Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance by Scarlett Rhone Page B

mind, he knew this was folly. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him: the pain, the drugs, the betrayal of his brothers, or just the adrenaline of the games. He’d always been able to put the violence and need aside after the games, but he wanted the donara suddenly, more powerfully than he’d ever wanted anything. Except home. He couldn’t have home, but the donara was here and soft and warm, and had saved his life. Twice.
    “Careful,” she whispered, breath hot against his lips, as she straddled him on the cot. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
    He kissed her again, then tilted her head back so he could kiss her jaw, her throat. “You won’t hurt me.”
    He felt her hands on his shoulders, and lifted a hand between them to unzip the front of her armor suit, from her collar down to her navel. He lifted his head to look into her eyes as he started pulling it off her shoulders, down her arms and exposing her breasts, and he watched a crisp pink blush spread all through her pale skin. Astonishing. Gorgeous. He lowered his head to kiss that color, from her breasts up to her throat again, and she leaned back against his hands and shuddered through a deep breath. It wasn’t until he felt her skin shiver against his that Vega came back to himself a little.
    He lifted his head, bringing her close to him again, and looked into her face.
    She was still flushed pink, breath a little deep, but she looked back at him and he saw confusion climb into her eyes.
    “Are you doing this because you think you have to?” he asked her.
    The color in her cheeks ripened.
    “Don’t I?” she asked softly.
    The passion in Vega’s veins began to cool. He shook his head a little. “I fell,” he said. “I doubt I finished at the top of the lists. And even if I did, the domina did not say the victor could have you, after last night. She withheld the decision. You’re not mine to claim.”
    “I’m not anyone's to claim,” the girl said, eyes suddenly steely. “I just meant...I thought that...I thought you and I were supposed to…”
    Supposed to . That was damning. Vega looked down, his hands on her sides loosening their grip. Then he caught the sleeves of her suit and started lifted them back towards her shoulders, encouraging her arms into them.
    “I’ve no claim to you,” he said again. “I thought you wanted this.”
    “I’m not saying I don’t,” the donara said, though she shoved her arms through the sleeves of her suit. When Vega looked at her face again, she was frowning at him. “I don’t know my way here. I’m trying to do what I have to, to survive.”
    Vega felt a bitter laugh get stuck in his throat. “I’m what you have to do to survive?”
    That hurt, and he wasn’t sure why. It shouldn’t have. She was doing what she thought she was supposed to, and here he’d thought perhaps there was something more. He didn’t know why he’d thought that, it had just been...something he felt. Something in the way she kissed him. In the echo of his name, her voice meeting the crowd’s.
    “Aren’t you?” she asked.
    And he realized. “I don’t know your name.”
    She frowned, looking down into the scant space between them. “Alaina.”
    The pain of his wounds started to overwhelm the hum of his desire, and he sat back against the pillow she’d propped at his back, his hands falling away from her completely. “Alaina, I won’t touch you again unless you want me to. Donara or not. I very much doubt the domina will give you to me after last night, or after my turn in the Arena today. I know what it is to be forced to do things to people that you don’t wish for.”
    She looked at him strangely then, and for a few seconds he was afraid she was going to ask him to elaborate. He was in such a state at the moment that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to avoid telling her all, and he felt ashamed of himself because normally he was so much better able to keep his thoughts and feelings closed. Right now,