Page 11 of The Alien's Major Dilemma

He laughed. “Imagine how I felt learning about human life cycles. Especially since my first exposure to it was from people who were trying not to breed.”

Marissa opened her mouth, then snapped it shut and shook her head. “Yeah, I have questions.”

Cooper killed the engine on the truck and turned to look at her. A grin played at the corners of his mouth, and he winked at her. “Come in to my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

Chapter 5

She was here. His mate was here, in his home, almost in his bed!

Well, okay, Major Marissa Ozark was sitting on one of the few chairs that had been designed for something besides working at one of the control stations. And she wasn’t exactly there because she wanted to be. She really didn’t need to know that the bench under the table next to her folded out into a bed. It's not like he used it for that most of the time, anyway.

Except, she’d walked into his ship under her own power after watching the blast shields shift and unfold to let them in. That was something, right? She hadn’t attacked him again and he hadn’t been forced to use the stabilizer on her. This was progress, right?

If nothing else, that she existed at all was enough for him to reconsider the viability of miracles. Everything else could be worked out.Wouldbe worked out.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty? I’ve got a stock of water bottles and rations if you want anything. Nothing super fancy but we’re hiding in a desert surrounded by people who think hygiene is an abomination. I can work on getting better food I just never expected company.”

“Cooper,” Marissa called from the chair.

“Oh, I grabbed some stuff from the base, too, but it’s not much better. I’ll need to raid a couple of the local markets, I think, if you want something fresh.”

He was nervous. He knew he was nervous and he knew some of it was coming off Marissa but he hadn’t figured out how to block that part yet.

“Cooper, sit down,” she said.

He grabbed a couple bottles of water from the cooler he’d borrowed and turned to his mate. “You never said if you were thirsty,” he said, and held one out to her.

It was colder than he liked, but probably close to what she preferred. His heart had picked up speed since they crossed the threshold to his ship and it was making him uncomfortable.

“I’ll take the water, thank you,” she said. “But you have to sit down and drink it with me. Then we need to talk about what’s going on and what you want from me because I think you’ve got plans that are going to be complicated by having me around.”

She took the bottle of water from him, opened and drank it down without another comment. Humans needed a lot of water. His mental tally of what he had in his ship for her was coming up lacking for a lot of things.

“You say plans like you expect me to have some kind of diabolical plan to take over the planet,” he said with a laugh. “I can assure you, they’re nothing of the kind.”

Marissa shook her head. “You snuck onto a secret base in what is, technically, a war zone to steal an alien device from someone there on a diplomatic mission. And then you used thatdevice to call for a ride home. If you did all of that without a plan, I’m going to have to reassess my assumptions about your intelligence.”

He started pacing. Every instinct he had wanted him to move so he did what he could in the small space. Muscles twitched in his lower back as his body’s memory of limbs he no longer had made him ache with the urge to swing his tail in irritation.

“Okay, first, he wasn’t on the base as part of a diplomatic mission, he was there because shit had gone seriously sideways and then it got weird. Second, I snuck onto two secret bases near a war zone and nobody noticed either time so I think that was pretty good even without a plan.”

“Dammit, Cooper, that’s not what I-”

“And third, I am stranded on an alien planet after something hijacked my guidance system and dumped most of my fuel into space. Of course I’m calling for a ride. I’m just shocked that it only took me six months to find something that would work to make the call.”

He was upset. How was she so calm and he was upset? He never got upset. Not only was getting upset unlikely to help but it was one of the fastest ways he could think of to jeopardize any mission he was a part of.

“And as you were getting away with the alien device, you captured a Marine Major, thus ensuring that your remaining time on this planet is going to be interesting,” she finished for him. “So, if you were going to attempt a painful and difficult suicide, I can’t think of a better way to go about it. If you were trying to lie low until your ride got here, I can guarantee that this is the opposite of a good plan for that.”

Cooper growled. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” he said.

“So why did you do it and what are you going to do next?” She crushed the plastic water bottle between her hands and screwed the lid on.

The crunching sound of the plastic was oddly satisfying and he did the same to the bottle in his hand. Of course, his still had water in it which ended up on the floor of his kitchenette/lounge/work space.

“Dammit,” he cursed. “Stop that.”

“Stop what? Pointing out the flaws in your plan? Asking what you’re going to do about having the very pissed off attention of one of the world’s most advanced militaries on you? Because this is stuff that’s going to be very relevant very soon and you need to think about it.”

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