Page 9 of Who Did This To You?

I didn't want to leave him, but even as the lust wrapped chains around my heart, I knew I couldn't give in to the madness of it. Love wasn't just physical insanity; it was logic and warmth and care making pillars that attraction could rest on top of. As fun as this insta-lust was to experience, I needed to understand it first.

I needed to understand why he said no.

I stepped around him, ducking under one of his arms.

I felt his fingertips on the back of my neck, the briefest of touches, a gentle caress that did nothing to restrain me, and I stopped in my tracks. I couldn't do this. I couldn't walk away from him.

I turned around and face-planted in his chest.

I heard a soft creaking sound, and out of the corner of my eye I could see his arms tensing, his fingers turning light green where they had returned to gripping the doorway, as if he was holding for dear life.

"Can someone please identify the medical issue?" another voice said, tense and muffled, as if speaking through a barrier. "Does it have something to do with that smell?"

"Yes," Zandaor said through gritted teeth. He spoke quickly, like he was afraid he wouldn't have enough time to get the words out. "My species finds mates through scent matching, triggered by interest. Lithoame is found when the scents match. I have never heard of it being anything but unpleasant to other species. Róisín appears to be reacting to me like one of my species would and has produced a scent that my body is recognizing as a mate matching scent, which has triggered Lithoame. As per the rules and regulations I agreed to on this ship, I have held back, but I… cannot…"

His voice broke up as I pressed my body against his side, my hands tucked as I pinned them close against his body so they would drift down. I pressed my towel-covered hips against his thigh, plastering my entire body against him, needing to be closer to him.

"You don't have to hold back," I said, moments away from begging for him to drag me back into that room and away from all these other people who had nothing to do with us. "I want to be your mate."

"She is under the influence of my pheromones," he choked out. "Please help me. I can't… I can't turn her away."

"Róisín Ó Gallchobhair, you must be with me," my spider lawyer repeated. "If you do not release Zandaor, you will be committing biological assault."

"No, she won't be," Zandaor snapped. "I read your rules. I am of clear mind, and I consent and agree to anything and everything Róisín wants to do to me, including joining me in Lithoame."

The spider lawyer let out another sharp clack.

"I don't want to go," I murmured against those beautiful little muscles that accented his ribcage. "I consent and agree too."

"I am intoxicating you. You cannot agree in this state. To be my mate, you must make that choice while you are separate from me, free from the influence of my scent; it is a part of the rules for this civilization," Zandaor said, the tension in his voice tight enough to snap. "You must go."

I tilted up to gaze into the whirling depths of his pink eyes.

"But if I go, you won't want me," I said, the weight of sudden insecurity pressing into me. I didn't want to let go of this, the way he looked at me, the way he made me feel. I didn't want to go back to feeling like how the manosphere wanted to paint me. The hateful words my last ex spat at me slipped free through my own lips. "I'm a dumpy middle-aged woman, past my prime. I'm wrinkling, expiring like old milk on the shelf. If you spend any time thinking about it, you won't want me. You'll want someone younger."

His entire face softened, and he released his death grip on the doorway so that he could cup my face in his hands, the warmth of his palms sinking into me.

"Who did this to you?" he murmured. "Who made you think of yourself like that?"

"It's how everyone thinks," I said.

He leaned down toward me, his lips brushing the lines on my forehead.

"It is not how I think. The moment I first saw you, I was struck by your beauty," he said, his lips trailing as he traced his way down to lightly kiss my crow's feet. "My admiration and attraction to you didn't start with the mating scent. I had never once in my life been struck through the heart like you have captured me. Whatever lies you have been fed by others, I see you for the truth of who you are, a female who is Oame, whose worth lies in both her niche finding and her latent potential."

"But I'm not Oame," I said as his lips drifted over the tip of my nose to kiss my other cheek. "I am Earth."

"Then let Oame and Earth be one," he said, and his lips found mine.

They moved as if they were going to brush over them, but I didn't let him go. I followed them, drawing them back to me, capturing them as I pressed into him, not letting him go, and then he was holding onto me just as tightly.

I melted into him, every part of me screaming yes, finally, me, finally mine. My heart needed his words just as much as my body needed the hard lines of his pressed against me, and I knew for one, brilliant, ecstatic moment that I was utterly captivating, utterly captivated.

Then there was a slight sting on my neck, and the sound of a hiss, like air escaping a device.

Hands gripped my arms, catching me, pulling me away from him as the world melted into black.

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