Ajax (Olympia Alien Mail Order Brides Book 3)

by K. Cantrell

  I sit heavily on the bed as the enormity of the thing called life overwhelms me.

  Is this where Malcolm has driven me to? A place where my new normal is fraught with nerves, hesitation and suspicion? Even fear? I don’t want to be who I’ve become.

  The only way to get better is to get better. I can’t do that sitting around in this new apartment, too scared to live my life. What’s wrong with liking a new man? His bodyguard potential is only one aspect of what’s going on here. I’m allowed to treat this like an actual date with a nice guy who has a killer body and an interesting accent.

  I stand.

  “Come on,” I tell Clem. This is me being brave. “Let’s go to dinner.”

  Clem drives and we meet Ares and Ajax at the restaurant, a minor detail that isn’t so minor to me. I have no way of knowing how I might react to riding in the car with a man—alien—whatever next to me. Malcolm gifted me with such weird triggers and I appreciate that everyone is going out of their way to make me comfortable without making a big deal out of it. I’m doing okay and that’s enough for now.

  Our dates are waiting for us outside the steak house and I am struck again at how otherworldly they both are. It’s not just their size, which is certainly outside the norm. They draw the eye as if there’s something magnetic inside them. Clem and I cross the parking lot to join them and suddenly I’m hit with the full force of Ajax’s presence. It overwhelms me but as I peer up at him, he smiles and my insides go liquid. In a good way. I have never once felt threatened by him.

  That’s enough out of the norm that I start to relax.

  That’s when he carefully hands me a bouquet of flowers that makes my eyes sting with unshed tears. “Thank you.”

  Ajax says something in his native language and then grinds out, “Welcome.”

  The flowers go a long way. A long way. I can’t remember the last time I got flowers from a man who was interested in me. I’m being courted and I don’t hate it.

  We go inside to dinner, and Ajax is quiet but attentive, drinking in the atmosphere and intently studying how Ares and Clem interact. Ajax and I have a couple of painful exchanges of thoughts that only get harder to manage as we lose our interpreter to his wife. Clem and Ares are achingly sweet with each other, murmuring and laughing with heads bent close together.

  I want that. Despite everything, somehow Malcolm was never able to kill my desire for a relationship, and the longing that unfurls in my chest can’t be explained away as anything other than mildly jealousy. Sure I’m happy for them both. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing I had the ability to be that free to trust, to love.

  I catch Ajax openly watching me. My lips curve into a smile automatically—yes, automatically. He pulls it out of me just by virtue of being near him, which is nice. Having never met a killing machine before, I can’t say for sure what I was expecting, but a man who makes me smile is not it. Does he get fierce only if threatened?

  “How do you like Olympia?” I ask him. It’s not for everyone. Rainy and often cold. Depressing sometimes unless you enjoy being inside, which I do.

  “Good,” he answers immediately.

  I sense being agreeable is his default. I’m not sure yet if that’s a function of his desire to stay hidden here in the US or because that’s his real personality.

  “Do you like the water?”

  “Water good,” he says with a nod. “Pretty.”

  That’s one thing we have in common. I like the water too, but not to swim in. Only to look at. Maybe there are some other areas where we can connect.

  “Do you like to watch TV? Movies?” He cocks his head, his confusion evident and I try to think of a way to explain, shaping my hands around an imaginary box. “You know. The moving pictures on the screen. With a story and people.”

  “Ajax has not watched much TV,” Ares throws in helpfully. “You may choose to introduce him to it as part of his acclimation process.”

  That actually works for me. We can start out with HGTV instead of football and I might have a shot at a housemate who isn’t a vegetable from September until the Super Bowl. The conversation flags then as I run out of small talk. Despite having agreed to this date so I can get to know him, it’s been slow going thus far. Regardless, I’m not sorry I came.

