Saved by the Alien Crime Boss (Aliens Among Us #4)

Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Mina stepped into the shower. The hot water felt so good against her chilled flesh, which prickled in goosebumps. She caught the water in her cupped hands, letting the overflow cascade down her breasts and belly to splash on the stone floor.

You weren’t so cold while you were ogling a nearly naked alien.

No, she hadn’t been. She’d been positively burning up. She still was. Mina had never really had much of an opinion when it came to tattoos, but seeing those black markings on Sevik, so stark against his white skin…

Mina wanted to not only run her hands over them, but her tongue.

“Stop it,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

But the words were useless. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop thinking about his hands on her body, about his mouth and tongue between her thighs as he made her come again and again. Except now, she wasn’t picturing the dark-haired man she’d known as Viktor. It was the white-haired alien, Sevik, keeping her thighs spread with those clawed hands as his long black tongue licked and thrust into her pussy.

“Oh God…” Mina groaned, pressing one hand against the cold tile wall and flattening the other over her lower belly. Even though he wasn’t in the room, she could smell him. It was as though his scent had suffused her being; it lingered around her, upon her, a relentless reminder, an unending temptation.

Her sex was achy, hollow, desperate for more of his touch. For him to take her, to?—

To fuck her.

Mina tipped her head forward, opened her eyes, and stared down at the floor. Water fell over her hair.

Despite all she’d learned, she wanted him. Wanted him even more than before. Everything inside Mina yearned for him.

Did…did that make her a horrible person?

“No,” she whispered.

Was she simply desperate for companionship, for a scrap of kindness? So desperate that she’d throw morals to the wind and fuck a man—an alien—who’d killed and tortured people for a living?

No. It wasn’t fair to Sevik to view him that way...and it wasn’t fair to view herself that way either.

It didn’t matter that he was an alien, didn’t matter that he had a dark, violent past. Sevik had shown her a side of himself capable of compassion and thoughtfulness. A side with more humanity than many of the humans she’d known.

And she still wanted him.

Mina smiled. This revelation didn’t change a damn thing.

She was going to have him.

Straightening, she plucked up a bottle of bodywash, opened it, and gave it a sniff. The fragrance was spicy and earthy, exactly what she’d expect from a man’s bath product, but it was neither as prominent nor as alluring as Sevik’s natural scent.

She scrubbed her body and gently washed the dried blood away from her neck. The cuts were tiny, but the skin around them was tender, having likely bruised. After she washed her hair and rinsed off, she turned off the water and grabbed the towel hanging outside the stall. It didn’t take long for the freezing air to chase away the steam’s warmth. Chills ran through her as she briskly dried herself.

Wrapping the towel around herself, she stepped out of the shower.

At the sink, Mina cleared some of the fog from the mirror and examined the marks on her neck. Yep, there were definitely bruises forming. She leaned forward and lightly touched them. Oddly—or maybe disturbingly—she liked them.

“What is wrong with me?” she muttered.

Okay, so maybe the way she’d received those marks had been terrifying. But under different circumstances, were Sevik to wrap his hand around her throat, pin her down, and viciously thrust into her body…

Mina gripped the sink as her core clenched in need.

Yes! Yes, I want that.

She wanted him to shed his restraints. To lose control, to free himself, to show her the beast he’d claimed to be. To… rut her.

Get a hold of yourself, Mina. You’re a virgin. Maybe take it slow the first time…

Mina drew in a slow, deep breath, and released it in a soft chuckle as she shook her head. “This is years of abstinence catching up to me all at once.”

She picked up Sevik’s brush and combed out her hair. Without her usual haircare products, her curls would dry frizzy, but there was nothing she could do about that now. When she finished with her hair, she squeezed some toothpaste onto her finger and scrubbed her teeth as best she could, grateful to at least rid her mouth of the nasty combination of morning breath and alcohol aftertaste.

“Now to find my alien.”

Clutching the top of the towel where she’d tucked it in, Mina opened the bathroom door and stepped out. The familiar, comforting scent of burning wood and the soothing crackling of a fire greeted her. The light from the fireplace cast a gentle orange glow over the living room.

The empty living room.

Where was he?

“Sevik?” Mina called.

She heard a whisper of movement from the kitchen—Sevik’s steps. He emerged through the doorway, scrubbing a towel over his damp hair. Droplets of water glistened on his chest and shoulders, and her eyes followed the path of one as it slid down his abdomen. He must’ve washed up at the sink while she’d showered.

Sevik looked up at her and froze. His gaze flicked down to her towel, and his pupils expanded, their darkness nearly eclipsing the white of his irises. “Mina, what are you doing?”

She shuffled her feet. “I…would think it was obvious. I was looking for you.”

He clenched his jaw, and tension sharpened the definition of his muscles as he draped his towel over his shoulder. “Get dressed.”

Mina shook her head. “No.”

“Mina…”

There was warning in his tone, and a hint of anger, but it was colored by desperation. By feral want. He was on the verge of losing control, and that was exactly what she wanted. She just needed to push him a little more.

Keeping her eyes locked with his, Mina untucked her towel, letting it fall to pool on the floor around her feet.

Sevik’s lips peeled back, baring his fangs. It was her only warning before he threw his towel down and stalked toward her. The distance between them vanished in an instant, and his hand was suddenly around her throat, pushing her back against the wall, pinning her there. He slammed his other hand on the wall above her head. Though he kept his body angled away from hers, heat emanated from him.

“Do not fuck with me, female,” he grated through his teeth. His blazing eyes, almost entirely black, held her just as firmly as his hand. “I’m a criminal. A killer. Remorseless, merciless.”

Mina placed her hands upon his chest; his heart hammered against her palms.

“I’m not afraid of you, Sevik.”

“You should be.”

She held his gaze. With one squeeze, with one slash of those wicked claws, he could end her. But she knew he wouldn’t.

Sevik leaned closer, lowering his face until their mouths were a hair’s breadth apart. He was all she could see, feel, smell.

“Once I take you, Mina, there is no going back. I will keep you. You’ll be mine .”

Desire, restless and ravenous, unfurled inside her. Her core was aching, eager, needy. She wanted this. She wanted him.

She smoothed her hands up his chest until they rested upon his shoulders. “I’m already yours.”

“Mina…” he growled, and his fingers tensed, pressing those claws against her skin. His eyes burned, dark and forbidding.

Then he slanted his mouth over hers, claiming her lips, claiming her breath, claiming her.

Mina parted her lips, succumbing to the savagery of his kiss and returning it in kind. That inferno of desire roared to life within her, blasting through her in a fiery wave, incinerating every thought except for one.

She needed more, needed to be closer, needed to feel him against her, around her, inside her.

“Sevik,” she rasped against his mouth.

As though he’d heard her thoughts, he dropped his hands to her ass and lifted her. Mina’s arms and legs instinctively wound around him as he turned and strode toward the stairs.