”

I roll my eyes.

He’s still holding my hand – cupping it with both of his big, calloused, warm ones.

“Lois,” he says, his tone soft and smooth, and I realize now he’s not gotten down on his knee to propose, but to be less imposing – less intimidating. Something about that realization makes my shoulders release tension, and my pulse kicks up a notch at the same time. “I need you to know that I would rather hack my own horns off with a malfunctioning plasma saw than do any harm to you. Do you understand?”

I swallow thickly, not sure what that feeling bubbling up inside me is, but knowing I need to keep it down – way down. “Got it,” I chuckle softly, glancing down, avoiding that stupidly sincere look on his face. “No more murder jokes.”

I feel one of his hands leave mine, only to reappear with a finger tucked under my chin, lifting my gaze back to his. “Does harm to females happen that often on Earth?”

I blow out an unamused laugh but nod my head.

Az’s mouth sets into a hard line. He stands to his full height again, the touch of both his hands now lost to his thoughts. By his side, I see one of his fists flexing as he contemplates my answer.

He looks like he wants to swoop in and play savior for all the women on Earth a million-gazillion miles away. I raise my brow back at him. It’s not that simple, is it? And besides, it’s not as though Xavianns have created some utopian society where we’re all skipping through daisy fields and sliding down rainbows on the backs of unicorns. If it were, then maybe I’d be up for it – hopping on a spacecraft and going back to Earth to round up as many women as wanted to come.

Especially my mom.

For a long while, it looks like Az is going to suggest just that. Or that he’s going to go declare open war on the men of Earth.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he clearly thinks better of that ludicrous plan and shakes the notion from his head.

Before I can even register what he’s doing, Az’s wrist lifts to the wall beside my head, and I hear an electronic beep. The wall behind me – the wall Az had backed me up against suddenly shifts, two doors splitting directly behind me, making me start to fall backward. Az is faster, though. Even before I’m able to get the yelp out of my throat, there’s a big, gray arm looping around my waist, pulling me back up against his bare chest, saving me from falling on my butt.

“What-”

I actually do yelp then, when Az lifts me with that one arm, pulling me up against his body until my feet feel like they’re dangling. He takes three long strides forward, and all I can feel is the supple play of his muscles and the firmness of his frame.

When Az sets me down again, my feet hit what feels like sand. I’m unsteady at first. Those few moments had happened so quickly, and he’d been so-

Az supports me with that strong arm again. “Steady there,” he rasps, chuckling softly.

God, I hate him… except, I really don’t. Not at all.

Taking the opportunity to look around – to look at anything but him, really – I dust off imaginary dirt from my skirt and twist out of his grasp, only to stop dead in my tracks as I take it all in.

We’re… we’re on a tropical beach?

Well, the part we’re standing on is sandy, and there’s a body of water, but it’s more a lagoon than a sea. And beyond that is a thick forest.

But we’re not outside. The wall I’d been pressed up against on the other side is still behind us. It stretches out on either side before circling around the mini jungle in front of us. I squint upward. Lighting orbs float and bob here and there, and I think there’s no ceiling or roof, but there is a faint, shimmering glow like there’s some kind of force field up there. It’s like we’re in some kind of huge, exotic walled garden the size of a small town.

“What is this place?” I hear myself ask in a far-away, bewildered kind of voice.

“This is my girls’ place.”

I get about one second of scowling time to aim at Az before he’s putting his fingers in his mouth to whistle.

And then, I hear it. I feel it, too. The shifting of something big.