The Alien Mountain Man’s Forbidden Bond Bonus Scene

Torin.

A pulse of irritation moves through our bond. It isn’t from me. “I was calculating how quickly I could remove his arms from your body.”

I close my eyes. “That’s called jealousy.”

“I am aware.” He pauses. “And I did not remove his arms.”

I look at him. Torin looks almost smug. “You want congratulations?”

“I believe acknowledgment of improvement is important.”

I laugh before I can stop myself. His expression softens immediately.

That’s another thing I’ve learned about Torin. He likes making me laugh. I don’t think he knew that before me. Maybe he didn’t know people could enjoy things simply because someone else did.

He’s learning. So am I.

I rise onto my toes and kiss his cheek. “I’m proud of you.”

His entire body changes. It’s subtle in his human form. No bioluminescent pulses racing beneath translucent skin. No light climbing his throat or glowing through his chest. Just the faintest widening of his eyes.

But through the bond? Pure fucking sunshine.

“You are?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I have several additional behaviors I’ve been practicing.”

I stop again. “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Continue.”

He looks suspicious. I start walking. He follows. “Appropriate public displays of affection. Meeting the friends of one’s girlfriend. Conversation with strangers. Urban transportation. Tipping.”

“You’ve been researching how to be my boyfriend?”

“Of course course.”

“How much?”

Silence.

I turn. Torin keeps walking. “Torin.”

“An appropriate amount.”

“What’s an appropriate amount?”

“I have not quantified it.”

“But you quantify everything,” I say.

“That is inaccurate.”

“You once quantified how many times I rolled over in my sleep,” I remind him.

“You were interfering with my rest.”

“You were awake watching me.”

“You are interesting when you sleep.”

My heart does the stupid little flip it still does when he says things like that. “Did you make a boyfriend protocol?”

He stops so abruptly a man behind him nearly walks into his back. “No.” The man mutters something and moves around us.

I fold my arms.

Torin’s expression becomes offended. “Protocols are inflexible.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I created a preliminary framework.”

I bite my lip.

“Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I say.

“You are laughing internally.”

“I didn’t realize that was a crime.”

“It is distracting.”

“So is having a five-hundred-year-old alien boyfriend who created a preliminary framework for dating me.”

His brow furrows. “Would you prefer I be unprepared?”

I shake my head.

“Then I fail to see the problem.”

“There isn’t one.” And there really isn’t. I slip my hand into his, and his fingers close around mine immediately. That part apparently doesn’t require a framework.

---

Jamar picks the place. That should have been my first red flag. My second should have been the line stretching halfway down the block. My third? The bass vibrating through the sidewalk.

Torin stops. I feel his attention sharpen.

“Is there a problem?” I ask.

“No.” His head tilts. Music pounds through the brick walls. Something strange moves through the bond—recognition.

I stare at him. “Have you been here before?”

“No.”

“Is it the music?”

“Yes, I recognize rhythmic structure.”

I narrow my eyes. Before I can question him, the door opens and Jamar barrels out. “There she is!” His arms wrap around me.

Torin’s psychic presence goes incandescent.

Murder.

I pat Jamar’s back.

Behave.

I am behaving, I think.

Thank you.

I choke on a laugh.

Jamar pulls away. His eyes slide to Torin, standing perfectly still in dark pants and a black shirt that makes him look so unfairly good I’m beginning to regret helping him select clothing appropriate for New York.

Jamar extends his hand. Torin looks at it.

Shake it.

I know.

He takes Jamar’s hand.

Jamar’s eyebrows shoot up. “Damn, mountain man.”

Torin releases him. “You have already embraced my mate.”

“Girlfriend,” I correct.

Torin looks at me. “Both.”

Jamar’s grin widens. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

An hour later, Torin has successfully endured Jamar, two of my former colleagues, three strangers asking where he’s from, and a bartender who complimented his cheekbones. The last one nearly broke him.

“He was flirting with you,” Torin says.

“He was not.”

“He asked what you wanted to drink and touched your hand.”

“He gave me change.”

“Unnecessary contact,” the alien mountain man grumbles.

I sip my drink. “Do you want to go back to the hotel?”

His expression changes immediately. “No.”

“You don’t have to stay because I want to.”

“I know.” His thumb brushes the back of my hand. “I am enjoying myself.”

Before I can answer, Jamar drops into the chair across from us. “We’re dancing.”

“No,” I say.

He points toward the crowded dance floor. “You disappeared into the Sierra Nevada for days, returned with a glowing mountain man, refused to provide adequate details, and now you’re sitting in a club holding hands like somebody’s grandparents.”

Torin frowns. “I am older than her grandparents.”

Jamar stares.

I close my eyes. “Still getting used to that.”

“You should dance,” Jamar says.

“I don’t think Torin dances.”

“I dance.”

My eyes snap open.

Jamar freezes.

“What?”

Torin looks between us. “I said I dance.”

I turn slowly toward him. “You dance?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

His expression becomes strangely guarded. I feel something flicker through the bond. Embarrassment? No. Impossible. Torin doesn’t get embarrassed.

“Torin.”

“I have danced before.”

“When?”

He pauses for a long moment. “Nineteen seventy-five.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Did you just say nineteen seventy-five?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you dancing in nineteen seventy-five?”

He frowns. “The cloning systems had begun deteriorating.”

I wait.

Jamar waits.

Torin drinks his coffee.

“I’m missing several steps in this story,” I finally say.

“I removed my regulator. My cognitive patterns changed, and I became more receptive to novel experiences.”

