Fuck. I pressed my forehead to the cool metal and tried to calm the fuck down, my beast fighting tooth and nail to rip open the door with our bare hands, jump down the elevator shaft and take her somewhere safe. Somewhere she could learn us. Somewhere quiet and secluded and perfect for making her ours.
Ever since I’d been on Earth surrounded by females I’d immediately known were not mine, the beast’s vexation had grown exponentially worse. I was irritable, frustrated. Annoyed. These twenty-four females who’d been chosen for the Bachelor Beast program were just as Wulf had described. Some arrogant and shallow. Some curious about alien males. Some kind. All truly beautiful.
My beast wanted none of them.
I was pleased to know that through the craziness of an Earth entertainment program, there were human females eager to find a match with a worthy Coalition fighter, even those from The Colony, but it was different when all of them chased me.
They were like Hive interceptors, circling and waiting to strike.
Even now as I stood staring at the closed elevator doors—my mate now gone somewhere else in the hotel—I knew they were lining the long hall. The entire floor was reserved for those participating in the television program.
Behind me the female—Priscilla was her name—lurked. Waiting. I recognized her cloying scent even without turning around.
My beast was highly attuned to our mate already. He had seen the frown on her face, the disapproval in her gaze when the bothersome contestant had touched me. We had upset our mate by allowing that touch, even if for only a moment.
A soft rustle of clothing and I knew Priscilla was moving, ready to try her luck again.
“Do not touch me, female,” I warned. I refused to face her, hoping she’d just disappear.
She gasped but stepped back. “I’m sorry, I was just—”
Her words trailed off, but I did not care to hear them anyway. Her intentions were clear. Seduction. She didn’t understand Atlans. She’d already lost the competition and it hadn’t even started. My beast wanted nothing to do with her. My beast was interested in only one female now.
One.
Mine. Mine. Mine. The beast chanted inside my head and I could not get him to shut the fuck up.
I wanted to rip the metal elevator doors open, but I knew my mate would not be there. I had learned about the lift concept when I arrived. How primitive the machines were on Earth.
My cock was hard. My beast was pushing to the surface, eager to chase our mate down. Taste her. Touch her. Carry her back to the suite and fuck her. I’d hold her gently against the wall, her legs wrapped around my waist. She was so small I wondered if she’d even be able to cross her ankles at my lower back.
I gripped the base of my cock and gave it one firm stroke. Yes, she’d be eager. Soft. Lush. Wet. I wouldn’t have to worry about crushing her with those full curves. I’d be cushioned as I took her. As I claimed her as mine.
She would accept my mating cuffs, and I would take her away from this primitive planet. Unlike any of the Earth females on The Colony, she had stunning dark skin, like the deepest of Prillon skin tones. Her hair was as black as the outer reaches of space, so thick and long that I could wrap it around my fist and hold her in place for my kiss.
Fuck! I pumped my cock once more, but it didn’t ease my need. Nothing would but claiming my mate. I’d been waiting for her my entire life, and now I’d found her.
Three days. I’d been on this backward planet for three days. I’d expected to begin the program immediately, but Chet Bosworth, the annoying little human who was called the host, had gotten some weird human ailment called pink eye and refused to appear on camera until it was gone.
There were no ReGen wands here, so I was told it would take days for Chet to be healed. I’d practically ripped my hair out at the delay. I’d commed Wulf and grumbled. I’d even complained to Governor Maxim and made my dissatisfaction at being volunteered to be the next bachelor beast thoroughly known.
He’d been trying to help me. I’d been bride tested but had not been matched. Now I wanted to kiss the governor because he’d been right. I’d found my mate here on Earth. Because of the ridiculous show. Just like Wulf, she hadn’t been a contestant.
I didn’t even know her name. I didn’t know where she’d gone. Running my hand through my hair, I spun around. My beast was pushing me to find her. She was within the building. I’d search every floor. I was panting, and my fists clenched.
