“Well, I’m single, so maybe I’ll get a little lost after work.” Ellen giggled as she put the final touches on my makeup. I couldn’t help but smile. If I hadn’t sworn off all men—human or alien made no difference to me if they had a penis—I might have thought about doing the same. Because she wasn’t wrong. The particular Atlan she’d picked from the poster with the dark, dark hair was named Bahre, and there was just something about him that made my entire body ache. Which was a very unwelcome development. I had left Chicago—and the national news scene—behind for a reason. That reason had not changed in the year I’d been in Florida. I frowned at the thought. Males of any species were not an option at the moment. No, thank you.
I’d worked for the station—and with Ellen—since I joined the local news team, and she knew what I liked. I always took this time while she worked on my face and hair to go over the weather data one more time. I hated to fumble on camera, especially since my part of the broadcast was live. The talk about the latest bachelor beast had me thinking about the hot Atlan—yup, Bahre—I’d seen in the lobby earlier instead of the cold front that had stalled out south of the city. And by cold front, I meant in the seventies.
My previous station had been in Chicago, where the weather was constantly changing, so the consistent temps of south Florida weren’t all that complicated. It seemed that in Florida it was either eighty and sunny or raining like the clouds wanted to drown us.
I glanced up and looked at Ellen in the mirror. She had sassy purple streaks in her blonde hair that matched her personality. I was trying to imagine her with one of the oversize Atlans.
Nope. Couldn’t do it.
But me with that huge, scarred beast? The one I’d gotten an actual look at earlier as I’d come in to work? God. My breasts grew heavy, and I knew my brand-new pink lace panties would be soaked. He hadn’t seen me, of course, since he’d been swarmed with fans and security—not that an alien that large needed someone to protect him. Ellen misunderstood my stare completely. Thank goodness.
“What?” she asked me with a grin. “You want to come downstairs with me later? You’re single, too, young lady. And gorgeous.”
“No, thank you.” I’d seen Bahre in the flesh and nearly tripped on the stairs. I preferred to take them instead of the elevator because I liked the way my calves looked in high heels, and that five-story trek every day was about as excited as I got about exercise. Today the small glass window looking out into the lobby had saved me from making an idiot of myself over that alien sex god. I was not going anywhere near him again or I’d look the fool.
“Come on, Quinn,” Ellen prodded, using a large brush to go over my face one last time. “There’s five gorgeous Atlans. Don’t tell me one of them doesn’t melt your butter.”
Her southern sayings matched her thick Georgia accent. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Bahre?”
Ellen and Susan nodded together like bobbleheads on a dashboard.
“So it’s Bahre, is it?” Susan raised her brows and gave me that motherly I-know-what-you’re-thinking look.
“Bahre, huh?” Ellen asked, then shrugged. “Okay. You can have Bahre, and I’ll take one of the others.”
As if we were going to divvy up the hot aliens like selecting golf partners.
I opened my mouth to protest, because this was just silly talk, but she proceeded to shut me up by coming over with the gloss brush in hand and painting another coat over my lips. “Oh no you don’t. You’re coming with me to ogle. We’ve got our passes to get in the building. We owe it to women everywhere to go down there and drool. And don’t give me any of that I-can’t-mess-up-my-hair talk, either,” Ellen added. “Everyone gets mussed and sweaty during sexy times, even the ‘ice and snow queen, Quinn McCaffrey.’”
I pursed my lips that she’d just shellacked and glared. The unflattering nickname had come from my time in Chicago. Not because I did the weather spot for the national news station, but because a few years ago an ex-boyfriend had made our breakup and poor performance in bed—solely due to his selfishness and lack of skill—very public. Very, very public. The arrogant actor, Jeff Randall, had actually dubbed me the ‘ice and snow queen’ in a live promotional interview at the very television station where I worked. He had about as much class as the business end of a donkey.
And then he’d had the nerve to demand I marry him. Said I was his property. As. If. Been there, done that. Gotten the horrible T-shirt. I walked away, but he followed me.
Was still following me, despite the restraining order.
Susan and Ellen were staring, so I cleared my throat and tried to remember what the heck we’d been talking about. “What?”
“You heard me. If your hair gets one strand out of place, it’s a national emergency.”
“I am not that particular about my hair.”
Both women rolled their eyes.
I huffed. “So I don’t like it when my hair is messed up. I mean, I’m just trying to protect all your hard work,” I added, laying the sweetness on a little thick. Ellen did manage to make me look great every single day on the job, no matter how tired I was. I appreciated her talent. The fact was, I did like to look as good as possible. Hair. Makeup. Shoes. They were my armor against the world. The better I looked, the more confident I felt.
Ellen laughed, not buying
