I choked and reared back from him. A cough sputtered into my chest. “Excuse me?”

“You have one front passage, and one back passage.” His fingers flexed at my hip, holding me tight. “Prefer first mating in which entry?”

My hand cracked full force across his face.

Pain splintered through my fingers before the action registered.

“Holy fuck.” I froze, icy tentacles of agony shooting down my wrist. “Oh, god damn.”

I saw it—an odd twist to my middle finger.

“Broke my fucking hand.” My head swirled.

He seized my wrist, growling.

“No, don’t touch. It hurts!” I strained against him.

He growled louder, but it was his expression that sent the follicles shooting upright across my skin.

His lip pulled back reminding me of when I’d first seen him. When he’d been so uncivilized. A barbarian. Like an animal.

“Should not have done this.” His hiss stopped my heart.

Pain blazed, hot and ice-cold all at once.

He tucked my hand under his arm into his armpit.

Bone crunched.

I screamed. The sound pushed off the walls and blazed around us. My nerves splintered, hurt pushing all the way to my gums.

“Stop.” Oh, shit he was punishing me for hitting him. Tears squeezed from my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hit you.”

He squeezed his arm and my battered digits creaked against his bicep. Heat turned to burn in my fingers. He was fucking melting me.

My scream drew into one long sound.

Then he let me go.

I fell back on the bed and curled into a ball, hand clutched to my chest. Shakes overtook my muscles, trembling into my bones.

“Calm yourself, Leila.”

Macca’s voice cracked through my mind.

My teeth rattled. “He tortured me.”

“You are experiencing shock.”

I tried to breathe. Shock. Physical reaction to injury or trauma.

“You are simply not used to Baratican treatment.”

I squeezed myself tighter. “I think you mean mis treatment.”

“Still ouch?” A hot touch settled on my shoulder. “Hand still ouch, wife?”

I looked down, slowly opening the fist at my chest. What the? Straight unswollen fingers opened and closed. No trace of injury other than flushed skin.

“You healed me?” I flipped over onto my back. “You healed a fractured bone?”

“Did tell you, husband heal all your hurts and sorrows.” He took my hand and inspected it.

I stared at him, head going blank as the shivers trickled away. “I thought you were punishing me for hitting you.”

“Think husband would harm?” He lowered my hand to his lap. His chest rose then fell. “Think husband without honor?”

“Well…You made me very angry and I hit you.” I scooted up. “And you seemed very angry. Maybe you would do the same?”

He frowned deeper. “Husband need protect wife.”

I clenched my now working fist. Not that I itched to fight a magical warrior but I wasn’t helpless. Who escaped from Alien people smugglers? Who led a hundred women to freedom? Who now risked her life on the planet of scorching heat, to make sure they stayed safe? “I’m perfectly capable.”

“Knowing wife is capable.” His brow rippled.

My gaze snapped up to his.

His fingers tightened just a little around mine. Not much, but enough. Enough for my muscles to seize, for my body to know —he could grind me to a pulp without even exerting an effort. He didn’t need to issue a single statement about his strength.

“This not mean capable, not capable. This not mean worthy, not worthy.” He opened his hand, and matched my palm against his. “This mean safe.”

Something popped in my chest like a jack-in-the-box.

My fingertips barely reached the start of his fingers. The difference as startling as a baby’s hand in a bear’s paw. How much smaller, more delicate than him I was.

The image made my whole body feel light.

He might not understand some things, but he’d just explained something else in a way that sent butterflies off in my belly.

“This mean different responsibility.” He placed his other hand on top of mine. “Tend. Protect. Cherish.”

Shivers rolled over me. Wow . Those words repeated again in my head. Tend. Protect. Cherish . Like vows. Yet, as much as he liked to call me wife, we’d made no promises.

Hell, I hadn’t agreed to anything, let alone marriage .

And yet this was as close as I’d ever come to believing that someone meant their promises.

I placed my other hand on top of his, and touched his over-sized knuckles.

He was bigger than big, and stronger than strong by human definition.

And yet so gentle with me.

“How make wife very angry?” He stared at me, close and intense and way up in my personal space.

“How?” Heat flushed in my cheeks. “You said something very offensive.”

“What offensive?”

I slid my hands free, not quite able to keep looking him in the face. “It’s rude to ask a human woman you are attempting to…” I coughed, searching for the word to describe our unusual relationship. “…court, if she wants anal—” I cleared my throat again. “—back passage sex.”

“Oh.” He remained studying me, gaze dropping down to my lap where I just knew he was thinking about whether or not my asshole were fuckable. “Human not make mate in back passage?”

“No.” Holy crap. Explaining anal to a horny alien. Thing that can never happen item number eight-hundred-and-sixty-nine. “I mean, it’s not for procreation but some people do it for fun.”

