C2 2

Isabella Martinez, Planet Viken, IQC Array, Transport Center

Warden Egara had said it would seem like a nap, the whole transporting across the universe thing. She asked me if I’d had my wisdom teeth pulled and I’d said yes. When I was fifteen, they’d put me to sleep and I’d woken up with gauze wedged in my cheeks, no memory of the two hours it took them to hack out my impacted molars. Thank god.

As I blinked now, I recalled that conversation and tried to figure out where I was. There was no weird, loopy drug in my system. No oral surgeon leaning over me with a light on his head, or the taste of blood in my mouth.

No. When I blinked my eyes open after being transported from the Miami Interstellar Brides Processing Center to Viken, I saw three large men all watching me with an intense interest that made me squirm.

Aliens. They were aliens.

And I was in a land far, far away from Earth.

They had to be aliens, or I really had been given some good drugs, because these three? They were hot. Like, ultra-smoking hot. Magazine-cover-supermodel-combined-with-lumberjack hot. And big, so big they towered over me, despite the fact that they were squatting down around me. Instead of lying in a dentist’s chair, I was sprawled out on the floor. I pushed up off the hard, unforgiving surface and they moved quickly, putting their hands on me to help me sit up.

I flinched at the unexpected contact, completely overwhelmed. They were so close. So intense. For a second, I felt like a bug under a microscope. First time in my life I’d ever felt sorry for an insect.

I glanced down, afraid I was covered in blood, or worse, naked. But I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a modestly cut, flowing white gown covered me from neck to ankle. It clung to my curves like a second skin, sexy and innocent at the same time.

Looking down at the gorgeous dress for courage, I took a deep breath and lifted my gaze. Playing coy, or acting shy would do me no good. Not here. I’d just been transported halfway across the universe to marry and sleep with, say “I do, forever and ever” to a complete stranger, a man I’d never met. And Warden Egara had said something odd about my mates. As in more than one. But I’d just blinked and assumed I was hearing things.

So, perhaps I had been drugged after all because these three men were eyeing me as if I were their favorite candy and they each wanted to give me a lick. The idea made me lick my lips, which made their eyes drop to my mouth. One of them, I swear, made a rumbly sound in his chest. Their hands were on me, gently touching me as if I couldn’t sit up on my own, and the heat of their palms made me shudder as desire rose like a storm inside me. My whole life that darkness had tormented me, making me want what I couldn’t have. But that was my old life, right? I’d read the Interstellar Brides Program brochure, and it said their match rate was higher than 98%.

But then, I’d always excelled at being the exception to the rule. The only one of my friends in grade school who didn’t have a crush on Tommy Parker. The only eighth grade girl in math club. The only woman programmer at a fast-moving Silicon Valley startup until the asshole attitudes of the men in the office drove me to do something I still couldn’t quite regret.

Sure, I’d gone to jail for it, but then, I’d ended up here, with three of the hottest men I’d ever seen looking at me like I was dessert. No, not just dessert, chocolate molten cake with a hot fudge center, caramel drizzle and a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream on the side.

Ultimate dessert.

But I couldn’t think with them touching me. Or maybe it was the trip through some kind of dark matter, sub-space, freakish transporter straight out of a Star Trek episode. I tried to stand, but the room spun and I plopped right back down before I’d moved more than a couple inches.

“She’s hurt.” The blond spoke.

“Why is the doctor not here?” That one had dark hair, impossibly black, and it was almost as long as mine.

“I will find him.” The one with the wavy, copper-colored hair stood, and holy fuck, he was tall. Like a giant. I tilted my head back and looked up at him as he began yelling at the men who stood behind a control panel of some kind. It was like I just stepped onto the set of a crazy sci-fi movie…with huge, hot aliens. Except, they looked human. One head, two eyes, broad shoulders, lean hips, muscles everywhere. Their skin wasn’t blue or covered in scales and there were no tentacles in sight. They looked better than human, if my libido had a vote.