Jamar leans forward. “Are you telling me disco was a side effect of alien brain surgery?”

“No, it was a side effect of removing the regulator,” he grumbles.

I put down my drink. “Where?”

“Several places. San Francisco. Reno. Las Vegas.” I shift in my seat. Jamar listens raptly.  “Clothing styles were unusual.”

Something brushes my mind. An image. Moss green.

I grab the table. “Oh my God.”

Torin goes still. “What?”

“Your shirt.”

His psychic barriers slam down. Too late.

I saw it. The mock turtleneck. The bell-bottoms. The hair.

I make a sound I have never made before.

Jamar leans across the table. “What? WHAT?”

“His hair.”

Torin’s eyes narrow. “Lyra.”

“You had Beatles hair.”

“It was a popular hairstyle, and it made ears less necessary.”

“Wait, what?”

Torin looks personally wounded. “I could never get them right. So, I gravitated toward a hairstyle where they were covered.”

“Naturally,” I say, trying not to laugh.

Trying.

Until I lose it completely. Head on the table. Tears in my eyes. Jamar shouting questions. Torin drinking coffee with the grim dignity of a man whose darkest secret has finally been exposed.

Then Jamar says the words that change everything. “Prove it.”

Torin looks at him. “Prove what?”

“That you can dance.”

Something shifts in Torin’s face.

Oh, no.

Fifteen minutes later, one thought runs through my head. My alien boyfriend can dance. Not perform some adorable approximation of human movement. Dance.

“Holy shit,” Jamar breathes beside me.

“Yep.”

Torin turns beneath the lights, every movement fluid, controlled and completely fucking shameless. John Travolta on steroids.

People have noticed. Even wearing a human face, there’s something about him that pulls attention. And now he’s moving like he spent the entire Carter administration preparing for this exact moment.

Then his eyes find mine. His hand extends. I shake my head, and his eyebrow raises.

Lyra.

Absolutely not.

You wanted to see.

Seeing and participating are different disciplines, I think.

Coward.

I gasp. Torin smiles. The bastard. I take his hand. He pulls me against him, and suddenly I understand something. He’s happy. The emotion floods through the bond, bright and uncomplicated. Everything narrows to music, movement, and us.

Nothing else matters.

I stop laughing. For one strange second, I can almost see him fifty-one years ago. Freshly freed from the regulator. Confused by everything happening inside his own mind. Terrified of thoughts he couldn’t classify. Desperately trying to repair a system that refused to be repaired. And somewhere in the middle of all that… music. Something utterly useless and unnecessary. Something he wanted anyway.

“You like this,” I say.

His hands settle at my waist. “Yes.”

“Why did you stop?”

The answer takes longer. “I had work to do.”

I touch his cheek. “Well, you have work to do now.”

His eyes sharpen. “What work?”

I slide my arms around his neck. “Dance with your girlfriend.”

His smile appears slowly. “Yes.”

We dance until his human form begins to flicker. Nobody else notices. But I do.

“Come on.”

“I am stable.”

“You’re exhausted,” I say.

“Moderately depleted.”

I roll my eyes and lead him outside.

By the time we reach the hotel rooftop, his feet barely hit the ground. The city stretches around us in every direction, windows blazing against the darkness.

Torin stands beside me. His human face shimmers.

“Let it go.”

“There are buildings overlooking us.”

“Then they can enjoy the show.”

He looks at me. I smile. “Let me see you.”

That does it. The illusion falls. Light blooms beneath his skin. His true face returns, and his body changes, becoming larger, stranger, beautiful. Torin immediately looks toward the surrounding buildings.

I catch his chin. “Hey.”

His eyes return to mine. “Better.”

His light pulses. I lean against him. For a while, neither of us speaks.

Then I ask, “Do you miss it?”

“What?”

“Being able to disappear.”

He looks out over the city. “I still can.”

“You know what I mean.”

His fingers weave through mine. “I spent four and a half centuries unnoticed.” Light moves beneath his skin, brighter now. “I prefer being seen by you.”

My throat closes. Damn alien. I kiss him. And through the bond comes a burst of satisfaction so intense I laugh against his mouth.

What?

My preliminary framework has been successful.

I pull back. “You absolutely made a boyfriend protocol.”

“No.”

“You did.”

“Framework,” he grunts.

“Protocol.”

“Lyra.”

I kiss him again.

---

When we return to the hotel, room there are six boxes stacked inside our room. I stop. “What are these?”

“Equipment.”

“For what?”

He opens the largest box, and I recognize the machine inside. “You bought an espresso machine?”

“The device provided by the hotel is inadequate.”

I gasp. “But we’re only here for three days.”

“Yes.”

Another box opens. A grinder.

“Torin.”

“The grind is important.”

I open the remaining boxes. “How much coffee did you buy?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Torin.”

“I was uncertain which you would prefer.”

“So you bought all of them?”

“Not all.”

My eyes narrow. “An appropriate selection.”

He nods.

I start laughing.

He looks confused. Then his light flickers, and suddenly, I’m looking at another image that escaped him. Me. Tomorrow morning. Bare legs. His shirt. Sitting on the counter while he makes coffee.

Torin freezes. The image disappears. His barriers slam into place, and he turns away.

“Starlight?”

“That was unintended.” He looks back.

I walk toward him, and his light brightens. “I was enjoying that progression.”

His mouth opens. Nothing comes out. I reach up and loosen the top button of his shirt, and his entire psychic presence goes perfectly still.

“You know,” I murmur, “thinking is one thing.”

His eyes flare.

I smile. “Trying together is another.”

The coffee can wait.

---