Buy you dinner? I need not buy you food. I have a replicator right here. Do you require sustenance?”

“Sure. Sustenance. The food in the refugee camp pretty much sucks. You can only eat oatmeal and spaghetti so many days in a row before you never want to eat that again.”

“Very well. What meals do you prefer?”

“A big juicy steak might be nice. Mashed potatoes with creamy butter. Biscuits. Oo. Wait. No. Sushi. Wait… Pho. No. Chicken teriyaki. Oh my god, I’d die for a bacon cheeseburger.”

She couldn’t decide what she wanted to eat first. She’d spent two months in a refugee camp subsisting on crappy scraps. Her stomach gurgled at the idea of a full meal.

“I have no idea what those things are,” he said. He seemed angry that he didn’t know something. She had to stifle a giggle.

“What about your food replicator? Does it have human food in it?”

“I’ve been told the other males have begun to adjust things for their brides. It is possible your food preferences are already available in the replicator.”

Joss strode across the room and pressed his foot onto a spot on the floor. He stepped back, and a circular table with a bench around it sprang up from the floor. He waved his hand over the center of the table and a hologram popped up in front of him.

“What would you prefer to eat?” he asked.

Octavia thought for a moment, her stomach gurgling. She could have anything she wanted to eat and the prospect was almost too overwhelming to decide.

“I’ll have a bacon cheeseburger,” she said, finally. “With French fries.”

“All right,” he said, flicking his finger over the holographic screen. “Whatever that is.”

“You should have one too,” she said. “You can start learning about the people whose world you’re trying to reconstruct.”

She smirked at him, but he didn’t look up from the hologram. A second later, two plates popped up from the table out of nowhere. She could smell the scent of bacon cheeseburger waft through the air toward her. Her mouth watered uncontrollably and her stomach lurched. She hadn’t had meat in weeks.

Octavia bounded across the room and sat in front of one of the plates. She was almost too excited to eat. Almost. She gripped the perfect bacon cheeseburger in her hands and lifted it to her mouth. She took her first bite and chewed, the flavors spreading over her tongue. It was so delicious. She never would have imagined in her old life that something as simple as a bacon cheeseburger would give her so much pleasure.

“Oh my God, this is so good. Sit down, you’re making me nervous standing over the table like that.”

He growled and slid into the bench in front of his own plate. He lifted the burger to his face and sniffed, frowning.

“What is this, anyway?” he asked.

“I told you, it’s a bacon cheeseburger.”

“Where does it originate?”

“Well, burgers come from cows and bacon comes from pigs. Do you eat meat on Draconia?”

“We did, in the distant past. Now, most of our food comes from replicators. It is more civilized and uses less resources.”

“So, where do the ‘resources’ come from to make this food?” she asked, curious as hell as to what kind of energy sources they used.

“The replicator is fueled, like all our machines, from the energy of the void of space.”

“The void of space?”

“Yes. There are vast storehouses of energy within every square inch of space in the universe. There is enough energy in a teacup to fuel the entire Earth for a decade. I’ve heard that your people used fossil fuels to propel your machinery. So infantile and backwards.”

He scoffed and took a bite of his hamburger. Octavia frowned at him. She had to agree that human energy systems were outdated and insufficient while at the same time destroying the planet, but he didn’t have to be such a jerk about it.

“Your bacon cheeseburger is not repulsive,” he said.

“So, there’s something about humans that you like?” she said, mocking him.

“I didn’t say I liked it. I said it was not repulsive.”

“I can see the distinction. Like the way that you are not repulsive to me,” she said, giving him a meaningful look.

“It pleases me that I am not repulsive to you. It is a start, and all that is required from you to perform your function.”

“Joss, has anyone ever told you that you’re super romantic? Really, you should write greeting cards.”

“I have been told I’m romantic. Long ago. Finish your meal, and we will proceed with the mating process.”

“Hold your horses there, big boy. I said you’re not repulsive. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to let you ‘spill your seed’ on me.” Octavia made air quotes around the words.

He gave her a shocked expression as if she were being a tease or something. She certainly was not being a tease. She didn’t even know how she could be a tease in this situation. Although, maybe she was. She had entered the lottery with a completely different purpose in mind than hooking up with a Draconian.

Maybe she’d have to bite the bullet and give in to the arrangement to some degree if she ever wanted to accomplish what she’d come here to do. She licked her lips and gave him a pleasing expression. As pleasing as she could possibly muster, anyway.

“We just met. I understand we need to do this whole mating process thing. But generally, humans don’t start doing a mating process when they’ve just met each other. In fact, it’s kind of considered taboo. No sex on the first date and all that. You know?”

“I do not know. Your words are confusing and irrelevant.”