“I’m fine,” I said. I cleared my dry throat and tried again. “Really.” I wasn’t lying. The room had stopped spinning and the fog in my mind was quickly being overcome with nerves. Was one of these men my match? I was too nervous to ask, but god, I didn’t even want to think about it. Not really. They were all amazing, and I didn’t want to have to choose.

The giant spun on his heel at my voice and looked down at me, then crouched, an intentional move so he was closer to my level.

“I am Rager, one of your mates.”

He wasn’t speaking English, but I understood him. Strange. Oh yeah. I touched my fingers to the bump on my temple above my ear. Warden Egara mentioned I would be prepared for transport, including receiving an NPU, a Neural Processing Unit. She said it was a translation device that would actually wire itself directly into the language centers of my brain so I could understand every language in the galaxy. It had seemed impossible, until now.

“Rager.” His name suited him. His hands rested on his thighs—his powerful, big thighs—and I couldn’t miss how large they were. Yes, everything about him was big. My eyes widened. “You’re my mate?”

His golden eyes softened to something that made my nipples harden instantly. There was more than just lust there. I wasn’t quite sure what, but my body reacted as if he’d just given me an hour-long massage. Was I turning into a puddle? Right now? “I mean, um. Wow. Nice to meet you.”

I held out my right hand and he looked confused for a moment before enveloping it in his much larger one. He held my palm in his, the fingertips of his other hand stroked my arm, the inside of my wrist, and I bit my lip as heat engulfed me. Not just from him, but from the other four hands that still touched me, helping me remain upright.

So hot. God, I couldn’t breathe.

Tearing my gaze from Rager’s, I couldn’t help but hope that everything on him was big. I licked my lips at the possibility. My mate? He was gorgeous.

He grinned then and I swear I felt my ovaries jump for joy. Wow. I couldn’t believe this guy was my mate? The one I’d been matched to? I’d sat in the testing chair earlier and had this really hot dream. A sex dream where I was tied up and taken. Yes, taken. Rough and hard, gentle and wild. Things I’d never done, positions I only wished I’d tried before. And I’d felt so damn good. I’d actually come not once, not twice, but three times before Warden Egara had cruelly woken me. My pussy had been so needy and wet the back of my testing gown had been soaked.

The last few months in that stupid prison cell hadn’t helped curb my need for a good, hard orgasm. I’d always enjoyed sex, or at least not been one of those women who was afraid to tell my lover what I wanted, or how I liked to be touched. The trouble, aside from there not being any men available to sleep with in the all-women’s prison, was that even on the outside, a lot of guys just didn’t listen.

I’d been approached by several lesbians on the inside, and I’d considered it. But seriously? I loved men. I loved the way their shoulders hulked over me as we fucked, loved their smell, their strength. I loved the way I felt small and at my lover’s mercy. Not that I’d ever talked about that , but I knew. I wanted a man, a dominant, take-charge lover with a big, hard cock and the patience to make me scream.

If this hot alien was my reward for breaking the law, I should have done it a couple of years ago instead of putting up with those lying assholes stealing my code and swatting me on the ass when I walked by. They hadn’t all been bad, but man, a couple bad apples was all it took to ruin the place for everyone who worked there. Especially the women. Two years after the doors opened, I’d been the only woman left.

The information I leaked cost them their IPO, and landed me in jail for insider trading, but I’d been beyond caring. Sure, I could have served my two years and gone on. But then…this.

A mate. A fresh start with the Interstellar Brides Program.

The past was the past. Here I was on an alien world surrounded by hot men. I’d figured I’d get an average guy—alien—from some nice planet to take care of me the rest of my life. I knew from bride program ads and TV commercials that the testing would match me, using various personality and subconscious analysis, to a specific planet. From there, I’d be matched to the perfect mate. But I’d had doubts, the same ones I’d had ever since I became interested in sex. Maybe even before then when I longed to be tied up, to be told what to do by a commanding man, even when I hadn’t understood that interest.

