by Cara Bristol
“Because my mother likes it. This room should have been ‘white’ also, but when she told the decorator ‘cream,’ he thought she said ‘green.’” Heads probably rolled. She and my father were traveling out of the country at the time and didn’t find out until they got home. “She was going to redo it, but for once, my father expressed a preference and put his foot down.”
I set my purse on a table and pulled out my phone. “Let me text Toni.” I’m here. Brought a friend. What else was there to say? Wanna meet my alien? I pressed send.
“The bathroom is through there.” I pointed to the door behind me. “And the closets and dressing rooms.” There were two, his and hers.
My phone chirped. Saw the van. Can U meet? Toni wrote.
K. Where R U?
Gazebo. Wrapping up wedding stuff. Meet you in the grand salon in 30?
K.
Do I get to meet your plus-1?
I’ll bring him.
I looked at Darak. “Care to meet my sister next?”
“Of course I would. I want to meet everyone and see everything associated with your life.” He paused, and with a cautious inflection, asked, “Is she like your mother?”
In his hesitation, his quiet, simple comment, I realized my mother’s polished, poised, polite persona didn’t fool him. Should I apologize now or later?
My sister resembled our mother in her willowy body and her coppery brown hair and had inherited the Gates-Sutterman strive-for-success gene. Reportedly a killer in the courtroom, Toni in private came across as likable and personable, not scary. Of course, she was only twenty-five, whereas my mother had had decades to perfect her intimidation skills.
“I’ll let you decide,” I said. “We’re meeting her in half an hour.” I gestured to the suitcase Giles had placed next to the bed. “Before we go, we should hang up your suit and your good shirts so they don’t wrinkle.” We’d need to dash back to my room so I could shake out my dress. I wished I’d thought of it while we were there.
If it creased, I could have one of the maids steam it or press it for me, but despite growing up in this environment, having staff wait on me always had made me uncomfortable. As a kid, I’d rebelled by making my own bed every day—which, every day, my mother would have the maid redo so it was perfect. Yes, I’d failed even at bed-making. My shoulders slumped.
Darak got to his feet. Instead of reaching for his luggage, he drew me into his strong, warm arms.
“What are you doing?” I held myself rigid as conflicting emotions rioted. How could I feel turned on and want to curl against him and weep?
His heart thumped beneath my ear, and his exotic scent soaked through his shirt to tease and soothe. “You looked like you needed a hug,” he said.
He was nice, but wrong. I could appreciate his closeness, of course. It felt good—fantastic—to be pressed against his hard body, but I didn’t need anything. I was fine, doing well. Splendid. Perfect.
“You’re sweet. I don’t know why you would think that. I’m all righ—” I choked as the dam cracked. My failures, the vain hopes, the disappointments, unmet expectations, the secret longings gushed out in a humiliating geyser. Darak tightened his embrace to hold me closer, rested his cheek on my head, and rocked me. I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressed my face to his chest, and cried with body-shuddering, open-ish-mouth sobs.
He shuffled us to the easy chair, sank into it, and pulled me onto his lap, whereupon I curled up into a ball and continued to blubber. He stroked my hair and murmured soothing words.
Finally, the crying petered out, leaving me with hiccupping shudders and acute embarrassment.
If you think slobbering hysterically on a hot guy you’re starting to like is bad, let me tell you it’s worse when the waterworks switch off and you realize where you are and what you’ve done. And still I continued to sit on his lap and snuggle into him. “I’m so sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Then, tell me. What are you sorry about?” His face moved against my head in a caressing manner. Strands of my hair clung to his stubble. Did he just sniff?
“For losing control and being a basket case, for getting your shirt all wet, for having unresolved issues, for subjecting you to my mother, and—are you smelling me?” I lifted my head.
A telltale red stained his cheekbones. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it. You smell good to me,” he muttered.
