Page 8 of The Alien's Major Dilemma

The laughter that erupted from her warmed him to his core. It was one of his favorite sounds that humans made and hearing it coming from his mate because of something he’d done gave him a bigger sense of satisfaction than he’d ever gotten from his job.

“Not just an asshole,” Marissa said. “Actively evil.”

“I am not,” he protested. “Playful, mischievous maybe, but not actually evil.”

“I think you need a different name than Cooper,” she said.

“Oh? What do you think would work better?”

“Puck,” Marissa said and he could hear the laughter in her voice.

“I like it,” he said. “It sounds a lot like fuck and that’s my favorite human word. Especially the way you Marines use it. It’s like swearing becomes an art form and you’re determined to make it fit every position in a sentence.”

“Noun, verb, adjective, and everything in between,” she agreed.

“So, what does Puck mean? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used as a name before, but get the feeling I should have. Does it mean handsome and dashing man of adventure?”

“It’s a character from a play,” she said. “How do you know what Cooper means and not Puck?”

“It wasn’t in the baby name book I borrowed,” he said. “At least, it wasn’t in the first few lists that matched the name tags I had access to. What kind of play is he from?”

“A Shakespearean comedy.”

“Is that different from a romantic comedy? Or, um, a buddy comedy?”

“I think it was one of the original romantic comedies,” Marissa said. “Probably not the original-original one but the one that we have the best copy of. Puck is a fairy who causes problems because he thinks it’s funny and because his bosses ask him to.Everything works out in the end, though, and everybody falls in love.”

“I think I’d like this Puck,” Cooper said. “And he’s in a play? Is that like a movie?”

Cooper knew what a play was. In the six months he’d been on the planet, he’d spent his time scraping so much information from human minds that he knew bits and pieces about a wide variety of human subjects. Since he didn’t have to sleep as much as most humans, he’d done research when possible to fill in some gaps.

What he really wanted was for Marissa to keep talking to him. He liked the sound of her voice. He liked it even better when he could tell she was having fun. It had only been a few hours but he liked how her moods made him feel.

Chapter 4

Marissa really didn’t want to like Cooper. He was right about her training, right about what she was supposed to be doing now that she’d found herself captured, and he was making it hard to do any of it. Not just by keeping her immobilized, but by being charming and funny enough that she didn’t think about it.

This was going to cause problems. She could already tell.

It didn’t help that whatever he’d done to her head when she hit him had shaken her confidence. She hadn’t even seen the blow coming that knocked her flat on her ass and made her see stars. And she didn’t believe for one minute that it had anything to do with some kind of bond.

Humans might pack bond with anything, but that psychic stuff was a bunch of nonsense.

She enjoyed talking to him, though. If he thought they were supposed to have some kind of psychic connection that wouldmake them better friends, she was willing to let him keep thinking that until she could figure out how to get away from him.

“What did you do to the engine to make it run with no gas?” she asked.

“Ah, my people have developed an additive that works to stretch your fuel,” he said. “It doesn’t work forever but it about doubles the capacity of the fuel tank on your vehicles.”

“I thought you said your people don’t know this planet exists,” she said.

“They don’t,” he said. “It’s not for fuel sources, strictly speaking, but for oils and substances that act like oils. I brought a lot of it with me and it worked so I didn’t see any reason not to use it.”

“What oils would you need to stretch?” Marissa asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Oh, just, you know, various kinds.”

Cooper was evading her questions and she could swear he’d started to blush.

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