I mean, what guy from another planet would be able to handle my crazy sexual desires? Yeah, I was wired differently than other women. I’d known that since high school when I wasn’t a shy, timid virgin—even when I had been a virgin. My sex drive was higher than other women. I came three times in a testing dream, which, per the Warden, was not normal. So what if I had hot buttons some men hadn’t even wanted to try to push? So what if my inhibitions were low? Pretty much, I’d been called a slut, a freak, a whore. I was none of those things, but it hadn’t mattered. No man had ever wanted me for more than a quick fling, a one-night stand, and it hadn’t ever been that great. So I’d gotten off the damn planet and now here I was. On Viken.

With him.

“Rager,” I repeated, tracing his full lips with my gaze as I imagined running my fingers through his hair. I couldn’t tell exactly how tall he was, but I was pretty damn sure my five-six wouldn’t even reach his chin.

Hot. So hot.

He nodded once, then angled his head toward the other two. “This is Evon.”

The hard-ass blond nodded.

“And Liam.” The black-haired man with stormy-blue eyes.

The first looked like a hard-ass Navy SEAL, the second like a pirate.

The two men still had their hands on me, were still eyeing me like they’d just captured their prey. It seemed odd these two were touching me when Rager was my mate.

“Tell us if you are hurt.” Evon didn’t ask a question, he demanded information and I complied instinctively, wanting to please him for some strange, completely unknown reason I didn’t have time to analyze.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just want to get up off the flo—”

Before I could finish my sentence, Liam—the long, raven-haired hottie—scooped me up into his arms and stood.

“Eep,” I said, gripping onto his biceps with one hand and pressing against his chest with the other, worried he’d drop me. Good god, the man was made out of steel. Hot steel. I could feel the sinew of his muscles, corded and well-honed beneath my fingers. There was no way he was going to drop me. Hell, the secure way he held me, I wasn’t sure if he was going to ever put me down. I licked my lips, wondering what all that expanse of torso would look like bare.

Before me stood the blond man. His hair was cropped short, close to his head, and his pale blue eyes were cold as ice, his focus absolute. On me.

“I’m Evon. Your other mate.”

My mouth fell open.

“I would like to hear you speak my name as well.”

“Evon. My other mate?” I asked. Was that a squeak in my voice? Thank god I wasn’t ogling the guy who held me as if I weighed a feather—not—while my matched mate, Rager, stood by. I knew I found men attractive, but this was beneath even me. I was a one-man woman. I might like sex, but monogamy was my thing. I wasn’t a cheater.

“You have three mates,” Evon said, placing his palm on the side of my hip and offering a gentle squeeze. “And I would like to know how you say your name.”

“The report says, ‘Eye-zee-bee-la’?” Rager stood with a tablet of some sort in his hand, his brows drawn together in confusion. “I do not know this language.”

“I’m Bella. My name is Isabella Maria Santiago Martinez, but my friends call me Bella.”

“We are not your friends.” Evon spoke again, lifting a hand to stroke my cheek. “We are your mates. And you are Bella. Our Bella.”

I turned my head to look up at Liam who was watching me with complete acceptance of Evon’s words clearly written across his face. He had the gorgeous long black hair, like a Native American’s, sleek and smooth, almost blue beneath the industrial lighting. His eyes, several shades deeper than Evon’s, looked at me. No, he didn’t look. He didn’t stare. His gaze bore into me as if he could see more than just my face and the odd white dress I wore. I felt like he was peering into my very soul, stripping me bare without lifting a finger. Like he owned me.

Nearly panicked now, I shifted in his arms to find Rager walking toward us. He’d put the tablet down somewhere and all three men surrounded me once more. I searched his gaze for disagreement. Three big brutes like this would never share a woman where I came from. Frankly, I doubted they were capable of it. What if I preferred one over the other? What if I fell in love and the other two got jealous? What if they wanted to pass me around like property and they all had other mates, other women, hidden somewhere.

“Holy shit,” I muttered and tried to wiggle out of Liam’s grasp. I was in big trouble here. “Three? There was no mention of three. There must be some mistake. This will never work.”

