Mimi worked her jaw until it was sore, the sadistic Stone deliberately holding himself back until she was aching and breathless before releasing into her mouth.
“You did that well,” he noted, smearing his juices around her face with his thumb. “You have a mouth that was made for cocksucking. I’ll use that again. Perhaps I should make my seed your staple diet. Did you know that it’s very good for you? So much protein, and vitamins too. Not like your human crap. Your skin and hair will thank you.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Mimi. “Biologically speaking. Between you and a human?”
“My cellular structure is completely different. I don’t have DNA in your sense—I could kill you right now and they wouldn’t find a trace of me anywhere.”
“Lovely.”
“Handy.” John smiled, almost affectionately. “How familiar are you with human biology?”
“Not very,” Mimi admitted. “I didn’t pay much attention in those lessons. Learned most of what I know behind the bike sheds.”
“I won’t go into detail then. I look like you, but I’m different. That’s all you need to know.”
“Do you feel hunger and thirst?”
“I’ve tampered with myself so that I can eat and expel organic matter, as you do. Off this planet, I wouldn’t digest in the way you do. We inhale our nourishment where I’m from. It’s so much more efficient. The time you people spend in the kitchen. Madness! Though I must admit, I’ve come to rather enjoy cooking. It’s like chemistry, an experimental art with the potential for disaster or triumph.”
“I’m starving,” Mimi hinted. “I haven’t eaten all day.”
“You just did,” John said with a wide smirk. “Didn’t I fill you up? Perhaps second helpings?”
“A piece of toast will do.”
“Noted. Don’t run away, now, will you?” John leapt off the bed and pulled on his trousers, grinning at the still-trussed, sex-mussed girl on the bed.
“As if I would. As if I could.”
“Oh, you don’t fool me, Miranda. You’d run a million miles if I let you out of my sight for one second. I’m keeping you close, love. I’m sticking to you like glue. There is nowhere you could go that would be safe from me. Just keep that in mind.”
As John shut the door behind him, Mimi convulsed with dread, her appetite suddenly killed stone dead.
“What the hell happened to you yesterday?”
Mimi swore an internal blue streak. She had deliberately taken the back entrance into work so as not to run into Liam, and here he was, balancing various paper bags of muffins and croissants and several coffee containers, accusing her at the foot of the stairs.
“Sorry,” she blurted. “Something came up.”
“Something that involved going to a mobile black hole?”
“Yes. Look, can I pass? I’ve got an urgent meeting with Prendergast.”
Liam stood aside, confused at Mimi’s icy, unrepentant demeanour.
“Call me,” he said, watching her take the first few steps. “I’ve got stuff I have to tell you. About Anna, and Stone.”
“Yeah. Later.”
At her desk, Mimi stopped to open her handbag and stare disconsolately at its contents. Her mobile phone winked a red light at her, reminding her that the Thought Link was on, and could not be broken. Before she had left for work that morning, John had taken the phone and done something complicated with it, ensuring that, though she was out of range for normal alien telepathy, the technology would keep her brain completely under his remote scrutiny. If she so much as thought about disobeying him, he would know immediately.
She pulled herself together and headed for Prendergast’s office. His PA looked up and smiled, a friendly girl with whom Mimi had shared many a drunken confidence.
“Hey, Mimi. You coming to Shots tonight? It’s school disco night.”
“No, can’t, sorry. Listen, can you tell Prendergast I need to see him? It’s urgent.”
“Really?” The PA was surpris