Carson kisses me, and my hands slide beneath his shirt on their own. My fingers explore his chest while his tongue plunges into my mouth, and the rhythm of his thrusting makes me want…more.

I groan, trying to deny the ache between my thighs, but it won’t be ignored. This is real, whatever this is. Whether I want it or not, I need it. I need him.

That thought—that acknowledgement—brings with it a sense of liberation. I need him. It’s that simple. Right or wrong. Smart or not. My body wants him, and I’m not going to be able to think straight until I’ve satisfied this need. Fighting it is pointless, so why bother?

I lose myself in the caress of his hands. The feel of his body against me—an intoxicating blend of power and restraint. My hips rock toward him in rhythm with the plunge of his tongue, wordlessly demanding more.

Until he tries to pull my shirt off.

“The door’s open.”

“Can’t close it,” he mumbles, his voice rumbling with that thrumming sound that seems to echo in the empty ache between my legs. “Doesn’t matter. No one will interrupt.”

“But…cameras,” I breathe as his lips trail down my neck, his hands sliding from my hips to cup my backside. Squeezing. Digging in with a grip that almost hurts, yet makes me…hunger.

“Nothing I can do about the cameras.”

“But she could be watching. Brennan.”

“She’s definitely watching.” He pushes the collar of my tee-shirt off my shoulder and follows it with his lips.

I shove him back and find that his silver irises are…shining. Glowing, almost. Have they always done that? Am I just now noticing because we’re finally in a well-lit room together? “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“The only thing that bothers me right now is that I’m not buried deep inside you. Fuck the rest of it.”

“But…”

“Lilli I need you. And I know damn well you need me.”

“Because you can smell it?”

“Delicious,” he growls as he presses me into the wall again. “I need to taste you.” Oh, god, I need to be tasted. “Open for me, petal.” He lifts me until I’m straddling him, his stiff cock straining for me through his pants and mine.

“Blanket!”

“What?” Carson’s head pops up from nibbling my shoulder.

“We could use a blanket for privacy. Like a…shield. Do you have one?”

“No, I— Yes!” He sets me down, then grabs my hand and hauls me across the room and into the hall. By the time we pass what looks like a small kitchen, Carson is moving so fast I have to jog to keep him from dragging me.

“Hey!” One of his friends stands from a table in the kitchen, as if he’d introduce himself, but Carson doesn’t even slow down. “Later then!” the man calls after us. It’s the one with a head full of dark curls and a friendly smile. I think Carson called him Zamora.

We fly past a heavy metal door that can only be the building’s entrance, then past a series of small cells equipped with cots attached to the walls. At the end of the hall, he stops in front of another open doorway set into a completely transparent wall. This room is much larger than the cells, and inside, Tirzah Dreyer is reclining on a full-sized bed munching on something crunchy from an MRE envelope.

“Out,” Carson growls, tugging me into the room.

Tirzah looks up in surprise. “What?”

“He means, could we possibly borrow your blanket?” I interpret for the beast, when I see a blanket rumpled at the foot of her bed. “Please.”

“We need the room,” Carson insists.

Tirzah looks from him to me, then her gaze falls to my thighs. Which is when I realize I’m still pressing them together, trying to hold off this ache. Her expression softens as she stands and grabs another food packet from the small metal table bolted to the wall at the head of the bed.

“Did they dose you?” she asks Carson as she crosses the room toward us.

“Dose?” I frown at her.

He shakes his head. “Long story. Thanks,” he adds, his voice a tumble of gruff syllables as she steps into the hall.

Tirzah shrugs. “What’s mine is yours, Captain. There’s fresh bedding in the wall.”

“In the wall?” I ask, but she’s already gone.

As Carson tugs me toward the bed, I get a look at the door and realize that it, like all the other open doors in this place, is fully recessed into the wall, leaving us no way to slide it closed. Not that that would matter with an entire transparent wall.

Obviously, there isn’t much privacy to be had in the zone X laboratory.