Liam shook his head, squeezed me impossibly tighter to him and his eyes darkened with something that made me shiver, and not with heat. That look shocked me and made me feel safe at the same time. It was a look that said he’d kill to keep me, and protect me. “No, there is no mistake. Now that you are here, we are not letting you go.”

“But I was to be matched to the one man, the one alien, who was…um, supposed to be perfect for me.” I couldn’t hold his gaze, but when I looked away, Evon’s glacier-blue eyes were there, waiting to trap me.

His pale brow arched as he looked down at me. “You have been matched to the mates who are perfect for you.”

Rager grunted agreement and walked toward a large sliding door. Liam, with me in his arms, followed. Evon fell into step beside us. I wiggled in protest, but Liam didn’t even glance down at me, simply tightened his hold until I got the message.

No. I would not be walking yet.

I knew I should protest, but something inside me was unfurling from a long sleep, and that wicked, wicked woman wanted to know what it would be like to be with three of the hottest men she’d ever seen. Ever. She wanted to be between them, taking everything they could give her…even as she wondered just how much that was.

Liam continued to walk, but didn’t need to see where he was going. The hall was straight and Rager was in front of us, leading the way…to somewhere. Liam’s deep voice rumbled through my body and I settled in his arms, content. “You have three mates, Bella. Rager, Evon, me. We were tested and each of us matched to you. To us, you are the alien, and you are perfect.”

He was adamant—not just spouting bullshit he thought I wanted to hear—and because of this, I loved to hear his words. They were sweet to my ears, like a Shakespeare sonnet, but slightly ridiculous.

“You don’t even know me,” I countered. “Trust me, I’m far from perfect.”

Evon walked beside us down the wide hall. “We don’t know you, just as you don’t know us. This is true. But the testing makes things different. Even before I knew your name, I knew you would find all three of us attractive, that your pussy would be weeping in welcome even while meeting us for the very first time.”

I should have been appalled by his bold words. If some guy at a bar approached me and was audacious and arrogant enough to tell me my pussy was wet at the mere sight of him, I would have kneed him in the nuts.

But Evon was right, my pussy was wet. I was attracted to all three of them. Instantly. Could they smell my arousal? Was there a wet spot on the back of my outfit, this simple white nightgown-type dress? I knew I wasn’t wearing underwear. I could feel the smooth slide of the silky fabric over my bare bottom too well.

“Do not be upset by his bold words,” Liam reassured. “While Evon wasn’t particularly subtle, you must admit you liked his honesty. I will give you that honesty as well. While you find us appealing to your Earth-born senses, you have completely fascinated us. Can you not feel my hard cock against your hip?”

I gasped then, focusing on Liam’s body. He held me to him closely, scooped up like a damsel in distress, and I could feel a hard pipe against my hip. I hadn’t thought it was his cock. I hadn’t thought at all, for I had been concentrating on their words. But now? Shit, it felt like a gun or something. Not a cock.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“You have made her timid,” Rager said, looking over his shoulder at me, then waving his hand beside a door, which slid open silently. He stepped inside and we followed, not that I had any choice, held as I was in Liam’s arms.

I grinned at Rager’s choice of words. I wasn’t timid. I was, perhaps, too bold.

They brought me into a large room and I realized it was very similar to a high-dollar hotel suite with a living area, table, dark green sofas and chairs that looked like the fabric was pure spun silk, and a bed chamber…with a bed large enough for a football team.

Or me and these three hulking aliens.

“Oh god.” Now? We were going to do this now? As in, get naked and go horizontal on that gigantic bed? Sure, technically, according to what they’d said, I was their wife now, and they were mine. So, it was all legal. Legit. Right?

Not that I’d needed a ring on my finger to get it on before, but this? With these three? The thought was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. I wanted them, which was insane in and of itself. But I was also nervous. It was reassuring somehow to know they were mine. That I belonged to them.

But did they really belong to me? How was one woman supposed to keep three hot aliens satisfied? I mean, seriously. They were like sex-on-a-stick and I was, well, just me.

“Are you guys sure about this? That you want me? Because Warden Egara told me that mates never cheat. But I don’t know how three of you could be happy with just me.”

