Free Water World Warrior: A SciFi Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 1) by Lisa Lace Page A

wondering what the rules are, I guess. I've never been a mail-order bride before, and I don't know what I'm doing."
    "I don't know either," I said. We floated, paddling around in the warm water as he spoke. "But I think we should look at it like we're dating."
    "Dating?"
    "Yeah. Well, I like you, and you like me — at least a little bit?"
    She grinned and started to swim with her head up.
    "We're trying things out."
    "That sounds less intimidating than being married," she said.
    "Exactly."
    "And about the sex…"
    "You want to have some?" I said, hopefully. She laughed, and I took that as a good sign.
    "How about we take it a day at a time, and we'll see what happens? I'm going to swim now," she said.
    She didn't answer my question, but took off with a powerful front crawl, pulling herself quickly through the water until she was so far down the beach that I began to worry a bit. What if she got in trouble, and I was so far away that I couldn't help her? She was an excellent swimmer. But no human could compare with a Vandwan. They simply weren't in our league.
    I saw her stand up and wave to me. I waved back. Then I dove into the water and began to swim. When I popped up beside her, she was floating beside me in stunned amazement.
    "What?" I said.
    "That was a long swim."
    "Yep. I'm a fish," I said, joking.
    "I think you are," she said, she looked a tiny bit confused.
    "That's me," I said, going under and bursting back out again. I loved the water.
    "Nathaniel, I could never swim that far," she said.
    "Vandwans can. It's one part of our adaptation."
    "Oh," she said, accepting the explanation quickly. She began trailing her fingers in the water, in lazy figure eights. "Nathaniel…"
    "Yeah," I said, lying on my back and floating. I could hear her voice through the water in my ears.
    "I wanted to thank you for your kindness."
    I righted myself. She had a serious look on her face.
    "And for not pressuring me about sex. I suppose some husbands might. I appreciate that you're trying…" She blew out her breath in frustration. "This sounded different in my head," she said. "And now I'm screwing it all up."
    "You're not screwing it up," I said, gently. "It's not the easiest thing to come to a strange planet and marry an alien. I wanted to make it as painless as possible."
    "It hasn't been painful," she said. Were we floating closer to each other?
    "No?"
    "When I got to the spaceport…" she said, apparently changing the subject.
    "Yeah." We WERE floating closer.
    "I saw this guy."
    I frowned.
    "And he was cute," she said. "Handsome."
    "Handsome," I repeated, wondering where this was going. What was she doing checking out strange guys at the airport? I supposed I shouldn't feel jealous, but the fact was, I did.
    "I thought to myself, what am I doing checking out this other man when I'm supposed to be coming here to get married to someone else?"
    "Right," I said, my gaze never leaving her face.
    "He had the most incredible eyes," she went on, looking up at the blue sky that was completely cloudless. I looked down at the water, feeling my frown deepen. After the conversation we just had, why would she be saying something like this? Was she messing with me? "They were an odd color — turquoise."
    I whipped my head up.
    "Just like the water here. Is that common on your planet? That color of eyes?"
    I stared at her steadily.
    "No."
    "I thought not. He looked damned good. Seemed to have a pretty nice body under his clothes…" She swallowed, glancing down at my chest and back up to my eyes — my turquoise eyes. "And I couldn't stop staring at him."
    "You couldn't?" I moved a tiny bit closer.
    She shook her head, never breaking eye contact.
    "And neither could he, it seemed. He was blocking traffic."
    A corner of my mouth turned up.
    "But I knew it could never be." We were almost touching.
    "No?"
    "Of course not, because I was waiting for my fiance to pick me up."
    "I see. He wouldn't approve."
    "Of course not."
    "Imagine my surprise when