Page 120 of Stardusted

Letting him stay? Not pepper-spraying him? Not calling the FBI on the actual extraterrestrial who’d dropped a cosmic info dump on me over takeout?

He balanced his hands on his hips. “You handled this a lot better than most people would have. Thanks for giving me a chance. Thanks for listening. Telling someone who I am…” Helooked away and scratched his nose. “Well, I’m just glad you listened. So thanks.”

Feathery wings fluttered in my midsection. Was I imagining the redness staining his cheekbones? It had to be a trick of the light.

Flustered all over again, I turned and spoke over my shoulder. “Don’t thank me yet. That couch sucks.”

His quiet laugh followed me out of the room. In my bedroom, I fell into the loving arms of my textbooks, hoping that maybe, just maybe, academics could help me forget he was just outside. Maybe also just how much of a tangled mess I was.

And if I was lucky, what an alien’s kiss felt like.

Chapter 29

HOUSE GUESTS OF THE FOURTH KIND

Myalarm’s cheerful ringingyanked me out of an exhausted, nightmare-riddled sleep. That couldn’t be real. I’d only just closed my eyes. I groaned in protest, swatting at my phone until the sound died, then slumped back into the pillow.

The sun was up, though. I could see it through my eyelids. The alarm had been right, after all.

I’d had another nightmare. This one with glowing eyes and echoes of something I couldn’t hold on to. Strange shapes and fragments of words that dissolved like mist the further I strayed into wakefulness. Vanishing like sunspots.

Still gritty-eyed and half-conscious, I shoved back my quilt—which sent pencils and flashcards skittering across the floor. Perfect. With a mumbled curse, I staggered upright and stepped over them, tugging down the hem of my sleeping shirt.

My jaw cracked with a huge yawn as I opened the bedroom door?—

And nearly ran straight into Sky emerging from my bathroom.

I froze mid-yawn.

Oh. Right.

Skywas here.

In my apartment.

Because he’d spent the night.

And there he was. Still here. Tall and broad, he took up most of the bathroom doorway. His dark hair was tousled like he’d spent hours tossing and turning, which he probably had because I hadn’t been lying about the couch.

Stubble shadowed his strong jaw, but his sapphire eyes were somehow clear and bright.

When I just stared, he rocked back on his heels, a smile tugging at the corner of his full lips.

Lips I’d attacked last night.

That memory alone was enough for me to snap my mouth shut with an audible click.

“Good morning,” he said.

Oh God. His morning voice was rough and low. All gravelly and husky. Sexy enough to jolt every hormone in my body awake.

“I made coffee,” he added.

“Coffee,” I repeated faintly. My alien houseguest had made coffee. Somehow I managed not to swoon.

His attention slid over my blushing face then down, lingering, unmistakably, on my bare thighs beneath the hem of the Metallica shirt I’d crashed in last night after ditching my leggings.

Too late, it occurred to me what that meant. I wasn’t wearing pants.