“Okay,” I say to Eros at midnight, which is when I hit my hard limit. I have to be able to function at work the next day and at least seven hours of shut-eye is mandatory. “It’s past my bedtime. You sleep here, okay?”
I ran out earlier and bought a king-sized blowup mattress for him, which barely fits in between the table in the breakfast nook and the couch, but it works a lot better here than in my bedroom.
He quirks an eyebrow at me from his spot on the couch where we’ve been watching hours of kids’ videos in an English language super-cram session.
“Bed,” he says.
“Floor.” I point to it. “We’re still getting to know each other and you haven’t even taken me on a date yet.”
That’s a flimsy excuse but he doesn’t pick up on it.
“What is?”
Ugh. He’s insatiable with the questions and if I had a dollar for every time he’s asked that in the last few hours, I would never have to work again. Simple words like tree and cup he gets fine from the videos, especially when there’s a corresponding picture, but nebulous Earth customs are a whole different story.
“A date is something people do when they like each other and want to spend time together. Couples do a lot of that until they decide they like each other enough to…do other things. Take their relationship to the next level. Sleep in the same bed,” I stress so he’s clear that’s not up for debate.
“Penelope wife,” he said firmly.
I sigh. His logic is as annoying as his persistence sometimes. “Yeah, we kind of skipped a few things. Doesn’t mean we’re skipping everything else and going straight to the good stuff.”
I still haven’t figured out how to handle all the revelations of earlier.
Wonder of wonders, he doesn’t argue and settles onto the blow up mattress to sleep. I steal into my bedroom and shut the door, but don’t lock it. He might need something in the middle of the night and plus, it feels unnecessary. I told him to sleep on the mattress and he will.
He does. All night. Not once does my doorknob rattle, as if he truly took my words to heart and doesn’t even think about sneaking in here to crawl into bed with me while I’m asleep. I’m the one who lays awake staring at the ceiling wondering whether it would be hypocritical to pretend I had a nightmare and need a big strong man to hold my hand.
I don’t need that. I don’t have nightmares. What I have is an insatiable ache for someone to hold me, because he wants to and can’t stand to be separated. And by someone, of course I mean Eros. There’s no faceless guy out there in the world—I want the one I married. What kind of monster am I that I can still dream of using him after finding out that I messed up the dating profile and the permanence he seeks is not something I’m willing to give him?
If I’m being honest, I’ve always wanted something more. I just shove it away under the premise of being too busy with work to find time to date. In reality, men as a whole suck and not in a good way. You get to a point where it’s easier—and saner—to go without. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have pounced on the fake boyfriend idea in the first place.
In the morning, I exit my bedroom showered and fully dressed. Eros is still asleep, covers half thrown off and tangled around his bare body. Shamelessly, I soak in the visual gift of my alien’s torso, which is indeed as glorious to look at as it is to touch. Scars mar his skin, which shouldn’t be such a surprise given his military background, but it seems like such a human thing that I can’t help but wonder if his insides are more like mine than I would have supposed. Did he bleed? Did he have to get stitches or do Torvians have some kind of special technology to heal wounds?
Fascinated and totally unable to help myself, I tiptoe across the living room to get a closer look. But it’s his face that draws my gaze. Holy God. He is literally breathtaking and his cheekbones alone make me swoon. As I’m brazenly ogling him, he blinks open his gorgeous brown eyes. Of course. Now I’m caught, in more ways than one because I cannot look away.
Frozen in a half crouch at the edge of the mattress, I take the high road.
“Good morning,” I say as if it’s perfectly reasonable for him to expect his wife to be drooling over him when he wakes up.
“Good morning,” he repeats.
Somehow I have forgotten that his accent gets me hot and bothered and it doesn’t help that I imagine him saying that to me as we wake up together after a night of soaring, mutual pleasure. I would play the part of the sheets in this scenario, tangling myself around his limbs and draping myself over his delicious body.
“I have to go to work. You stay here and learn more English.”
I have a plan to check on the requirements to get Eros a job with the Olympia police force. He’s got forged papers and a marriage certificate, as well as the kind of authoritative command of himself that would likely cause a criminal to give up without a fight. I mean, who would argue with a guy the size of a moose when he says, “You’re under arrest?”
“Penelope.” He holds out his hand and without thinking of the many reasons it’s a stupid idea, I clasp it.
I’m flooded instantly with his presence. My eyelids flutter closed as I let the warmth and amazing sensations course through me. But now I’m missing the visual snack bar of my half-bare husband, which is not going to work, so I pry my lids open. He’s watching me with his head cocked, as if he’s studying me.
