Ares Read online

  Charmaine hands me a manual that’s the size of Utah. I can’t hold it with one arm and almost drop it until I manage to get a grip, hefting the binder into my lap. It’s heavy enough to cut off my circulation. Great. As long as I don’t have any need for my extremities, I’m all set.

  “This has all the most pertinent information,” she tells me. “But Ares is slightly different than the other matches I’ve handled since he’s been learning our language and culture for quite some time now. Most of what you need to know you can ask him.”

  I glance up at the imposing Torvian with his arms crossed over his massive chest. He didn’t take a seat when we moved from the hall and I get the sense he doesn’t do a lot of sitting around. He couldn’t possibly, not judging by the muscles upon muscles bulging under his skin. I hope he wears short sleeved T-shirts all year round because I do enjoy looking at him.

  No time like the present to dive right in then. “Will you take a walk with me?”

  His granite features don’t budge. “For what purpose?”

  Okay, yeah. Walked into that one. Just because he looks human and has been here on Earth doesn’t mean he cares anything about social customs like getting to know the person you’re going to marry. “So we can be alone, of course.”

  Intrigue darts through his silvery gaze as it wanders down my body with a decided measure of heat. “I agree to walk.”

  Suddenly I wonder what I’m opening myself up for. I’m completely off balance since everything I thought I knew about how this match would go has been wrong. Did I screw up by specifying that I wanted to be matched with a certain Torvian? Maybe I should have just answered the match profile questions and let the chips fall.

  Ares opens Charmaine’s door and calls out, “Ciao” then shakes his head and says goodbye instead. It’s kind of cute that he gets the languages mixed up.

  “You must be really smart if you know three languages,” I say as I step through the door ahead of him.

  Most of the time I can hold my own intellectually but I definitely do not watch the Science Channel for fun. It’s a bit unnerving to think about being with someone who is leagues above me in the IQ department.

  “Four,” he corrects immediately. “I am fluent in my native language.”

  Duh. I roll my eyes at myself but he’s not being a smart ass or anything so I don’t shoot back a cutting reply like I normally would. He probably wouldn’t get my sarcasm anyway. We walk along a lighted path toward the road, which is the only place to walk around here. The hushed darkness of the forest increases the further from the house we go.

  The silence stretches and I struggle with how to navigate this conversation. “I have to ask. You remember me, right? From when Penelope went to get Eros in Switzerland?”

  “I do.”

  His voice floats to me through the black and his accent is still pretty sexy even though he doesn’t sound like the only other Torvian I know. Maybe they have different regions like they do here. Someone from South Carolina sounds nothing like someone from the Bronx.

  Since he clearly isn’t one to elaborate, I prod him again. “And was that the reason you said yes to the match?”

  “It is.”

  Arg. Did I get the only Torvian on the planet who knows multiple languages but doesn’t talk in any of them? I was expecting a little more along the lines of flowery speeches at this point, like how he can’t live without me and I’m the one he crossed a thousand galaxies to reach. I mean, I’m not a relationship expert even when both parties are human, but this is way beyond me.

  “Took you long enough to get here then,” I mumble.

  He pauses so I do too. A smattering of stars spread out over the tops of the trees behind him. It’s a lovely panorama, or it would be if this wasn’t topping the list as the most awkward date I’ve been on in a long time. Which is saying something considering I walked out on Nick at Hibiscus for this.

  “I did not come to Earth to be a match,” he tells me.

  Yet he became one anyway? Now we’re talking. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “You,” he says with the most color in his voice that I’ve heard thus far. “You… Mi affascina.”

  The words wash over me and okay, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being talked to in a foreign language by a guy with a sexy accent, especially when he’s basically saying that one glimpse of me changed his life goal. “I don’t know what that means but I like it.”

  His brows come together as if he’s wracking his brain. “Fascinate. You…pick me. Why?”

  Oh, so he was swayed by the fact that I specified him? That warms me up fast. “You know why. When you look at me, I feel it. Here.”

