Page 18 of Redondo (Mates of the Mylos #7)
CHAPTER 18
THOMAS
As soon as I saw him, I knew deep within my very bones that Xero was right. Even without the DNA and the remaining few questions yet to be answered, as corny as it might sound to someone else, my soul knew his. He was definitely more alien looking than the rest of the Mylos I’d met, and much taller. I wasn’t a shorty in particular, being a fairly respectable five foot eight inches. Respectable for a human, short for a Mylos, and positively petite next to the dragon man with the gentle eyes.
I couldn’t help myself. My inner flirt came out, eager to show him I was interested. I knew he’d think I was just being friendly, in an overly familiar way, and I mentally kicked myself until I saw the way his nostrils flared, his eyes tracking my every movement. My dick had chubbed right up, my hole clenching as I immediately imagined the girth and length he was definitely sporting, as evidenced by the large bulge becoming ever more defined by the second. Could he smell my arousal as well as see it? I blushed, hoping it was so. It would make things go so much smoother tomorrow after I finished that damned test to make our match official. We’d already know each other, having spent an evening together on a friends’ night out that unwittingly was actually our first date. And we’d both know that we had a most definite spark.
“Come on, you two,” Ralph said, ”You bowling or what?”
“Yeah,” I replied, tearing my eyes away from my mate. My mate! Oh, gawd! I thought I’d understood what finding a guy to settle down with would be like, but the feelings I was experiencing, it was beyond anything I’d ever thought real.
“Lane 5,” the guy whose name tag read Sam said. “Play as many games as you want as long as we don’t get too many people wanting a go, but after every two, we ask you come back to let us know you’re continuing so we can see if we need you to take a break so someone else can play two before you go again.”
“That sounds fair,” Terry agreed. “We can always sit in the snack bar and eat if that happens, instead of having our food at our lane.”
We all nodded in agreement and walked over to Lane 5. Here more Mylos ingenuity was on display, as we each in turn presented our hand to be scanned. A replicator then materialized a selection of balls that would fit our hands for us to choose from. That was just as well, as I was pretty sure that otherwise, my gorgeous dragon warrior would have been hard pressed to find one to fit those beautifully made but very large hands.
“Okay,” Ralph said, inputting our names on the electronic scorecard. “We’ll go alphabetically. So, me first, then Redondo next, followed by Terry, then Tom, with Yllip last.”
Redondo?
“Like the beach?” I blurted out without thinking.
They all stared at me.
“Redondo Beach,” I said lamely. “It’s a city near Santa Monica in California.”
Yllip tilted his head. “Say the name of the place again, slowly, please?”
“Re-don-do Beach.”
“Ah, close, but not the same,” he shrugged. “Still pretty cool. It makes it sound like they named a city after you, Ondo!”
Okay, so he was Ondo for short. Noted. He gave a small shy smile, eyes not quite meeting mine. ”My name is pronounced red-ONDO,” he explained, adding stress on the second syllable.
“Red-ONDO,” I parroted, then unable to resist, I winked. “Or Ondo for short, with your friends.”
His eyes flicked up to mine, and danged if the reddish orange hue of his skin didn’t deepen. He was blushing! Dang, he was too cute for words!
“Yes,” he rasped, his voice suddenly sounding rough.
Yllip sniffed the air, looking between the two of us. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two were mates. But that can’t be, or you’d have been notified of the mate match.”
I couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. “Ah, about that…”
I looked helplessly over at Terry.
“Xero told him he has to report into Sickbay first thing in the morning. Apparently his DNA sample still needs to be done and he didn’t finish answering all the questions needed for the test,” he told everyone.
“What?” Ralph said, “How did that happen?”
“Something about so many applicants for the show’s production, my having taken the crew compatibility test, and stuff,” I replied, relieved to have a way to not drop neither Xero or myself into it for not having done it.
Yllip looked thoughtful. “But surely Xero should have noticed.”
I swallowed. “Um, he did, but there were a few factors relating to, uh, personal circumstances, that made him decide to let me settle in a bit first.”
“Ah. In case you changed your mind,” Ondo murmured.
I shrugged. “Maybe? But we wrapped up filming a couple episodes now with me in it, so I’m definitely here to stay.”
“Do you think we are mates?” Ondo asked me, hope lighting up his eyes.
“If what I am feeling for you already is any indication, I’d say yeah.”
His nostrils quivered as he leaned towards me, taking a deep breath. “Your scent calls to me and I can smell your arousal.”
“Well, I think you’re crazy hot. Like capital h-a-w-t. I kinda felt like we already knew each other somehow. Sorry if that sounds stupid.”
“Dude - you guys totally must be soul mates!” Ralph exclaimed.
Yllip looked at me, hope shining in his eyes. “Tomorrow feels such a long time off to find out if my brother has found his other.”
I licked my lips. “You know what? You’re right. You think they’d do the rest of the test right now?”
“You truly wish to know now?”
“Yeh, I really fucking do. We can come back another time to bowl.”
Yllip tapped his kunnarskyn. “Xero?”
“Yes, Yllip?”
“There’s been a rather, shall we say, exceptional reaction to Tom and Ondo meeting. Could the sickbay complete the test he was to do tomorrow now instead?”
A heartbeat. “Oh. He told you, huh?”
“He did. That was nice of you to make sure his personal situation didn’t require him to feel as if he should back out of his role first.”
“Well, yes. Exceptional circumstances and all that. Please keep that highly confidential.”
“But of course,” Yllip’s lips twitched as he cottoned onto the fact that Xero had not gotten permission to make the exception.
“Yes. Sickbay is currently not experiencing a large number of walk-ins. In fact, they have none at the moment. I’ll message to let them know they are coming.”
“Great!” Terry said brightly, a huge grin on his face. “We’ll all go with you, right now. We can’t miss seeing two of our best buds get hitched!”
My mouth went dry. He was right. As soon as we got matched, we were as good as married, under Mylos law.
“You really want to go now?” my cutie pie asked me, searching my eyes. He gestured at his scars. “Despite me looking like this? I know I am not the Mylos you expected, and I am disfigured.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “You get this through your ferociously cute head right now, Ondo! You are hotter than any other Mylos I’ve ever seen! And those scars? They are proof you survived something that probably would have had me pissing my pants right before whoever or whatever made those killed me.”
He growled. “No one will harm a hair on your head!” His eyes flashed a deeper molten gold, his canines lengthening. Holy shit, he was even hotter when angry. I couldn’t wait to see him when his blood was sending him wild with passion as he fucked me into the nearest surface as he claimed me.
“Ferociously cute?” Terry muttered, chuckling softly. “Is that like Grumpy Cat?”
I punched him in the arm lightly. “Shut up!”
“I hate to interrupt this tender moment,” Ralph said, “but didn’t Xero say they were expecting you like right now at sickbay?”
“I’ll have him charge us for the shoes,” Yllip said, as we left Lane 5. “Hi, please charge all the shoes to my account. We’ll be back soon!” he told Sam, presenting his kunnarskyn to the scanner that Sam held out.
“See you soon!” Sam called after us, looking quite confused as we hurried away.
“What if we’re wrong?” Ondo asked as we got into the elevator.
“As if,” Yllip scoffed. “This has to be what the stars ordained for you, just as the Galactic Council foresaw when they had the Fleet send us to the Bride Fleet.”
I stared in amazement at them both as the elevator began to move and the words sank in.
“For real? They saw some sort of destiny written for him in the stars?”
Consider my mind well and truly boggled.