CHAPTER 1: NORA
I signed a contract.
Naively, as if no bad thing ever came from blindly entering a contractual relationship.
I couldn’t even claim the effects of alcohol. The drinking I’d done had all been the night before.
I was in a pickle, because I’d signed on the metaphorical dotted line without blinking an eyelash, and certainly without reading all the fine print.
Stupid Alvin.
If he hadn’t taken one look at me and then turned around and walked out of the coffee shop, I wouldn’t have gone home and drunk half a pitcher of margaritas.
I also wouldn’t have drunk-texted my mom and berated her for setting me up with her neighbor’s nephew.
And I definitely wouldn’t have taken that stupid online quiz.
Are you lonely? Unfulfilled? Haven’t had a toe-tingling, almost-blackout orgasm in longer than you can remember? Maybe ever?
Until I’d read that, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an almost-blackout orgasm. How could I not read more? Drunk me thought reading about toe-tingling orgasms was a fabulous idea.
And then there’d been the quiz.
The next morning, I’d woken with a headache and an enticing email in my inbox.
My quiz results qualified me to receive an invitation to an exclusive dating service. I had no idea what a fantasy-fulfillment dating service was, but it sounded great. Who didn’t want their fantasies fulfilled when dating?
Alvin and his coffee-shop one-eighty had shattered my self-confidence. My will to date was damn near crushed.
Damn near.
Not entirely.
Because buried deep beneath all the bad dates and the crushing defeat of my previous failed relationships, there was still a tiny spark of hope that I’d meet that one guy. The one who’d make my heart go pitter-patter. The one who’d do my taxes for me and tell me I looked pretty even when I wasn’t wearing makeup.
That guy was out there somewhere, and his name sure as hell wasn’t Alvin.
Somewhere, some guy who wasn’t named after a cartoon chipmunk would want me. He’d take one look at me, and he wouldn’t run for the coffee shop door.
Dammit, I was hot, and some nice, decent guy would realize it.
Those were the thoughts running through my head when I’d replied to Serendipity’s email about their dating service and also when I’d agreed to meet Mary, their most experienced dating counselor.
What happened next, that was all on me.
I’d love to blame Alvin, or my mother’s neighbor, or any of the men who’d treated me as though I was less than what they needed or wanted.
But that wouldn’t fly.
I was the captain of my ship, and I’d made all the bad decisions that followed.
At our first and only meeting, Mary, a matronly woman with a trustworthy face, told me that she had exactly the right date in mind for me. Tall, handsome, financially stable, and very, very interested.
She couldn’t say enough about my lovely figure, my naturally curly dark locks, and my height. She seemed especially impressed by my height. I confirmed twice that I was indeed just half an inch under six feet.
She practically glowed when she reviewed my quiz results. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Drunk Nora had taken that quiz, not the woman who stood before her now.
Should I have been concerned when she told me that all members of Serendipity’s dating service were required to submit to a brief physical exam?
Sure, now I knew I should have been worried.
At the time, I’d been impressed by the company’s thoroughness and Mary’s optimism. She had just the man for me. He’d be thrilled to go on a date with me. She was certain of it. The woman practically spoke in bold and italics.
My naivete and her optimism proved a persuasive combination.
Blindingly persuasive.
I saw nothing odd about the physical exam. Not when the doctor took blood, and not when he disappeared for more than a few minutes only to return with a loaded syringe.
Did I object to a surprise injection?
Spoiler: no, I did not.
I’d felt the first fluttering of concern when he assured me I’d agreed to the shot. I had no recollection of doing so. If I’d agreed to getting jabbed and hadn’t realized it, what else had I unknowingly agreed to?
A nondisclosure agreement was the only document I remembered signing, but I also hadn’t exactly read the fine print. What sort of person actually read that stuff? I had twenty-eight-year-old, twenty-twenty eyes, and I could barely make it out.
Those had been my last thoughts as I’d laid back against the exam table and my eyelids had grown heavier.
My last thoughts before I’d been put in a deep—seriously deep—sleep. So deep that I’d woken on an entirely different planet.
Or so the note said. I’d found it on the small table next to the heavenly bed I currently occupied.
Welcome Nora of Earth.
You have arrived on CiFGa, a planet many light years from Earth.
Please await your betrothed. He will welcome you with much joy.
Yours,
Maray
Serendipity Inc. Dating Counselor
A note?
My fingers tingled a bit.
That was all I got?
And I thought Mary and I had bonded. Clearly not. Also, that note didn’t really sound like the Mary I’d met. Maybe there was more than one Mary?
I felt a little floaty. Like I was here…but not…but sort of. And I felt good. Relaxed and chill, like I’d just had a nice jill-off session. The kind with wine, a good book, and my rabbit.
My lack of panic and general sense of well-being clued me in that I’d gotten something more than a sedative to knock me out for the trip. My alien kidnappers—ha! aliens!—had also given me happy juice of some kind.
My tingling fingers. I’d bet that note was doctored with something. The writing was really small. I could hardly read it without touching it.
Wow, and I thought Mary…Maray…and I were buds.
Then again, maybe I should be thanking Matron Maray, because I felt a decided absence of abject terror regarding my kidnap and relocation to an alien planet.
Instead, I was annoyed that Mary—Maray—had decided a note was a great way to break the news that I’d been transported an unfathomable distance to be left as some sort of offering to an unknown man.
And I bet she lied. I bet he’s not tall, handsome, and financially stable. Shame, Maray. Shame.
I should be shocked, and by more than Maray’s betrayal. I was alone in a strange—no, alien—world and would probably need a good cry whenever the mood-enhancing drugs wore off. Oh, and a bathroom. I’d need one of those. I didn’t, but I would.
Wow, these were seriously good drugs, because I wasn’t even overwhelmed by my tear-filled, bathroom-less future.
And what about food? Did these guys eat the same foods? Could I breathe their air?
I inhaled deeply. Seemed so. Then again, they wouldn’t bring me all this way and let me suffocate. Wait… Was I making sense? I felt like maybe I wasn’t.
But instead of puzzling my way through the tangle I’d made of what felt like a really hard logic problem, I mentally shrugged.
It’d all be good.
Best. Drugs. Ever.
I floated in a semiconscious state and thought pleasant thoughts.
How fantastic the silky sheets felt against my naked skin.
How rubbing against them made me feel like a happy cat.
How maybe I should play with my tits and pinch my nipples because that felt amaaazing.
How relaxed and wet and fucking horny I was.
How maybe I should touch myself. Rub myself. Make myself come.
Yum. Best drugs ever.
I fell asleep with a sassy smile on my face.
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