  I take his hand and flatten it against my stomach, fully aware that I’m pushing a couple of boundaries since he hasn’t made a move to touch me in any way, shape or form. His fingers spread over my abdomen, and Holy God. Lightning forks through me, heating me with sharp, fast tugs between my legs that radiate until my whole body is weeping for more of his touch.

  I stare up at him and the atmosphere grows thick with awareness, the kind that springs up almost instantly every time his gaze lands on me. Like I told him. It happened in Switzerland and again when Charmaine opened the door earlier. And now. In spades. Probably it’s heightened by the fact that he’s touching me.

  The heaviness of his palm presses against my skin, turning me molten and I wonder what he would do if I kissed him. Which is a purely academic question because he’s a head taller than me so he’d have to be on board or else I’d look pretty silly jumping two feet in the air to play pin the tail on the donkey with my lips.

  “I feel it too,” he murmurs and the question of kissing gets a lot less academic and a whole lot more viable as he closes the distance between us, sliding his palm around my waist, drawing me into his body.

  The hard planes of his thighs and torso have no give, but somehow we align and it’s the most delicious thing that’s ever happened to me. My body electrifies as he tips up my chin and feathers a thumb across my cheek. Our gazes lock and all at once, he’s communicating in yet another way.

  He wants me. Not like the normal run of the mill you’re hot and I’d like to boink like bunnies. But at a bone deep level, he wants me to be his. Since that kind of amazing is exactly what I’m looking for, I lap it up.

  Did I say this was awkward? I lied. All of that vanishes as his lips brush mine and the world melts away. The kiss gets intense faster than I can handle, his tongue licking into my mouth in search of more and he finds it. I meet him eagerly, falling into the experience of being kissed by someone who knows how to do it.

  How’s that for a kick? Thank God Earth men are bland and insipid because I would have missed out on this perfection in the form of Ares. The kiss rearranges my insides, makes me yearn for unnamable things that I have heard of but never had. Ares can give them to me and I want that—want him—with ferocity I scarcely recognize.

  He pulls back far too soon, his gaze enigmatic and unreadable. My knees buckle and only his strong arm at my waist keeps me off the ground. Obviously we’re compatible and the match process didn’t matter. I can’t wait to find out how much better sex will be with a Torvian than with human men, though I plan to be a lot more careful than Penelope. Eros knocked her up pretty much the first time they did it.

  “We will marry,” he says and it’s not a question, but that’s okay. Marriage was a given since I knew about the whole green card requirement and how Torvians come here to escape bad stuff on their planet.

  A down-on-one-knee proposal would have been nice. I guess that’s a little much to ask given the unromantic circumstances so I’m mostly over it.

  What I’m not sure of is why he didn’t just find a nice Swiss girl to marry. Obviously he doesn’t need the acclimation assistance like Eros did, plus there are a few other things that don’t add up. Penelope didn’t ask enough questions in the beginning. I’m not making that mistake.

  “If we get marr
ied, you have to come here to live.” I gesture to the forest at large. “You won’t miss Switzerland?”

  He shakes his head, his expression stoic. “It is not Torvis. Nothing is.”

  My heart flattens. So basically he’s saying he doesn’t care where he lives because it’s not home. I want him to have a home. Everyone should. We can make one together. “I get it. You’ll like Olympia. It’s a great place to live. We can go hiking and to Rialto beach. Maybe you can get a job doing whatever you were doing in Switzerland this whole time.”

  That gets a reaction and it’s not a positive one. “I wish to start over. Not to continue as I was.”

  The sheer lack of emotion in his voice cuts through me. I bawl through Subaru commercials, so for him to be this tightly controlled over his reasons for leaving Switzerland—that slays me. It must be a big deal for him to be so stoic with a stiff upper lip and all.

  Ares is definitely not what I expected but in a lot of ways, he’s more. I’m pretty much a goner. I want to help him have that fresh start. God knows I’ve needed enough of those in my day.