  It’s only when the meal arrives that it becomes painfully obvious that he is not very familiar with using silverware. My heart twists again as he struggles to spear the steak. The fork keeps falling out of his hand, largely because he doesn’t seem to know how to brace it between his thumb and forefinger.

  Who doesn’t know how to use utensils?

  “Watch me,” I murmur after his third growl of frustration, then I demonstrate how to hold the knife and fork. “See, you have to grip it harder.”

  His long, lovely lashes shutter over his eyes for a beat and then he does as I’ve shown him. But as his fingers firmly close around the fork, it bends right before my eyes until the two halves are almost touching each other. His mouth flattens into a thin line and he hides the fork under a napkin.

  “Ajax has trouble controlling his strength on occasion,” Ares explains in the sudden silence and I glance at him. “He is still learning how to acclimate to Earth. It will take time.”

  The evidence of my date’s claim to be from another world is no longer visible but it’s too late. I’ve already seen it. Of all things, the way he easily bent a piece of metal should scare me the most, but I’m still struggling with the sudden and intense desire to give him a hug. He looks miserable, but he’s trying to hide it by schooling his expression—and failing. I’m left wondering how he eats if he can’t pick up a fork without destroying it.

  Selfishly, I’m a little giddy at the thought of what he could do to Malcolm. I mean, I would have been happy just to see Ajax intimidate him without saying a word. But the anticipation of how easily my new friend could curl my ex into a pretzel gives me warm fuzzies. Maybe I’m not supposed to feel that way about another human but I don’t care.

  “Can I help you?” I ask Ajax with a nod toward his meal and he shoots me a grateful smile.

  Wow is he a gorgeous man. I shoot him surreptitious glances from corner of my eye as I cut his meat for him. He’s free with those smiles and they transform him from ethereally beautiful into something more earthly. Ajax is not like other men in more ways than one.

  I have to concede that there’s a possibility what I’m being told about the origins of the males at this table is true. And if there’s a possibility, it’s almost a certainty, because why would someone present it as a possibility otherwise?

  Clem is married to an alien. I roll it around in my head until it almost seems like I can accept it, though that means I have to accept that my own suitor is one too. I feel like this should freak me out more, but Ajax spears a piece of meat I just cut for him and chews it with appreciation, his dark eyes trained on mine as if I’m the best show in town.

  I like him despite the fact that I’ve exchanged less than a dozen sentences with the man—alien—do I call him that? To his face? Ugh, it’s hard enough to date with all the ambiguity over statuses and exclusivity and learning each other’s preferences. Now I have to figure out my companion’s nouns too.

  After dinner, Ajax spits out a rapid sentence in his native language in Ares’s direction, who patiently translates for me. “Ajaxasaurvyn would like to walk with you along the water, if you are agreeable.”

  Ajaxa-what? “Is that your full name?”

  He nods and gestures with his super strong hand toward the path along the waterfront, just past the parking lot of the restaurant. I’m not afraid to be alone with him. But I am completely unsure how to navigate. Will he try to kiss me? Will I let him? If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to see if we can interact without help.

  Clem shooes me along. “We’ll walk too. Meet me back at the car in thirty or forty five minutes. Text me if that changes.”

  With no excuses and a burning desire to get to know my date
a little better without an audience, I skirt him to follow the concrete path that leads to the wharf. He strolls along beside me and eventually steers me toward the pier overlooking the water. It’s open to the public so it’s easy enough to tread the boards to the end where the black water quietly laps at the wooden beams disappearing into the deep.

  “Brooklyn,” he rumbles and I turn to him, leaning on the metal railing. Not close, but not far away either.

  Curiously, I contemplate him, wondering how I’ll react if he tries to touch me. This is the perfect atmosphere to get a little cozier by slipping an arm around my waist and drawing me near in anticipation of a kiss.

  But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even try to hold my hand. Which is good. I’m really not ready for anything more than conversation and I’m grateful he realizes this.

  “Stay Olympia,” he says carefully, enunciating each syllable. “You help.”

