I squirm a little as I walk, turned on as hell all over again. Maybe I should think about baseball. Nydo would look delicious in baseball pants, no shirt.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t think about baseball.

Uhhhh, okay.

Maybe I should think about what the hell is going on between us. Other than the literally hot sex, trying to parse out my snarled emotions when it comes to this shitty agreement between us is sure to be a buzz kill.

Hot sex.

I’m so focused on remembering exactly how good it was between us that I don’t notice Nydo until he’s on top of me, pinning me to the wall.

“Female,” he growls, the darkness in his eyes receding in favor of the wild orange flames that only drive my sudden need higher. “You are making it hard for me to concentrate, and I need to navigate our ship into space.”

“I can’t control your concentration.” I lift my chin, refusing to apologize. He stares at me for a moment, and I watch him right back, waiting.

And I see the exact moment something snaps in him, his eyes burning with that inner, nameless inferno. His hands snatch my wrists, pinning me in place, his lips brushing across mine. Softly, first, gently, the barest of touches, and the bastard knows exactly what he’s doing, because the instant I moan, the instant I try to take more…

He pulls away with a wicked smile. When I pout, he dips his mouth towards mine once again, and this time? This time I bite his lower lip—not hard, but hard enough to elicit a growl that turns me absolutely feral with need.

“Enough,” he says, his voice so low and dark it makes my nipples prick.

With that, he releases my wrists, only to scoop me up and throw me over his shoulder.

I squeal in surprise, and he slaps a hand on my ass. Hard enough to sting through my pants.

“That’s not very nice,” I tell him, and then, because I’m hanging over his shoulder, I spank him right back.

“You like it, female. I can smell your cunt getting wetter by the moment.”

“Don’t call me female,” I say automatically, trying to ignore the rest of that statement.

“I can smell your ripe pussy, and I bet it’s dripping for me, isn’t it?”

It shouldn’t be so fucking hot when he says that. It shouldn’t make everything clench up in anticipation, but it does. I must still be in a pretty bad way if the phrase “ripe pussy” has me horny as a hotdog on a stick.

“I don’t know,” I finally answer primly. “And we have other things to worry about, like getting into space safely. I wouldn’t want to be a distraction.”

He rubs my butt with one hand, the other hooked behind my knees to keep me in place. Not that I have a snowball’s chance in hell of moving. His arms are like vise grips.

I gasp in surprise as his hand delves between my legs, and I grip his sides as best I can, hanging on for dear life as he manages to rub me in all the right ways through the fabric of my pants.

“Just like I thought. Your honey already drips for me.”

A second later, he’s flipping me back over his shoulder, plunking me down in the navigator’s chair. I’m nearly panting, and I can’t shake the feeling that I should feel… annoyed by the spanking, by his manhandling, but it was really hot.

So I just blink at him, out of sorts, as he smirks at me, strapping the webbing over my chest.

I slap his hands away. “I’m not an idiot. I can strap myself in.”

“Did you ever think that maybe I simply enjoy doing things for you?” Nydo rumbles, his little smirk widening as I stumble over a sassy retort.

It’s hard to be sassy when my brain refuses to divert any energy from my sex drive to my other functions. Sex drive: 99%, Common Sense: 1%, Sassy Retorts: 0.

“Are you trying to deny it?” he asks, clearly reading into my silence.

“I thought you were in a hurry to leave,” I deflect.

If he’s going to lord his sexual prowess and my body’s natural response to him over me, then I’ll be damned if I’m going to make things easy for him. I bite back a little grin.

Might be even better if it’s not easy for him, anyway.

He finally grunts, turning away from me.

I purse my lips, studying him as he works his way through the pre-flight checks and then straps into his own chair. Nydo’s clearly as at ease flying a ship as he is ordering people around. And ordering me around in bed.

My cheeks heat, and his gaze slides over to me, a cocky grin on his face, like he knows what I was just thinking about.

Fuck.

He can probably tell just by the way I smell.

“How long have you been flying?” I make myself ask. It’s small talk, and not even good chit-chat, but it’s something to talk about at least.

Besides, I know almost nothing about this male that was fucking my brains out not even an hour ago.

“I learned to fly at seven, like most Roth.” His voice changes, turning thoughtful. “My mother taught me.” His words are quiet, and I strain to hear him as the engines thrum louder, gearing up to take us into the atmosphere. “She loved to fly. She was an excellent teacher.”

He falls silent, and I blink as the interior lights dim. Nydo’s hands dance over the controls, and then we’re in the air.

My stomach drops, like it always does when I realize the ground has fallen away.

“My mother would have liked you,” Nydo says, and it takes me a moment to register the compliment. “She was a great judge of character.”

“Oh,” I say, not sure how to respond to that. “Thank you?” Is this the same male that was smacking my ass and feeling me up only seconds ago?

Talk about whiplash.

The ship shudders as we rise further, higher, the still-burning Roth destroyer shrinking as we put distance between ourselves and the wreckage.

“My mother was one of the few Roth that believed in taking a gentle hand with children.”

“It must have been awful when she… was taken,” I say, surprising myself.

He spares a glance at me.

The ship shakes as we hit the atmosphere, fire burning all across the exterior, the shields taking the majority of the stress as the red and orange glow blazes across my eyes. My fingers clutch at the safety webbing, and I grit my teeth.

I’ve done this a hundred times.

But never alone with a Roth.

Never on the way to a planet full of aliens who attacked Earth.

And never as their pretend queen.

Nausea rolls through me, and I take a deep breath, counting to four. Holding for four. Blowing it out.

“Your scent has changed.” He stares at me, and I make myself look at him. My jaw twitches. “You are afraid.”

“I am… nervous.”

“I will take care of you. You have nothing to fear.”

He’s so sure of himself. So damn cocky, like he alone can wipe away all my anxiety.

“You asked about the scar on my back.”

The fire on the outside of the ship dies, and we’re through the atmosphere.

Black rolls all around us, the planet already smaller as Nydo steers the ship away.

“I did,” he agrees. He folds his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes at me. “You didn’t seem to want to tell me.”

“I got it in the Roth invasion, Nydo.” It comes out quieter than I intended. Soft. I hate the way my voice shakes. I take another deep breath, trying to calm myself.

The orange flares in his eyes. Heightened emotion, I realize. They turn orange when he’s turned on, or pissed off, or really happy.

“I was trapped in a building that was hit by an explosion. A plas grenade, I figured out later. Something fell on me, sliced me open.” I take a massive breath, inhaling so much, so fast it makes my chest hurt, the webbing pressing against me. “I thought I was going to die that day. I never even thought aliens were real. And there I was, trapped in a burning building, while Roth raged outside, ravaging my city.”

He blinks at me, the orange fire guttering, his eyes turning deepest black, black as the void of space all around us. They could swallow me up, his eyes, or burn me down.