Page 12 of Snowed in with my Alien Boss

She swallowed hard at the possessive vibe he gave off. Did he really mean it? Did she want him to? What if she turned out to be Grogen’s mate? It would be a dream come true. Many Talleans were promiscuous when they were young, but once they found their one and only they settled down, and lost interest in anyone else.

That was the point of bedding so many in their youth; it was done in the hope of finding “the one”, since the mate bond often required time together to show and solidify. But she was getting ahead of herself. She wasn’t even sure if the word he had uttered had been “mine” or if it was just a noise that sounded similar.

Grogen reached for the storage area in the transport door. He brought out a new roll of clean, soft towels, the kind they used to buff the transport hulls to a brilliant shine. He cleaned her up with one and tucked the dirty towel back into the door.

Using his comm unit, he turned off the lights in the garage before gathering her into his arms and tucking her into the hollow of his body.

“Sleep, Abby. We have a big day tomorrow.”

***

Abby woke to the smell of roasting tepins. She stretched and found the spot next to her empty. What time was it? She usually relied on her comm’s alarm to wake her up in the morning, but her comm was still turned off and on the staff room table.

She fished around for her underwear and found it shoved in a corner. It was torn and unwearable. So what had happened last night hadn’t been a fever dream after all: she really had sixty-nined her boss in the back of a transport in the workplace garage. Or, at least, she tried to; their size difference had made it difficult. Well, for her part, anyway.Hedid phenomenally well.

And now they would spend the entire festival together because she’d drunkenly asked him to go to the colony-wide celebrations with her and he’d agreed! That meant showing up at the festival as a couple.

She found Grogen in the staff room, staring impatiently at a roasting tepin as it went around and around in the portable oven. He looked ready to yell at the spatchcocked bird for roasting itself too slowly. But she was used to his resting grump face; it was the reason he had thought it necessary to hire her in the first place.

Abby had a much more pleasant demeanor, especially when dealing with the more difficult customers. Who would’ve thought that a lifetime of dealing with annoying, entitled pricks would pay off after she was abducted from Earth?

“Good morning!” She tried to sound nonchalant, not sure if she should bring up last night or not. “I hope you slept well.”

His sour look softened. “After you helped me out, yes. I did.”

Heat rose to her cheeks. Clearly,hehad no problem bringing it up.

As they ate more roasted tepin, Abby found her phone and turned it on. There were several dozen missed messages: mostly from her father, but also one from the housing office; they must be checking their messages despite being on vacation. According to the office, there was a waitlist for units in their apartment complex, and they were asking if she would be willing to leave early to help them out. They’d refund her a portion of the season's rent.

That would be ideal, except all her stuff was still there, and she technically didn’t have a new place yet.

“I will help you retrieve your items,” Grogen said. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

His next words shocked her. “There are few units available right now. You can stay with me.”

A huge part of her wanted to say yes, but the logical part of her brain screamed that things were moving way too fast. What if things didn’t work out between them? She would be out a homeanda job. It wasn’t taboo in Tallean culture to sleep with coworkers—or in this case, bosses—but cohabitating was different.

When there was no mate bond, living together was the first step to a partnership of convenience. Despite the extremely non-romantic name, it meant that two people loved each other enough that they’d decided to live as mates despite not having an actual mate bond. It didn’t always end well, though, especially if one of them found their true mate after.

Maybe Grogen meant she should stay as a temporary roommate, but after yesterday, she doubted they’d be able to keep their hands off each other. A boss with benefits she could handle, and if a mate bond naturally developed, then she’d happily accept. But moving in so soon was scary. Things felt like they were already going too fast, and her sense of self-preservation insisted she kept things in control.

“Thank you, but I’ll keep looking. Never know what might—”

The comm in her hand started blaring out a colony-wide warning.

“What now?” Gorgan grumbled.

“Probably just a warning about fences going down and dragus in parts of the colony. It happens every year.”

“It does?”

“Yeah. But I guess you don’t get any alerts when you’re out in your cabin.”

“I do not.”

Sure enough, the alerts listed all the sectors with fence breaches, as well as the ones that already had confirmed dragus sightings. Their sector had a breach, but no one had detected any of the pack-hunting native animals yet.

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