Five

“Make love,” he purrs into my ear and captures my earlobe with his teeth.

I feel the bite in my core as sharply as if he’d touched me there and I gasp. How is he so good at knowing what I’ll like? “Did they give you a class or something on Earth women?”

He doesn’t answer as he’s too busy working his lips down the column of my throat. Somehow my hands have wandered around his waist and found the hem of his shirt. I slide underneath it and fill my palms with his smooth, heated flesh. He makes a noise in his chest and it thrills me. I push upward, seeking more. I find it.

Eros’s body does not quit. It’s lean and taut under my fingertips. I want to see it, to order him to strip so I can satisfy my imagination. To discover what else he can do to me that will make my insides hum.

I do none of those things. “Eros, we have to talk.”

He is remarkably adept at ignoring me when he puts his mind to it. He tilts my head back with two fingers to my chin and captures my mouth in a searing kiss.

I fall into him instantly, into the thick, dense sensation of being transported to another time, another place, where we exist together as one. He infuses me with his essence the moment our lips touch and I can think of nothing but the next bit of sensation, the next slide of his lips on my skin.

His tongue finds mine, weaving back and forth against it in a sensual dance that enlivens my whole body. I moan and change the angle, desperate for more of him inside me.

He boosts me up against the door, effortlessly pinning me, one hand under my bottom and the other buried in my hair as he levers my head back to take me deeper still. The kiss explodes with urgency. I whimper and wrap my legs around his waist, grinding myself against the steel in his pants. My aching core weeps in frustration at the layers of clothing between us and then it doesn’t matter as he expertly rolls his hips to increase the friction.

My God, can he light me up.

Whose bright idea was it for him to zip up his pants?

I want him inside me, now. I shut my eyes as the sense of fullness increases until I can feel nothing but Eros bursting through me. My bones have vanished, to be replaced with lovely, liquid sensation.

Holy hell, if he doesn’t stop, we will be making love in under a minute. I have no condoms, no clue if Earth condoms will even fit him—and judging by the size of what I can feel through my soaked panties, that’s a very real concern. Not to mention he might be carrying any number of alien diseases that will ravage my body in an entirely different way.

“Waitwaitwait,” I spit out and he nuzzles my jaw.

“Make love,” he murmurs.

“I got that part. Please,” I plead, sorry I ever taught him that phrase. “Let me think for a minute.”

He lets me slide to the ground but true to form, does not stop touching me. His fingers linger at my waist as if he cannot get enough and since I know the feeling, I can’t chastise him.

Manual. Charmaine gave me paperwork and a thick binder. If there is a God, something in that stack of words will tell me what I need to know about whether I can actually go through with the consummation part of this deal. Doesn’t mean I will, just that I have options if I choose to throw caution to the wind. I wiggle free from the iron mountain crushing me to the door, and it’s to his credit that he allows it. I couldn’t get loose otherwise.

Sweet sanity rushes back into me the second he lets go. I cannot understand why my brain melts when he’s touching me. It’s like something outside of myself takes over and I can’t control it. It’s baffling and so not what I need right now.

My coffee table is notably absent of ice cream containers. There’s still a sticky film in the upper corner, but I ignore that for now. He tried. I appreciate that. “Thank you for cleaning up.”

He nods and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the door with his enormous erection on flagrant display beneath his jeans. No reason not to be proud of it, I guess.

The manual is right where I left it, on my bedside table. I glanced at the first page earlier, but now I dive in with renewed interest, opening the binder and settling it in my lap as I perch on the bed. Maybe there are some tips on how to manage an alien who wants to mate with me twenty-four/seven.

Of course, it occurs to me that there are very few Earth women who would be saying no at this point. Perhaps the advice I really need is stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. But I’m not a throw caution to the wind kind of girl, not normally, and Eros comes with a whole set of unusual complications, not the least of which is that I have no idea what I’m doing with him.

Eros follows me to the bedroom, his gaze taking in my bed with a long measured glance that I have no trouble interpreting. And predictably, he takes the opportunity to sit next to me. The mattress dips and I slide right into him, which seems to be what he was going for since he slings an arm around me.

Great. So we’re going to cuddle apparently. If it didn’t feel so perfect, I would definitely say something. I glance over at Eros who’s reading over my shoulder with a furrowed brow. Okay, probably not reading, but at least absorbing that printed words march across the page.

“It’s your instruction manual,” I tell him. “Maybe there’s an off-switch somewhere in your brain that will allow you to stop thinking about sex all the time.”

I’m only half kidding. There’s no off-switch in my head, that’s for sure.