  Well. I guess we’re going to get right to it. “You can only stay if we get married. Is that what you want?”

  He nods, his dark eyes glowing in the single dock light that shines down on us. “You want?”

  I can’t say it’s my fondest desire to bond myself to anyone through holy matrimony, but I don’t actually think of it as a real marriage. I can’t think of it like that. It’s a contract, one that we’re both entering into in order to get something. I feel like I need to clarify this. “You understand it’s not a real marriage, right?”

  Ajax cocks his head, confusion flitting through his gaze and I suddenly realize I have no idea if marriage is a concept on his world, nor whether it follows conventional Earth customs. I know nothing about his world other than he fled it because he didn’t want to be a super soldier for his government any longer.

  I sigh. I guess I’m sold then. Ajax is an alien. An alien.

  Will I be expected to perform some kind of weird alien mating ritual? Granted, Clem married one and she doesn’t seem to be sprouting any extra tentacles or anything. But still. I’m not on board for anything other than tit for tat at this point and not solely because I’m not sure what he is. I wouldn’t be okay with a real marriage even if he came from Earth, though I still recognize that if he did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  I try again. “Marriage. It would be in name only. No kissing. No touching. No…sharing a bed. No affection. You’d be like my employee.”

  His dark eyes grow a decided sheen but the scant bit of light doesn’t provide me many clues about the reason behind it. “Job. No marriage.”

  “Well, I mean, the marriage part will still happen. It just won’t be traditional. Like Ares and Clem.”

  All at once, I wonder if they had a similar arrangement to the one Charmaine laid out for me. They must have. Clem married Ares so he could stay in America. Had they met each other first, maybe gone on a date like this one? Did Clem give Ares a similar speech and he ignored it, determined to win her heart? They had to have segued into the lovey-dovey marriage they seem to have now at some point.

  He finally nods. “No kiss. Job.”

  “That’s right.”

  Good, he gets it. And seems okay with it. That’s a relief. Probably that means no more flowers and I shouldn’t want that anyway. It confuses things and the less confusion, the better. The less affected I am by his smiles and deep, dark gaze, the better. At least that’s what I try to tell myself as something that feels a lot like disappointment winds through me.

  I can’t have it both ways. And gaining a bodyguard who will protect me from my ex in exchange for helping him stay in America is the bravest I can be right now. If Ajax is okay with that, then I guess I’m in.

  Four

  Before I say “I do” to anything, I end up having a lot more questions for Charmaine, which she patiently answers. Number one: what happens if I change my mind? She tells me that’s perfectly acceptable and the second I do, for whatever reason, I call her and she picks up Ajax, no harm, no foul.

  She explains that the processing facility in Geneva acts as a holding place for Torvians until they can be matched to human women. Ajax would be returned there if I ever wanted a divorce, which explains what Ares meant at dinner when he mentioned Switzerland.

  This is a relief because I’m still not sure my little chat with Ajax on the dock cleared up how things are going to work—especially not on my side. I have no business longing for any kind of intimacy with anyone, least of all an alien. Actually, the fact that he’s not a normal human plays to his favor, which is partially what worries me. I have a tendency to be too vulnerable with men way too fast. That’s when they dig in and figure out how to hurt me. Malcolm was just the first to actually hit me.

  Ajax on the other hand, knows nothing of men’s sexual games nor does he seem to even be overly aware of me as a female. I’m a job to him, and that makes me a little more comfortable with this situation than I should be.

  Getting comfortable is the gateway. That’s when I lose my vigilance and I’m ripe for being hurt, both mentally and physically. But I also accept that I’m getting ahead of myself. Not all men are jerk-wads and I need to chill.

  Malcolm stole my ability to chill. I am nothing if not interested in getting it back, so I force myself to relax as I pick up Clem about a week after I agreed to marry Ajax. Because I’m not an idiot, I stayed with Penelope’s sister, who has an extra bedroom, just in case Malcolm came sniffing around before I could get my bodyguard in place. I’m overcome at how great it is to have friends during all of this. Clem included. She’s going with me to the courthouse where Charmaine and Ajax are meeting us.

