He removed another disk from the pouch.

I shook my head and pushed the bowl away. “No, I’m done. Can’t eat any more.”

He released my middle. “Not starving, wife?”

Uh, oh.

I slid off his lap, and turned to him. “Look, Thor…”

He rose to face me, scanning me as though he had x-ray vision eyes.

“Despite first impressions, you do seem pretty reasonable.” I held up my palms and backed away a step, my head dropping back to look at him. Damn, he was a big effing alien. “Like maybe you have a lot more self-control than you first let on.”

He grew still, then his gaze met mine. “Baratican can control, you think not?”

Oh, lord. Was he offended?

“Well.” I shrugged and inched back a little more. “You seemed a little…agitated when we first met.” I sucked in a breath and hoped my skills as a psychologist would cross-over to alien-negotiator. “But now I see you’re actually disciplined, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer but his brow seemed to harden.

Not stupid.

“I need to go home.” The tightness hitching up my spine ebbed a little. He hadn’t snatched me up and put an end to my retreat, and that in itself was progress. “I won’t mate with you.”

He remained where he was, and watched me. “Must make mating.”

“No.” I leaped back, pointing at him. “I won’t, so you need to stop trying.”

The edge of the bed knocked against the backs of my knees.

Unlike our first encounter he didn’t leap on me. He clearly didn’t want to hurt me.

“Be at peace, my wife, Thorbianak can make more gentle mating if wife fearful.”

My eyes made a rapid ascent into my skull. Nope . Looked like he understood nothing . “I thought Baratican’s didn’t tell untruths?”

His expression once again reanimated in such a way that made me suspect they definitely wore helmets when bartering—his brows arched and his eyes flashed, outraged . “Not speaking untruths.”

“You said you understood that I don’t want to stay here.”

“ Is understanding this is your want.” His hand pressed to his broad, broad chest. “Now husband knowing this, can make wife more welcome.”

I grabbed the sides of my head. “Oh, god.”

He understood —he did not care .

“Is okay, I accept some new wife have enthusiasm and some wife have resistance.”

I rubbed my temples. How the fuck was I going to stop this from happening?

“Okay to have resistance. I admire wife have strong will.”

I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed and wished my brain back into action.

That was the only thing I could fight him with.

My non-functioning brain.

“So does Thorbianak have strong will. Can break strong will and make wife happy.”

“Break?” That’s exactly what my voice did as my face snapped up to look at him.

He moved closer, slower this time, as though I were a tiny little rabbit. “Not worry, wife will find enthusiasm in mating.”

My fingers pressed into my palms. “Trust me, I have no enthusiasm for mating with you, alien man.”

He tugged at his loincloth.

Oh, shit .

I jerked my gaze upwards. Another kind of tension tightened in my middle.

“Now wife speaking untruths.” He smiled. A cocky, so ridiculously human smile. Like the one he wore when I circled back to him in the tunnels. “I feel your enthusiasm during tasting.”

Oh, sweet Jesus, the tasting . Why’d he have to bring that humiliation up?

“Biology,” I rasped and wiggled a finger at him. “That was a biological response to stimulation, not enthusiasm.”

He let out a sound a lot like a scoff, and tossed the loincloth. “Is strange wife, that human not listening to own biology.”

I gulped and kept my gaze fixed above his shoulders. The effort almost had my eyeballs twitching out of my head.

He stepped again, and no matter how much I attempted to look elsewhere, the fact remained the evidence of his insistence now hovered biting distance from my face.

“If did listen to biology, would be greater happiness.”

“Honey, I’m a psychologist.” I crossed my legs under the blanket around me. “Trust me, that’s not how happiness works.”

His hands lowered to his sides and his voice dropped featherlight. “You know how make happiness work?”

What ?

“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, kind of.”

What the fuck did I know about anything anymore…best bet was still that this right here was a delusion.

“On my planet I’m a—” I searched my baratican vocabulary. There wasn’t a word that meant psychologist that I could summon. “Healer of the mind—”

He shifted. My gaze collided with his gigantic erection.

“…And, emotion.” My entire body went hot like when he’d heated up while holding me. Oh, shit . Could he influence my temperature remotely?

He sat beside me, his presence already starting a vibration that my system latched onto like a complete hussy—blood rushing straight where it really shouldn’t.

I breathed in, then breathed out. Then fanned my face.

A touch brushed the back of my head.

Oh, damn.

I glanced at him.

He touched the knotted, matted strands of my hair as though it were spun gold. “Husband can also make happiness, but only for wife.”

I blinked, his gentle vibration sinking a rhythm into my blood. He stroked down my hair, then his big, warm thumb brushed the back of my neck.

My nipples contracted.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

My gaze dropped. Dropped over his naked, wonderful body. I looked. I properly looked. A gnawing hungry need filled my middle.

He’d said we’d be compatible.

Physically .

Would it really be so bad to just let him do it?

His hand slid firmly into my hair. I looked up. His gaze sunk into mine.

Maybe it was smarter to go with it…

His eyes. Oh, boy, his eyes. The flecks in them seemed to have contracted more towards the center—now like pupils.

Such warm, expressive eyes.

My own reflection shimmered in the surface of them, unrecognizable. No skirt suit. No donut bun. A blanket wrapped, unkempt version of myself.

Maybe I wasn’t actually myself anymore. Maybe Macca was right from the beginning. I should just let go of earthly expectations and submit .

Get him onside.

“Macca,” I whispered. “You said that there’d be consequences to mating?”

