“Then I’ll get you another one, because, Riley, you’re about to experience it all. Are you worried about your reputation? You’re in here, going through transition, half out of your mind with lust for these guys, and you’re still contemplating whether or not a CT scan or MRI is worth doing. You’re not letting go of who you are. You’re prepared to share what must be an excruciatingly personal process with the scientific community to help us learn more.”
“I just had a guy go the growl in my office,” I said.
“And I fucked two guys in the copy room at the office Christmas party,” Candy shot back.
“Seriously, who?”
“Don’t worry about my sex life, because we obviously need to be concerned about yours. You can’t come into work.”
“No, no, no, I have—” My voice got higher and higher as I considered what she said.
“You can still conduct the study.”
“What?”
Candy’s cool statement had me stopping still, considering an option I hadn’t been able to conceptualise yet.
“We do field research all the time, and I put the possibility of that into the proposal I pitched to Gideon. Seriously, those guys are willing to do whatever it takes to get the data. We’ll draft an email, say that things have escalated quickly and that you’ll need to be in the field until transition is complete.” She put a hand on my arm, which made me jump, but her touch wasn’t as repellent as before. “If you’re continually funnelling back data to the team, why would they have any reason to be concerned?”
I blinked and then looked past her to where the guys waited not so patiently. I could feel them now, in ways I never had before, their scent betraying their fear and the burning need to control the situation, even as they brutally suppressed it. I nodded slowly, seeing what she was saying, and now it was my mind racing, not my body.
The next few hours were a race against the clock, trying to take as many swabs, readings, and samples as we could before the need started to bite deeper. I refused to go when I felt the cramps begin again, forcing Candy to perform an ultrasound as they did, taking over and running the wand across my pelvis when she stopped.
“Your uterus is swollen,” she said with a worried look. “I’ll run some panels on your bloods and get back to you, but I think things are changing in your pelvis as well as your tits. You’re getting ready to take a knot.”
“And she’s coming with us, now,” Haze said, stepping forward and grabbing the roll of paper towel, scrubbing the gel off my stomach despite my protests.
“Haze, I need—”
“This is what you need, Riley.” He placed a hand over the top of my pubic mound, his palm feeling like a heat pack right now. The cramps weakened and then stopped.
“That eased the cramps, right?” Candy asked, tapping out some notes furiously on her phone.
“Yeah.”
“And I’m going to need to do this all the way home, otherwise she’ll be screaming in pain,” Haze said, injecting all the vehemence he could into his words, trying to make us see. “We know what you need, Riley, and that’s why we’ve tolerated this, but enough is enough. You are not an elastic band that can be just stretched to fit the needs of science. You are a person, a woman.” His eyes burned bright blue as he stared at me. “And my mate.”
I was helped off the table, my clothes put to rights, all of the guys working together to help or keep hands on me, which seemed to keep the pain at bay, and Candy just shook her head slowly.
“You’re a crazy bitch. They just want to take you home and drown you in pleasure and you… I’ll draft that email and CC you into it, letting Windsor and Crowe know what’s going on.”
She went to put a hand on my arm, but I shied away, no longer able to tolerate it. With a nod, she handed me a bag of a million different bits of equipment and sample tubes.
“She’s not wrong,” Haze said as we walked out, his hand on the small of my back. “But that talk of ‘exploring our super seminal response’?” He shot me a sly grin. “I admit, I’m particularly looking forward to that bit.”
“It’ll help you as well, Riley,” Ryan said, looking a little pale. “Our cum… Whatever’s in it, it’ll help settle your body down, make it hurt less, and make the need for tending less urgent.”
“So I need to be hosed down with your cum to function as a human being,” I said between gritted teeth. “Good to know.”
Then, as we were walking out, someone else walked in.
Suck Up Evan looked at us in surprise, followed quickly by irritation, his face flushing.
“What are you doing here?”
A low growl from the guys had him stepping back involuntarily, but he firmed his stance, then glanced back at me.
“There’s been a development in the study, and Candy and I came in after hours to take some samples, to make sure we don’t miss anything,” I replied coolly. “What are you doing here?”