Carson pulls his shirt off and drops it on the floor, and the second I see his chest, I have to touch it. His flesh calls to me. I want to climb him. I want to lay him on the floor and roll all over him. And for some reason, I want to…rub myself on him. Everywhere. My face. My…lady bits.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t stop,” Carson growls as his eyes dilate until there’s little of the glowing silver left.

“I need…something.” My voice sounds strange. Deeper than usual. “I need…”

“Say it. What do you need?”

“I don’t…?” I dart forward and clutch his arms while I lick his left nipple. Carson groans and slides one hand into my hair, holding me to his chest. And that’s fine with me. He tastes good. His skin actually tastes good. So I take another taste, and the next thing I know, I’m licking him like a fucking lolly pop. Lower and lower, over abs as hard as marble.

When I get to the waistband of his pants, I realize he’s holding his breath, his hand fisted in my hair. “More,” he growls. “Please.” And the desperation in his voice makes my lower parts clench.

I unbutton his pants and slide my hand beneath the material, stroking him, and though it doesn’t seem possible, he grows even harder in my hand. “Lie down,” I murmur as I stand.

But he frowns with one sniff of the bed. “Smells like Dreyer.” He crosses the room before I can blink and jerks open a panel I hadn’t noticed in the righthand wall. When he pulls out a stack of bedding, I understand.

I strip the sheets and blanket from the bed and toss them into a pile on the floor, then I help him spread a flat sheet over the mattress, because neither of us feels like messing with the fitted sheet.

While he shoves his pants down, I spread the blanket out and crawl under it, where I squirm out of my clothes, away from the prying eyes of Brennan and her team. Though considering that I woke up naked on a lab table, they’ve probably all seen everything I have.

Still. As badly as I want to taste him, I’m not going to give a blowjob on camera.

Carson has no such compunction. Nude, he slides beneath the blanket with me, and he’s making that mating sound again. I groan as he settles between my thighs, well aware that I’m dripping wet, and his mouth plunders mine. His body is a hot, hard weight over me, though he’s holding himself up on one elbow, and I can feel the length of his cock pressed against my lower stomach.

I slide my hand between us and grip it again. We’ve done this twice before, but it was dark, and I haven’t actually looked at him. Or even really touched him.

He moans as my fingers brush his hard length, then it swells beneath my hand. A lot.

I gasp. “What just happened?”

“Alien cock,” he whispers into my ear, and I laugh as I begin to stroke him again. “I don’t think it will do that for anyone but you.”

My hand pauses. “Seriously?”

He nods, sliding himself deeper into my grip. “That’s what the beast seems to believe, anyway.”

I keep squeezing, stroking, and he keeps…swelling. Until I realize that my hand will no longer close around his girth. “Carson, I don’t think I can—”

“You already have. Your body wants this,” he insists, and I moan at the sudden surge of wet heat between my thighs. He gives me another peck on the mouth, then he crawls down my body, licking and nibbling his way over both breasts and down my torso, and for a second, I’m so lost in the sensations I forget to pull the blanket up over him.

I expect him to object to the heat trapped beneath it, but he—

“Oh, god,” I moan as he spreads my thighs wider. I can’t see what he’s doing—I doubt he can either—but the moment his tongue touches me, I arch off the bed. Carson growls, but this time that sound feels…satisfied.

He begins to lick in earnest, and I throw my head back, lost in the sensations as that sweet pressure begins to build. “More,” I moan, and when his teeth scrape me the sharp sensation sends my orgasm hurtling closer. So close. But it’s not enough.

“Carson.” I ache deep inside. “I need all of you.”

“Come for me first, petal,” he murmurs, his lips brushing my clit with the words. “I need you to be aroused and…accommodating.”

“I can’t. I need…”

His fingers slide inside me, thrusting gently, and I groan. That’s better. It’s still not enough, but that’s clearly all he’s going to give me for now. He begins a slow, thorough rhythm, twisting with each plunge, careful to apply pressure to that sensitive spot inside as his tongue goes back to work, stroking my clit over and over again. My release builds slowly from there, and he makes me work for it, teasing me to the edge, then easing up, heedless of my groans.

