Page 41 of Alien Wants A Wife

Ineedto break it. Otherwise, in another few minutes of him looking at me like he wants to eat me, I’m going to be tempted to lie down on Roan’s kitchen table and let him, regardless of the cameras.

“My bedroom,” is all he says when he does eventually answer. He’s got a sort of stunned look on his face, as if he’s struggling to follow the abrupt change in conversation because his brain (and his dick) is still firmly fixed on the idea of kissing.

After another moment, he eventually steps around me to open said door, showing me his room.

The first thing I search for are cameras. And yep, there they are. Three of them, with their lenses trained on the bed, their redonlight shining brightly.

And oh wow, it’s an enormous bed. Compared to Human standards, I’m guessing it’s close to a king size, but it’s way longer, to accommodate Roan’s bulk. He’s both taller and broader than a Human man, and this bed was clearly made for him.

Roan steps into his room and drops my duffle bag right in the middle of his bed. Then, he turns back to look at me, waiting for me to say something, again.

Somehow I don’t think ‘it’s cute’is going to cut it this time.

“Wait…” I grab my bag, preparing to lift it. “You said this is your room. So where am I sleeping?”

“Akh…” He glances around, searching for an answer, as if he’s expecting someone’s going to materialize out of thin air and tell him what to say.

He’s being an adorable idiot. All awkward and shy innocence. But before I let myself think about how easy it would be to wrap my arms around his neck and make out with him to kingdom come, I walk back into the kitchen.

There’s the door that leads back to the tunnel and Killan’s house, and then there’s the door that leads into Roan’s bedroom. The only other way out I can see is a ladder up to a hatch in the ceiling.

I climb it, lifting the hatch as I go, only to find myself in a small room, about the size of a cupboard. It’s a square room with windows set into three of the walls and a door in the fourth. But that door leads to the planet’s surface, and through one of the windows I can see the entrance to Killan’s house and, a little way beyond that, Mr. Smith’s spaceship.

Also, the wind. I can see that it’s still blowing a gale.

I bet you could walk for a thousand days out there and never stumble upon a single tree or river or rock. The landscape has been blown completely and utterly flat. It’s the view you might see in Mad Max—endless nothing. Worse than any Earth desert because at least in a desert you might find a couple of cacti or snakes or camels. Here, there’s us.

Just us.

A chill races through me, and I climb back down. Roan’s kitchen is a luxury hotel in comparison, and I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to settle my nerves. A wave of exhaustion washes over me.

Roan is still in his bedroom, so I return there. He has stored my duffle neatly under his bed, clearly trying to make the room look more like I belong in it.

“Through here?” I point to a door I hadn’t seen before, distracted, as I had been, by Roan’s ginormous bed. I push the door open and— It’s nothing but a bathroom. “Nope, not through there,” I confirm, looking back at Roan. “Why did you say you had a spare bedroom I could stay in?” I point back toward Killan’s house. “Your brother said?—”

“This is your room.” Roan nods decisively. “I will be sleeping… Akh…” He examines one of his hands reminiscent of never having seen it before and finding it the most interesting thing in the whole universe.

“This is so your room.” I look from the indentation in the mattress where Roan had clearly been sleeping not fifteen minutes ago, to the tablet and the cup of water on the bedside table. There are two spare pairs of boots in one corner and a shelf with nicknacks within arm’s reach of his bed. He wouldn’t even have to sit up to grab stuff off that shelf.

And then it hits me. In the most unsuave, unsophisticated, naïve, tongue-tied manner Roan has manufactured the good old romance classic: the only-one-bed situation.

Chapter Fifteen

Roan

There is a moment of silence as Harlee looks between the bed, her bag tucked under the bed and me. Her eyes are narrowed. She could not have been any more suspicious of my motivation had I been wearing a large sign that readplease, please, please, stay with me. I am begging you.

“Well played, Mr. Roan. Well played.” She gives a slow nod. “I’m impressed by your ingenuity.”

“Yes?”

Her shoulders sag, but the corners of her mouth lift. “Yes, alright. But only for tonight.” And she toes off her shoes, bending down to riffle through her bag.

I release a long sigh, kick off my own boots and eye my bed with renewed appreciation—and apprehension. Usually, I would fall into bed, paying little attention to where I sleep. Now, I am panic-wondering if Harlee prefers a particular side or—my heart lurches—mayhaps when she agreed to stay she had not actually meant for me to stay.

I meticulously line my boots up beside my two other pairs to give myself something to do as Harlee collects more clothes from her bag and retreats to the bathroom.

Scolding myself for being ridiculously desperate, I lie down first on one side of the bed and then on the other, testing to see if one is more comfortable than the other and moving to what I hope is the least comfortable side… if there is, in fact, a difference.

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