The giant spun on his heel at my voice and looked down at me, then crouched, an intentional move so he was closer to my level.
“I am Rager, one of your mates.”
He wasn’t speaking English, but I understood him. Strange. Oh yeah. I touched my fingers to the bump on my temple above my ear. Warden Egara mentioned I would be prepared for transport, including receiving an NPU, a Neural Processing Unit. She said it was a translation device that would actually wire itself directly into the language centers of my brain so I could understand every language in the galaxy. It had seemed impossible, until now.
“Rager.” His name suited him. His hands rested on his thighs—his powerful, big thighs—and I couldn’t miss how large they were. Yes, everything about him was big. My eyes widened. “You’re my mate?”
His golden eyes softened to something that made my nipples harden instantly. There was more than just lust there. I wasn’t quite sure what, but my body reacted as if he’d just given me an hour-long massage. Was I turning into a puddle? Right now? “I mean, um. Wow. Nice to meet you.”
I held out my right hand and he looked confused for a moment before enveloping it in his much larger one. He held my palm in his, the fingertips of his other hand stroked my arm, the inside of my wrist, and I bit my lip as heat engulfed me. Not just from him, but from the other four hands that still touched me, helping me remain upright.
So hot. God, I couldn’t breathe.
Tearing my gaze from Rager’s, I couldn’t help but hope that everything on him was big. I licked my lips at the possibility. My mate? He was gorgeous.
He grinned then and I swear I felt my ovaries jump for joy. Wow. I couldn’t believe this guy was my mate? The one I’d been matched to? I’d sat in the testing chair earlier and had this really hot dream. A sex dream where I was tied up and taken. Yes, taken. Rough and hard, gentle and wild. Things I’d never done, positions I only wished I’d tried before. And I’d felt so damn good. I’d actually come not once, not twice, but three times before Warden Egara had cruelly woken me. My pussy had been so needy and wet the back of my testing gown had been soaked.
The last few months in that stupid prison cell hadn’t helped curb my need for a good, hard orgasm. I’d always enjoyed sex, or at least not been one of those women who was afraid to tell my lover what I wanted, or how I liked to be touched. The trouble, aside from there not there being any men available to sleep with in the all-women’s prison, was that even on the outside, a lot of guys just didn’t listen.
I’d been approached by several lesbians on the inside, and I’d considered it. But seriously? I loved men. I loved the way their shoulders hulked over me as we fucked, loved their smell, their strength. I loved the way I felt small and at my lover’s mercy. Not that I’d ever talked about that, but I knew. I wanted a man, a dominant, take-charge lover with a big, hard cock and the patience to make me scream.
If this hot alien was my reward for breaking the law, I should have done it a couple of years ago instead of putting up with those lying assholes stealing my code and swatting me on the ass when I walked by. They hadn’t all been bad, but man, a couple bad apples was all it took to ruin the place for everyone who worked there. Especially the women. Two years after the doors opened, I’d been the only woman left.
The information I leaked cost them their IPO, and landed me in jail for insider trading, but I’d been beyond caring. Sure, I could have served my two years and gone on. But then…this.
A mate. A fresh start with the Interstellar Brides Program.
The past was the past. Here I was on an alien world surrounded by hot men. I’d figured I’d get an average guy—alien—from some nice planet to take care of me the rest of my life. I knew from bride program ads and TV commercials that the testing would match me, using various personality and subconscious analysis, to a specific planet. From there, I’d be matched to the perfect mate. But I’d had doubts, the same ones I’d had ever since I became interested in sex. Maybe even before then when I longed to be tied up, to be told what to do by a commanding man, even when I hadn’t understood that interest.
I mean, what guy from another planet would be able to handle my crazy sexual desires? Yeah, I was wired differently than other women. I’d known that since high school when I wasn’t a shy, timid virgin—even when I had been a virgin. My sex drive was higher than other women. I came three times in a testing dream, which, per the Warden, was not normal. So what if I had hot buttons some men hadn’t even wanted to try to push? So what if my inhibitions were low? Pretty much, I’d been called a slut, a freak, a whore. I was none of those things, but it hadn’t mattered. No man had ever wanted me for more than a quick fling, a one-night stand, and it hadn’t ever been that great. So I’d gotten off the damn planet and now here I was. On Viken.
With him.
“Rager,” I repeated, tracing his full lips with my gaze as I imagined running my fingers through his hair. I couldn’t tell exactly how tall he was, but I was pretty damn sure my five-six wouldn’t even reach his chin.
Hot. So hot.
He nodded once, then angled his head toward the other two. “This is Evon.”
The hard-ass blond nodded.
“And Liam.” The black-haired man with stormy-blue eyes.
The first looked like a hard-ass Navy SEAL, the second like a pirate.
The two men still had their hands on me, were still eyeing me like they’d just captured their prey. It seemed odd these two were touching me when Rager was my mate.
“Tell us if you are hurt.” Evon didn’t ask a question, he demanded information and I complied instinctively, wanting to please him for some strange, completely unknown reason I didn’t have time to analyze.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just want to get up off the flo—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Liam—the long, raven-haired hottie—scooped me up into h
is arms and stood.
“Eep,” I said, gripping onto his biceps with one hand and pressing against his chest with the other, worried he’d drop me. Good god, the man was made out of steel. Hot steel. I could feel the sinew of his muscles, corded and well-honed beneath my fingers. There was no way he was going to drop me. Hell, the secure way he held me, I wasn’t sure if he was going to ever put me down. I licked my lips, wondering what all that expanse of torso would look like bare.
Before me stood the blond man. His hair was cropped short, close to his head, and his pale blue eyes were cold as ice, his focus absolute. On me.