  Charmaine handled the marriage paperwork and Ajax’s green card application; she’s apparently somewhat of an expert on the legalities, so I was more than happy to let her take care of everything since she answered my few, uneducated questions with authority. She’s waiting for me with Ajax just inside the building and of course, he draws my gaze. Why would I not want to look at him? He’s freaking gorgeous, dressed in a white long sleeved shirt that showcases his broad shoulders. My fingers itch to smooth out a crease near his abdomen, but of course, I don’t.

  I can’t actually imagine touching him. What does he feel like if he’s not human? Surely his skin is the same as ours. Right? What if it’s not? Ugh, my curiosity is killing me now.

  Charmaine greets me. In deference to one of the questions I asked her last week, she hands me a thick binder that I can scarcely hold with two hands.

  “That’s the Torvian instruction manual,” Charmaine tells me.

  Ajax gives me one of his smiles that rapidly turns my knees to jelly and immediately takes the binder from me without asking, hefting it under one arm as if it weighs no more than a pillow. Having an attentive guy around is pretty handy.

  Clem waggles her brows in my direction. “I would highly recommend reading that manual in its entirety. Penelope did not and ended up pregnant because she didn’t realize that Torvians and humans are compatible for procreation purposes. I mean, she’s thrilled about it. But the point is, if you don’t want surprises, read it.”

  “Good advice,” I return faintly. Penelope is pregnant with an alien baby. Dear God. I mean, I knew she was pregnant, but still. This is all a bit overwhelming. “They’re called Torvians?”

  I vaguely remember someone, maybe Charmaine, using that term before but that was back when I wasn’t fully on board with this whole idea of beings from outer space. I wouldn’t have described myself as fully on board now either except obviously I am. I’m about to marry one.

  “From the planet Torvis,” Charmaine murmurs quietly to avoid being overheard by anyone in the crowd of people milling around us in the courthouse.

  That’s one of the things Charmaine made clear to me. While she’s fine with telling me that Ajax is an alien, it’s a pretty tightly kept secret to the outside world. How anyone can see a male specimen who looks like my soon to be husband and not start asking a bunch of questions is a mystery to me. But I guess people see what they want to see
.

  I see someone who just took a manual out of my hands that weighs north of fifteen pounds. To me, he’s a decent guy who wants to help keep me safe from Malcolm and that’s all I need to know for now.

  Within minutes, we’re standing in front of the justice of the peace. Ajax doesn’t take my hand and I don’t ask him to. It’s the most unromantic wedding ceremony in the history of time, but before I can blink, we’re married. I’m Mrs. Ajax Torvian or whatever his last name is.

  Maybe that should have been one of my questions. Why, I don’t know since I’m not planning to change my name, but I just… I’m married to an alien and not sure what my questions should be honestly. I don’t get a ring—not that I was expecting one—and Ajax honors my mandate that there will be no kissing.

  Wow. Talk about anti-climactic. As advertised, this is more contract than romance and despite agreeing to this whole arrangement solely for that reason, I’m a little sad all at once.

  This is my wedding. For better or worse. And it’s over with no fanfare, no kiss, no nothing.

  I throw my shoulders back. For now, this is the marriage I can handle. In a way, it’s great. I get to be married and experience the concept without the risk.

  But then I realize I’m married. Ajax is my husband. And I can barely speak to him. None of this feels as brave as I would have hoped, particularly since what I did is take the least risky path. Regardless of this painful fact, Charmaine and Clem hug me, spouting congratulations and dumping verbal rainbows all over me and Ajax. He takes it with the grace and acceptance that seems to be his default and before I’m fully ready, they vanish.

  I am extremely alone with my alien.

  “Um, I guess this is it,” I say to my new husband. “My car is parked outside, so I’ll drive us home. Can you drive?”