“Let us show you.” Liam’s voice had gone deep, the heat of his body like a blowtorch everywhere we touched. At his words, Evon’s gaze locked on mine and he took his time looking me over, his gaze lingering everywhere I wanted him to touch.

My pussy clenched and my nipples pebbled into hard, hot points. My heart raced, but my head? Oh, whoa, the thoughts spinning in circles up there were one hot mess.

Did I want them? Yes. Yes, I did. Should I want them? No. Not three men at once.

Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. I was so going to hell for this. Assuming they had a hell on this planet.

And all of that might have succeeded in changing my mind if I actually believed in hell. Which I didn’t. So that just left…desire. Lust. Six months of gray walls, a prison uniform, and other women trying to convince me I wasn’t into men anymore.

Wrong. So, so wrong.

They let me look around but once I’d caught my breath, Liam leaned down and kissed me on top of my head. Rager came up to me so he stood directly before me and stroked a finger down my cheek. Evon moved in beside him so I was surrounded by towering males.

“Don’t worry, mate. We’re going to take care of you now.”

My eyes drifted closed as six hands roamed my body with a reverence to their touch I’d never felt before. I relaxed in Liam’s hold, didn’t protest when he walked to the bed and settled me on it so I was kneeling on the soft surface. When he let go, I opened my eyes, surprised that even now, Rager was nearly as tall as I. The other two were half a head shorter, but still huge, at least six-six.

Did they know how to grow ’em on Viken or what?

“You’re all mine? All three of you? And you want this? You actually want to share me?” I had to know for sure before I did this. “You’re sure there’s not some mistake?”

Evon walked forward to stand directly before me, his eyes, cold before, were now pure, blue fire. “Take off your dress, mate. We want to see what’s ours.”

Yeah, okay. No mistake, then.

That voice. God. I held his gaze as I lifted my hands to the back of my neck and released the clasp I’d felt pressing into my skin there.

The soft fabric slid down my body in a slow glide, like frosting melting in the hot sun, revealing what lay beneath.

“You’re mine.” Evon’s declaration was followed by the searing heat of his hand on my hip. “Lift your arms above your head and hold them there, mate.”

Again, I did as he asked—even after only knowing him a few minutes—my full breasts jutting forward on display. I didn’t have a model’s body, I was more couch potato than marathon runner, especially after six months in jail, but the way his eyes darkened with lust, I felt like a goddess, a powerful, desirable ruler of men.

These men.

“Is she not perfect?” he asked the others.

Liam and Rager both nodded agreement as Evon motioned them forward.

“Kiss her, Rager. Everywhere, just like you want to. Fill that hot mouth of hers with your cock. Liam, her ass is yours. Make sure she’s ready.”

“Um—” I said, not getting anything else out. Kiss her everywhere? My ass belonged to Liam? “Uh…”

“Fuck, Evon. I knew you were going to start giving orders,” Liam complained, but he was grinning as he did so, as he turned me to the side so he could grab my wrists, lower them and hold them behind my back.

Restrained, panting, I knew that if I were a good girl I’d tell them to stop. Ask more questions. Take my time and get to know them before we had what amounted to an all-out orgy. No, an orgy meant everyone would have sex with everyone else. The way Evon was talking, they were all going to have sex with me.

But as Evon’s hands cupped my bare breasts, Liam’s commanding grip on my wrists reminded me that I was theirs now, theirs to conquer, theirs to fuck, and that knowledge broke me open as raw need flooded every cell of my body. I moaned. God, I couldn’t hold it in. Was it this simple? Were they going to give me exactly what I needed, even when I wasn’t exactly sure what that was anymore?

Liam climbed up on the bed behind me, tugging my hair with his free hand to expose my neck to his kiss. He kicked my legs wide and I fell back against him, completely under his control as Rager leaned forward and licked my pussy, lingering on the hard nub of my clit.

All thoughts of living by Earth’s standards fled. To hell with that.

It seemed I was being claimed and there wasn’t a damn thing I wanted to do about it.