Page 26 of Alien Wants A Wife

I pick up an object. “This one?”

“That’s foundation.”

“Foundation for what?”

“For your skin. I mean, your… scales? Actually”—she gently takes the container out of my hand and returns it to the table—“I don’t think that’s your color.”

“It is not.” I scan the objects, searching for a green one but find nothing.

“How about this?” Harlee picks up a small tub, about the size of her palm, and unscrews the lid to reveal a white paste.

I am most definitely not that color, but I reframe from stating the obvious.

“This is a moisturizer.” Absorbed in her task, Harlee kneels in front of me and dips two fingers into the tub, scooping out a small blob of paste. “I think it should work on scales as well as on skin. Tell me if it stings.” And she rubs gentle circles on the inner wrist of one of my arms, a pucker marring the center of her usually smooth forehead, indicating… Concentration? Concern? Care? Humans use many facial expressions unfamiliar to Ril’os.

My body responds to her nearness. My heartbeat accelerates. My mouth goes dry. My muscles grow stiff. I am afraid that if I move the spell will break, and Harlee will release my hand.

And my cock, of course, is once again pressing against my sheath, desperate for release. Desperate for her touch.

I know without a doubt that I am going to make a fool of myself, again. It feels inevitable, inescapable. If we stay here, with Harlee’s fingers caressing my wrist, I am going to losecontrol. But how can I break contact, when this, here and now, is the most erotic moment of my entire life?

“Harlee.” Despite my best efforts, a moan escapes my mouth, and I shift forward in my seat, until my knees brush against her arms.

“Oh, umm…” She stands, loses her balance, grabs hold of my shoulder to keep upright, then snatches her hand back, akin to me having burnt her. “We could try some mascara,” she says quickly, dropping the moisturizer pot back onto the table. “Only you don’t have eyelashes... Right.”

“Eyelashes?” I shift closer again, until I am on the edge of the chair.

“These are eyelashes.” She closes her eyes and gently brushes a finger against the black hairs decorating her eyelids.

Unable to resist, I copy. Her eyelashes are soft, almost too soft for me to feel them. I do, however, hear the pause in her breathing as she stills.

“And what is this?” I touch one of the two lines of hairs arched across her forehead.

“My eyebrows.” Her answer is a whisper, and she leans a fraction more firmly into my touch.

“And this?” I press a fingertip to one corner of her mouth, careful not to scratch her with my claws. “When you show your teeth in happiness?”

“That’s a smile.” Her eyes flutter open. “You don’t smile?”

I shake my head. When I tried before, she had flinched away from me, scared, and the last thing I want is for Harlee to be frightened of me.

Harlee

Flirt,Mr. Smith had instructed, and so that’s what I’d done. But the way Roan has acted in response makes it abundantly clear he’s taking everything I’ve done seriously. The guy literally fell off his chair when I touched his knee. Now, he’s staring at me like I hung the moon. Like I’m the first woman he’d ever had a crush on.

Like I was his only hope of finding love.

I had everything planned for being a contestant on an Earth-style dating show, starring alongside other self-centered celebrity wannabes.

Nobody has ever looked at me as Roan is looking at me, not even Asher at the height of our relationship, when he was still telling me that he loved me and pretending that I mattered to him.

After less than a day I already know that the difference between my ex and Roan is as vast as a chasm. And I am woefully unprepared for flirting with the most adorably innocent alien in the entire frickin’ universe.

Roan doesn’t deserve to have his feelings trifled with. And he doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken, by me of all people.

Me, who knows better than most what it feels like to have the one you love abandons you.

If there was any way I could make Mr. Smith turn this spaceship around today and take us Humans home, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Anything has to be better than treating Roan as a toy to be played with and then tossed away, rejected. On intergalactic TV with an audience ofbillions.

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