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What was far more interesting to her was that she was not… troubled by it. Not nearly as much as she had been up until this moment. Was it illogical? Certainly. Unfair? Obviously.
She was stunned that she dismissed the option so readily. It wasn’t like her, and it felt as if a stranger had taken control of her mind and body. She knew that if this option had been given to her even a day ago, she would have considered walking away and gambling her future ‘status’ as a breeder to spare herself the shame and embarrassment of submission.
There was no telling if she would have actually followed through on that brave act, but she’d have at least considered it.
The fact was, though, that just the sight of Torian in front of her, his awesome presence, made her feel molten inside. It began in her lower abdomen, and spilled into her limbs as tingling and shivers. A glance at his powerful arms and hands had her mind spinning and her imagination running away from her. What might it feel like to submit to such a powerful alien’s will? It was as if her womanhood softened and dampened at the very question. She had never once had a thought like that about any other man. The idea of submitting—sexually, or in any other way—had repulsed her so much she refused to think about it at all.
She could think of nothing else standing in front of Captain Torian.
She startled when he put a finger under her chin and gently lifted her eyes to his. His steely gaze bored deep into her body. “What is your choice, Quaia?” he whispered.
A shiver ran through her at the quiet question. A choice she had never once expected to have the opportunity to make now overwhelmed her. She had, after all, heard of earlier orgiastic Ripenings. Of the debauchery and debasement of the aristocrats and petty nobles alike as they titillated themselves with a young woman’s suffering and pleasure. She could avoid all that, now. And she was likely to be able, as a pilot, to weather whatever ramifications came of it.
Who was to say that the Imperator would be replaced by someone who wanted to go backward in time, anyway?
But with Captain Torian standing next to her, the heat of his body warming her cool skin, the feelings fluttering in her abdomen, it was a different question altogether. His methodical, clinical approach to the whole thing might have been off-putting at first. But now there was a glint in his eye that hadn’t been there before. His muscles seemed coiled with tension, as if, maybe, he too harbored some excitement or interest in what came next if she said ‘yes.’
That, in turn, excited her deeply; the flurry of emotions nesting in her abdomen swirled and wrenched her guts in pleasurable and frightening ways. It was silly, she realized. Torian was just a bureaucratic cog in a machine of perversion, not her personal mate. Yet the whole ordeal seemed less awful because he was involved in it.
“Very well,” she said after a long silence. “I have a ship waiting, and a life to carve out of the great black void.” She paused to bite her lower lip. “My Ripening will still dissolve my obligations to the station?”
“It will,” he replied, nodding.
She put on her most serene expression. “Then let us be done with it.”
He stared into her eyes, as if testing her mettle by his gaze alone.
She was surprised to find herself as aroused by his rational, logical thinking as she was by his presence.
“Let it be done,” he said. He took two steps back and folded his arms across his broad chest. “Disrobe, if you will,” he ordered.
Another shudder rippled through her at the request. Where she should have felt shame she found only excitement. Still her hands trembled as she grasped the sheer smock and pulled it up over her head. She held it in both hands, covering her softest part.
He took two more steps back and waved a hand toward the giant desk by the porthole. “Kindly seat yourself upon that,” he said.
Still clutching the shift, she walked over to the desk and gently leaned her bottom against it.
“You might relieve yourself of that veil,” he said. “You won’t be needing it.”
After a moment’s pause, she let the shift fall to the floor at her feet. A hot wave of embarrassment swept through her. Standing completely naked in front of this powerful male, captain of one of the greatest solar sailers to have graced the skies, was as intimidating as it was thrilling. She found herself wondering how he saw her, if he found her as alluring as she did him.
She found herself craving that knowledge. Needing it. Needing to know what he was going to do with her and how.
“If you’d hoist yourself up into a sit, I’ll arrange the harness,” he said.
She swallowed back the tightness that brought to her throat. She obeyed his order, hopping up to sit on the edge of the desk and trying not to pay attention to the way that made her breasts sway. She gasped when he grasped her ankles and tipped her onto her back.
Two long, robotic arms protruded out from underneath the desk and rose to where he was holding her. The padded pincers closed just above her ankles, the arms rigid and pinning her in place. They splayed slowly, opening her legs into an even more lewd and provocative position than they had been in front of the Mouth of Heaven with all the women watching.
“What’s happening?” she asked in an urgent whisper.
He touched two fingers to his forehead. “Of course. I forget myself. You’ll forgive me, Quaia. I have trained in the medical arts, but it has been many cycles since I’ve dealt with an actual patient.” He stepped back and waved at the drone.
The tiny thing swooped down, bobbing in the air as it adjusted altitude above the floor and coming to a stop in front of her exposed sex.
“The eye will carefully take your measurements,” Torian explained. “The diameter of your entrance. How much your lips engorge and lubricate will dictate the girth your body is able to accommodate. Should a potential mate present and, should he too, be suitably measured, the Datum will inform you both of your compatibility.”
Though she was on her back with her legs apart, her wit came sharp as ever. “How romantic,” she whispered. Her heart skipped when he smirked, almost chuckled.