“More learning?” I ask wryly and he nods.
It occurs to me that I might need to have my head examined if I’m passing up the opportunity to strip down right this second and crawl underneath those sheets with him. He learns by touching and my body would be his classroom. My core heats and goes tight, begging me to let him learn whatever the hell he wants until I explode from pleasure.
I don’t because I have to open the salon. I have customers with appointments and my name is on the deed to this house. I have bills, I have responsibilities. And that’s an awful lot of “have tos.”
Eros smiles and releases my hand, which saves me from my indecision. “Penelope work.”
It’s almost as if he read my mind, somehow figuring out that I’m conflicted but work is the more important thing to focus on here. Thank God one of us has a functional brain.
I scramble backward, taking the out with far more desperation than I would have hoped for. “I’ll see you later.”
The salon welcomes me as it has done for years, but something feels wrong because my mind lingers upstairs with Eros. I hate leaving him by himself and I try to pass it off as apprehension that I’ll return to chocolate syrup all over my couch. But mostly I worry that he’s going to be lonely.
That stupid bio is doing a number on me. Because of course I assume that he specified he’s looking for a family due to earthly motivations such as a strong desire to not be alone. For all I know, he wants a family so it’s harder for him to be sent back to Switzerland. That would be more likely, especially given the climate with immigration these days.
Customers drift in and I bury myself in my calling. I have always loved doing hair from the time I was little. All five of my sisters indulged me over the years and by the time I started cosmetology school, I had amassed hundreds of hours of practice.
But I’m distracted and accidentally cut myself with my shears while I’m giving Mrs. Riley a trim. The sharp pain of the slice immobilizes me for a moment. Dang it, it’s been a really long time since I’ve done that and I forget how much it hurts. Blood wells up and I curse, darting for the sink in the back, where the Band-Aids are. I can’t bleed in front of customers.
I have to pass off my client to Janet who takes over, assuring Mrs. Riley that she’ll never notice the difference between us two. Well, that’s a kick in the pants, but my bruised feelings don’t make it any less true. I only hire technicians who share my philosophies on how to do hair, but I would like to think that my regulars come to me because I bring something special to the chair.
I am stuck at the reception desk until the bleeding stops, which puts me in a not-so-great mood. All of that drains from my mind as Eros appears at the bottom of the stairs, his brow furrowed. The entire salon goes pin-drop silent as he crosses to me. Apparently I should have specified that “see you later” meant after work.
He doesn’t speak, but takes my cut hand gently into his.
“Don’t tell me. You heard me cussing?” I guess as he kisses my knuckles and nods.
“Penelope hurt. Come home. Take care of Penelope.”
That spears me right through the heart. “Thanks, that’s sweet. But I’m okay.”
He shakes his head and points to the cut. “Hurt. Much pain.”
Mystified, I stare at him. “It’s not that bad. I mean, yeah, it hurts, but I’ll live. There’s not really anything you can do about it.” The heated look he gives me makes me smile. “Okay, yeah. That would definitely take my mind off it, but I’m busy.”
I wave around the salon and he seems to notice the fascinated onlookers for the first time.
“Hello,” he says to the room at large and for God knows what reason, that makes me proud. He’s learning.
Clem scoots up to him, clearly intrigued enough to try again with her intro. “Hi, there. We met yesterday.”
Eros holds out his hand the same way she’d done to him and she shakes it. But he doesn’t let go after a couple of beats as is customary, likely because he doesn’t know he’s supposed to. Except his head cocks to the side slightly and all at once, I realize he’s learning Clementine.
Black, greasy jealousy shoots through my stomach and I can’t even care that it looks exactly like that when I reach out to separate them. “That’s enough of that.”
I hustle Eros away from my pretty blonde friend with the knowing smile and take him back upstairs. I shut the door and whirl on him.
“You can’t do that,” I tell him, hands on my hips. “No learning other women.”
Eros completely ignores my tone and pulls me into his arms, kissing my temple. “Penelope wife.”
Yeah, dang it. When did that get to be such a thing? My heart shouldn’t latch on to that phrase so greedily, especially not after I flipped out over a beat-too-long handshake like I’m starring in my own version of The Real Housewives of Olympia.
Eros whispers through my skin, infusing each molecule like dense mist until there’s no way to separate him from my own essence. I don’t try. I let him hold me because it would be stupid to pretend it’s not exactly what I need. He fills me to the brim in the way I’ve come to expect and maybe even anticipate, and the pain from my finger—and my damaged pride—vanishes.
