His Virgin Mate(5)

“Your DNA profile placed Everis at the top of your probability matrix. However, the testing you just completed uses many variables to define your wants and needs in a mate based on conscious and subconscious thought. Planets are removed from your options one by one based on these until only one planet remains. At the end of the testing, sexual compatibility is analyzed and ultimately, a recorded mating ceremony is fed to your core brain processing for verification.”

I tried to translate her complex wording. “You mean I watched a sex tape from Everis in my mind? Dreamed it?”

She nodded as she sat at the table across from me and crossed her legs like we were at a tea party or something. “Technically, your body experienced sensual data recorded by the neural processing unit implanted in another bride. But, if you’d like to think of it as a dream, then yes.”

“But I didn’t dream about sex,” I countered, blushing. I could only imagine what a dream with actual sex in it would have been like. A mental porno. “How do you know I’m compatible if I didn’t dream about sex?”

“Perhaps you did not dream of intercourse.” She lifted a brow and now I felt like she was looking into my soul. “But you did feel desire, did you not? Lust? Hunger? A yearning so fierce your entire body shook with wanting his touch?”

I flushed hotly. All over. I couldn’t look her in the eye. God, how did she know?

“You must be a virgin. Correct?” she asked.

I bit my lip and nodded, ashamed to tell her what I was thinking, that I wasn’t a virgin by choice, but because I was broken. Then I remembered I was sitting in a gown and that I was naked beneath the soft cotton. I also remembered that she’d probed my deep, inner thoughts.

“Do not be ashamed. On Everis, virginity in a mate is highly honored. Your mate will be pleased, and eager to claim you.”

I plucked at the hem of the gown. “But doesn’t my mate need to know that I’m…frigid?”

Warden Egara’s mouth fell open, snapped shut and opened again. “Clearly the men you’ve dated were all assholes if you were told that.”

I snorted at her word choice. She looked so prim and proper in her uniform and she was talking about asshole guys like we were besties doing tequila shots at my favorite bar. I felt much better.

“I am not a doctor, Miss Lopez.”

“Lexi, please.”

“Lexi, did it ever occur to you that perhaps you were frigid for other men because they weren’t your one true match? Because he wasn’t Everian?”

I thought. And thought. Was that true? Could that be true? Had my body been waiting for an alien? Did that seventeen percent of my DNA make me not feel attracted to human men?

Pain knifed through my chest. Ah, there it was again. Hope. Maybe I wasn’t broken. Maybe I was an alien girl who just didn’t like human guys. The thought made me cringe. What was worse? Being frigid? Or not being human? And what about my parents?

If one of them was like me, no wonder I was an only child. It wasn’t like they were chasing me out of the bedroom when I was little. They’d always seemed so kind to one another. But passion? No. They’d been more like best friends.

Suddenly my entire life was twisting and turning in my mind. My mother. She had a mark like mine on her back. She’d had me late in life, been almost forty when she married my papa. Had she been like me and given up on finding passion?

Holy shit. My mother was part alien, too?

Before I could digest that, the warden was talking again.

“Your testing was one of the shortest ever done. That is because you were immediately matched to Everis and, due to your level of sexual experience, they do not wish for you to have any predisposed idea of what will happen sexually with your mate. There is nothing wrong with you. Your match is ninety-nine percent perfect.”

She watched me closely and I gave her a small smile. Predisposed ideas? Like what? Was I supposed to pretend I had no idea what was going on? That I’d never seen porn? Never tried to feel something?

Still, ninety-nine percent perfect sounded really, really good to me.

“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. I was matched, there was a guy out there for me. An almost perfect match. It wasn’t as if I could argue with her further. My new mate would find out whether or not I was broken soon enough.

“Okay?” she repeated. I nodded. “Great. For the record, state your name.”

I cleared my throat. “Alexis Lopez.”

“Are you legally married?”

“No.”

“Do you have any biological offspring?” When I eyed her funny, she continued, “I know. A virgin having kids, but I have to ask for the record. You are a special case.”