Page 26 of Badass Alien Boss

“I guess if we’re stuck here all night, it can’t be any worse than the bed in the apartment. It’s as hard as a slab of stone.”

Bed.The single word ignited his smoldering libido. “Yours, too?” He faked a chuckle.

“There’s no give to it,” she complained.

“None,” he agreed.

Fantasies of curling up together in their uncomfortable bed flooded his brain. Bodies moving, perspiring. Gasps. Groans. Delicious tension leading to sweet ecstasy. Fully erect and aching, he raised a leg to block her view of his tented pants.

They finished their meal while making small talk. It was the kind of meaningless conversation one forgot moments after it occurred—but he would always remember how her light, feminine scent filled his senses and caused his soul to ache, the way her slightest movement registered as an electrified tingle on his skin, and the melodious sound of her voice. Like a lovestruck adolescent suffering his first unrequited crush, he hesitated to approach the object of his desire.

What if I kissed her? What would she do?The ill-advised, outrageous thought stuck in his brain, despite repeated attempts to shake it loose. He shouldn’t even have those thoughts.

“What will you do about the discrepancy in my salary?” she asked.

“Bring it up with Korsan, eventually. I need to do a deeper audit and gather more data on all the discrepancies before I talk to him. I’ll force him to listen if I have to.”

“How are you going to force him to listen?”

He laughed. “That’s the hard part. He has a tendency to ignore my counsel. Partly the big-brother syndrome, partly his stubborn personality.”

“Like hiring me?”

“That was one of the smarter things he did.”

“So, you admit you need me.” She grinned.

More than you know.“I’m not as stubborn as he is.” He smiled back.

“Are you finished eating?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me get these boxes out of the way.” She downed the dregs of her alcoholic beverage and tossed the bottle in the box. He saved his water for later, she kept hers, and then she set the boxes on the other side of the chamber where they wouldn’t kick them in the middle of the night.

Poetry in action, she moved with elegance and an economy of motion. She took no extra moves but executed them with a dancer’s grace. He watched her with desire thrumming through his veins while the analytical part of his brain remained focused on the exorbitant expenses. In his gut, he didn’t think GAL Friday was an outlier. And after Michaela vouched for the agency, he didn’t believe they had overcharged.

He trusted her instincts more than he trusted his brother’s. Korsan’s heart was in the right place, but his head was often elsewhere. But he had been there for him in the darkest night of his despair. He had pulled him out of the pit, set him on his feet, and given him a reason to get up in the morning. Forever grateful, he owed him. If Korsan was making bad decisions, he had to save him from himself.

But before he approached him, he needed ironclad proof of the overages.

“How would you feel about going on a brief working vacation?” he asked.

She chuckled and returned to sit beside him. “Isn’t working vacation an oxymoron?”

“Would you preferclandestine reconnaissance at a tourist resort?”

“Now that sounds exciting. What kind of reconnaissance?”

“The kind my brother doesn’t need to know about yet.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’d probably order me not to go.”

“And what will we be reconnoitering?”

“How renovations are proceeding. You’ve heard of SIH?”