He was so darn sweet, and cute, and sexy, and appealing. Warmth seeped through my chest, spreading outward. I shifted on his lap and kissed his cheek, my lips lingering for longer than a peck. When I drew back, our eyes met. Mine had to be red-rimmed and puffy, but in his gaze, I saw longing and admiration. I leaned in and, this time, brushed his lips.
And then we were kissing in earnest, mouths fusing, tongues twining, hands exploring. He caressed my arms and back, massaging lightly then eased around to the front to cover a breast. Pleasure contracted at my center.
I cupped his jaw as we kissed. Desire and curiosity proved too tempting to resist, and I slid my hand up to fondle one of his horns. It pulsed against my fingers as if blood coursed through it. Darak growled, low and sexual, and my body hummed in response.
I yanked my hand away and buried my face against his throat. Whew!
He tipped my chin and searched my gaze. He must have seen what he needed because relief glinted in his dark eyes, and then his lips curved with his crooked, appealing grin. He tucked my head against his shoulder. We held each other, saying nothing, and although I was far from perfect, the moment was.
* * * *
By the time we hung up our clothes and I dabbed makeup over the ravages of my crying jag, we were a tad late in meeting my sister. Perched on a gilded Victorian conversation loveseat, casually elegant in lavender capris, a silver and lavender floral sleeveless blouse, and silver ballet slippers, she bowed her head over her phone.
When she looked up, though, her face appeared pinched, stressed. Planning the wedding of the century could do that to you. Or maybe being back in this house was what did it. I recalled my little breakdown.
She jumped up as Darak and I entered the parlor I had not-so-fondly nicknamed the grand salon because it was too grand for children. As kids, my siblings and I had been banned from the room.
“Lexi!” She grabbed me in a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too! I can’t believe my bratty little sister is getting married,” I teased affectionately.
“I was never bratty.”
“No, you weren’t,” I agreed. “You were a very well-behaved child, always eager to please.”
“To my detriment,” she muttered under her breath. Then she pulled away and extended her hand to Darak. “You must be Lexi’s friend. I’m Antoinette, but please, call me Toni.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Darak, Lexi’s mate.”
“Mate?” Toni’s eyebrows shot up as if the wording surprised her more than the appearance of a seven-foot alien with horns.
I should have advised him against using that reference. But, how should I introduce him? We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to call him a boyfriend. The heat of our kisses had blown friend out of the water. Date or escort sounded too impersonal for the connection we’d forged through our shared harrowing experiences. We’d been mugged together, and he’d met my mother!
“Darak is from planet Dakon,” I said as if that explained everything.
“Have you been seeing each other long? How did you meet?”
“Er, not long. The Intergalactic Dating Agency matched us. How else would you meet an alien?”
A moment of stunned silence followed my answer, but then Toni laughed. My poised and proper sister doubled over with peals of laughter, hugging her stomach as her shoulders shook. When she stood up, she wiped tear tracks from her face. “And how did Mother respond?”
“About the way you would expect.” My lips twitched.
&nb
sp; Toni turned serious. “I’m sorry.” She glanced between Darak and me, directing her apology at us both.
“It’s all right,” I said and meant it. The meltdown had altered my perspective. I slipped my arm through Darak’s, and he smiled at me, his horns twitching. Could he do that at will? Some people could wiggle their ears; maybe he could move his horns. We sat thigh to thigh on a button-back Victorian lounge. Our hands came together naturally, and our fingers entwined.
Toni sat opposite us. “You look so happy together.”
“I am happy,” he said. “Lexi is everything I ever wanted.”
“It’s new, but yeah.” My stomach fluttered with awareness of the change between us. I needed to process how I felt and what it might mean before I started talking about it with my sister. “Hey, you’re the big news. Tell me about the wedding. Everything all set?”
She gave a quiet mock scream and tugged at her hair. “As long as I can avoid morphing into Bridezilla, everything will be fine. I feel like the Incredible Hulk. There’s this force inside me threatening to explode.”