Then I saw the females who stood outside their rooms all along the floor. The hideous multitoned carpet and gold walls made me miss Base 5’s plain design even more.
The females practically gasped in unison as I faced them, my cock in hand. Their mouths were either hanging open or in broad grins. Their gazes were fixed on my cock. Every single one of them. Priscilla, who had dared touch me, stepped back.
She was bold, but she was not stupid.
“Hey, big guy, do you need help with that?” another asked. Her blonde hair was long and sleek down her back. She was thin enough that I questioned her nutritional intake while the size of her breasts made me think any child she birthed would not go hungry.
I’d met her before. Ginger or Grace or Gabby. Something with a G.
It was her grating words that had me realizing I was naked. Cock in hand. In the hallway.
Fuck. Me.
I let my cock go, although it didn’t drop since it was so fucking hard.
“What, exactly, is a maid?” I asked her.
Her eyes widened as I got closer. She was trying to look me in the eye, but her gaze kept dropping to my body. I wasn’t the least bit modest. She could look her fill for all I cared. She wasn’t touching me, nor would she. The beast would not have it.
“A maid?” she asked with a frown. “Someone who cleans.”
“Why can’t humans clean for themselves?” I asked.
She grinned, then winked at me. “You don’t look dirty to me, but I’d be happy to assist if you need help getting clean.”
Wulf’s new mate, Olivia, rolled her eyes often. So did other human females on The Colony. I was tempted to make the same gesture now. “Why?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Because you’re gorgeous.”
My beast wanted to growl at her and make her run from us. But that wouldn't help either of us, and we needed answers. “Why maids?”
“Why does the hotel have maids?” Two other contestants joined her, and they ogled me as a trio now.
I nodded. I had to find my mate, and if getting the information out of these females was required, I’d do it. No matter how painful it was.
“We’re not at home. This is like a vacation. So someone else gets to do the dirty work,” the blonde said.
The woman beside her—just as beautifully dark-skinned as my mate—nodded, then added, ”Because that’s their job.”
I was not accustomed to someone being a servant to me. That’s what my mate’s employment was, even if the title on Earth was called maid. Servants on Atlan were respected and valued as part of the family. Everyone held positions of work and they were seen as equal, but based on the tone and the entitled dismissal of those who served them, these two females’ answers had me disliking them immensely. It was one thing not to want to claim a female, another entirely not to respect them.
“Did the maid not leave you any towels or something? I’ve got some in my room,” the dark female offered. “You can have anything you’d like in there.”
The double meaning was not lost on me. She made a similar move to Priscilla, her hand drawing dangerously close to my arm.
I stepped away. No female would touch me but my mate.
“No, I have fresh towels in mine,” the blonde countered, raising her hand to set it on my chest.
I flinched back. I would never harm a female, but these three were testing my patience. A well-placed roar, perhaps a solid growl would force them to learn a little respect.
Was this how they treated human males? Like
a piece of meat to fight over? As a prize to be won? A thing to conquer rather than a worthy male of honor? Not one of them had asked a single question of me. They knew nothing of my family, the war, or my past.
Perhaps they did not even know my name, for not one had deigned to use it.
If so, it was a wonder every male on the planet had not already volunteered to serve in the Coalition Fleet to escape them.
And yet… the human females I knew, those mated to other warriors, were not like these females. I would assume my mate would be more like Olivia and Caroline rather than the human animal called vultures circling me now.
“Do the maids return on some sort of schedule?” I had yet to see one before my mate’s appearance. The past few days I’d been in interviews and other odd meetings for the program. I’d even had to be fitted for Earth clothing in my size.
They nodded in unison. “Every morning.”
“Um… why are you standing in the hall naked?” the blonde asked.
I looked down at myself, wanted to roll my eyes. Again. I stepped around the females and went to my suite, the door swinging shut behind me. I let out a bellow that rattled the windows.
