Page 30 of Secretly Married To My Monster Alien Boss
“Not polite.” Zinny sighed. “But me want.”
“I don’t know if you can have raw fish,” Rynar went on.
Undeterred, Zinny started sauntering toward Alissia, gray eyes big enough to melt her heart.
“Nu-uh,” she said quickly. “You heard your dad.”
Zinny paused, paw frozen in the air. “Dad?”
He turned around to Rynar, who was equally as frozen. “You is my dad?”
Rynar’s eyes widened as his gaze ping-ponged between Zinny and Alissia.
She fidgeted in her seat. “I didn’t mean–”
“Yes, Zinny,” Rynar said warmly. “I am your dad.”
And just like that, Alissia’s heart softened even more.
“Happy.” Zinny flicked his tail in delight, running back to Rynar. “Then can I has fish?”
The night had ended with giggles and with Zinny stealing some sushi, both Rynar and Alissia pretending they hadn’t noticed.
Just like they pretended their make-out session hadn’t happened. Which was proving to be harder and harder. Rynar liked to walk around bare-chested; it had not been a fluke that first evening she’d visited him.
He strutted around with his muscles on display, horns shining in the shadows the fireplace cast on him. It was enough for Alissia to squirm in her sheets for an hour or two after she went to bed.
Okay, so she was attracted to him. That much was obvious.
But she could not–wouldnot–allow it to grow to more than that. She’d agreed to marry him for a very specific purpose and that purpose would be fulfilled by the end of a month.
Hence the purgatory. She was living a lie. A beautiful, exquisite, fantastic lie.
When she closed her eyes, she could imagine it was all real.
But then the birds began to chirp and it was back to reality. And this reality had a contract.
She had to remember that every time she thought about just how good it felt to have his arms around her. Or how she’d love nothing more than to kiss him again.
It scared her more than anything, this magnetic pull he had on her. She could almost–almost–swear he was watching her, too. But with his insane Deruzian reflexes, whenever her instincts told her he was looking at her, she turned and he was busy examining one of his many, many plants.
“I like nature,” was all he said when Alissia had pointed out that he practically lived in a jungle, one late evening when they were going over one of their cases in front of the fireplace. She liked it, too. The air was significantly cleaner here.
“I shouldn’t be surprised, seeing how you’ve transplanted an entire garden into our office,” she’d said. “But…I am. There’s so many things I don’t know about you.”
“I don’t know a lot of things about you, either,” he’d said, not offering any more information. “I’d like to, though.”
That caught her off guard. “You do?”
A beat of silence passed as they’d looked at each other. Vulnerable. Then Rynar had smirked and the moment was broken. “What if someone at the office asks me what your favorite flowers are?”
“Orchids,” she’d said without missing a beat. “And speaking of people at the office–when are we going to tell our friends?”
15
RYNAR
Friends was a mild word for the bond Rynar had with Zaryn, Nazyn, and Deryg. They’d become brothers in everything but name and blood during their days at the famed and unforgiving Deruzian Academy. His home world had given up its warfare ways, but not its violent traditions.
