Page 72 of Alien Wants A Wife

Often, I have fantasized about crushing the cameras into dust, and then I imagine how I would lay Harlee across my bed, fully uncovered, and lick my way up her body, from her toes to the top of her head, openly worshipping her as she deserves to be worshipped.

But I cannot. Destroying the cameras would anger John Smith, and it is not me who his temper would strike, but theFemales. He continues to threaten not to return them to their home planet if they do not comply with his demands. I can see fear in Lydia’s eyes at his threats, and this in turn causes Harlee to fear. She cannot, she tells me, abandon Lydia and Briar to such a fate, regardless of her ultimate choice.

Briar, we sometimes hear from, when she uses Sorin’s datapad to call Harlee or Lydia with updates about her and my brother’s exile.

Of the Humans, Briar appears to be the most settled. She tells Harlee about our farm and how Sorin is teaching her to monitor algae growth. It is work she appears to genuinely enjoy, and when she looks at my brother, the corners of her eyes soften with affection and… love?

Harlee also notices such clues. She studies Briar’s face with profound attention, trying to catch hold of Briar’s unspoken words. For there is a lot we cannot openly discuss, our conversations being closely monitored by John Smith. We cannot talk of the Females’ abduction nor of their mistreatment by the Drah’os Male. We must dance around such topics using code words and pointed looks.

I have grown somewhat accustomed to reading Harlee’s Human expressions. A smile, I have come to realize, does not always mean that she is happy, even when she crinkles the corners of her eyes. Even when she says she is happy. I must search for other, smaller signs to test if something I have said has pleased her or not. I analyze the way she tucks strands of her ebony-colored hair behind one ear. Or the way she will watch me through her lowered eyelashes when she thinks I am not watching her.

Her forehead contains many clues to her feelings. Without scales, it wrinkles when she frowns and wrinkles when she smiles. I would record all the minute changes that cross her faceif I could, for prosperity’s sake. There is not a single expression I want to misunderstand.

One of my favorites is when she harmlessly nibbles on her lower lip, trapping it between her teeth. She does this when she is particularly focused on whatever it is that has caught her attention. Oftentimes, she nibbles her bottom lip when she is studying my mouth, and then I know without a shadow of doubt that she is thinking of kissing me.

She is doing so now, and I abandon the dishes I had been cleaning, crossing my kitchen to kneel where she is seated at my table. She turns until she is facing me. Like this, she is a fraction taller than me, and she bows her head to press her lips against mine, cupping my face in both hands.

I press into the kiss, until my stomach is against her knees, and Harlee is leaning back in her chair, my hands at her waist and caressing the curve of her hip.

Breathless, laughing, she pulls back and pushes against my chest. I settle back on my heels, relishing the taste of her.

“You’ve got to warn a girl before you kiss her senseless,” she says, using her thumb to wipe the corner of my mouth clean of her lip paint. “It’s like scuba diving. They say you can’t surface too fast or else you’ll get the bends. My head’s spinning with how good that kiss was.”

“Roan. Roan.” There is a softbang,followed by Killan’s hushed swearing.

Gently disentangling myself from a still-sleeping Harlee, I sit up, bleary-eyed. My eldest brother is looming over my bed, upper arms crossed over his chest. In the darkness, I can only see his silhouette, but from his silhouette alone I can see thathe is in a temper—not angry enough to have woken the entire house, thankfully. But angry enough that he has come into my bedroom to disturb my sleep in the middle of the night.

“You turned off your datapads,” he accuses in a harsh whisper.

“Yes,” I agree, lying back down and attempting to recapture the comfortable stillness of sleep. “So that you could not disturb us.” Time is limited; I would not waste a second of it talking with Killan when I could be sleeping pressed against the length of Harlee.

“I have decided not to hold tomorrow’s business meeting?—”

“Good.” I roll onto my side, carefully slipping two arms under Harlee. With a little sigh, she snuggles against my chest, resting her cheek on my shoulder. I rearrange the blanket-clothes over her to keep her naked body hidden from the cameras—and from my annoying brother.

“—instead, it will be now. While everyone is sleeping.”

“Nooo.” I hold on to the word, sounding too much like a whining youngling to be proud of myself. But our family meetings are my least favorite part of working on the farm. Killan insists on holding them regularly, the idea being that we can report progress to each other. But more often than not, the meetings crumble into him lecturing Sorin and me about how we could work harder or faster or… whatever else has Killan’s horns in a knot that day.

I close my eyes, already dreading the moment when I climb out of bed, leaving Harlee behind. Because I already know, out of Killan and I, which of us will win this argument. My eldest brother is ruthless, and with him still quarreling with Lydia, I doubt he has anywhere else to be—certainly not curled around a Female of his own.

“Akh!” I release my frustration as a grumbled whisper when it becomes apparent he has no intention of leaving.

Harlee’s eyes flutter open.

“Sorry to wake you,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her beautifully smooth forehead. “Killan is sorry, too.” And I throw my brother a glare.

“Sorry,” he grumbles, when Harlee raises her head high enough off my shoulder so that she can see Killan looming over us in the darkness.

“What’s wrong?” She sits up fully, catching the clothes to her chest, keeping her breasts private.

For my eyes only.The thought sends a thrill akin to being shocked by electricity through my veins, and suddenly I find myself not nearly so angry at the interruption.

“Nothing,” I reassure her, speaking at my normal volume now she is awake.

“Shhh!” Killan hisses, with a pointed look at the camera clipped to my bedhead.

“Killan has lost all sense,” I continue speaking as if he never interrupted. “He is demanding to hold our family business meeting in the middle of the night.”

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