Penny sat in a chair outside the secure communications room in her mother’s compound. She’d planned to stand, but as soon as the door closed she’d started pacing. Though her foot was tapping now, at least she was exuding fewer nerves. She hoped. Krayter was in there now, alone, making a call to his brother, Kayleb. She’d arranged it just as soon as she found a meal and a place for him to sleep.

And now Penny didn’t know what to do.

That was the problem with getting to the end of the road. All the forward momentum just… stopped. If she stood still for too long, her hands started shaking and her feet wanted to run. But where? Her sisters were safe. Krayter was safe. Ish. She was free.

And confused.

When she’d learned that her mother was keeping Krayter locked away like some criminal, all that momentum had found an outlet. The urge to free him had pounded hard within her, and she’d followed her instincts, racing along until she found the right outbuilding and intimidated the right person.

Her fierce need to protect Krayter confused her. It wasn’t like he was one of her sisters. He was an alien she barely knew. But she wanted to do right by him, wanted to keep him safe and healthy and…

She wanted him to be hers.

It was too early for wants like that. But she wanted things from him that she’d never craved before. Skin to skin, lips to lips, heat on heat. No one had ever awakened those desires in her. And she’d never known that it could happen so soon.

The door opened and Penny jumped up from her seat. Krayter was smiling and bouncing from foot to foot. A year’s worth of worries had been lifted off his shoulders and he looked like he was about to start flying around the room.

“How did it go?” she asked, grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers through his own. She remembered those sharp claws of his, but she trusted him to keep them sheathed. He wouldn’t hurt her.

They walked down the hallway and out a door leading to the green meadow that was ringed by all of her mother’s base. On the far end there was a small copse of trees and a picnic area that they headed for by unspoken agreement. It wasn’t complete privacy, but it was more than they’d had.

“Kayleb was relieved,” Krayter responded with a grin. “Though he still wasn’t sure if I’d truly disappeared or found a woman and holed up somewhere for a week of raunchy sex.” He snapped his mouth shut as the last word came out and looked down at her, eyes wide and a little panicked.

Penny almost laughed. “The week is still young.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. She’d never spoken like this to anyone before, never flirted. But she loved saying things like that to Krayter.

A pair of armed guards passed by them, crossing halfway through the meadow. At least one of them glanced down at her and Krayter’s linked hands, but made no comment.

Uneasiness tightened Krayter’s shoulders. “They might get ideas if they see us holding hands.” The words came out stiff, like he didn’t want to say them. Like he didn’t want to let go.

Penny stopped. They were still a dozen feet from the picnic area and well within the view of any of the buildings, not to mention the handful of people out and about. Krayter stopped beside her and looked down, brow quirked up. Penny tugged on his collar and pulled his head down until she could brush her lips against him. Claiming.

“What about now?” she asked, more breathless than that little peck warranted.

Krayter swallowed. Hard. His eyes flared that sexy red, demonic and oh so tempting. He didn’t say anything, but his grip on her hand was a vise and his face failed to hold back every word he wasn’t saying.

After a moment, they kept moving, taking their seats at a small wooden table shrouded by thick, leafy trees.

“Do you have a plan?” Penny asked.

“Hmm?” He seemed distracted and caught off guard by her question, his brow crinkling as he hummed his inquiry.

“To get home?” She’d brought him this far to get him home, back to his brother. Where he belonged. Some banshee inside of Penny screamed at the thought of letting him leave, but he wasn’t hers. He didn’t belong in this place, especially not with her mother, who was just as eager as anyone to see him locked up.

Krayter smiled wryly, clearly not reading her thoughts. “I don’t think your mother would take well to my brother driving up in a rented car.”

At that thought, Penny returned the smile. “No, probably not.” Any vehicle’s nav system would record the location, and that would lead to a whole host of potential problems. Her mom’s compound wasn’t locked down like Highland Settlement, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Penny took Krayter’s hand and spread it out on the table, playing her own fingers across his absently. It felt so good to touch him, like he was a part of her that she’d never known existed until they met. She focused on his hand as her cheeks heated. They may have only kissed the night before, but she hadn’t been able to sleep, thoughts of touching him repeating in her mind.

Not until she’d done a bit of touching herself.

“What are you grinning about?” Krayter asked, ducking his head to find her gaze. He flipped his hand over in a blink and caught her fingers in a vise like grip, tugging her closer.

That wasn’t a question she was ready to answer truthfully.

And the other thing she could say, that she was glad they’d have little more time together, stuck in her throat. Penny didn’t know how to be vulnerable. She didn’t know how to admit to feelings or to reach out and hope that Krayter reached back. Yes, she’d kissed him in front of everyone. But somehow, actions were easier.

What was a kiss, after all? Krayter himself had said that he was the kind of man who kissed—and more—all the time. While she was trying desperately not to think of him in terms of something serious, he was probably happy to have a girl for the weekend.

“You’re not grinning anymore,” he said as she let the silence drag for too long.

“Did the moms of those girls you… knew ever lock you up or point weapons at you?” she asked. After his experiences with her, she wouldn’t blame him if he ran away and never looked back.

Krayter tipped her chin up until he could easily meet her eyes. “If my choice was to avoid incarceration or meet you, I’d invite your mother to lock me up again.” He leaned in close and brushed his lips quickly against hers. “I’ve traveled thousands of light years to come to this moment, this place. I have no regrets.”