“If fun, why offense?”

Oh, boy. I rubbed my cheeks. “It’s just rude, Thor. Very rude.”

His frown wrinkled. “If not asking, how husband know human wife want make mating fun?”

“Because…” I exhaled. “Human marriage generally follows a period of courtship.” I squeezed the blanket around me at the reminder of what was actually going on here . In this situation which was very much not dating, honeymooning, or any other form of human romance. “Human men don’t just snatch woman and keep them captive in their cave, they court them. They earn their affection, they get to know their desires and preferences, and they attain their confidences so that those kinds of conversations can be comfortable and appropriate.”

He tilted back, but all his attention remained glued on me.

“You have not done any of those things.” I pointed my index finger at him. “You have not earned what is meant to be earned. You are trying to steal what is meant to be given.”

His eyes widened. Didn’t he like that? Good. I liked it even less.

“So, when you ask me if I think you are without honor, yes, Thor, I think you are completely without honor.”

He flinched—actually flinched. The giant indestructible warrior that he was.

My chest heaved. “Where I am from, taking what is only mine to give, is the greatest dishonor.” I poked my finger right into his chest. “The biggest shame.”

I almost felt guilty for the look on his face, but then I was the one having to explain consent to my would be forced-husband.

“Punishable by law and a very serious crime.”

He remained frozen, staring at me for so long, I wasn’t sure if my little explanation was giving his primal mind an aneurysm.

Then he leaned in again. “Is crime, shame, and dishonor, because not complete human courtship ritual?”

I let out a long breath that made my body want to collapse in on itself. Something about the way he phrased that made it clear that he didn’t get it, get it. Not the important bits. Like the consent is critical part.

I rubbed my forehead, then froze. Maybe he didn’t need to actually understand.

Maybe he only kind-of needed to understand.

“Yes…” I breathed in again. “It is essential to humans that the very important courtship ritual take place before mating.”

He straightened, and looked at me a long while. “Must knowing this wife—is not Baratican practice to observe wife mating custom.”

Clearly... If the instantaneous mating attempts were anything to go by, the Baratican practice was to not wait long enough to find out.

“However, sometime when can not barter for wife, or war not desirable in taking wife, Baratican will perform custom requirements.” He slid off the bed. “Has been done before.”

“And you would do that?” I sat straighter. “You would observe the human courtship ritual?”

“Will consider.” He collected his loin cloth.

A thousand tiny muscles un-clenched in my chest.

Thank fuckidy-fuck.

“Already taking the Kakaki juice to subdue mating rage-lust, for protect wife in sickness not fit for mating.”

Mating rage-lust?

No wonder he’d seemed so aggressive—rage-lust. Geez .

I tucked the blanket tighter under my arms. But, this was him with a libido suppressant? What the sweet-baby-Jesus was he going to be like when he stopped taking it?

My tongue scraped the roof of my mouth.

He stood, shoulders back, pecs out, abs firm as a freaking heavy-duty-washboard. Had he always been this Adonis with a side of Jason Momoa?

I shook my head to clear it.

“Explaining ritual.” He drew his hands behind his back, his stance so warrior it was all I could do not to snort. Where was his cape now? A cape would be perfect. But A red cape. And his helmet. His GIANT hammer.

“Umm.” I blew out. The ritual. God damn. If I’d paid more attention to medieval folklore I might’ve been able to ace this bluff. “The courtship ritual is about demonstrating affection.”

His loincloth twitched. His smirk twisted.

Oh boy .

My heart gave a flip— word choice, Leila . “Affection, as in demonstrating the value a partner has to you.”.

“Ah.” He strode to a large chest on the floor and flipped open the lid, then extended an arm with the flourish of a seasoned game show presenter. “A thousand stones dowry.”

Blue glowed from tiny rocks inside.

I glanced at the bright roof of the cave, then back to the box. Were these from the stalactites?

“Where planet I find your father?”

“What?” I stood, staring down at the stones. The blue grew more intense the more the light touched them. “I don’t have a father.”

“Brother?”

The light seeped into my vision, overriding all else. “No brother.”

“Chief of your colony?”

“No.” I looked back to Thor. “There’s no man responsible for me.”

He froze. “Then who give dowry to demonstrate worth?”

“There’s no dowry required.” I crossed my arms under my bust. “That’s not what the courtship is about.”

He dropped the lid, and it hit the base with a thwack. “You say demonstrate worth. Thousand stones, great worth.”

I blinked the white dots from my vision. “Not that kind of worth.”

He scowled. “What kind?”

Words, Leila . I used to be so good at them.