“You’re a handy guy to have around,” I murmur into his shirt and his arms tighten.
“Penelope work?” he asks.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say yes, absolutely, there’s not even a question in my mind about whether I’m going to go back to work when he guides up my head with a gentle hand and spears me with his warm brown gaze.
“Take Penelope date. Spend time.”
Oh, geez. How can I say no to that? Except I have to. Don’t I? “What did you have in mind there, sport?”
I shouldn’t be encouraging him. Except instead of answering, he pulls away from me which is literally the first time I can recall him breaking off contact before I do unless I’ve expressly told him hands off. His heat fades far faster than I would like and a chill drifts through me that makes me wish for a jacket.
Eros grabs a National Geographic magazine from my bookcase. It’s the only one I kept from the subscription my dad gave me for Christmas one year because it had a feature spread of the Olympic National Forest. Clearly he’s been rifling through it, which is fascinating in and of itself since he can’t read it, but it’s mostly pictures anyway. I’m just shocked he found it in the first place.
The page he points to is a gorgeous shot of one of the lakes surrounded by towering trees. “Take Penelope.”
“I think you mean I’ll be taking you,” I correct wryly and he smiles smugly as if he’s caught me in something. “I haven’t said yes yet. Playing hooky is not my normal thing.”
His eyebrows raise. “What is?”
With anyone else, I would be answering that as a question about what my normal thing is but I have introduced him to a slang word he doesn’t know and his curiosity is boundless. “Hooky. It’s when you pretend you can’t do what you’re supposed to, like work, and you go have fun instead.”
“Hooky.”
He tests the word, pursing his mouth and it’s so cute that I can’t help but laugh, which makes him smile too and dang it, I don’t want to go back to work. It will be hard for me to do much of anything at the salon with the slice on my finger, or at least that’s my excuse. “Okay. We can go.”
He lights up and starts to charge out the door, but I make him put on shoes first, which he grumbles about like any good toddler. The big difference here, which I appreciate, is that he’ll likely get the idea about shoes the first time, whereas my nieces and nephews have to be told things over and over.
I drive to the Staircase Campground at the foothills of the Olympic mountain range, which is not close, but has way better scenery than Capital State Forest in my opinion. Camping is not my thing but I’ve been hiking a few times in nearly all the areas around Olympia. But never on a date.
Eros keeps up a stream of chatter as we drive. Mostly questions. His English is improving more by the minute and I’ve often wondered exactly what his translator does since he rarely comes up with complete sentences. It’s like he’s learning everything for the first time. Except kissing. That he seems to know how to do by instinct and I am insanely curious what other skills come naturally.
I have some guesses.
The thoughts I’m having are not all that conducive to being outdoors or in public. Or in a closed in car on an hour-long drive. Eros seems to pick up on this just as I’m having a particularly good fantasy about what it would feel like if Eros went down on me.
His hand slides along my thigh, which is thankfully encased in jeans because his touch is a powerful jolt. If he’d done it to bare skin, I would have driven off the road. “You’re not supposed to touch me when I’m driving, remember?”
He nods and doesn’t remove his hand. “Learning.”
“Learn by asking instead,” I suggest as I get the wheels centered again. Geez, what is there for him to learn about my thigh? It’s shaped like everyone else’s. Mostly. I forcibly remove his palm, settling it into his own lap, and his warmth drains from me instantly.
“Learn Penelope pleasure. Tell,” he commands and my eyelids slam shut. Also not beneficial to driving. What is he looking for, my top five turn-ons?
Because right this second, there is a list of about a hundred things he does that make me hot and wet and crazy, and all of them start with his hands on me. There is not a chance he could do something that wouldn’t be pleasurable.
“Not everything is about doing what feels good,” I say instead. “You should know that. You were in the military. You can’t just jet off to do whatever you want. Sometimes you have to do what you have to.”
He nods. “Take Penelope date first. Sleep in bed.”
I totally deserve the reminder that I’m the one who laid down that law and he’s following it. “Yeah, thanks. I appreciate knowing your end goal here.”
Not that it was ever in question. He wants to spend time with me, learn what I like so he can pleasure me later in bed. I really can’t find a downside to that, but I’m sure I will at some point.
I have to. Unless by some miracle I can get him to understand the concept of a fling. Which is not very likely given how he’s latched onto the concept of me being his wife.
Or more to the point, I should steer clear of anything intimate because I’ve latched onto it too.