  I nod. “If marrying me is a step forward for you, I’m good with that.”

  Examining my sudden burst of altruism doesn’t sound like fun, so I sweep it away in favor of linking hands with my alien and strolling with him farther down the unlighted road from Charmaine’s house. I have no fear generally but even less so with Ares by my side. Who would voluntarily tangle with someone the size of a grizzly bear? I’m totally safe with him and I know the rules already. I’m in charge of what happens between us—a failsafe the agency puts in place since I physically couldn’t stop a Torvian from doing whatever he wants to me. The rules are for the human women’s safety. If I don’t want to be married anymore, Charmaine helps me untangle everything. He goes back to Switzerland. No questions asked.

  Of course, I’m not going to ditch him. I don’t think so anyway. Penelope did that with her alien and regretted it almost immediately. Ares seems pretty transparent and I can definitely talk to him a lot easier than Penelope can communicate with Eros, but they’re always too busy making out to care how much English Eros knows. Maybe that will be true with me and my match too.

  A girl can hope. “You’re a pretty good kisser, by the way. Where did you learn that?”

  Ares glances at me. “Torvian females resemble humans and they derive pleasure in the same fashion.”

  Splendid. This gets better and better. “So have you dated any other human women or am I the first?”

  “You are special,” he tells me and yeah, that accent isn’t getting any less sexy, especially not when he’s saying pretty things like that.

  This is going way better than I would have dreamed. Clearly my alien and I are meant to be, written in the stars or whatever mystical swirly reason for being you wanna label it. It’s so nice to finally have something go right, for solid proof that I’m not broken or incapable of having a relationship. I was just looking for love in all the wrong species.

  Three

  A week later, Charmaine has arranged everything. Today is D-day or maybe it should be called W-day as in wedding, which arrived frighteningly fast. The green card application is more tedious and full of potential pitfalls than the marriage license, but the Intergalactic Dating Agency that Charmaine works for has the process for both down to a science. I don’t ask a lot of questions outside of where do I sign?

  I’m really doing this. Ares and I are getting married.

  It’s simultaneously anticlimactic and such an earth-shattering thing that I can’t figure out what to wear. When I pictured my wedding day while growing up, there were always hearts and flowers and a man who loved me so much he couldn’t wait to put a ring on my finger.

  That is not this day. But what did I expect from a green card marriage, really?

  More. It’s not a crime. That’s what I’ve always wanted from a relationship, why I signed up for all of those dating sites that never worked out. I want more from life than being alone. I want companionship, someone to be there for me in the middle of the night when I’m anxious or have a desire to talk about my dreams.

  Ares and I had that moment in Switzerland that made me think we could be that for each other, and it seemed like fate. Penelope got more than she bargained for. Why can’t I wish for that? Torvians are totally compatible with humans, which means they have similar emotions and feel pain, pleasure. Have hopes and dreams. Eros wanted kids from the first. Ares hasn’t said either way, but I would love to have that conversation.

  So far, we’re not even to the sleeping arrangements conversation and I’m a bit anxious to get on with it, honestly.

  I wear a print sundress with spaghetti straps. I will freeze in it, but I don’t care. It’s my favorite dress and I need the confidence boost.

  Penelope and Eros come with me to the courthouse. Charmaine and Ares have already arrived and wait for us in the crowded lobby. Hungrily, I let my gaze skitter over this alien I’m supposed to marry today. God, he is something. So physically commanding, with a body that doesn’t quit. It’s super-sized and honed to perfection with broad shoulders atop a chiseled torso. My fingers tingle at the thought of getting under that shirt to trace all those muscles and learn their shape.

  His face could have been carved from a hunk of marble, both beautiful and inflexible at the same time. I long to make him smile, to find out what his definition of happy is. We’re going to build a life together and I barely know him.

  Panic floods my chest all at once and I can’t breathe.

