Page 26 of January Bell

“I’m afraid that’s not good enough, my sweet Lily. If you want to see my cock, you’re going to have to let me bathe you.”

He reaches up, tapping my nose once. “You.” Another tap. “Are.” Another tap. “Filthy.” Two taps.

I jerk my face away, annoyed as hell, but also slightly amused, in spite of myself.

“Fine, you can bathe me,” I say with as much of an air of casualness as I can muster. Which is a whole heck of a lot, considering the fact that my entire body feels like it’s on fire from this goddamn Draegon heat.

“But first,” I hold up my own finger and tap his nose. Well, it’s more like a flick because I do it pretty hard, but you know, whatever. “You have to tell me what sky-thing means.”

I glance down at his cock, which is now truly doing something incredibly distracting in his pants.

“Ah.” He wiggles his own finger at me, then wraps his hand around my wrist, placing it over his cock. “Skithing is not something I can tell you about. It’s something you have to feel for yourself, little human.”

I suck in a breath, fascinated. Because the thing in his pants is humongous, for one, and for two, it’s moving faster. Not like one of those frat boy pull your pants down, do a helicopter dance when you’re drunk at a keg party.

Not that I know what that’s like, I lie to myself primly.

His dick is straight up pulsing. In an obscene way. An obscene way that somehow still manages to make my mouth water.

Really, this heat is turning me into an absolute horn dog.

“Huh,” I say, aiming for disinterest but somehow managing to convey a completely different world of meaning with the one syllable. I wrench my hand away and glare at him. “All right, that’s enough of that. Now you can wash me.”

I lay back in the chair again, all too aware of the goosebumps that are all over my body, the way the heat is making me feel out of control. Feverish. And that the only thing that can make me feel better is the alien who’s chuckling softly to himself.

“You need to get out of those clothes,” he says. “I can only do so much while those ratty things are still on your body.”

“I’m not taking off my pajam⁠—”

He cuts off the word by snagging a fingernail—excuse me, talon—on the top of my favorite green spaghetti strap pajama set, ripping it open all the way.

The chilly air hits my sensitive skin immediately, and I suck in a breath, torn between outrage and sheer need.

“Oh, you want me to just be naked on camera now, I guess, for everybody to see, huh? Is that why you tore my clothes off?”

I sit up abruptly, wrapping the cami back around my body.

Zan just stares, that deep purple blush coloring his cheeks again. “Of course not. I want you to be clean. I’m pretty sure you have animal shit all over those." He picks at the hem of the shirt that I used to reverently fold away in my drawer. "They’re rags now,” he says dismissively.

“All the gall and gumption,” I mutter, then cringe, because he’s not wrong now that my hand is also touching the green cami I’ve worn for the last week or so.

What is time anyway when you’re in a reality competition after being abducted from your friend’s house drunk? Non-existent, that’s what time is here. Long enough to feel like an eternity and for your favorite (only) silk pajama set to get completely caked in mud and shit.

And yet, not long enough for you to have died or otherwise been put out of your misery.

Joyous.

I’m not sure where I am on a scale of Maslow’s hierarchy or whatever of need I am, but maybe they should make a new one to account for alien abduction and being thrown into heat on a fucking intergalactic reality show.

Zan’s eyebrows arch, and he stands back, still holding the shower wand, waiting for me to say something.

“Fine,” I grind out. “They are disgusting.”

I make the mistake of looking into his eyes. His pupils are dilated, his breath coming faster than ever, as if he’s just been carrying me through the jungle again or fighting off a giant rooster.

Well, I think to myself smugly, two can play this game.

With that, I make a slow, elaborate show of slowly unveiling my body to him, watching the way his eyes devour my chest.