Page 16 of The Pleasure Contract

I can feel my brows knit together, my brain so foggy and thrown off kilter from just his nearness that I’ve completely forgotten what I even said. “Both counts?” I ask, stupidly.

Az nods and makes a smooth rumbling kind of noise. “It absolutely does mean something, and you most certainly cannot flirt with any male you want. Unless…” his calloused thumb comes up to smooth across my bottom lip, “that male… is me.”

You know, past me would have thought that in moments like this I might step back and knee a man in the balls for demanding something like this. Maybe launch into a TED Talk about personal autonomy. Or, I don’t know… burn my bra and start a feminist revolution?

Instead, I’m standing here like putty in this huge man’s hands.

I swallow, and I think he feels the sensation on the backs of his fingers because the next thing I know, he’s gently stroking my throat with his knuckles. His movements are small – tiny, really – I’d barely notice the touch if I weren’t so… utterly focussed on him right now.

Az’s lips part, his pupils blown wide as he watches himself touch me. But it’s not just any touch, is it? Especially not for a Xaviann. They’re very prudish when it comes to necks and-

Yeah – there’s that hint of fang that somehow makes my pulse race in my ears.

“You should be wearing a collar,” he says, his voice almost sounding like he’s hypnotized, and his knuckles continue the tiny, gentle strokes on my throat.

“Your collar?” I ask. Az sucks in a sharp breath, his fingers stilling. I know he didn’t mean it like that. He meant a general cover-up like the many lace pieces I have stuffed in one of my drawers. I don’t know why I even said that. I don’t want a bride collar. I don’t want a contract at all, and certainly not with Az.

He must see something in my features – I don’t know, panic, maybe? – because he pulls his touch away and clears his throat.

“Come,” he commands, walking past me to my door. “I would like to introduce you to my ladies.”

I stand there a moment, utterly dumbfounded. “Your what-now?” I ask, looking around the room as if it could give me an answer, before scurrying after the big, stupid, sexy idiot.

9

Lois

I’d rushed after Az, only for him to remind me to go back and get a neck covering to leave the house. He’d insisted on it, in fact. Persuading DJ to stay put was another issue. She wanted to come along, too, but I know after all the music she’s explored today, she needed a good rest in her docking station to recharge.

I managed to convince her, but had to leave the house with Celine Dion’s ‘All By Myself’ playing as my backing track. Who knew little electronic devices were capable of dramatic guilt trips?

“I swear to God, Az, if you’re taking me to some kind of Xaviann brothel, I’m going to finally ask to see your cock, so I know where to accurately aim my foot,” I comment as he helps me into his domestic cruiser.

Az chuckles, his eyes lingering a little too long on my face, where I just know I’m still showing signs of being flustered back at the house. “Why? Jealous?”

All those heated feelings from before? They’re gone. Thoughts of going to a place like that? Of him frequenting a place like that so much, he calls them ‘his ladies’? Him trying to use that to make me jealous? That will make a girl drier than a week-old biscuit.

I’ve been told I have ‘resting bitch face’ before, and she must come back in full force, because Az reads my expression like a book, his demeanor changing immediately.

“Uh,” he says before clearing his throat and hopping into the seat beside me. “Let me just-” he starts, reaching across me to pull out the seatbelt these small-but-fast city cruisers have. He fumbles a bit with the buckle, but once that’s clicked into place, he fusses with the adjustments, making sure the Xaviann-sized safety belt is comfortable on a human-sized body.

“You – uh – you know we don’t have those places, right?” Az asks, his voice low and soft. “It would be too dangerous for, um-” he says, swallowing in an endearingly nervous kind of way. “With the urge to-” his hand motions to his mouth, and he makes a mock-biting gesture.

He doesn’t finish his sentence – just lets his gaze linger on my now lace-covered neck.

Ok, so he’s not taking me to a place like that. I feel my body unclenching a bit. Sometimes, I forget the Xavianns don’t really ‘mate in the flesh’, as they call it. At least, it’s very frowned upon outside the confines of a breeding contract – for safety reasons. A brothel would certainly be considered illegal here.

Could still be a bar with drakball groupies, though. I know he likes going to those.

“Right,” I say, turning away from him to stare out the cruiser’s window. “I suppose you have all those Permission tokens the women throw at you for that, anyway.”

As soon as I say the words, I want to claw them back and stuff them down my throat again. That was unkind. That sounded bitchy and accusatory, and quite frankly, none of my fucking business. I turn back to apologize, finding him closer than I had anticipated. He stares at me, my breath caught in my throat.

“I deactivated them all,” he murmurs. When my brow creases, he elaborates. “All those Permissions I had, I deactivated them all.”

I shake my head, finding my voice despite Az’s imposing proximity. “I don’t believe you.” This time, my words aren’t accusatory. They’re said with a dismissive chuckle, brushing off the subject because I’m not sure I have any right to know about this – about this side of him. He’s a guy. How many times do we hear that they have specific ‘needs’ in that department? Which… I kind of get. I mean, I know I’ve been horny-out-of-my-mind before, but to categorize it as a ‘need’ is definitely going too far, and why can’t they just see to themselves, because-

“See?” Az says, cutting through my internal spiral.