“Carson, please,” I beg. “Please.” I can’t take anymore. My every nerve ending is on fire. My thighs are so tense the muscles ache. I live for every wet, rough stroke of his tongue, and yet that’s not enough. “Faster. Please. I need…”

He gives in with a growl, and I swear I hear him say “Mine” just before his lips close over my clit and suck. His fingers press up, rubbing that spot over and over, and I cry out as I clench around him. My hips thrust up uncontrollably, greedy for every last second of friction. Every moment of the desperate pleasure coursing through me.

But when it ends, I can only moan. That wasn’t enough.

“Just a minute, petal.” Carson kisses the inside of my left thigh. Then he takes a possessive little bite, and I yelp, more startled than hurt. And oddly, my inner muscles begin to throb in time with the lingering throb of his bite.

“What was that for?” I ask as he crawls his way up my body.

His head appears from beneath the blanket and he smiles as he wipes moisture from his face with one hand. “So you don’t forget who you belong to.”

“I don’t belong to anyone.”

“You’re lying.” His hand slides up to cup my right breast, and he gives the nipple a gentle pinch.

“I’m…?” I scowl up at him. “How would you like it if I bit you?”

“Petal, I would love that. Make sure you leave a mark.”

“Why?”

“So everyone knows I’m yours.”

“That’s weird.” And oddly…really fucking hot. But also still weird. “I’m not going to bite you, Carson.”

“Then we’ll just have to let them hear it.” He pushes my thighs even wider, and this time when he settles between them, my eyes go wide. His cock lies like a fucking baseball bat between us, hot, and hard, and twitching with eagerness.

“That’s… I can’t…” I reach down for it, trying to assure myself that it’s not as big as it feels, but he catches my hand.

“That won’t help,” he groans against my neck.

“This is why I needed to be…accommodating?” I ask. Carson nods, and the stubble on his chin catches in my hair. “What happened? It wasn’t that big…earlier.”

“I don’t know. I think we waited too long. The beast seems to think three days of abstinence was unreasonable.”

“I was unconscious and strapped to a table!”

“I know.” His tip prods at my opening, and I push at his chest as doubt fires through me.

“I can’t. Carson, that’s too much. I... I mean, maybe women of the beast’s species could take that, but I—”

“Please try,” he groans. “We’ll go slow. I swear I’ll stop if it hurts.”

“I…” My inner walls clench around nothing. That ache is already building again. I’m not done. My body isn’t satisfied. And I don’t think it will be until… “Okay. But slow.”

Carson lifts himself onto his elbows and leans down to kiss me, as that soft thrumming sound rumbles from his throat. His tongue strokes slowly against mine until I’m panting. Until my thighs tighten around his hips and my body drips for him.

Finally, he reaches between us to position himself, and before I have time to feel intimidated again by what’s about to happen, he begins to slowly work himself inside me.

There’s no pain, but the stretching is intense.

“You okay?” Carson whispers, going still inside me. I nod. Then I pull him down for a kiss and he holds his position while his tongue fucks my mouth until I’m ready for more. Until I need it.

He works himself back and forth, and before long, I realize the advantage to him taking up all the space is that he also hits all the spots. With every…single…movement.

I groan at the familiar, welcome peak building inside me, and he pushes in a little farther. “More,” I whisper, and that mating sound begins again as he steadily fills me up.

“How’s that?” he whispers, and I can feel the tension in every muscle of his body straining with the effort to be still. To let me adjust.

“Tight. But sooo good.”

“Can you take any more?”

My muscles clench around him as I stare up at him in surprise, to find there’s very little left of his silvery irises. “There’s more?”

“Nope. Never mind.” He begins to pull back, but I clench my legs at his lower back, holding him in place while I slide one hand between us again.

“Oh my god, there’s more!”