I laughed. I’d delivered enough wedding cakes and met enough brides to get an idea of the stress.
“I wish you could have done my wedding cake, but Mother told me how booked up you are—”
“Whoa, whoa—what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m not complaining. I understand.”
“You never asked me to do your cake.”
“Because I knew how busy you were.”
No busier than a litigator planning her wedding! “Toni, I am busy, but I’m not that busy, and I would have baked my little sister’s wedding cake if I had to do it at one o’clock in the morning.”
“Mother said—”
“She told me you were having the cake done professionally.” Once that had rankled, but now? It was almost funny now.
Darak squeezed my hand. His eyes were sympathetic, but heated. His gaze devoured me like I was his favorite cupcake, and calories be damned. Maybe I owed my mother a thank you. If she hadn’t dissed me, I wouldn’t have signed up at the Intergalactic Dating Agency, and Darak wouldn’t have come into my life. He was supposed to have been my revenge alien; instead, he’d become something else. Exactly what, I wasn’t sure. He caused my heart to pound, my pulse to race, my knees to wobble—and the internal chaos to settle.
“Mother strikes again.” Toni shook her head. “I’m sorry, Lexi.”
“It’s all right.” I grinned. “Maybe I’ll bake a cake for your birthday. Or your first anniversary.”
“Death by Chocolate?”
“You know about Death by Chocolate?”
“My office has ordered your cupcakes. I stopped by your bakery once, but you weren’t there.”
“You should have told me!” It stunned me she’d been supporting Your Just Desserts, and I hadn’t known.
“Well, you were kind of avoiding the family at the time.” She tilted her head. “The whole wedding-cake thing with Mother may have been less about you and more about her exerting control over the event. She tried to insinuate herself into the planning, but I put my foot down. This is my wedding, and I want it to be what I want and not what she wants. I’ve allowed her to dictate too much of my life as it is.”
Sitting there not speaking, just listening, Darak was getting an earful. With Dakon’s small civilization fighting for survival, his people had learned to cooperate, work together for the common good. From what he’d shared about his family, his parents had doted on him. I hadn’t expected this heart-to-heart with my sister when I’d brought him to meet her.
Better he find out now what he’s getting into.
Still, it was possible to share too much too soon.
Nothing I could do about it now. I was a hot mess. At least I didn’t have twelve cats.
“I’m learning from you,” Toni said.
“From me? How?”
“I’ve always admired you. You were my big sister, and you always did what you wanted. You didn’t let Mother rule your life. You still don’t. You started your own business. You got yourself a hot guy. You’ve blazed your own trail.”
“At a cost,” I mumbled, stunned again. My professional, successful sister admired me?
“There’s a cost to conformity, too,” she said.
I’d never attempted to conform because from the beginning it had been obvious I never would. I’d always been an outsider in my own family, falling way short of expectations. So “blazing my own trail” had been kind of the default option. What if I had met expectations? Would I have chosen a different path? “You seem to have a great life, though,” I said.
“But is it my life?”
“Then live the life you want. You’re only twenty-five—you can change.”
“Can I?”
“Of course you can! You’ve already started—you told Mother to butt out of your wedding, didn’t you? You really set fire to the trail. If you don’t like practicing law, quit. Do something else. My trust fund has been spent, but you still have yours. You don’t need to work for a while. Decide what you want and go for it.”
Toni glanced at her chirping phone. “My wedding planner,” she said.
“Go ahead, take it.” I motioned.
She tapped, read the text, and sighed. “A flower emergency. She needs me to go over the options.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Nope.” She stood up. “You already did. You gave me a lot to think about.” Toni hugged me and whispered in my ear, “I’m so happy you met Darak. He’s a hottie, and he’s obviously smitten with you.”
My sister left, and I reeled in the wake of the paradigm shift.
“Your sister is not like your mother,” Darak said.
“No. No, she’s not.” I linked my arm through his. Toni was right; he was a hottie, but I’d already figured that out. “How about that tour now?”
