DangerouslyHis

A.M.
Griffin

Loving Dangerously, Book Four

Justin “JB” Blake has never met a woman he couldn’t bed—or
one he wants to keep. That changes the second he lays eyes on Princess Saia
Xochis. The beautiful alien makes his body burn and his heart ache. She
will
be his. All JB has to do is risk life and limb at the hands of her abusive
father, her protective brother, and her warmongering intended mate.

The possibilities of death and dismemberment have never
stopped him before.

Inside Scoop:
This book has a small taste of
female/female fun—as well as scenes of abuse that are decidedly
not
fun.

Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and
scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!

A Romantica®
sci-fi erotic romance
from Ellora’s
Cave

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the real JB. May you find your
princess and live happily ever after.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my wonderful family, who has endured more than
their fair share of pizza nights and fast food restaurants because of writing
schedules and deadlines. Ryan, Jori, Myles and Mia, I love you with all my
heart, and because of your continued support, I’m able to continue this dream.

Thank you to my little sister Arthella, who seems to always
have my book in her hand, ready to tell a friend, family member, coworker or
stranger about how wonderful it is. You’re not only my sister, but you’re also
my vacation partner, friend and avid supporter, and I love you for always
having my back.

Thank you to my wonderful author friends, Danica Avet and
Lea Barrymire, who are always available to listen to my rants, indulge my whims
or talk me off the ledge.

Thank you to the readers. You guys rock. You don’t know how
many times a tweet, Facebook post or an email has lifted my spirits. I want to
hug each and every one of you, but I won’t because that would be totally weird.

Thank you to my editor extraordinaire, Kelli, for helping me
do justice to JB, my bad boy.

Thanks to my daddy, Arthello. We have our differences but
two things remain constant—our love for each other and your unwavering support.
I love you.

Most of all, I’d like to thank my mother, Diana. Without
you, I wouldn’t have the passion to write. Because of you, I know stories can
and should be told. You’ve taught me not to be afraid, to always be strong and
to write about what makes me happy. I love you.

Taken Year: Three

Justin Blake tried his best to ignore the near-freezing
temperature of the night air. Tonight, as on so many nights before, he thought
of the hot, humid temperatures of his hometown, Little Rock, Arkansas. And like
those other times, he mentally kicked himself for having complained about
Little Rock being too hot.

Heat would feel real good right now. The rags that passed
for work clothes did nothing to keep out the biting chill, and only reminded
him of how futile reminiscing about heat actually was.

He crouched inside the mine, in a small crevice in the wall,
fifteen feet from the entrance. He could hear the gusts of wind whipping past
heavy machinery and across the landscape. While it was cold, he knew it was
colder outside.

He kept his eyes and ears tuned to the entrance, where
wooden slats supported the walls. Every now and then, gales would come
barreling through and make the already-rickety boards at the entranceway rattle
and knock together, making Justin think they might collapse at any given
moment. If that were to happen, being trapped in the mine wouldn’t be such a
bad thing. At least he and the rest of the human slaves would have a quick
death and would no longer have to deal with the Galontaers, those big, ugly
beasts the Loconuist had sold them to.

A quick or an easy death.

He sighed at the thought. He’d long since stopped thinking
death in a Galontaer mining camp would be either. When Justin and the other
human slaves had arrived on Toquel after being sold, his first thought had
been,
Well, at least I’m off the Loconuist vessel.
He’d breathed fresh
air, and after not feeling sunshine or warmth on his skin for two years, he
thought this place had been a step up.

Wrong.

Yeah, the Loconuist had invaded Earth in 2012 and pretty
much destroyed life as he knew it. Yeah, they had kept thousands of humans in
what he believed was the belly of an enormous transport vessel. Yeah, they had
separated families when they began selling humans. But the Loconuist had never
beaten anyone.

That wasn’t the case here.

Galontaers used the whip freely. Justin suspected sometimes
they used it as a means to say hello or just to let him know they were
nearby—as if he could ever forget.

The Galontaers weren’t that much taller than humans. Their
bodies were wide and stocky but it was their facial structure that made looking
at them difficult. Their eyes were the size of dimes. The irises were black and
took up the majority of the eye, leaving just a hint of white to outline them.
Their skins appeared to be stitched together, scars zigzagging along
cheekbones, around eyes and chins. Their lips were wide and stretched the
length of their faces, with small, pointy teeth that protruded and sometimes
cut into their lower lips, causing blood to drip as they talked. A line of hair
that could only be described as a mane began at the top of their foreheads and
traveled to the base of their skulls to disappear underneath their clothes.

