Using the simple scanner, I waved it over her body from head to toe. While I watched the readings that came through, I also looked over every inch of my mate. I saw the scars she’d mentioned, the tan lines. Her nipples pebbled, and she licked her lips.
“Mate,” I said, feeling her arousal grow. It made my cock instantly hard, and she couldn’t miss it.
“I’m not used to being examined by a naked doctor,” she said, her gaze affixed to my cock.
“The scans show no injuries or imbalances in your blood,” I said, dropping the device on the small table beside the bed.
“You said I’d be pleasured, tested for my ability to orgasm.”
Trax groaned and dropped his head to take a nipple into his mouth.
Her eyes slid closed, and I felt her need, Trax’s satisfaction swirl between us.
“A test is not needed. Your mates are well aware of how you can be sexually satisfied.”
“Surnen, I… I need to know you’re okay.”
Trax lifted his head, his eyes filled with desire. I knew what those little buds felt like on my tongue, and I ached for my own turn. While I couldn’t miss Mikki’s desire, I also felt her unease.
“There is much unsaid between us, isn’t there?” I asked.
“Can you believe you only arrived yesterday?” Trax asked her, his hand sliding absently over her belly and hip.
Her own hand came up, brushed the integrations around his neck and up to his ear. He didn’t flinch, didn’t turn away. I felt… pride, and it pleased me that Mikki had truly relieved Trax of his worries.
She bit her lip, uncertain. “I have made many mistakes,” she admitted.
Sighing, I dropped onto the bed to sit on her other side. She was in our bed—not tied to it as I’d threatened, but between us. “You were correct, what you said. What happened to my parents had nothing to do with you being caught beneath the sea.”
“I’m sorry about your family. My parents and I don’t really get along, but I couldn’t imagine them being gone.”
“It was a long time ago,” I admitted. “I shut myself off. It was… safer that way. Until you showed up. Then—”
“Bam,” she said, finishing for me. It wasn’t the word I’d have used, but…
“Yes. Bam. You defied me at every turn. I was determined to teach you control, to rein in your emotions. But I realize I was wrong.”
“I was wrong, too. I’m sorry I fought you all the time. I understand now. I know you need to keep me safe.” A blush crept up her neck, made her whole face a pretty pink. She looked away. “I will try to control myself. I don’t want to freak you out by being too emotional. I’m sorry.”
“Do no such thing. Your emotions make you powerful, Mikki. They make me feel alive. I need you to feel everything. I want to feel everything with you.”
She pushed up onto an elbow and reached for me, touched my arm. “But Trax made me see, thirty feet underwater, that we all follow rules. I thought I didn’t follow any, that I was above them.”
“Your rules saved us,” Trax said.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “You were so brave.”
He rolled his eyes, just as I’d seen Rachel do, then laughed. “I was desperate to prove myself worthy. I wanted to understand you, mate, to have something in common where we had none.”
“Mission accomplished.” Mikki fell onto her back so she could look to both of us. “I can’t believe you used a log for a surfboard to get to me.”
“I will see that the Academy adds swimming to its many lessons,” I said, making a mental note to speak to Maxim and gain his support before contacting Vice Admiral Niobe at the Coalition Academy. She was half human, raised on Earth, and most likely had the skills required to teach recruits how to swim. Or find someone who could.
As long as it wasn’t my mate. I stroked her hair, allowed the dark strands to slip between my fingers. My attentions brought her gaze back to me.
“I’m so sorry, Surnen. I defied you because I thought you were like everyone else on Earth who wanted to confine me. Decide who I should be, what I should do. I can’t live like that.”
“Ah, mate. Don’t you see? My rules are in place to set you free.”