personal mission.
“Are you with me, Megan?” The doctor leaned over, shining one of those stupid bright lights right into my eyes and I winced. Too bright.
“Unfortunately.” I wanted that big man, his huge cock. I wanted to feel beautiful and feminine and desired. Instead, I had one more mission, one more op wearing that heavy armor and helmet, coated in grime, killing things. One. More.
Embrace the suck.
That was practically my family motto, and I’d learned it well. Those three words got me through grueling hours of training, pain, and being stranded in hostile territory more than once in the last two years. I’d been cold, hot, starving, coated in sweat, blood, and every other body fluid I could imagine, and some I never dreamed of until I came out here into space. Outer fucking space. When I stopped to think about the fact that I was floating in a tin can in a galaxy far, far away, I still freaked. So, I tried not to think about it.
The doctor clicked off the penlight and I could see again. I looked up into her face in time to see her nod with a smile. “Good. I didn’t want to have to inject you with neural stimulants.”
She held up a small green cylinder I knew from previous experience could sting worse than any needle back home. Sure, there was no needle. But that just meant they forced the substance through your skin with something else. I didn’t know how they worked. Didn’t want to know. “No thanks. Keep that thing away from me.”
The doctor chuckled and handed off the cylinder to an assistant who took the dosing unit and hurried away like he was intruding on a highly personal conversation. Which he was. And that thought brought me back to reality faster than anything else. I was very much awake now. No dream guy. No dream cock. No taunting or teasing or edging. No incredible orgasm.
I was in the brides testing room in the medical wing of the Battleship Karter. Damn. I very much preferred to be back in fantasyland with a very dominant male who knew what to do with his hands, and his cock. It had been far, far too long since I had anything besides my fingers between my legs.
“Did I scream?” I could feel my cheeks heat. “Please, tell me I didn’t scream.” I’d kill myself with my own ion blaster if the males in the medical floor heard me screaming with an orgasm based on a dream.
“You didn’t scream.” She grinned then and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “I’ve never been tested, but every bride who has always has a very arousing experience.”
She was a few years older than me. She might not have been tested through the Brides Program like I just had, but with the gold cuffs about her wrists, she was obviously mated to an Atlan, so she knew quite a bit about bossy Atlan males. And big cocks. And, based on my dream, on the cuffs I’d worn, and the giant-sized man fucking my brains out, I was going to be matched to both.
The thought of an Atlan mate made me shiver and my pussy clenched as heat flooded me. I should be surprised that my deepest self would want one of those huge, brutal warriors, but somehow I wasn’t. Over the past two years of fighting alongside the Coalition forces, I’d encountered many Atlans and they were all over the top. Dominant. Controlling. Annoying. They had nothing against females, weren’t disrespectful or chauvinistic. The opposite, in fact. They just took alpha male to the extreme. Protective. Demanding. Merciless.
I shivered, tingles running over my skin at that one word. Merciless. They showed no mercy to their enemies. And I was shocked to discover, I wanted none in bed.
2
Megan
So, maybe my deepest, darkest desire was to have a dominant, demanding lover. Fine. But the rest of the time? The Atlans could take their overbearing, arrogant stomping around on this ship and save it for someone who jumped when they growled. In other words, not me.
One in particular made me wish I had Atlan strength so I could just rip his head off. Warlord Nyko. If Doctor Moor’s mate was anything like the pain-in-the-ass warrior who liked to push every one of my damn buttons, it was a wonder she hadn’t killed him in his sleep. Maybe she had and that was why she was smiling and had such a pleasing disposition.
I was in the testing chair wearing full armor. I was thankful the heavy armor hid my hardened nipples. I’d heard women who were tested on Earth had to wear a hospital gown. As if I was going to do that.
Once done, I’d have to go back to my bunk and change my panties. They were soaked through. All because of a dream mate who liked control. Why had that made me so hot? Why had it made me come? My pussy still tingled, even though it hadn’t been real.
I couldn’t lie to Doctor Moor. She knew the truth. Heard it. Besides, she was a woman and it felt good to talk with one sometimes. No men. No testosterone.
“It was a dream and it was…hot.” I took a deep breath, let it out. Sat up and slapped my palms on the arms of the testing chair. “Is that it? Am I done?”
Her dark hair looked soft, glowing in the harsh light of the medical station, her green medical uniform showed off her olive skin. “I told you it would be painless and easy. A little nap, a hot dream and then you’re matched.” She seemed pleased with the concept and even snapped her fingers at the end. “It’s fun for me, too.” She winked at me and I couldn’t help but grin back at her. “The testing is a reprieve for me from the triage bay where the wounded come in from battle.”
I knew those horrors after seeing it firsthand for the past two years.
“You only have two days left,” she added, upbeat. Obviously, she didn’t want to bring up what could happen to me when I went back out to fight. They didn’t taper off the combat missions even though I was so close to being done I could taste it.
Two days. One more mission. I only had to survive the next forty-eight hours and then my service was up. I could go back to Core command, get this thing out of my head, and walk away. I’d anticipated the end of the fighting ever since that very first battle, counting off the months, weeks, days until I was done. A veteran and free to go home. But as the day of my discharge drew close, Boston didn’t seem that appealing anymore. My mother would continually remind me I wasn’t worthy or male. Yeah, I would be retired, having served my time, and faster than most, since Coalition duty was only two years. I’d have lifelong benefits and a nice salary. Still, I’d have to deal with my mother, and a planet full of people who had no idea what was really going on out here in space.
Hell, I didn’t need to go home to enjoy my mother’s disapproval. I talked to my brother a couple of times a year, and he always brought her up, let me know how she was doing. But whenever I had comm time, her larger-than-life face on the screen always showed disappointment and I still heard the whiskey talking in her every veiled insult.
Most days, I wondered why I still bothered trying to please her. And that was a rabbit hole of pain I had no desire to jump down right now.
No. Going home to Earth held no appeal. My father was still dead. My brothers still served, still saved the world. But nothing I did mattered to my mother. I was never as good as her boys.
Didn’t matter that I was saving the entire freaking universe.
What would I do at home anyway? As a veteran, I’d receive benefits,
