Star Mate Matched, Margo Collins [the unexpected everything .TXT] 📗

repercussions—or what it might mean to try to form mating pairs without the mate-bond.”

“And yet you seem to understand what Lucy needs.”

Jalek laughed. “I made my agreement with Lucy out of sheer desperation. She wasn’t willing to come with me and I was determined to find a way to convince her. So we have a trial period of thirty solar days. Lucy keeps calling that our ‘trial month’— apparently a month is some standard Earth time measurement.”

Thirty solar days? “Does it worry you that she might choose to return to her home planet at the end of that trial?”

“It terrifies me. For all that I know she feels the mate-bond—we both do, and it grows stronger every day—she doesn’t truly understand what it will do to me if she walks away.”

I nodded in sympathy. “These Earth females are more difficult to deal with than females of our own species would have been.”

“Certainly,” Jalek acknowledged. “But I’m also beginning to think relationships with human mates might end up being more fulfilling than anything our ancestors might have had with Drovekzian mates.”

I hissed in frustration. “Sometimes, though, I wish I could simply grab her by the back of the neck and hold her down until she submits to me like a good, old-fashioned Drovekzian female would.”

Jalek’s laughter echoed through the almost empty mess hall. “Can you imagine our mates’ reaction to something like that?”

I snorted in amusement. “I would be afraid to go to sleep ever again for fear of what she might do to me.”

I suspected any other Drovekzian males who heard our conversation would be horrified. But as the only two who had ended up with human mates—so far, anyway—we were now part of a very exclusive club.

“How do you think the general is going to fare with his new mate?” Jalek asked.

“Far be it from me to criticize a superior officer’s battle plan,” I replied, “but I suspect he’s going to run into a few snags along the way.”

“Part of me wishes I could be there to see it.” With a grin, Jalek took another bite of his zendelin stew.

“Me, too, brother. Me, too.”

After lunch, I checked in with the bridge crew to make sure everything was in order, then headed back to my quarters, where I found Nora sprawled across my sleeping platform, fast asleep.

I sat down on the edge of the platform, the soft bedding giving a little beneath my weight, and watched her. It was the first time I had seen her face completely relaxed. Her lips curved and a sweet smile, and every protective instinct I had rose to the surface. I would kill anyone who dared harm her.

And that included me, I realized.

If Nora decided she wanted to go home, I would take her, even if it destroyed me.

For the first time ever, I realized that was the most valuable element of the Drovekzian mate-bond. Because it allowed us to feel our partners’ emotions, protecting those emotions became paramount.

I would do anything to ensure Nora’s happiness, including destroying my own.

And that, I recognized, was the strongest kind of love that existed.

Despite what I had said to Jayla, I did not want a typically submissive Drovekzian mate. I wanted one who was strong and feisty, willing to fight by my side to protect what we had.

I could only hope that Nora would come to feel the same way eventually.

Recognizing my own exhaustion, I finally crawled onto the platform beside Nora. Wrapping her in my arms, I dropped a kiss on her forehead.

I would simply have to prove to her that her life would be better spent with me than going back to Earth.

“Let me show you my world,” I whispered into her hair, not meaning to wake her. But when her eyes opened and she smiled at me, my heart leaped in my chest.

No matter what she decided, I was already too far gone in love with her to ever be with anyone else.

I just hope she could feel it through the mate-bond as I held her.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nora

“Let me show you my world.”

I thought of the last man who had said that to me.

William.

In that instant, I flashed back to opening the bathroom door in the cathedral, only to be confronted by the sight of William’s bare ass as he pumped into Clara, his ex-girlfriend. I walked in just as he was orgasming, too. I couldn’t forget the reflection of the expression on his face, somewhere between ecstasy and horror as he realized I was standing there, reflecting back at me in all its glory.

My stomach clenched now just like it had then.

“I don’t know if I can,” I whispered. “I’m afraid I’ll get too close to you and end up getting hurt.”

“Shh,” he comforted me, rubbing my back. “I will never hurt you. Sleep now. We can talk about it later.”

The next time I woke, Dax was still lying next to me, but at some point, he had gotten up and stripped out of his uniform.

He lay next to me completely naked, the green of his skin and fur glowing softly in the low light of the mostly darkened room.

I ran my hands through the fur on his chest. It was soft to the touch, and I couldn’t help but rub my cheek against it.

I’d been wrong about his fur, I realized. He didn’t have it everywhere. In fact, it was almost all in the same places human males had hair.

Following the trail of fur down to his stomach, I lightly stroked across his taut, muscled abdomen, fighting the urge to pull the blanket down and check out his cock again.

When I glanced up at his face and realized his eyes were open, I gasped and jerked my hand away.

“Don’t stop,” he murmured, his voice deep and husky. The sound of it sent a wave of longing through me, and I carefully reached out to touch his abdomen.

The instant I made contact, his own need slammed into me, overwhelming in its