Free New Species 10 Moon by Laurann Dohner Page A

touched my breasts or any other part of me except my hands the few times he wanted to make me uncomfortable by trying to intimidate me. I was clear that we couldn’t ever have a sexual relationship so don’t accuse me of leading him on. I didn’t!”
    Harley flashed his fangs. “You are coldhearted and cared nothing about him.”
    “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Harley. You’re wrong. That’s why I quit my job. I knew it was only a matter of time before he broke me down because I felt too much for him.”
    “You admit your job was more important than he was. Otherwise you would have stayed with him.”
    She gaped at him, ignoring everyone else in the room since no one spoke. “How could I have stayed with him? Do you know what would have happened if I had slept with him?”
    “He would have been happy.”
    “I would have been fired for having sex with him…and a lot worse.”
    “Your job was more important!” Harley curled his lip in disgust. He turned his head to look at Justice. “She needs to be escorted off Homeland and away from Moon. We can’t trust her not to hurt him again. His well-being isn’t her priority and never will be.”
    “Fuck you, Harley,” she snapped before she could leash her temper. “I’d do anything for Moon.”
    He glared at her. “You left him when you knew he needed you.”
    Joy shook her head. “How naïve are you? Did you hear me when I said they would have fired me if I’d slept with him? Do you think they would have allowed me near him after that? It was a classified location!” She tried to rein in her emotions. It was tough to do. “There were cameras and guards crawling all over the place. They would have figured it out fast if I’d allowed my relationship with Moon to progress into a sexual one. I would have been forced to leave there and they would have probably kept me in jail, awaiting trial for whatever charges they could pin on me to keep me locked up for as long as possible out of fear that I’d give up the location of that site.”
    Harley frowned.
    “I would have lost everything to sleep with him one time.” She sat down hard in the chair, hugged her chest again, and stared at her lap. “Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. I cared about Moon. You have no idea how much.” She swallowed, clearing her emotion-choked throat. “But I also knew it would hurt Moon more if we slept together. I always put him first.”
    “How would it have hurt Moon more?” It was Justice who spoke.
    She met his gaze. He didn’t appear angry. “Moon had a really hard time adjusting to life beyond Mercile. He was antisocial and confrontational with the guards. Imagine how much worse it would have been if he’d had to watch me being dragged off the property in handcuffs. He might have even tried to come to my aid, thinking he was protecting me. It would have made him hate the guards more than he already did or even gotten him shot if he’d killed anyone. The guards were ordered not to hurt Species except in a life-or-death situation if one was out of control but they had the authority to permanently put down the threat in an extreme situation. I wasn’t willing to risk his life or have them decide he was unable to cope with his freedom. Do you know what they did to Species unable to integrate with the humans who worked there?”
    Justice sighed. “I know. They kept them heavily sedated and secured away from the others. A lot of our Wild Zone residents were brought to us after enduring that treatment.”
    “Exactly!” She shifted her gaze to Harley. He didn’t appear as angry as before. “That’s why I left when I did. I knew it was only a matter of time before he succeeded in seducing me and that it could get him killed or sent to one of the hospital wards where he’d be heavily drugged. The thought of either of those things happening to him ripped me to shreds inside. I didn’t put my career above Moon. I did the only thing I could to make sure it