“Emotional value.” Dating wasn’t really this hard to explain was it? “It’s about developing an emotional connection by sharing experiences, expressing affection, and demonstrating commitment.”

“This not ritual.” His nose scrunched. “What steps have?”

If I were smart enough to have invented a ten-steps-to-true-love dating protocol, I’d have written the damn book on it while I was a respected psychologist on earth. Made a fortune. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been all alone in Uncles Syd’s cabin prime for alien abduction. Maybe I’d have been vacationing in Fiji instead. Shit, if I’d understood love at all I probably wouldn’t have been alone regardless of where I was.

I shouldn’t have been alone that night…

“It’s complicated.”

“How courtship ritual make mating?” He stepped closer, every gesture of his body an obvious hitch closer back toward the baratican mating ritual that was his clear preference. Unless I could convince him of a workable human alternative…

He reached for the loincloth again.

I straightened with a snap. “Impress me and you win favor.”

“Impress?” He halted.

“Yep.” I held the blanket tight. “Impress me by…” I glanced around, gaze settling on a sword on the wall. “By proving your valor.”

His hand dropped to his side.

Bloody hell . What was I talking about? But I continued blurting. “In the ritual the suitor attempts to prove he would be a capable husband.”

His pecs seemed to harden a little tighter. Yes . Capability seemed to register in his caveman culture.

My eyes strained with swirling inspiration. “Like, you could begin by proving you can clothe me.”

Clothes . Freaking clothes would be lovely . Undies... My kingdom for a pair of briefs. A bare bum in an alien cave didn’t exactly promote a feeling of wellbeing.

His attention remained sharp on me. “Impress, and win mating?”

“Erm…” I cleared my throat. Really, clothes would be great, but a few scraps of fabric for a little interspecies nookie wasn’t going to happen.

“Prove this and you win…” I drummed my fingers on my inner arm. “First base in the mating ritual!”

His chin notched. “What first base prize?”

A bolt of heat rose into my face. Crap . How many bases were there and what even were they?

I’d gone to a girls boarding school and studied my ass off. There were exactly zero boys in my teenage years. By the time I made it with a man, I was in University and nobody was talking bases anymore.

In any case, there weren’t firm guidelines on bases right here on planet barbarian, and there was absolutely no one to say I couldn’t take liberties with that whole system.

“Hand holding.” I clutched my arms tighter under my bust. “Impress me with clothes and I’ll hold hands with you.”

He made a face not unlike the face my last boyfriend made when I’d cooked eggplant ratatouille for him on one of our earliest dates.

“Holding hands promotes emotional intimacy.” I’d recognize that man face no matter the species. “It paves the way for other more stimulating bases.”

“Other bases?” He slinked closer, his voice dropping an octave.

Oh, boy.

“Yes, the four other bases.” The four other bases that he’d never, ever, experience, because once I had clothes, then there’d be the next quest. The next quest that would get him away and buy me time to figure a way out of here. “Kissing. Hand stuff. Mouth stuff. Then mating.”

“Hand holding first base.” His gaze sharpened. “How hand holding also third base?”

“Oh.” I shifted. “Hand stuff isn’t hand holding it’s…” Damn . First explaining anal to an alien, and now this. “Mutual touching of…” Warmth burned up my neck. Relax. I’d never had a problem talking about sex like an adult before this.

I stared at him. At his big, innocent, yet also wicked face. Maybe because he wasn’t a typical adult. Maybe because he had no shame. No shame whatsoever.

There should be some shame.

Some shame is good .

“It’s touching each other’s genitals for pleasure.” There—did it. Said it. Over. Thank you, god. I rubbed the side of my burning face.

“And mouth stuff?”

I dropped my forehead into my palm. Would the torture never end?

“Mouth stuff…that’s.” Oh, crap. Like his favorite thing. I looked up at him. “It’s tasting.”

His mouth tweaked up flashing his eye teeth. A gentle rumble vibrated.

“Just you calm the heck down.” I pointed at him. “There’s three bases to get through before that happens again.”

“Not fear.” He brushed aside my hand and clasped the tops of my arms. “Will win all favors and claim mating.”

His scent washed against me. An intoxicating mix of man and earth I hadn’t noticed before but now made me want to sag against him.

I cleared my throat, and eased back. “Well, I’m sure it will be easy for a mighty warrior like you.”

“Will not fail you, my wife.” His voice vibrated, and he said it so deeply.

So sincerely.

Oh, god. I actually believed him.

I had to find a way out of here before he did exactly as promise. I tried for a smile which didn’t quite make it to my clenched teeth. “Well then, the faster you do, the more it’ll impress me.”

He nodded and collected his cloak and helmet. “Will not make wait long.”

“I’ll be right here.” I held up a hand and waved.

Unless I discovered a way not to be.