“So… there are hidden cameras set up at my apartment, too? Just like at my office?” Another dumb question, but I needed to have it spelled out.

He stared me dead in the eyes as he answered without apology, “Yes. Several.”

“Why?”

“I like watching you, Amy.” His knuckles grazed my cheekbone. “A lot.”

I swallowed. “In every room?”

“All the important ones.”

What did that mean? “I don’t understand.”

But I did. I just didn’t want to.

“It’s simple, Amy.” His lips dusted my forehead as I felt the weight of his words brand me in other places. “I like recording you. I enjoy watching you.” He kissed my lids, my nose. “Especially when you touch yourself. In your bed. The shower. That one time in the living room…”

Oh, God.

“I like to imagine what you might be thinking. About me.”

This wasn’t hot.

“The naughty things you fantasize about us doing.”

It wasn’t hot.

My nipples disagreed. My pussy did too.

Everything about Vair that should not have been a turn-on to me somehow was. And there was nothing about it that I could rationally reconcile.

His arm locked around my waist, and his other hand slipped under my oversized shirt, between my ass cheeks, to cup my bare center from behind. I pressed both hands to his chest, pushing against him. He didn’t move. “We have to stop,” I protested. “We have nothing in common.”

“You just said it yourself: We’re both only children. As solid a foundation as any for a relationship.”

I groaned. This was all madness.

“This can’t work.”

“My darling, it’s already working.” His mouth dropped to my neck, kissing and sucking the sensitive skin there. “You’re dripping wet.”

“But we’re not… compatible.” I moaned as his fingers found my drenched center.

My hands had found their way to his shoulders, but they were no longer pushing him away.

They were clawing him closer.

“I’m not a sex-club person,” I tried to argue through the haze of lust swiftly enveloping me. “I’m not into all that… kinky… stuff.”

I heard the quiet laughter deep in his chest, felt it in the quaking of his shoulders beneath my grip. “Of course you aren’t, darling. Yet you endure it so well for me.”

Before I knew it, I was being held high in his arms. We’d both been stripped naked by some force of K technology, and my legs were locked around Vair’s waist. His hot tongue rhythmically stroked the depths of my mouth as the blunt tip of his erection pressed into my entrance.

And then he kept me there, his cock barely inside me, while he whispered filthy promises, his fingers teasing back and forth along the cleft of my ass to the point where we were joined—until I was desperately wiggling against his hold in my effort to shimmy down and impale myself.

Still, he didn’t relent.

I took to begging when his fingers slipped between us and he proceeded to tease my clit until my insides clenched, my arousal dripping down to coat the stubborn, hard cock lodged too shallowly within.

But begging didn’t satisfy.

No, only when I began to admit, at his prompting, to all the things that I liked about his club, to confess to my dirtiest masturbation fantasies, did he slowly lower me onto his thick shaft.

By that time, I was so thankful that I cried out with every inch given. I whimpered and arched my pelvis into him as he lifted and lowered me, going a little deeper each time, my body welcoming and worshipping his length as it stretched my walls and split me open until finally he was fully inside.

Then he seated us both in one of the floating chairs and told me to take what I wanted from him.

And I did.

With my legs astride his hips, my knees dug into the soft but firm surface beneath us, and I began to ride him, my hips circling, moving up and down, raising and lowering. He groaned as I sucked his tongue into my mouth, kissing him with a wanton abandon that matched my body’s movements.

His fingers dug into my ass cheeks. His hips tilted up to deepen the penetration as I impaled myself over and over again. “So tight.” He grunted. “So perfect.”

His hands grew rough and urgent on my breasts as I bounced and rolled my body up and down, lost in the sensation of his cock spearing me so deeply, relishing the freedom and control I had over our union.

His fingers pressed urgently against my clit, and I muffled my cries against his neck, my mouth latching on, sucking and savoring the scent and taste of his skin.

“That’s it…” His voice was hoarse. “Just like that, darling. Mark me.”

My inner muscles clenched harder at his words, gripping him possessively as I came undone.

“Fuck. You’re all mine. Forever,” he growled.

My internal walls seized around him and my teeth sank reflexively into his neck as my body flew apart, convulsing in orgasm.

He took control of our movements then, ramming his length into me, his big hands on my ass jerking me up and down in a rapid frenzy as he roared and cursed, emptying everything he had to give deep within me.

After my mind-blowing orgasm had receded and my brain was able to process things beyond blind lust, I settled into a bout of post-coitus remorse once more. Vair’s “all mine forever” proclamation may have had something to do with it—reminding me of Zyrnase and Tauce’s remarks about me being “Vair’s human.”

Krinar property.

I remained quiet as Vair and I showered together. After our shower, he insisted on shining a strange red light from a thin silvery medical device over any areas where he feared he’d left bruises or scratches on my skin. He explained that it utilized nanocyte healing technology.

I allowed it. But when he wanted to insert the tampon-sized healing device Shalee had used on me in order to heal any potential internal abrasions, I snapped and more or less told him to chill his shit, saying that my pussy and I weren’t that fragile and that I didn’t mind having an ache to remember him by for the next few days.

I probably should’ve left it at that when he backed off and didn’t press the issue, but instead, I brought up the mystery of my improved eyesight, and asked him point-blank whether he had done something to heal my vision.

His answer was an unapologetic yes, confirming what I had already pretty much known.

Once again, I fell silent, conflicted over whether to be grateful or angry about his interference.

I watched with detached fascination as he fabricated clothing for me to wear out of thin air—a long-sleeved, lightweight casual tunic dress in a pale shade of blue, along with a pair of nude low-heeled shoes. This explained his ability to make those rapid wardrobe changes I’d witnessed. Or more accurately, his ability to get naked in seconds flat.

It was all very surreal. So foreign and overwhelming that I felt myself detaching more and more to avoid freaking out. Because in the back of my mind, I was growing increasingly afraid that he wouldn’t allow me to leave.

“So… what happens next?” I finally worked up the courage to ask as I slipped on the shoes he’d made me.

“Well, I was thinking we might eat a very late breakfast together,” he proposed with an adoring smile. “Maybe go for a stroll. Talk. We could also stay here,” he offered, a hint of something carnal in his dark eyes. The alien was insatiable. “What would you like to happen next, Amy?”

His indulgent smile and the gentle way he’d asked that almost made me want to go for that stroll with him.

But I had to know where I stood.

I swallowed. “Um… I’d like to go home. To my apartment. Alone?”

He stared at me for a beat, pursed his lips, and nodded slowly. “Okay. Zyrnase can take you. Or Robert. But I’d like for you to eat something before you go if you’re up for it.”

He was going to let me go? Just like that?

And there was a Krinar named Bob?

“And then I can go? If—if I eat first?”

His dark eyes turned stony. “Amy, you can go now, without eating, if you like. But I think you’ll feel better if you get some food into your stomach. We had a long night together. And morning.”

He was really letting me go?

“But what you said before about, um… me belonging to—I mean, being all yours—”

“You’re not my prisoner, Amy.” His voice was flat, his tone weary. “I’ll get Robert for you.” He left the bedroom.

And he didn’t come back. Not even to say goodbye.

Eventually, Zyrnase came to tell me that my ride was downstairs.

The Krinar named Bob wasn’t actually a Krinar at all. He was a middle-aged human guy from Queens. He drove me back to my apartment.

Alone.