“Once consummated, the Baratican’s commitment to you will be absolute.” Macca’s voice hummed, hushed by the sound of Thor’s vibration.

Commitment? Surely commitment isn’t so bad?

His thick lashes blinked once. How did a warrior alien get such lovely lashes?

“He will seek to maintain your presence, tolerating no separation of distance or time.”

Uh oh. My mind cleared of the haze. No separation of time or distance—now that was some serious effing commitment.

His fingers moved and my scalp tingled.

“He will obtain the ability to sense your location, ensuring that you are never lost to him.”

Sense location? I dragged in a cleansing breath. Escape would be impossible.

“Any attempt to remove you from this planet would be considered an act of war.”

I’d be stuck with him, here , forever.

“You would be unable—”

“Thanks, Macca.” I eased back, and removed his hand from my hair. “That did just the trick.”

He frowned, his shoulder muscles rippling.

“What this say to you?” He touched my ear. “Turning off. No more talking with ship.”

“It only answered my question.” I scooted back. “Listen to me, Thor. I cannot mate with you.”

His fingers firmed against my skin, and he took on a new kind of stillness.

Oh, Jesus.

My heart somersaulted. He’d just armored himself again. Meaning he was preparing himself for battle.

With me.

“You’ll hurt me.” I pressed a hand against his chest. “You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

He softened so suddenly my fingertips sank against his hot flesh. “No, not want hurting wife.”

“Well you will if you try to make me. You’ll hurt me badly.”

And he would. Because whether or not my body had other ideas, my head said no. My heart said no.

If he tried I’d fight.

And if he forced it from me then I knew clinically the kind of scars that left.

He removed my hand from his chest and placed it on his cheek. “Not hurt. Did test anatomy. Is compatible.” He rubbed his nose on the inside of my wrist. “You will see. Best I show you.”

Goosebumps trickled over my skin at the reminder of the tasting that’d already taken place.

Damn …

“That’s not what I mean.” I tugged my arm, but he held it firm, looking at me with this ridiculously dreamy gaze. “I’m not talking about hurt in the body, I’m talking about hurt in the—” I paused, searching for the word. If I said heart, he’d take it literally . If I said mind, he’d take that literally also, and assume I meant brain damage. I moved my free hand to his chest and pressed my palm to him. “I mean hurt in the soul.”

He frowned. “In soul?”

His entire being seemed to prickle to awareness. His attention homed in on me. “Hurt in your soul?”

I bit on my lower lip. Not how I’d normally describe these things but this seemed like a way he could understand. “Do you understand sadness?”

His brow furrowed deep. “Yes, understand sadness.”

“Have you ever experienced sorrow, Thor?” I leaned closer even though the shudder of his expression made me want to curl into a ball.

He breathed deep, his chest rising and falling and pushing against my palm. Did he actually understand?

“You understand how something can hurt right down to your spirit?”

“Yes,” he said and grabbed the top of my arm other arm too. “Wife, have you sorrow in your soul?”

All the responses I’d expected seemed to atrophy on my tongue. The question was meant for him but his voice resonated, driving into me. Forcing out answers to questions I never intended to be asked that had nothing to do with being right here.

Sorrow .

My throat grew boulders. Sorrow like for the women all trapped on a ship, dependent on me? My lungs cinched. Sorrow like for the things I'd learned I wished could be scrubbed from my mind? Bitterness burned the back of my mouth, and my fingers curled into him. Sorrow, like for the home I’d been plucked from?

“Yes,” I confessed.

He made a sound, a low wounded sound that made my stomach drop, and hauled me to him. Held me against his great nakedness. “My wife, your sorrows are over.”

My muscles seemed to give out all at once. I leaned into him, the wound inside me growing more terrible with the things I’d suppressed. My sorrows didn't feel over. Not when my heart was splitting with images of human breeding labs, and the faces of those at home I'd never see again.

Like Uncle Syd who’d raised me. My best friend Becca. And others.

He tipped me back to look at him. “Give your sadness’s to me. I will heal them.”

I blinked, his expressive features swimming in front of me. “You can do that?”

Maybe my bruise had healed oddly soon. But could he really heal me?

He wasn’t magic . That’d be a whole other kind of miracle.

And yet, I could almost see it—he’d warm and warm and warm until the cold couldn't survive inside me.

“Yes.” He brushed the hair from my face. “Wife heal the sorrow of my loneliness. Now, I heal yours.”

I stared at him. I’d healed his loneliness? His breath mingled with mine.

How lonely had he been?

Lonely as me?

I breathed in from his exhale. We might be different but we breathed just the same. Maybe we were the same…

Did baratican’s kiss? His lips hovered so close. Pinker than I remembered.

I'd bet he'd let them be soft for me...

“How?” My tongue darted out of my mouth. “How could you do something like that?”

“Is so easy my wife.” He lowered his face and touched the tip of his nose to mine. “You must answer me one thing…”

I pressed closer, enthralled by his heat, his hardness, and also the degree to which he was no longer so hard were he needn’t be. His trust present on his skin.

My lips almost brushed his, my entire surface tingling. “What do you want to know?”

He gripped me tighter. Pulled me deeper into his lap. That crazy dick of his ground my hip.

And I couldn’t move myself away.

I didn’t need a super computer to tell me Baratican’s don’t lie. This man’s honesty was clear in his eyes.

His heart present in his words in a way I’d never experienced.

And it was so beautiful.

“Does you prefer first mating in front passage or rear passage?”