“No off,” he says and shakes his head. “Penelope wife. Happy.”

My heart twists. How can he be so sweet in the midst of being such a hardhead? “Yes, I’m happy that I’m your wife, okay?”

He captures my hand and brings it to his mouth in a long kiss. “Eros happy.”

I groan. “What am I going to do with you?”

The look on his face is priceless and I laugh. It’s a cross between duh and really? which amazes me considering we don’t speak the same language. How can his translator be good enough to allow for joking around but so bad at other interpretations?

“I bet you have a really great personality at home,” I tell him. The smile he blasts me with could light up New York, so it’s no wonder my entire body warms.

So far, the relationship part of being with an alien is pretty straightforward. I show up and it’s all good. We don’t fight and I don’t have an annoying mother-in-law who hates me. Victoria’s is a beast who doesn’t think my sister is good enough for her son and tells her so often.

It dawns on me that the number one thing I hoped for when I filled out the dating profile was a guy with a sense of humor. Maybe we are a good match. The slightest bit of hope unfurls that this could turn out to be something instead of nothing.

The manual is heavy on my lap but I need to understand better what I’m dealing with here. Facts warm me in a whole different way than the heavy presence of Eros, whose thigh rubs against mine constantly as he watches me read.

Wonder of wonders, there is a whole bio section on my alien. I should have read this long ago. “Says here that you were in the military on Torvis.”

Yeah, that gels. He has that honed, attentive vibe about him, not to mention I could envision him parachuting out of a helicopter quite easily.

He nods. “Soldier.”

But not anymore apparently. Charmaine said he was banished and now I’m insanely curious if it might have been more of a dishonorable discharge. But as I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, I think there’s no way. Along with his solidness, he has a sense of honor that I appreciate. Sure he’s handsy but he always does what I tell him when I really mean it. It’s only when I waffle that he picks up on that as if he has some kind of sixth sense.

He wasn’t kicked out because he did something wrong. He said he’d become “useless,” which really makes no sense unless the Torvian military decided soldiers with perfect bodies are so yesterday. Wan, pasty-faced weaklings are the new black, people of Torvis.

I crack myself up and that makes Eros smile too, and suddenly there’s not a whole lot about a four million page binder that can hold my attention. I stare at him as his big brown eyes grow vibrant, and before I can blink, his fingers skate up my arm.

“You have got to be the most tactile person I’ve ever met in my life,” I say, my mock frustration cut by another breathless laugh. He makes me feel beautiful and desirable without saying a word—what’s to hate?

“Learn,” he says and presses his fingertips into my flesh by way of explanation.

“That’s how you learn? Through touch?”

He nods. Nothing to hate, but a lot to take in. I mean, I guess all of us learn things through touch too, but it’s definitely one of my underused senses when it comes to new data. As his fingers explore me, I become convinced I’ve been doing it wrong all along.

I reach out and rest my palm on his pectoral. Eros blinks and glances down at my hand, a small smile of approval gracing his lips. But I’m not Torvian and no earthshaking revelations flood me. Just the ones I’m coming to accept as normal—I am his and he is mine. He fills me up to the brim and my need for him is strong.

But I want to know him better.

“Why did they banish you?” I murmur. He cocks his head in question. Stupid translator. He’s had very little trouble understanding me thus far until I ask one of the most important questions of all. I wave my hand, encompassing the room. “Send away. Why did they send you to Earth?”

“Useless,” he says and shakes his head. “No need.”

“You already said that.” Clearly his translator is fizzling out. “Did they disband the military? Decide they needed to make love not war?”

He scowls, the first real negative emotion I’ve seen on his face. He’s frowned a couple of times but that’s mostly in frustration. This is different. I don’t like it. As much as he checks in with me about whether I’m happy, I rarely do the same for him and my selfishness convicts me.

“Bad subject?” I ask and he twines his fingers with mine.

“Make love.” He lifts my fingers and kisses them. “Not war.”

I roll my eyes. Now he’s just repeating what he’s heard like earlier, when he echoed the line from Barney. “Fine, don’t tell me. You keep your secrets. Let’s see what else it says in here about you.”

I scan the rest of the bio, partially distracted by the fact that he’s nibbling on my fingers. His lips are plump and beautiful, and as he laves his tongue across the tip of my index finger, I feel it in my gut.

I almost miss the smoking gun smack in the center of his bio. But as my gaze skids over the words, it’s drawn back instantly. Failed genetic experiment.

“Oh, my God.”

