Mated to the Warriors(29)

Pressed to his naked chest, I could smell him, his scent rising from his skin to soothe me. I’d known him such a short time, but already my body recognized his. I knew the taste of his cock and the scent of his flesh. I craved the taste of his cum, like a drug addict on Earth and the next fix. I was losing it. That was the only explanation.

Dare settled me in front of him in the bath and bathed my entire body with a strange soap that smelled like some exotic fruit as soon as it made contact with my skin. On his hand, it smelled like him, a dark, musky fragrance that made me want to press my face to his chest and just breathe him in and out of my body.

“Lean back, Hannah. I want to wash your hair.” His voice seemed to invade my senses and give me a sense of comfort and safety.

I felt like a child in the swimming pool as he pulled my head back with his hands and pushed my bottom away from him so that I floated on my back in the water. He held me gently as he soaked my hair, then sat me up to massage my scalp. It felt so good I let myself go limp in his arms. I was tired and overwhelmed, and his gentle touch soothed something inside me that I hadn’t realized needing soothing.

I was still trying to wrestle with the idea of two mates, but the idea was not as out of bounds as I’d once thought. Not if my mates were Zane and Dare. However, it wasn’t loving them that scared the hell out of me. No, I was afraid of losing them. But even if I could force myself to face that fear, I had another fear, a darker, much more frightening one—not being loved back, not being enough for my matched mate. It wouldn’t be the first time a man found me lacking.

Dare finished with me and lifted me from the tub to wrap me in a plush gray towel. He dried himself, then tended to my hair with another, squeezing the wet ends until I stopped dripping on the floor.

“Come, Hannah.” He looked like a sexual god with his towel hung low over his waist and I couldn’t stop staring as I placed my small hand in his much larger one. “Are you hungry? We’ll get dressed and I’ll take you to the dining hall.”

“I don’t have any clothes.” I’d worn nothing but a sheet since my arrival. How was I supposed to go out in public like this?

“Trust me.”

I followed him back into the main living quarters and he led me to a small black platform in the far corner. The base was covered with a grid made of green lines. Dare walked to me and leaned down to give me a soft, sweet kiss.

“Take off the towel and stand in the center. The ship will measure you and create whatever you need.”

His soft voice and gentle kiss settled me and I felt like a contented kitten as I allowed him to remove my towel. I stepped naked onto the platform and held still as an array of soft green lights scanned every inch of my body. My collar tingled and buzzed and I froze at the strange sensation. When the lights disappeared, Dare held out his hand and I stepped down with my fingers on my collar. “What was that? It buzzed.”

“That was the collar communicating directly with the ship’s systems. Your identification and measurements have been updated in the ship’s S-Gen.”

“S-Gen?” So much weird stuff to learn. I truly felt out of my depth as the now empty platform lit up with bright green light that was concentrated at the base. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the spectacle and when the lights were gone, a lump of fabric lay on the platform.

“Spontaneous matter generator.” Dare bent over and picked up the fabric. When he lifted it for me, I saw that it was a knee-length tunic of some sort with strange leggings connected beneath it. Dare handed it to me and I discovered that it was open in the back. I stepped into the leggings and pulled it up, shoving my arms into the long sleeves. As soon as I had it on, the material closed itself in the back, fitting me like a second skin. Dare looked me over, his gaze lingering on the slightly scooped neckline that prominently displayed my collar. His attention drifted down to my breasts and waist, to the slightly flared skirt that fell almost to my knees. Beneath that, the leggings covered me completely to my ankles and my bare feet looked oddly out of place.

Dare pressed his hand to an indentation on the side of the S-Gen. “Boots for Lady Deston.” At his command, the green light returned, leaving a pair of matching boots that would cover me to just above the ankle. He held them out and I slid my feet into them. I thought they would feel odd without socks, but the boots contracted around my feet just like the clothing had around my body and they were soft as silk on the inside.

Deston ordered clothing for himself as well and put on a fresh uniform and boots before taking both of our towels and my sheet and rolling them up in his hands. He pressed a small button in the wall next to the S-Gen unit and a drawer slid out from the wall. He dropped the towels and sheet inside, then gathered his discarded uniform and boots from the bathing room and dropped everything inside before closing it. A bright green light leaked from the edges of the drawer and I tilted my head to watch.