Page 56 of The Alien Reindeer's Bounty
“Huh. This whole time?”
He nodded and the antlers bobbed up and down. The movement seemed surreal and, well, alien. This wasn’t a trick of the light or the product of a tired and worried imagination. This was real.
She lightly hit his arm with the back of her hand. “This whole time! And you didn’t tell me!”
Mads rubbed his arm and frowned. “I couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t tell me, but you walked around with antlers when we were kids. More secrets. I shouldn’t be surprised you never told me anything,” she said. How bizarre that she felt more upset that he kept his alien nature from her than the fact that he was from another planet.
“You never noticed. You were too wrapped up in yourself.”
“I was a kid!”
“So was I!”
They stared at each other. He kept secrets and she never noticed the abuse he suffered. They were both terrible friends to each other.
“So, are your people planning to invade? Are you here for reconnaissance?” That’s what happened in the movies.
He ran a hand up the back of his head. “No. The opposite. Reilen classified Earth as primitive and travel to the surface is prohibited.”
Her back stiffened at his words.Primitive. “We are not primitive.”
“Odessa, you are focusing on the wrong part of this conversation.” He tapped an antler, drawing her attention.
“You’re an alien.” Record. Broken. Totally her.
She couldn’t think. Mads stood so close, his scent of pine and smoke clouding her head. That scent was probably alien mind-control pheromones. “Why were you here? Where did you go? Who else knows about this? Why did you come back?”
“Ah, that I can answer.” His hand on her lower back drew her in. He lowered his head, his mouth slanting over hers, and their lips pressed together.
The electric first touch coursed through her, filling her with warmth and honey. Her body responded, leaning into him, and demanding more. Her lips parted and his tongue stroked hers. The slightly-rougher-than-human texture of his tongue registered, not because it was off but because it felt amazing.
So amazing.
The conflicting thoughts racing through her mind vanished because she was not kissing an alien. She was kissing Mads.
Her world narrowed down to the feel of his body pressed hard against hers, his teeth nipping at her jaw, and his hot, rough tongue on her neck. She desperately wished for this when she was a teen. This was the moment that haunted her for the last twelve years, the memory of it more vivid and satisfying than any new experience when she tried to move on.
There was no moving on from this. She didn’t care where he was from, Norway or another planet, because he was her man.
Um, her alien.
He pulled back, their lips a breath apart. “That’s why I returned.”
Chapter 16
Mads
“To kiss me under the mistletoe?” Her pupils were blown and her lips a wondrously crushed berry color.
His grip tightened on her arms. He wanted more. He wanted everything. “You are my mate,” he said. “Our first kiss—”
“Just now or the one twelve years ago?”
“We slipped on ice. I bit you and drew blood.”
She licked her lower lip. “I recall. I thought I imagined those fangs.”