He groans at the feel of my fingers where we’re joined, and I clench around him again. Then I wrap my hand around the part of him that won’t fit, and he lowers himself until his forehead touches mine, rocking gently back and forth, inside me. Sliding through the wet grip of my hand. “I’m sorry I can’t take the whole thing,” I murmur.

“Shhh.” He rocks farther back, then slides all the way in again. “This is perfect. You’re perfect. And so…damn…tight.”

Carson moves slowly, and with every careful thrust, my body relaxes a little more. My climax edges a little closer. Until I can’t stand the careful pacing.

“Faster,” I whisper.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m fine. I need more,” I insist, my legs clenching around him as I thrust up to meet him. He starts to object, and I dig my nails into his back. “More,” I order.

His eyes flash with a silver glow, and he growls.

Then he fucks me.

Carson rides me hard and fast, and as his hips slam into my pelvis, I realize that he’s finally all the way inside. “Oh my god,” he groans as he rams into me, tension building in his entire body, as he hurtles toward release. “It will never be like this with anyone else. It can’t be.”

“Shut up,” I pant as I arch up into him, riding the razor’s edge as I reach for that peak.

“There will never be anyone else, Lilli.”

“I know.” I gasp as a hot wave of pleasure washes over me, the explosive release of tension as my body clamps down around him over and over again. Milking him.

I feel him release inside me, over and over. And over again. And each hot spurt only pushes my peak higher and higher. Extending my climax until he finally collapses on top of me.

“Lilli.” Carson lifts himself, still twitching inside me, and lowers himself for another kiss. “You’re incredible.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

And too late, I realize he didn’t pull out. And I didn’t ask him to. I wonder what the chances are that that slot in the wall also holds baseball bat-sized condoms?

It’s okay. One time can’t hurt, right? I mean, just because I’m evidently fertile doesn’t mean I’m actually ovulating. Right? I haven’t even had a period in years.

Carson collapses on the mattress next to me, on his left side. There are pillows on the floor, but I’m not going to ask him to grab them, because I’m sure they smell like Tirzah. Whose room this evidently is.

From down the hall, I hear the buzz of a…I think it’s a microwave. Followed by soft laughter. Carson’s friends have gathered in that little kitchen, and if I can hear them… “Oh shit, they probably all heard us!”

“We definitely did!” one of the men calls from down the hall.

“Oh my god!” I bury my face in Carson’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it!” the same man calls out. “Not like it’s the first time.”

“What does that mean?” I rise up to frown at Carson.

“Nothing. Just that we all have excellent hearing.” But that’s not it. There’s something else he’s not saying. But before I can ask, Carson tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and runs one hand down my arm. “Does it bother you that they heard us?”

“Um…I’m honestly not sure.” I feel like it should bother me, but this is the reality of a prison planet, and the truth is that the privacy situation isn’t very different here than it was at the Sorority. It’s just that here, I’m the one whose moans are being overheard by the entire damn building. “Who was that, anyway?”

“Zamora. He’s not the only one who heard us. He’s just the only one who would comment on it.”

From down the hall, that same man snickers.

“Where did the bedding come from?” I ask as I pull the sheet over me. I’m not cold—in fact, I’m overheated—but the fact that we’re on camera bothers me more than the idea of five other people overhearing things they can’t see.

“There are chutes in the wall. One’s for dirty laundry. The other dispenses clean bedding. There are similar ones in the lounge, but they only dispense clothing.”

“But where does that stuff actually come from? Is there, like, a stockpile of stuff in the ceiling, just waiting to be dispensed?”

Carson frowns. “No idea. It never occurred to me to wonder about that.”

“This is Tirzah’s room?” I ask, and he nods, stroking one hand down my arm beneath the blanket. He can’t seem to stop touching me.

I can’t seem to object.

“Why is she the only one who gets a bed? And bedding?”