Chapter Six
Darak
“And then the judge will say, ‘Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold, blah, blah, blah,’ and you say…” The female directing Lexi’s sister’s wedding cued me to speak.
“No. She’s not my mate. That’s my mate.” I pointed to Lexi who watched from the field of chairs. Arranged in rows, most of the two hundred chairs were vacant, but I’d been told that tomorrow they would be filled with guests who would witness the mating ceremony. There would be more people at the ceremony than populated some of the tribes on Dakon.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! This is just for practice.” The wedding planner rolled her eyes and sighed. “Not for real.”
“It’s okay,” Toni said. “He doesn’t need to say anything. He’s not the one who needs the rehearsal anyway.”
On my planet, there was no such thing as a practice mating. If you asked a female to be your mate, and she said yes, you were bonded. No matter how slight the chance, I couldn’t risk getting mated to the wrong female. When Toni’s future mate, Phillip, had been delayed and hadn’t arrived in time for the rehearsal, she’d asked me if I’d take his place during the practice. I’d assumed I would only have to stand in front of the roundish, open structure called a gazebo—not recite special words to my mate’s sister.
I sought out Lexi. Heat flared across the distance, and arousal purred within me. As my horns tingled, I wished she stood here with me, and this was for real. I’d recognized she was my true intended the instant I met her, but she’d been slower to acknowledge the special feelings between us. The physical aspect had always been there, but her heart had taken longer to open. Ever since yesterday, I’d sensed the change in her, evidenced by her soft, bemused gaze, her warm smiles, the way she found little ways to touch me.
One day soon, when the time was right, I would ask her to be my mate in the Dakonian way, and we would seal the commitment in the Terran way.
“All right, then. After Phillip says, ‘I will,’ the judge will say, ‘Do you, Toni, take Phillip to be your lawfully wedd
ed husband, blah, blah, blah.’ You say…”
“I will,” Toni said.
“Then the judge says a few words about the circle symbolizing eternity. The ring bearer steps forward—ring bearer, where are you?” The wedding helper sighed in exasperation and scanned the garden area.
“Jaxon? Get your butt over here!” shouted one of Toni’s female attendants. Her son was supposed to carry the mating rings on a pillow. Presently, the kit chased a flower girl through the rows of chairs. I had a hunch he had picked out his future mate.
At his mother’s shout, he darted to the gazebo and waited.
His mother glared at him. “Sorry, Toni. He’ll behave better tomorrow. Won’t you?”
He nodded.
“No problem,” Toni said.
“Then you hand your bouquet to your maid of honor so you can exchange rings,” the planner instructed.
Toni mimed handing flowers to the female next to her. They giggled.
“The judge will have you place the rings on each other’s fingers then pronounce you husband and wife. Okay, everybody. Let’s walk through this once more, this time with music. Flower girls, I want you to practice gently tossing the petals on the ground.” She demonstrated with a graceful twist of her hand. “Don’t wind up your arm and pitch them like a fastball.”
Her phone chirped, she stared at the screen and then spoke into it. “Yes? Oh, wonderful! Hold on a sec.” She looked at Toni. “We got the original flowers for the gazebo. I need to take this call and finalize the arrangements. Take five, everybody—Er, make it ten, but be back on time! Don’t everybody scatter.”
The bridal attendants and the men who would represent the groom stepped down to the chairs. Lexi and Toni’s father came over. “I still can’t believe my little girl is getting married. It seems like you were only this high yesterday.” He held his hand at hip level. “I love you, honey.”
“Love you, too, Dad. Thanks for taking off work today to be here.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss my little girl’s wedding—or the rehearsal.”
He squinted at my head through lenses perched on his nose. “Your horns are fascinating. I’ll bet they’re enervated with a good blood supply. Stronger than cartilage, but not bone, either. I’d like to examine them sometime, if you wouldn’t mind. Maybe run some tests and do an analysis of your DNA.”
