Tamed By The Alien Barbarian by Celeste King
Jaxil
My eyes slid open into a room I didn’t recognize, even in the dark. Where?
I sat up and looked around, thin silk sheets sliding off me. I didn’t recognize those, either. What was most unrecognizable, though, is I woke up with the dumbest fucking grin on my face.
Candi was sprawled out on the bedsheets beside me. From what I could see of her—a sliver of blond hair and a single, pink-tipped breast exposed from underneath a lush velvet blanket—I could tell she was passed out cold. She’d better be, I thought, considering the way we rode each other into the sunset earlier.
We were in her room. With a twitch of my groin, I remembered flashes of her body rolling around underneath me.
I lifted the sheets off me and swung my feet to the ground. It took a while to find a light in the living room, but I took my time. I needed to stop with the smiling and heart palpitations. With my hands on my hips and a glare around the living room, I told myself this feeling of euphoria was childish and needed to stop.
“It was just sex,” I muttered to myself. I scratched my stomach as I idly shuffled through some paperwork on her kitchen table. I didn’t want a snack. I wanted a distraction. I picked up a pen and examined it, willing the butterflies in my stomach to die a painful death for being so embarrassing.
Terra Firma Mining, Co.The pen was embossed with fine gold letters depicting Candi’s corporation. I raised my brows.
“Custom pens,” I chuckled, shaking my head. It was a good idea, but kind of beginner.
Still holding the pen, I looked down at a few manila folders sprawled out on the glass top. Some were open, others were sealed shut behind a metal grommet and thickly packed.
I rifled through one of the open folders guiltlessly. Candi would do the same to me, after all. After a few lazy scans of some unimportant documents written by a woman named Mandy, I stopped. Sitting below an office memo was the corner of a satellite image. I yanked it out and stared. I knew that mountain range. That was my mountain range. The rock formations were clearly Martian.
“What the fuck…” I breathed.
“I could say the same. What’re you doing looking through my stuff?”
I turned around, incensed to find Candi looking at me while wrapping herself in a thin silk robe. Her disheveled hair and hard nipples only distracted me for a second.
“Are you going to sink my fucking mine, Candi?” I said. It must have been more of a snarl, though, because Candi took a step back. “That’s a low blow, and you know it.”
She looked me all over, then said:
“Are you, like, new to this? You’re an asshole. You deserve to go down.”
I snorted loudly and her shoulders jumped. Candi really hadn’t spend much time around Sanax, had she?
“This would cost me thousands of dollars of damage. Not to mention injury to my personnel. You want to go this big because I called you ‘sweetheart’ in front of the press?”
“Yes, pig! You said a lot of stupid shit and you underestimated me.”
“Candi,” I growled. I wasn’t even trying to hide how angry I was. How hot she looked only made me even more angry. The fact that I wanted to fuck her again already made me even angrier still. “I just railed you within an inch of your little human life. This isn’t the time to be causing earthquakes on purpose to tank my whole fucking operation!”
Her whole face seemed to flush red and I couldn’t stop myself feeling a little smug. We both knew I was right—we’d both heard her screaming last night. I rolled my shoulders. I was gripping the paperwork so hard it was starting to crumple in my hand, but I was only staring down at her.
“Making me come doesn’t erase the fact that you bribed my goddamn foreman, Jaxil,” she said, her own voice taking on a hard tone. Saying my name angrily like that was unfair. “I told you I was coming for you-“
“And what you did to my headquarters wasn’t enough? Don’t you know to quit when you’re down? You can’t beat me, Candi, you barely know what you’re fucking doing.”
“You weren’t saying that last night,” She shot back, and I jerked my head at the low blow. I’d been saying the opposite last night, actually. Candi didn’t stop there. She took a step forward and we were nearly chest to chest. Well, as close as she could match up to my height.
“You’re worried because you know what I can do,” she said, pointing a finger up at me. I couldn’t help it. Reflexively, my hand shot up to grab the front of her robe. It fell open as I dragged her to me, making her gasp and slap her hands around my wrist. She couldn’t move my fist if she tried, but she also wasn’t struggling all that much. Candi kept glaring at me with those big green eyes of hers. I stared back, hard.
“If I were you,” I said, now fully enraged. My wings rustled threateningly on my back and I jerked my head up slightly to buck my horns. Instinctual habits the Sanax couldn’t quite shake, no matter how many business suits we wore.
“I’d watch out for what I can do. I’ve been around a long time, sweetheart. You’re nothing. I’ll crush you and you’ll go back to rubbing your clit on that unwashed pole in no time.”
Her slap across my cheek was surprisingly sharp. I let her go and took a step back, but my point was made. I held up the papers.
“Don’t think I’m not taking these.”
“Fuck you,” she spat back.
I grabbed my suit jacket and shirt, picking up my shoes on the way out the door.
“That’s the thing, love. You already did. Good luck getting my name out of your head.”
The door slammed behind me so hard, I felt the floor around it shake. I snarled at the doorman as I stormed out, buttoning my shirt over my chest.
What a bitch,I thought. Amazing lay, though.