I had twenty-four females lingering in the hallway outside my room, and yet the one I wanted had fled. But she would return. Tomorrow.
The wait would be agony. I should storm through the hotel and find her. My beast loved that idea. But she’d fled when my beast hadn’t been in charge. If I let him take over, I might scare her off forever.
No, I’d have her come to me. I’d be patient. Fuck, I wasn’t sure how I’d do it, but I would. I’d do anything for my mate, including wait. I had already waited years. What were a few more hours?
My beast didn’t like the way I was thinking. In fact, he raged. Paced. Fought to break free and destroy everything and everyone in our way. He needed her. Survival instinct was kicking in, and I had to lean over, hands on my knees, eyes closed until I could think.
Think.
I had to be smart. I could not afford to make a single mistake. My fever would only get worse now that I’d found her and couldn’t claim her. I had to be fucking patient.
Tomorrow, I promised him. Tomorrow we would find release. Tomorrow we would no longer be alone and the fire burning through our body would stop burning. Hurting.
The maid was mine. She just didn’t know it yet.
3
Angela, Twenty-Four Hours Later
“I’m telling you, Casey, I can’t do it.” I’d been hiding in the laundry room for ten minutes at least, my cell phone making my palm sweat. The phone battery made me hot. Plus the heat from the dryers. It was not the thought of going to that hot hunk of an alien’s suite again, even if it was to clean his toilet bowl.
OMG. I seriously could not do it.
Casey, my best friend in the world since middle school, would normally be in town offering me stellar advice. Instead he was in Paris at some stupid fashion conference looking at shoes and handbags and clothes I hadn’t been able to fit into since about third grade. I hated him and his posh job. Paris. While I stood in the bowels of a hotel, the humidity making my hair frizz.
“Listen to me, girlfriend,” he countered. “You are going to march your smoking-hot black ass onto that elevator, go to the top floor, and clean that man’s room like a professional.”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me from across a fricking ocean. “He’s not a man.”
Casey’s very appreciative male laughter made me feel bad for every gay man within a hundred-mile radius of my best friend. “That is not what you told me last night. Oh, no. You said his cock was the size of a—”
“Don’t!” I rubbed the sticky hair away from my face and sighed. “Don’t remind me.” Like I needed reminding. I’d thought of little else since I’d run from him yesterday. Him being an alien named Braun who was here, on Earth, to find the perfect woman on the Bachelor Beast television show. The one sexy alien every woman on the planet fantasized about.
Well, I’d also thought of his chest. His lips. Those muscled thighs.
“He probably won’t even remember you, right?” he asked, the crackle of the line reminding me that it was amazing I could talk to my BFF thousands of miles away, but it made me realize that Braun had come from a planet millions of miles away. Millions. Of. Miles.
“That’s what you told me last night,” he added.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “After I told you he chased me down the hall.”
Casey laughed. “Naked, too. You said you wanted to—what did you say again? Hmmm? Lick him all over? Ride him like a cowgirl?”
I face-palmed even though no one could see me. “Shut up, Casey. Don’t remind me.” Two glasses of wine, Oscar purring in my lap, and I’d admitted things to my best friend I shouldn’t have.
“Woman, you wanted him. You never talked about Kevin like that. So why did you run? Have I taught you nothing? If a man you want to lick all over is chasing you, naked, you should stop and find out if he’ll let you do it.”
“No. I shouldn’t.” What a disaster. “At least I wasn’t fired,” I admitted. I’d been waiting all day yesterday after my shift was over for my boss to get in touch and tell me I’d been canned. No call had come, so I’d shown up this morning. Afraid. But no one had said anything nor taken me off the twelfth floor, so I’d gotten to work.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Casey prompted.
“I acted like an idiot and panicked. And ogled. I’m not supposed to drool over the guests.” That was why I was nervous as hell now. Braun was the most beautiful creation I’d ever seen. And that was saying something, because I appreciated beauty in all forms. Especially his.