Eros pauses, brows raised. I shut my eyes because the words are too horrible. But it’s emblazoned across my consciousness and the facts I so naively sought aren’t so warm anymore.

They experimented on him.

There isn’t much here but it’s enough. Apparently, the Torvian military tried to build some kind of super soldier and the genetic material mutated or some crap. In other words, it got away from them. And Eros suffered through it until they decided the experiment had failed. He was useless to them.

They did unspeakable, horrific things to my sweet alien—my imagination might be adding some things here but I don’t care—and then sent him away when they messed up. No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it. My heart squeezes as I peer at him, and I can’t help that a few tears leak out. He watches one fall and then brushes the rest away.

“Make love,” he says quietly and pushes his cheek into my palm. “Not war.”

“Yeah,” I whisper back. “I’m pretty much in that boat myself right now. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you. But you’re safe now. I won’t hurt you.”

He nods his understanding and kisses my cheek, which is powerful in a whole different way than when he’s trying to melt my clothes off. But no less affecting. God, he’s something else. I feel incredibly lucky all at once. If nothing else, I have one of the least chatty men on the planet. That’s gotta count for something.

I go back to my paperwork reluctantly, turning the pages despite my distraction. My gaze catches on the part I was looking for. Fully tested and carries no diseases.

Well, then. Looks like I have a green light for the sex part of this marriage, if I can trust these faceless people who are holding my life in their hands. I can’t quite forget how little information about Charmaine and her match agency I could find. But then again, when you’re peddling aliens, that’s not so much of a mystery, right?

I’m done researching how Eros ended up sitting in my bedroom on Earth. He hasn’t tried to hurt me and he’s pretty much as advertised. What else do I need to know? And then I stumble over the last line of his bio.

Everything freezes inside, even the fullness that I’ve come to associate with being physically connected with the alien I married. This part can’t be right. I read the words again. They’re plain English and I’ve been fluent in my language for a long time, but they make no sense.

“What does this mean?” I demand and point at the printed words, too flustered to remember he can’t read. He glances at the manual and brings my palm to his mouth. Automatically, my fingers spread across his jaw but it does not provide the insight I need.

“Stop that,” I order and like magic, he releases me. So yeah, like any man, his hearing is selective. “This bio says you came to Earth to have a family. Like you’re expecting a wife and kids.”

He nods. “We’re a happy family.”

“That’s a Barney song,” I shoot back. “Not real life. They told you this was all fake, right? That I’m teaching you to be human so you can live on your own. This is not permanent.”

Besides, it’s not like he can breed with humans. The whole idea is ridiculous. His genetics aren’t even right for his own kind, let alone mine, or they wouldn’t have sent him away.

His eyes shutter and when he opens them, I can see the military bits floating around inside because he’s flinty and harsh all at once. “Penelope wife. Family.”

“No,” I say desperately. “Well, I mean yes, for now. But not forever.”

He nods craftily this time. “Always. Make love. Not war.”

Fantastic. I married the one alien in the entire Torvian army who wants to be a flower child instead of a soldier. “That’s not going to happen, sport. We’re faking this until I’m confident you’re able to get along on your own and then we’re over. You find someplace else to live.”

I have a job, a life. I can’t be a Torvian babysitter for the next month let alone forever. This was supposed to be a fake relationship. So yeah, the matchmaking process has a few flaws, obviously. And then I remember how flippant I got there toward the end of the questionnaire. My blood runs cold.

What have I really signed up for here?

Doesn’t matter. As soon as I’m done, I can call Charmaine to come pick him up. She said that, plain as day. There are rules. Standards of behavior that Torvians have to follow, particularly the part where I have all the control. It’s all here in the heavy manual that has turned into a ton of bricks on my lap.

I let it fall to the carpet. It hits with a thunk and falls open to a page listing emergency contact numbers to call if your alien is incarcerated or hospitalized for any reason. That must be when the men in black show up, I think somewhat hysterically. Then they bleep your memories away so you don’t recall precisely what happened.

I agreed to teach him to be human in exchange for acting the part of my fake lover in front of my family. That’s it. I can’t be swayed by the fact that he’s here because of fascist military scientists on his home planet who have fewer ethics than a grapefruit. No wonder he wants someone to love and care for. He was kicked off his planet because they had no need for a failed genetic experiment. But as he blinks his ridiculously sexy lashes at me, I can’t help but wonder what a success looked like. How could this be anything less than the definition of perfection?

Except for the part where he wants a family. That’s not something I can give him. Hell, that’s probably something no one in the galaxy can give him.

And that’s when my heart really breaks for Eros.