Chosen Alien Gene: The Complete Collection (SciFi Alien Menage Romance) by Meg Ripley Page B

needs as a regular customer. “Another Long Island, or something else?”
    “Whatever she wants, James, please let me pay for it,” Banek said quickly. Jessica glanced at him, irrationally irritated with the gesture. She was in dire enough straights that free drinks—no matter the source—should have been met with nothing but gratitude, but the fact that Banek had offered to take all of her troubles away by giving her what amounted to at least a thousand dollars in exchange for “her kind regard”—whatever that meant—made her wary of any other offer on his part.
    “Another Long Island it is, then,” James said, giving her a surreptitious wink. Jessica pressed her lips together, taking a slow breath to conquer her sense of irritation. She shouldn’t be mad at Banek; he hadn’t suggested that he wanted her to have sex with him in exchange for his help, after all.
    “What did you mean by kind regard?” she asked finally, watching James mix her drink in the corner of her eye. Banek smiled.
    “I just wish to be thought of kindly by you,” he said. “I’d like to see you happy, and not upset.” Jessica accepted her drink from James, looking away as Banek paid the bartender—giving him, she noticed, a very good tip on top of the price of the drink.
    “You don’t want me to promise to go on a date with you or something?” she asked, wary. Banek shook his head.
    “I only want to see you happy,” he said. All he’s missing is a fedora, Jessica thought resentfully. But the next moment she retracted the mental statement; Banek seemed—unlike any of the “nice guys” she had encountered before—to actually be sincere. About everything. She took a long sip of her drink and tried to understand it. Here was a guy who had just met her and who was offering to solve all of her problems, simply to make her happy. It was strangely thrilling—and unsettling all at once, though in spite of herself Jessica found that she liked Banek more and more. Lord help me…I’m in such sad shape, I’ll probably even go home with him, she thought wryly. Abruptly, she caught herself glancing down, her mind suddenly fixated on the thought of what it might be like to go home with Banek—and what, exactly, a huge man like him would have in terms of endowment. She reined in her thoughts, telling herself to focus on what the man was saying to her.

****
     
    Banek held Jessica upright as they made their way down the sidewalk towards the address she had given him. He wanted—wished—he could take her back to his lab, where he could be certain of her safety and where he could open the discussion of her submitting to experiments. But going back to her apartment seemed to be the best option for keeping his potential subject happy and content. He would never consider taking advantage of her inebriated state; but Banek thought to himself that he would make sure to sleep on her floor or on her couch, so that he knew that she was okay.
    “You know,” Jessica said, pulling herself up and walking a few unsteady steps unassisted, “you have got to be the strangest guy I’ve ever met.” She shook her head, giving him a little smile.
    “How am I strange?” Banek asked, one hand half-extended, ready to steady her if she tottered again. He’d been happy to buy her three drinks in addition to the one James had covered for her; as they sat in the bar together, Jessica had begun to open up more about her life. She had told him about Thomas, the ex-boyfriend who had dumped her to see other people, about the landlord, about the car—a very old car, she said, almost more expensive to fix than it was worth. She had told him also about her friends, about her family, and about her work; Jessica worked at a clothing store as an assistant manager, earning what sounded to Banek’s ears like a rather small salary.
    “How are you not strange?” Jessica asked, smiling again. “You look like you walked off the cover of a romance novel, you sound