“Because they’re trying to breed her.” He says it so casually, his voice half-slurred with encroaching sleep, his eyes closed. But his words send a chill down my spine, and suddenly I’m wide awake, despite the warm cocoon of his arms and this blanket.

“What?”

“They’re trying to—” Carson’s nose twitches, scenting a change in my…emotions. Or something like that. His eyes open. “Lilli, don’t get upset. I’m not going to let them—”

“Don’t get…?” I sit up, clutching the blanket to my chest. “We just… I just let you… I mean, Brennan seemed excited about my test results, but she never said…” There aren’t enough expletives in the universe to express my outrage. “Carson, are they trying to breed me too?”

“I’m sure they are, but—”

“And you let me…? You let us… Why would you do that?” I shove him over and drag the sheet with me as I fumble for my clothes. “I should have made you pull out.”

Carson snorts, his silver irises glowing again, clearly telegraphing the beast’s indignation. “I would have refused.”

“Then you wouldn’t have gotten laid!” I shout at him as I bend over the side of the bed, searching for my underwear.

“Lilli.” He takes my arm and pulls me upright. I try to jerk free, but though his grip isn’t tight, it’s like iron. “Lilli,” he growls softly as he pulls me closer, until his nose nests in my hair and his lips brush my ear. “I won’t let them near our child. Trust me.”

“There is no child,” I hiss at him. “And there never will be.”

The pain that twists his features sends an answering bolt of sorrow through me, and I gasp with the realization that I’m feeling his pain.

Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of my own, centered around the same subject, but this doesn’t feel like my pain. This is too…simple. It’s a single bolt of loss making my chest ache. Leaving a one-note bitter taste in my mouth.

I push through the pain and pull free from his grip. “I’m sorry.” It actually hurts me that I’ve caused him pain. But I have my own pain to deal with. “I just…I can’t do this. You need to stay away from me.” I step into my underwear and pull my shirt over my head, then I grab my pants and my bra and dart out of the room.

“Lilli!” he roars, and I hear the heavy plop of his bare feet on the floor behind me.

“Stay there!” I shout as I race down the hall, and too late, I realize I’ve passed all the cells, where I could have claimed a room of my own. Not that I could have closed the door.

“What’s going on?” The man with dark skin and kind eyes appears in the doorway of the small kitchen. I don’t think I’ve heard his name yet.

“I was right before. Keep him away from me.” I can’t afford to smell him, to hear that sound he makes, or I’ll wind up in his bed again. I’ll wind up pregnant. In a fucking genetics lab. With an alien-hybrid’s baby. Which would be perfectly fine as the plot in a sci-fi horror vid, but not as the forecast for the rest of my life.

“Lilli, wait,” Carson calls, and the man with kind eyes looks past me.

“Captain,” he snaps. “Pants.”

I turn around to see Carson standing naked in the middle of the hallway, his massive cock still at half-mast, his pants hanging from one hand. He growls and stops to step into his pants, and I clutch the rest of my clothes to my chest and duck into the kitchen, past another of the men.

“What happened?” the second man—the one with bright, pale blue eyes—asks. “Did he hurt you?” But disbelief is written all over his face as he glances from me to the doorway, where Carson has positioned himself, facing off against the other man.

“Of course I didn’t hurt her,” he snaps. “Move, Coleman.” He shoves at the dark-skinned man, who refuses to budge.

“Please.” I set my pants and bra on the seat of an empty chair and turn to Carson, pleading with him over Coleman’s broad shoulder. “Please just stay away. Please.”

“I just want to explain…”

“I understand,” I assure him. “And I know that if you won’t stay back, I can’t make you. And I can’t resist you. So this is up to you, but I’m telling you right now that I will hate us both if you let this happen again.”

Pain flickers across Carson’s features, and again, an answering ache throbs in my chest—like a glimpse into his wounded heart.

He blinks at me, and I can see the effort it must be taking for him to get the beast under control. Slowly, the glow in his eyes fades. His jaw unclenches. And though the pained lines never leave his forehead, he gives me a single solemn nod. “I’ll be in my room.”

