Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
And there was something lying between them.
Frowning, she reached out, fingers brushing smooth silicone. The instant her fingertips encountered the long shaft and the little rabbit ears, everything came rushing back, in detail.
Her idea to sneak out and keep observing…the dancing in the Communal Hut…Chief Lowhung’s too-intense gaze and his insistence that she try the “Mating Drink.” She hadn’t taken much, but just a sip of the drink had made her dizzy and hot and… oh, God— so needy. She remembered calling Greer with her Think-me…him bursting in and going into Rage for her, like some avenging war god…carrying her away, back to the hut.
And then the really embarrassing memories came crashing in.
She’d been begging her big Protector to—oh God—to fuck her.
Oh no! Sunny clutched at her pounding head, but the memories from the night before just kept flooding in, refusing to be turned off no matter how hard she tried.
She’d clutched Greer—offered herself to him—desperate to be filled. And instead, he’d used the toy. Again and again, until she’d moaned like a female animal in heat, writhing under him, taking every thrust, every pulse of pleasure without shame or thought for what she must look like as she writhed naked on the bed beside him.
Heat rushed to Sunny’s face now—mortifying, scalding heat. Oh no. No, no, no. She’d been utterly shameless. And now? Now she was paying the price for her own out-of-control body. No wonder she was sore.
Biting her lip, she eased the toy toward her side of the bed, tucking it out of sight. She had to get up, get out of here—get some air before she had to face him.
Also, she had to pee.
She was nude, but she didn’t have the patience to go digging around in her carry-all to get something to wear. Besides, it was still mostly dark in the room, despite the little slivers of gray from the window. She was sure she could get to the bathroom, use it, and get back up into the bed without waking Greer.
And even if he did wake up, it’s not like he hasn’t already seen everything there is to see.
The thought made her wince in shame again. God, she’d been acting completely crazy the night before! How was she ever going to face her Protector again?
She was so distracted by her thoughts that she barely noticed the rustling sound—a little like dry leaves—coming from the floor.
Carefully, she slid down the side of the mattress until her toes touched the little carved steps—the “bed steps” as their Thropp’ian guide had called them.
The rustling grew louder.
Sunny was too preoccupied to pay it much attention—just one more step and she could hobble off to the fresher and pretend last night hadn’t happened. Well, at least until Greer woke up, that was.
She stepped down.
Crunch.
Sunny froze.
“What the hell—?”
It felt… squishy. Like she’d stepped on an egg. But what would an egg be doing on the—
She squinted into the shadows, and her blood turned to ice.
The floor was moving.
No. Not moving. Crawling.
A wave of chitinous bodies shifted and clicked over each other, their long antennae twitching as they crawled across the hut’s floor.
Sunny’s whole body seemed to turn to ice.
“Oh… oh, no…” she whispered.
The guide’s cheerful warning from the day before flashed through her mind. The skuttlers. Thropp’ian pests. Nighttime intruders. Giant, roach-like scavengers that came into every hut every single night, no matter what the residents did to try and keep them out.
They were like the Palmetto bugs back home in Florida only much, much bigger.
Her stomach dropped.
What if they can fly? Palmetto bugs can!
Pure instinct took over and her frozen body seemed to thaw all at once. She screamed—a high-pitched, full-volume, horror-movie shriek—and scrambled backward, nearly toppling the bed stairs in her rush to get off the floor.
Up on the bed, Greer’s big form sprang upright—he was instantly awake, moving with the lethal alertness of a trained warrior.
“Sunny—what is it?!” he demanded.
“Roaches!” she wailed. “The giant, disgusting, probably flying kind!”
“Hang on—I’ve got you.” He vaulted off the bed and landed a few feet from her.
He was reaching for her when one of the skuttlers skittered over her foot and Sunny panicked, knocking the steps over completely in her scramble to get away. With no way back up to the bed, she made the only logical choice—she launched herself straight at Greer.
He caught her mid-air with a grunt, her legs wrapping around his waist, and her arms around his neck.
“By the Goddess!” he growled, but his hands instinctively gripped her bare thighs, holding her up as she clung to him like he was the last tree in a flood and she was clinging for dear life.
Sunny buried her face against his neck, shuddering. “Kill them! Kill them all. I hate roaches!”
22
GREER
At first, Greer thought he was still dreaming.
One moment he was deep in that hazy gray space between sleep and waking, the next he was wide awake and standing on a floor that was crawling with motion.