And to top it off, their attitudes were just as bad as their
looks. JB would do anything to get away from them, even if it meant going
through with this crazy plan.

The wind billowed through again, tearing a board loose. It
fell to the ground with a
thunk
. The whole damn entrance could fall
apart at any minute, trapping them inside. How long would it take him and
Terrance to starve to death? One week? Two? That wouldn’t be so bad,
considering they’d all been wasting away and slowly dying for the past year.
But even
that
dream was short-lived. The Galontaers would just dig them
out and reset the entrance, as they’d done the other times it had collapsed.

But now there was hope. Not of a quick death but of an
escape from the Galontaers, the mine and this wretched planet.

Rapid-fire puffs of white air burst from his mouth,
suggesting two things. One, his breathing was erratic and fast. Two, if he
didn’t want to get caught by any of the patrolling Galontaers, he should shut
his mouth and breathe through his nose.

He snapped his mouth shut.

On his first inhalation, he remembered why breathing through
his nose wasn’t an option. His nostrils were painfully raw and sore from the
low humidity of Toquel and if the crisp air didn’t make his nose bleed, the
smell surely would.

The smells of shit, rotting flesh and more shit were forever
burned in his brain.

Immediately he parted his lips and breathed through his
mouth again. The smell seemed to cling to the back of his throat, making it
itchy.

This was the only planet he’d been on besides Earth, but
Justin, or JB as he preferred to be called, was sure this had to be the
worst-smelling planet in the galaxy, maybe even the universe. The Galontaers
didn’t believe in wasting precious water on bathing, and certainly didn’t
accommodate their human slaves in that regard.

JB didn’t know which was worse, the smell coming from him or
the stench of the Galontaers.

Terrance, his companion, shifted to his knees from a
crouching position. The crunching sound of his boots on the gravel was almost
drowned out by the wind blowing outside. “We should have gotten the signal by
now,” he said in a whisper.

“Don’t worry. We’ll get one,” JB assured.

He and Terrance had waited in the cramped crevice for what
seemed an eternity. Both were more than anxious to move to the next checkpoint.

“God, I hope so.”

Terrance shivered and shifted closer. JB didn’t mind, he
welcomed the added warmth. He’d known Terrance since the third grade. Even
after high school, the two of them had stayed close. When JB started his
construction company, Terrance had been one of the first men he’d hired.

When JB was captured, Terrance had been right by his side.

JB knew he was lucky to have a friend with him during this
troubling time. Few others on Toquel could boast the comfort of a childhood
friend to ease the stress of enslavement. At least JB had someone to lean on,
to help him navigate through uncharted waters. And being abducted by aliens and
sold to a mining colony was definitely high on the list of uncharted territory.

Terrance pounded a fist on his thigh. “Come on, come on,
come on,” he chanted in a hurried tone.

JB stilled him with a hand. “Hold tight, be patient.”
Killing
a Galontaer takes time.

This was something both he and Terrance knew firsthand. They
had killed the Galontaer who lay in a stinking heap not more than five feet
from them. Even though the alien was tucked against the wall and covered with
dirt, rocks and any other debris they could find, his nose-hair-splitting
stench wafted through the air, reminding them of his presence.

Dead Galontaer stench and shit.
Great.

There was no escaping until they got the signal from Kyle. A
flash of light would let him and Terrance know that the mine entrance was clear
and it was safe to proceed. And no signal at all would mean their great escape
plan was a bust. It would also indicate that Kyle was probably dead. And JB’s
and Terrance’s deaths would come in the morning when the dead Galontaer was
found.

Either way, he was escaping this hellhole.

Terrance shook his head. “Man, I don’t know how you can stay
so calm.”

“I’m not. My insides are tied in knots.” The contents of his
stomach felt heavy as a stone and he’d had to swallow his vomit on more than
one occasion. But that could’ve been caused by the smell, and not his nerves.

Terrance shifted again, this time taking a small step away.
When he did, the warmth from the two-hundred-plus-pound former linebacker left
with him. “Maybe I should go and take a quick peek?”

JB’s response was quick. He reached out and held Terrance in
place. “No, let’s stick to the plan. We wait here for Kyle’s signal.”

“But what if something happened? We could be waiting here
all night.” Terrance inhaled sharply. “What if…what if they left us?”

JB tried to run a grimy hand through his shoulder-length
hair. His fingers snagged on one of the many tangles. Disgusted, he snatched
his hand away. “No, they wouldn’t leave us. Don’t start psyching yourself out.”
The longer they waited, the more Terrance seemed to work himself up.

“I don’t know. This escape could boil down to every man for
himself.”

JB gave Terrance’s shoulder a tight squeeze and looked him
directly in the eyes. “We’re brothers, family, all of us.”