I don’t ask him which one that is. It won’t be hard to find. Or to avoid. But either way, I’ll be sleeping on the couch in the lounge. As far from his room as I can get.

Carson looks from Coleman to the other man. The one at my side, holding an MRE pastry. And this time his voice is an inhuman rumble. “Don’t touch her.”

“Captain, you know we wouldn’t—”

“At all,” Carson growls. Then he disappears into the hallway, headed back the way he came.

“What the fuck?” Coleman turns away from the doorway to look at me with one eyebrow arched. “What’s going on with you two? I’m Vaughn Coleman, by the way.”

“Lilli Malone.” I start to offer him my hand to shake, but then I think better of it. I’m pretty sure that if I touch Coleman, Carson will hurt him.

I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Or rather, he wouldn’t be able to stop the beast. Because that’s what the problem is. The beast is overruling his head, just like my body’s overruling mine.

My “beast” is a fucking nympho.

“Burke Jamison,” the man with blue eyes says. He doesn’t offer me his hand either. “Would you like to sit?”

“And dress?” Vaughn adds with a pointed glance at my clothes. “Having you a little less naked might help with whatever’s going on here.”

“She woke up his beast,” Burke says as he pulls out a chair for me.

“I woke up his beast?” I step into my pants, but I can’t put my bra on without showing more flesh, so I sink into the chair with it in my lap. “How is this my fault?”

“You’re the cause, but that doesn’t make it your fault.” Burke sets his uneaten pastry on the table, on its empty wrapper. “Can we get you anything to drink?”

“Vodka, if you have it.”

He smiles. “I wish. But I could probably come up with some instant coffee and powdered creamer.”

“That’d be great.”

While Burke takes a mug from the dish drainer next to a small metal sink and runs water into it, Vaughn sits in the chair across from me and breaks off a corner of Burke’s pastry. Which is when I realize this isn’t a kitchen. It’s just a small break room holding little more than a table, a countertop, a sink, and a microwave.

“So, what does that mean—she woke up his beast?” Vaughn asks.

I arch both brows at him. “You didn’t understand that either?”

Vaughn shakes his head. “Jamison has a special…insight.”

“Because he’s also a possessive prick?” I turn to Burke with a teasing smile, and Vaughn laughs.

Burke smiles as he sets the mug in the microwave and presses a button. It buzzes to life. “Because my beast didn’t just come with this.” He holds out his arm so I can see a familiar seam of flesh—almost like a double line of scar tissue—running the length of it. From which his bone blade will emerge, if he’s threatened.

The microwave beeps, and he pulls out the steaming mug, then he dumps instant coffee into it from a packet. Burke sets the mug in front of me and sinks into the chair on my other side, meeting my focus with a blue-eyed gaze of his own.

“So, what, you can read Carson’s mind?” That sounds ridiculous, but then so does everything else that’s happened to me in the past week, so right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if a leprechaun came through the door dancing a jig.

Burke twists in his chair and grabs a spoon from the dish drainer. “Not his mind. His emotions.” He sets the spoon and a packet of powdered creamer next to my mug.

“Thank you.” I rip open the packet and dump the creamer in. “Well, that makes two of us,” I tell him as I stir my coffee.

Colman eyes me over the mug. “You can feel what the captain’s feeling?”

“Yes, but that just started.” I take a sip, and the nearly instant buzz of caffeine washes over me like a warm hug. I’m pretty sure I went through withdrawal while I was unconscious. “It’s like the more time I spend with him…physically, the less I know my own body.”

“He doesn’t understand what’s happening either,” Burke says. “He feels very…confused. Torn between instincts he doesn’t understand and personal experience that no longer feels relevant.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning none of his previous dating experience is helpful, with you. And everything the beast wants him to do just pushes you away.”

I huff as I set my mug down with a loud clack. “That’s because his beast wants the same damn thing Dr. Brennan wants—to breed me. And that’s just not going to happen.”