Penny squeezed his fingers. “I’m going with you to New York.”

He kissed her again. “Good.”

***

That night Krayter sat in his room eating a meal he’d purloined from the kitchen and playing a game on an entertainment tablet he’d borrowed from the media room. After their interlude, Penny had been pulled back to take care of her sisters and Krayter had decided that it might be wise to stick to the main house.

He’d been tempted to call Kayleb again, but he knew any call he made on the equipment here would be monitored and relayed to Jacinta Morales. From the look she’d given him as he passed through the kitchen, it would only take one misstep for him to end up back in lockup.

And Penny wouldn’t be able to pull him out so easily again.

There was a knock at his door and Krayter raised his head up from the tablet and just stared for a moment. A tentative second knock had him off the bed and across the room. None of Jacinta’s soldiers would knock like that. They would probably just barge through the door, weapons blazing.

But instead of a soldier, he saw Penny, her hair falling down in gentle waves over her shoulders and her clothing soft and made for sleeping. He glanced down and saw she even wore fuzzy slippers.

Her cheeks flushed that brilliant red that Krayter had come to associate with her. “My feet were cold. Do you have a problem with that?” Penny asked, preemptively defensive.

Krayter only smiled. “I didn’t say anything. I like them.” He opened the door further and let her in, closing the door quickly behind her. They were both adults, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t prying eyes all around. “What’s that?” he asked, spotting the small cake cupped in Penny’s hands.

Penny held her treasure out to him, her face carefully neutral. “It’s a cupcake. One of the women brought them by while we were eating dinner, and I didn’t want you to miss out.” She didn’t ask why he hadn’t joined them; she didn’t need to. Nor was there any censure in her offering.

“A cupcake? Is that different from a regular cake?”

Penny’s face scrunched up and her jaw slackened as her eyes widened in surprise. “You’ve never had a cupcake? I thought you’ve been on Earth for weeks.” She set the dessert on the small workstation beside his bed and let her hands fall to her sides.

“There isn’t any cup.” Krayter got close to the workstation and knelt down until he was eye level with the pastry. He squinted and poked at it with a single finger. “What is the purpose?”

“Seriously? What are they feeding you in that big city?” Now her hands were on her hips and the flush in her cheeks came from frustration rather than embarrassment.

Krayter bit his lip and did his best not to smile or burst out laughing, even as the guffaw bubbled up in his throat. “You must expect these cultural differences from time to time.” He swallowed anything else he was trying to say, lest the laughter escape.

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” She snatched the cupcake and held it over her head. “I try to do something nice, and you’re really making fun of me. Wow.”

Krayter sprang back up and stepped forward, reaching up to take hold of her wrist and steal the cupcake back. “You can’t just take back a gift.” He thought he had her, but she did some clever twist of her hips and her wrist and escaped, putting several feet between them.

“It’s mine now. You could’ve said you wanted it.” She took a big bite and frosting smeared across her lips.

His eyes were pulled down with the power of a tractor beam to the bright blue frosting that coated her. Penny raised a hand to wipe it away, but Krayter was there before he even realized he was moving. “Just a taste,” he promised, lowering his head and swiping his tongue against the cloyingly sweet substance.

Under the sugar, there was something tart like a berry, but the most important and overwhelming taste was Penny. Distantly, Krayter heard something thump dully against the floor as his denya dropped the cupcake. Her hands came up and dug into the small hairs at the base of his neck, as if by kneading there she could meld the two of them together.

Krayter nipped at her bottom lip and tugged, not enough to hurt, just to play. She groaned beneath him and one of her hands ventured down his back, her fingers digging into his muscles, marking him even through his shirt.

They pulled apart, each breathing hard, their faces overtaken by something feral. “I’d take that over a cupcake any day,” Penny confessed.

Krayter kissed her again. “I don’t know,” he said as he pulled back. “I think I like the combination.”

Penny glanced down at the floor and then flashed him a wry smile. “That’s the only taste you’re going to get tonight. I don’t think I could sneak you another one.”

“I’m glad you brought what you did.” He’d been contemplating a visit to her room once the rest of the house went to bed. But the last thing Krayter wanted to do was push. “Will you stay a while?”

“I was hoping to stay the night.” When she looked at him this time there wasn’t any hint of embarrassment or reticence. “If you would have me.”

It took all of Krayter’s strength not to rip her clothes off right in that moment and have her flat on the bed in the next. But even as the denya bond pounded within him, demanding to be sealed, Krayter knew that he could not take that step with the truth hidden.

His silence, and the conflicted expression he must have been making, gave Penny the wrong idea. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “If I misread this, I didn’t want to…”

“It’s not that,” Krayter cut her off. “It’s never that between us.”

Now it was her turn to look conflicted. “There isn’t any obligation.”

“No, it would be all pleasure.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, arms crossed.

He just had to say it, there was no stalling anymore. Not if he wanted her. “Did I ever say why we came to Earth?” They’d had plenty of time to talk, but the actual reason had never come up.

“It was something to do with your cousin? And his wife? I really don’t…”

“It’s because of the denya bond. Something about humans is compatible with Detyens.” He was already making it too complicated. “We came to Earth to find mates. You’re mine. My mate.”