Terrance returned his gaze with a squint. “If
you
had
a chance to leave this place, would you take it or would you pass it up for two
people?”

A small niggling of self-doubt gripped JB’s chest, but he
pushed it away. All the men in their work detail shared a bond. They’d spent
three hellish years together. Two of those had been on the Loconuist vessel and
the last had been trapped on Toquel.

The bond was forged deeper than any of them could have ever
imagined. They’d all lost loved ones during the invasion, on the ship and in
the mines. While some in desperation might be willing to leave a man or two
behind, most would not.

On the last count there were less than twenty men working
this particular mining detail. The original number had been closer to fifty.
They were dying, literally being worked to death. Ryan, the pilot, told them
there were more than eight hundred work details spread around the planet. And
JB didn’t doubt his words.

Ryan was a former Air Force pilot, and the only human JB
knew of who had one of those fancy universal translators in his brain. The
Galontaers had implanted the device that allowed him to understand any alien
language, and they had also taught Ryan how to pilot their vessels in order to
help transport the metals from the various mines to the processing centers.

As for JB and his fellow slaves? The Galontaers had told him
on more than one occasion that they wouldn’t live long enough to justify the
expense of translators. The only thing JB and the others had to do was follow simple
commands—or get the whip.

“I would wait for everyone. I wouldn’t leave anyone behind.”
If he could, he would also rescue the other men on the planet. But even JB knew
that was highly unlikely since their escape plan was a toss in the dark to
begin with.

Terrance’s gaze shifted to the mine entrance. “Let’s just
hope Kyle and Ryan feel the same way.”

JB said a silent prayer. He didn’t think either man would
leave anyone behind. It was Ryan’s skill that could…no,
would
aid in
their escape.

He didn’t hold Terrance’s fears against him. He had lost a
brother and an arm in the mines. Years of friendship or not, Terrance would
probably take the first opportunity he had to leave Toquel, the mines and the
Galontaers behind without a backward glance as to whom he was leaving.

Terrance was on the verge of a mental breakdown, and relying
on an escape plan riddled with holes was enough to put anyone on edge.

JB began to feel himself slipping deeper into uncertainty
along with Terrance just as the flicker of a small light shone in the distance.

Thank you, Jesus.
“Come on. That’s our cue,” JB said.

He and Terrance dropped to their hands and knees and hastily
made their way across the hard, rough terrain toward the light. While his work
clothes protected his knees from the rocks, large and small, there was nothing
protecting his hands. Each and every sharp object dug into the skin of his
palms.

Terrance grunted and wobbled beside him. Even with the use
of just one hand, determination pushed him forward.

Aside from Terrance’s grunts, all JB could hear was the
sound of the blood rushing through his ears as they approached the light. The
first thing he noticed when he crawled outside the mine entrance was the dead
Galontaer guard slumped on the ground. Kyle flicked off the light while Eli kept
his eyes on the terrain, keeping watch for any more Galontaer patrols. JB had
never been so happy to see both men in his life.

“Help me move him,” Kyle said.

JB and Terrance didn’t waste any time dragging the dead
guard inside the mine’s entrance and out of sight of anyone who might pass by.

From there, they set off for the next checkpoint—the huge
bin that held the coal from yesterday’s haul. Eventually the bin would provide
cover for a total of ten men, all waiting under the shelter for another signal.
Being trapped with nowhere to run if they were caught made him nervous, but he
really didn’t have a choice. With aliens on patrol, waiting behind the bin was
too risky.

They all knew if there were any glitches in their plan, it
would happen here, under the bin where they were briefly vulnerable. For half
the men, it was the last checkpoint before making a break for the vessel.

Kane, a former lawyer from New York, had for the past year
tediously studied each of the guards’ habits and had formulated the escape
plan. Every step had to be done in a perfectly coordinated effort. It was dicey
but for men who were hanging on to life by a thread, it was the only hope they
had.

From where they crouched, they could see the vessel docked
by the Galontaer stronghold. It was so close—they were so close to freedom. JB
tore his gaze away from the vessel and scanned the land around it. Small huts
that accommodated the sleeping Galontaers dotted the landscape. Waking any
number of them would lead to a quick death. While they could take one Galontaer
at a time, none of the men could ever hope to overpower more than that. The
aliens had bodies that resembled the creatures from the movie
Predator
,
but on steroids. Everyone, including JB, was weakened, battered and in some
cases disabled.

For that reason, they all waited impatiently just inside the
mine entrance for the next signal from Jori. Once it was safe for the escapees
to pass through the Galontaer camp and to the vessel, he would signal.