The two dozen gorgeous women lurking around the hallways who were always trying to catch him outside of his room were each stunning in their own way. Unique. Truly beautiful.
I’d delivered them a fine prize. Braun, naked and a long, long walk back to his suite. We might have been alone when I’d first bolted from his room, but I’d seen how the ladies had come from their rooms when he’d shouted, and gathered behind him, waiting to pounce as the elevator doors slid closed.
And when I’d seen Priscilla’s hand slip around his biceps like she owned him?
I still wanted to scratch her eyes out of her pretty, perfect head.
“Well, you know what I think. I’ve told you a thousand times.”
“Yes. I love you.”
“Love you, too. Stop settling for assholes.”
“Seems like they’re all that’s left.” I was twenty-four, not thirteen. Most of my friends from high school had moved on. College. Trade school. Married. Whatever. They were living their life, and I was still trying to get mine started. Six years in nursing school had to be a record… and I still wasn’t done.
I sighed the exact same moment my two-way radio went off.
“Angela. Are you finished with the Presidential Suite? I’m done on floor two. I can help if you need it.”
“I’m okay. Thanks, Tina. Go on home.” I spoke quietly into the radio, but Casey still heard every word.
“That’s right, Ang. Go get him,” Casey said. “Ogle the pants off the guy. Wait, his pants were already off!” He laughed. I didn’t. “I want details when I get back in town next week.”
“Shut up. You’re such a player.”
“You should be, too. It’s more fun, especially when they’re droolworthy.”
“Whatever. Bring me amazing French shoes!” I reminded him before he hung up.
I slid the cell phone back into my pocket. Just like the ladies here to take their shot at winning Braun’s heart—whose rooms I also cleaned this week—Casey was beautiful, sensual, and the exact opposite of me in terms of sexual aggression. If Casey saw a man he wanted, he went for it. He got turned down a lot, but that never stopped him from trying.
I could count on two fingers the number of men I’d slept with. Kevin had been fun, or so I’d thought. We were set
up, friends of friends. He’d come across as a good guy. As the son of a state politician, he’d learned how to manipulate and lie. Fake shit like a pro. When he’d wanted to move in, I hadn’t realized he’d been fired from his job and gambling to try and earn cash. It had been feast or famine with him, but he’d been too sly to let on. I let him live with me and realized too late what he was up to. For a guy with a daddy with really deep pockets—like super rich—Kevin had been stealing from me to pay his bookies. I’d kicked his ass to the curb… and all his belongings.
And then there had been Brandon, the sweet guy I’d met my freshman year of college. He was sweet, a real slow mover, and when he finally did make a move, he’d been a bit too quick on the orgasm side of things. At least when it came to his.
I’d figured we were young. That it took time to learn out our bodies. But that had been stupid thinking on my part. Kevin hadn’t bothered with getting me off. I should have drawn him a map to my clit. I should have dumped him then, but stupidly I hadn’t until I’d learned the hard way. The really expensive way that he was a dick. That he’d been hiding his habit, and me, from Daddy. I sighed, letting go of my angst with that asshole.
Unable to delay the inevitable another minute without literally risking my job, I pushed my cart onto the service elevator and made my way to the VIP floor and Braun’s door.
I knocked three times.
“Housekeeping!”
Silence. Again.
The breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding escaped in a loud sigh. Thank God.
I knocked again and announced myself once more, just in case. When still no one answered, I used my key and entered the room. As usual, I left the cart in the hallway.
“Housekeeping!” I called again, not wanting a repeat of yesterday. Okay, maybe I did, but I was afraid I’d run again and make a fool of myself a second time. Once was enough.
When there was no answer, I went to the same bedroom, but this time I stuck my head in first. Empty. I tiptoed—like an idiot—to the bathroom door and peeked in there as well.
Maid for the Beast Page 2