Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Kaitlyn Prior is finished playing nice.
Divorced, restless, and craving something darker than vanilla, the curvy, mature Kindred Ambassador wants control in the bedroom—power, intensity, a man strong enough to kneel without breaking.
She just never expected that man to be her massive Beast Kindred Protector.
Braze is lethal–an Elite Alpha warrior with a brutal past he’s sworn never to reveal.
Long ago, he was captured on Yonnie Six and trained to submit to a Mistress. He buried the memories, buried the shame…and buried the part of himself that aches to kneel again.
Then he and Kaitlyn are sent to a female-ruled planet where wives own their husbands—and to secure a critical trade treaty, they must pretend to be married.
But on this world, obedience isn’t just symbolic...it must be proved.
So when the Empress demands proof of Braze’s devotion, Kaitlyn must decide whether to command her Beast… or lose him forever.
Because the most dangerous secret of all?
This Beast doesn’t want to dominate…
He wants to surrender.
Great for fans
Fake marriage
Forced proximity
Female-led romance
Curvy mature heroine
Dark desire
Emotional scars
Alpha warrior with a submissive secret
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
KAITLYN
“What’s this meeting about? Do we have a new assignment?” Ambassador Kaitlyn Prior asked as she looked up at the massive Kindred warrior walking by her side.
She had a long way to look, since Braze, her Kindred Protector, was over seven feet tall. But since Kaitlyn was just shy of six feet herself, she didn’t feel intimidated by the height difference—in fact, she liked it. Her ex-husband had been two inches shorter than she was and he’d been extremely self-conscious about it, which meant she could never wear heels. It was nice to look up at a man for a change, she thought.
“Fuck if I know,” Braze rumbled, his broad shoulders rolling in a shrug under his crimson uniform shirt. He was a Beast Kindred and had the thick, black hair and golden eyes of his kind to prove it. He also had a black beard that was neatly clipped on the sides and around his mouth. However, it was braided into two small plaits at his chin—the mark of the savage tribe he’d come from on the Beast Kindred home world of Rageron.
Kaitlyn thought he was extremely handsome—in a rugged, Alpha Male kind of way—but since he almost certainly wasn’t interested in the kinds of things she was into in the bedroom, she’d decided to leave him strictly alone. Plus, he was her co-worker—her Protector—and mixing work relationships and romance was a bad idea. She ought to know—she’d met her ex at her first job right out of college and look how well that had turned out.
The problem was, she and her ex, Mark, had gotten married too young, Kaitlyn mused. Neither of them really knew what they wanted at that age. Now, as a woman in her middle years, she had a much better idea of what she wanted out of life, and it wasn’t just being a mom and a wife.
Thank goodness she hadn’t let Mark talk her into giving up on her goals. He’d sneered at her for wanting to finish her degree in Xeno-cultural Anthropology with an emphasis on matriarchal societies, but Kaitlyn had kept at it anyway and she’d recently earned her PhD.
“What the hell can you do with a degree like that?” Mark had demanded in exasperation when Kaitlyn had insisted on making time to continue her classes. He considered it an imposition anytime he had to be responsible for their two kids and Kaitlyn’s studies had cut into his free time with his fantasy football league. “It’s worthless—a waste of time!”
As it turned out, her degree wasn’t a waste of time. Kaitlyn had been intending to teach at a university somewhere, but then a job aboard the Kindred Mother Ship had opened up. She had actually heard about it from one of her professors who had also acted as a mentor. She had gotten Kaitlyn an interview and now she was working for the Kindred as a Cultural Ambassador to new alien races. After finalizing her divorce and making sure that her youngest son was settled comfortably at college, she’d moved up to the Mother Ship to pursue her new career.
Since meeting and studying new people was Kaitlyn’s favorite thing to do, her new job suited her perfectly. She hadn’t been quite so sure about the Protector who had been assigned to her at first, however. Braze was so big and muscular, he looked like the kind of guy who would have trouble treating a woman as his equal.
However, in this case, her first impression had been wrong. The huge Beast Kindred might look like a bad-ass biker who would call you “little lady” and throw you over his shoulder before riding off into the sunset, but he didn’t act like that at all.
Well, there was that one time he’d thrown her over his shoulder, Kaitlyn reminded herself, but he’d had an excuse. They were being attacked by an angry mob on Velux Three. At the time, Kaitlyn had been wearing a pair of ridiculously tall, stilt-like ceremonial shoes which were part of the outfit she had to wear to attend the Veluxian Court. She couldn’t run in the damn things—hell, she could barely walk in them! And then they’d been confronted by the mob, who wanted to overthrow the monarchy. They had caught Kaitlyn coming out of the Veluxian Royal Palace dressed as a lady of the Court and there had been murder in their eyes—which was saying a lot since Veluxians had six eyes apiece.
“Now, hold on…” Kaitlyn had begun, putting out her hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “Just let me explain…”
But none of the angry Veluxian revolutionaries seemed interested in explanations. They had started coming right at Kaitlyn, chanting about “the blood of the wicked must paint the streets” or some such ominous thing.
Braze had assessed the situation and then flipped her over one broad shoulder as though she weighed no more than a pillow—which gave Kaitlyn a new appreciation of her Protector’s raw physical strength, since that was absolutely not the case. Then he had run flat-out with the angry mob behind them for over a mile to get them back to their ship—an impressive feat considering Kaitlyn was bouncing on his shoulder the whole time.