“Would you not say stuff like that? It’s totally rude,” she said. How was she supposed to warm up to him if he talked to her like that? “My words aren’t irrelevant. Lesson number one about human women: Don’t tell us our words are irrelevant if you want to get in our panties.”

“What are panties?”

Octavia sighed and rolled her eyes. This wasn’t getting anywhere. She’d have to take some kind of new tactic.

“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered.

“And you say your words aren’t irrelevant,” he said smugly.

“Touché. If we’re going to start the mating process, you’re going to have to help me out. It’s not common for human females to just let someone come on them as soon as they meet.”

“But I am your mate, human woman. Does that mean nothing to you?”

“As a matter of fact, not really.”

“What do you require?” he said in a tone that suggested she was exhausting him. He’d been exhausting her from the moment he’d landed on her planet. But pointing that out wouldn’t help anything.

“Do you have any, like, you know, foreplay on Draconia?”

“What is foreplay?”

“Have you had sex before?” she asked, realizing he probably never had, even with a Draconian female.

“That is irrelevant.”

“Would you stop saying everything is irrelevant? It’s really annoying. Here’s the thing, I’ve had sex before. I actually know what works. So, if you want to do this thing, I suggest you listen to me.”

“What do you require?” His voice was becoming even more irritated and exhausted sounding.

“I could use a shower,” she said. “I haven’t bathed in two months.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“I thought it was irrelevant,” Octavia said mockingly.

“That is the one relevant thing that you’ve said since you arrived,” he said.

“How am I supposed to know what you think is relevant?”

“Just…stop talking. The bath is right this way,” he said, standing from the table and walking towards the door that led into the bedroom.

She followed him through the bedroom that consisted of one big rectangular foam mattress and nothing else. Then they walked into a bathroom where there was a big pool of white stone. It was circular and deep, looking as if it could accommodate a Draconian’s seven-foot height. There was a circular walkway that led up around the outside so that one could lower themselves onto the series of benches along the inside.

“Wow, that looks freaking amazing,” she said.

He tapped a few buttons and the water began to pour at an amazing speed into the tub. It felt much faster than she would’ve thought possible. She climbed up to the top and sat on the brim. It looked as if it were sunk into the floor, making it even deeper than she had originally thought.

Octavia put her hand to the hem of her sweatshirt and was about to pull it off when she met his gaze. She frowned. She wasn’t into the idea of taking her clothes off in front of him. Not yet, anyway.

“Do you mind?” she asked, widening her eyes and staring at him meaningfully.

“Do I mind what?”

“Do you mind getting the hell out of here?”

“And you consider me rude?”

“Just go,” she said. “We can talk about who’s ruder after my bath.”

“You may dry yourself under the pressurized fan,” he said, walking out of the room with a shrug.

She pulled off her clothes as soon as the door was closed and dipped her toe into the warm water. It was so luxurious and amazing, she almost had a full body orgasm the minute she sank into the warm liquid.

Octavia sat on one of the higher stone benches and sighed. She had been getting used to her own stink, but nobody ever really gets used to that. There were some bottles along the brim of the tub that she assumed must be soap. She lifted one of the bottles and squirted some of the contents into her palm. It smelled floral and musky at the same time and gave her a little jolt of excitement in her core.

Interesting.

She rubbed the soap into her hair and over her body, washing off months of terror, heartache, and pain.

She could stay in the tub for the rest of her life. The water never seemed to go cold, no matter how long she sat there. The one thing this bathroom was missing was a big screen TV or a book that couldn’t get wet in the water.

Finally, she decided that it was probably time to get out. She climbed up over the brim and walked down along the circular staircase to the floor. Joss had mentioned something about a pressurized fan, but she’d never heard of such a thing and preferred to go with what she knew.

Octavia found something that she assumed was a towel and used it to dry her body. She wrapped it around herself and looked down at her dirty clothes on the floor. The last thing she wanted to do was put those back on. She’d have to just go with the towel for now and ask Joss if he could help her find some other clothing to wear.

She walked out of the bathroom to find Joss sitting on the big rectangular mattress completely naked with a massive erection the size of her forearm.

“What the hell?” she shrieked.

“I was simply preparing for you,” he said, narrowing his brown eyes at her as if she had annoyed him.

Seriously?

She covered her eyes with her hands and waved the other one out in front of her.

“I didn’t want to see that,” she said.

“Didn’t want to see what?”

“Your cock! Jesus, can we work up to that?”

“I do not understand all of your human proclivities. It is crucial that we begin the mating process immediately. I did not wish to have a human mate, but my inner dragon has been roused into the most frantic state. If I do not appease him, I will soon lose my mind.”

“I think you’ve already lost your mind,” she said, her hands still firmly over her eyes.

“I assure you, I have not.”

There was no getting out of this. She’d stalled as long as she could. It was the zero hour. The moment of truth. She was going to have to let him get off on her body.