  He acknowledges me with a nod and immediately shifts his attention to Eros. Apparently the two aliens are buddies because the second they see each other, they start rumbling in their native language. Ares laughs at one point and the sound of it digs deep under my skin. I haven’t made him laugh yet. It’s a new goal for sure because I like the way it transforms his face.

  “How you holding up?” Penelope pulls me aside to ask because she’s intuitive like that. “It can be a huge culture shock to take on a project the size of a Torvian.”

  And I’m breathing again. It’s going to be okay.

  I shrug, hoping her phrasing is a double entendre, which I can’t personally attest to yet, dang it. “Ares is a breeze so far. I mean, he’s a lot more… I don’t know, somber or something than Eros, sure. But we can talk to each other and the chemistry is off the charts. I’m looking forward to getting to know him even better.”

  I mock fan myself with a grin, but there is literally no chance she didn’t catch my drift.

  True to form, Penelope waggles her brows. “You waited for the honeymoon. How old-fashioned of you.”

  “His idea,” I admit.

  Actually, after that first night, we didn’t really interact at all. Ares stayed out at Charmaine’s, allegedly waiting for all the paperwork to be filed before making it “official.” I tried to call a couple of times but he isn’t a fan of phones, I’m told. I have been at loose ends all week as a result because it feels like the distance has been deliberate.

  Ares is giving me space, that’s all, or at least this is what I’ve convinced myself of. Along with that, his culture is probably different than mine and he doesn’t know that human women obsess over each second of silence, replaying whole conversations in their heads in order to pick apart every word for clues as to what might have gone wrong. Probably this lack of contact before the wedding is a time-honored mating ritual on Torvis, so I shouldn’t worry.

  I haven’t told Penelope any of this even though I’ve seen her every day since I met Ares. Penelope’s salon is easily the hottest hotbed of gossip in Olympia. The grapevine was invented inside her walls. The less anyone besides her knows about Ares, the better. I have to introduce him around eventually as he’ll be part of my life going forward, but for now, he’s my secret. I haven’t worked out how to explain him yet.

  I mean, it’s easy enough to explain him. We met on a dating site and he moved here from Switzerland. End of story. But I k
now there are going to be probing questions like, how did you know he was the one? And how did he propose? Stuff girls care about. I care about it too and when I contacted Charmaine originally, I had all these fantasies built on one encounter with Ares where we had “A Moment.” And now I’m basing an entire marriage on that.

  I might be clinically insane.

  I should call this off before it’s too late. We’re not even in love with each other, at least on my side. I assumed he’d carry that part of it, worshipping the ground I walk on until I’m won over sort of thing. In hindsight, that probably isn’t the best foundation for a marriage, but I don’t do so well with human men—I had hoped a Torvian would fill the gaps in my own profile.

  But then our names are called, or rather mine and someone named Mark Johnson, which I guess is the human name Ares picked. Eros had a stupid one too that Penelope dispensed with pretty fast. I guess Torvians don’t have last names or they’re too hard to pronounce.

  “This is only the first step,” Penelope whispers in my ear. Apparently she’s gained some mind reading abilities lately to go along with her pregnancy. “Take it and then work out the next one. It’ll be worth it.”

  Sure. Eye on the prize.

  I’m doing this for reasons and they haven’t changed: I want a husband and my alien needs me, or he can’t stay here in America. INS doesn’t look as closely at the non-citizen’s country of origin paperwork—forged in Ares’s case—when the application is for a green card due to marriage. The marriage itself is the part they scrutinize.

  Ares materializes at my side and takes my hand. I glance up at him, and the world falls away as I drown in his silvery gaze. Oh, yeah, that’s why I’m doing this. We have something, a connection I can’t explain; surely we can find a way to build a home together. I want that and I believe he does too. We’re just taking an unconventional route to get there, that’s all.

  “Um, hi,” I say breathlessly, and his fingers tighten around my hand as he treats me to a rare smile that hooks me on the inside.