‘Down here somewhere’. Oh, this guy is definitely from the upper levels. If the giant tip he’s paid wasn’t enough of a giveaway, he’s too clean, and he smells lovely - like sea salt and vanilla. I still don’t know what he is exactly, but whatever it is, I have never seen his species come into Mama Z’rykby’s looking for a house-servant or bed-slave.

“Well, I’m really happy you happened to be here to help me out with… you know,” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the creepy Yoxxarii, “…that situation.” It’s just as my arm falls back down to my lap that I’m reminded of a teeny-tiny detail that should have me freaking-the-fuck-out. The details stamped on my arm - details that those assholes saw. “Oh, shit!” I gasp, slapping my arm tightly to my chest. “Ohhh, no. No, no, no.” My hand slides up my face and into my hair, gripping it tightly at the roots like I might start pulling it out.

“What is it?”

“The Yoxxarii,” I say, holding out my arm now for my new friend here to see. “They saw where to purchase me. They’re for sure going to buy me as soon as they can, and then-” God, I might start hyperventilating. What if they buy Jaya and Lois too? There’s three of them. What if they each want food they can fuck to really round off the night perfectly?!

“They will not,” my big patron drawls.

All I can do is stare at him, silently wishing he had blasted their brains out right here in the club when he had the chance. My tongue rolls out to wet my lips and I ask, “they won’t?”

He clears his throat and shifts his hips beneath me again. “Because I will follow them from this place and kill them.” He’d said the words so calmly, and yet his jaw ticks as he looks over at the group of paper-white, people-eating assholes. “I would have done it earlier but I’d prefer to be discreet.”

He was so damn casual about it all that it instantly started to calm my oncoming panic attack. It was like he’d just offered to give me a ride home or something, not take out three, incredibly dangerous males.

I stare at him, so very grateful for the offer of casual murder on my behalf, but still a bit confused. “What are you?” I need to figure out if I can trust him. Do I go along with his offer to just stay here on his lap or do I leave? What services is he going to want? Will he want some kind of repayment for saving me or killing those Yoxxarii?

The gray alien’s mouth tips up on one side. “Xaviann,” he answers, like I’m meant to know what that means. I start trying to wrack my brains as to whether Yix has ever told me anything about the Xaviann race. “And what are you, little creature?”

“Human.”

He nods his head contemplatively. “Are human females normally so trusting of males?”

“What makes you think I trust anyone here at all?”

Because I really don’t.

His green gaze lingers on my neck and collarbone before the Raxilli server returns with two tall, slim glasses filled with green bubbling liquid. My new Xaviann friend thanks her before he takes one and indicates for me to take the other. I pick up the glass but don’t drink. I’m thirsty as hell, but I don’t know what this stuff is or how it affects humans. Besides, I need to keep my head clear in a place like this.

“Because females where I am from would not freely seat themselves on the lap of a male,” he says, answering my previous question. “That would demonstrate great trust in the male indeed,” he adds, taking a gulp of drink and putting the glass back down. I watch as he idly wipes at the condensation on the outside with his big, charcoal gray thumb.

“But it wasn’t free, was it?” I comment, tipping my glass toward the glowing credit-orb lit up with the obscene amount this man has paid to get me out of a fucked-up situation.

He says nothing, but I can feel his eyes on me as I look away to scan the room, my gaze barely flitting over where the Yoxxarii still sit, glaring at me. I can also feel that this guy is still tense, and that he’s not touched me once. Normally when I have no other choice but to sit in a lap, there’s touching. Even the most respectful guys in here (which isn’t saying much), pull me in close and wrap an arm around me.

Maybe he doesn’t even want me to sit on him? Maybe that’s why he brought it up?

My cheeks flame at the thought. “I’m sorry,” I say, making a move to get off him and find somewhere else to park my butt in this booth. “Did you not want me to sit-”

“No,” both his huge hands come up, practically covering my thighs as they grip and pull me back down. As soon as he’d initiated the touch, it leaves me, like my skin had burned him or something. “Sorry,” he says, holding his hands up as if in surrender. “I don’t want you to leave my lap is all I mean. Please-” I watch as he swallows thickly, “-please stay. I’m just not used to females allowing such close contact. It is only done in very special circumstances where I am from.”

“Special circumstances?”

My Xaviann friend nods and I’m struck by just how handsome and strong his features are.

“Like what?” I hear myself asking, melting into him a little.

His gaze roams my face, lingering on my mouth. “Breeding,” he answers, and for a moment we just stare at one another before he seems to be the one to shake us out of the stupor. He clears his throat and takes another gulp of his bubbly green drink.

I don’t know what it is, but my gut feeling about this guy is that he won’t take advantage of me. He’s not like the usual patrons in this place. I need to keep this man on my side. I need for him to make good on his promise of casual murder on my behalf. If a little bit of proximity and some touching will do that, then I am more than down for that with him right now. Hell, if it means Jaya, Lois and I don’t end up in the belly of a Yoxxarii, then I’ll get on my knees and blow him right here, right now.

I wiggle in his lap a little, shifting until I feel a sizable swelling in those riding britches of his. He sucks in a breath and holds it as I continue to make myself comfortable, the front strip of fabric from my ‘skirt’ - if you could call it that - falling between my thighs, leaving my legs completely bare all the way up to my hips. I’m a curvy girl with more than my fair share of wobbly bits and cellulite, but considering the situation I’m in now, for once in my life, I couldn’t give a shit. Taking the male’s drink from his hand, I place both of them back down on the table and grab him by the wrists, guiding his hands to touch my thighs, just like he had with his knee-jerk reaction to me leaving his lap. “You can touch, if you like,” I tell him, shifting and leaning back against his chest.

The big male groans, and lets his head fall back as if I really were taking him in my mouth right now. His hands twitch on my legs as though they’re resisting the urge to squeeze me. I move his hands for him, guiding him up and down the tops of my thighs, my hips, my waist.

His head has straightened again - I can tell because I can feel his ragged breath in my hair. “You are… very soft,” he murmurs, sounding almost transfixed. I lean back further into him and I swear I can feel his heart beating a mile-a-minute at my back. “You should not be so… uncovered,” he leans down to tell me, his breath now tickling the patch of skin behind my ear. “Such a soft female should never be left so vulnerable.”

“I think that’s the whole point to a place like this,” I tell him, my hands leaving his movements, allowing him to continue gently mapping out the hills and valleys of my body on his own. I find myself reaching up and back, my hands blindly locating his big, ridged horns and smoothing up before wrapping my fingers around one of them.

“Fuuck,” the Xaviann curses. “This really isn’t wise, little human,” he protests weakly, one of his arms banding up and across my chest, holding me to him like a firm seatbelt, his thick fingers starting to delicately trace my collarbone and brush over my throat. I can feel his hot breath, sending goosebumps skittering all over my skin as he softly runs the tip of his nose up my neck. “I have never met a female so trusting,” he says, as if talking to himself. “It is intoxicating.”