“You told me there were no secrets in the Empire. What difference does it make if you tell me now or in private if everyone is going to know anyway?”
His green eyes meet mine. “So that I wouldn’t be formally charged, I signed a document saying that I would never return to Earth or seek you out ever again. That could only be overridden by outstanding circumstances such as you being pregnant.”
“Are you going to be charged with a crime now?”
“No, but the doctor is correct. I’ve given up everything in the Empire to move here and be with you. I’m no longer imperial. I no longer belong to House Zu. And I have dropped so many steps in rank and payment I can’t even begin to count.”
“Why couldn’t you have done that before?”
“We had lied to Commander Fox and everyone on this base. Do you think that would have been a good time to ask for a favor? Also there were other circumstances with the Empress that prevented me from renouncing my position.”
“I see. What now? What becomes of me?” I ask wondering if I’m just going to be a prisoner on this alien base for the rest of my life. Had I known I was pregnant I might have done something different.
The doctor says, “That’s precisely why I left your month away from Earth blank, Georgiana. I gave you the opportunity to find out and make a human decision. But your stubbornness led you back here and back to Axl. It’s the god’s will.”
“Not stubbornness or the gods’ will, it’s love,” Caroline says. “Love always finds a way.”
As my memories flood in, jealousy spreads through me. “Wait, did you marry that other woman? What happened to you while I was on Earth?”
“I left Alliance Force with the promise never to return or be prosecuted for my crimes. I took full responsibility for both of us. I paid in blood at the Grand City Temple many times over for what we did on the Lio and renewed my oath to the Empress.”
“Did you have sex with the Empress?” I ask him directly.
He looks away but then back to me. “It wasn’t out of desire. It was to continue living. It was the price she set. I was worried she would have you killed. She was furious I had returned you to Earth myself.”
“Did you marry that woman too?”
“No. That I would not do.”
“I can’t believe you had sex with another woman.”
“I was never going to see you again. And you could have been with another man on Earth.”
“Axl, I didn’t even have my memories and I didn’t cheat on you,” I say but immediately wish I wouldn’t have seen his face turn cold.
“He’s given up everything for you,” the doctor reminds me. “Everything.”
Caroline shushes him.
“I don’t know what I want,” I admit.
Axl picks me up as if I weigh nothing and walks out of the medical center. I try to ask him where he’s taking me but he doesn’t say anything. I stop asking after a few minutes, it’s clear he doesn’t hear me.
We walk through a door and we are in living quarters, these aren’t the same as before. The rooms are smaller. He takes me into the bedroom and lays me on the bed. He lays next to me, but before I can say anything he kisses me. I want to tell him that I don’t want to be kissed right now, but my body disagrees and it overrides my mind. How can I punish him now when I want this too?
I hear the doctor’s voice in my head, “He gave up everything for you.”
One of Axl’s hands is in my hair and the other on my chin directing his kisses onto my lips. My body is relaxing into this as if the last months never happened. And a great relief spreads through me. I now know the truth. I thought I might have been drugged, but all the drug tests came back negative. I saw a psychiatrist who suggested it was stress and that I’d probably been traveling and then forgot. I’d never heard of such a thing happening to anyone and I hadn’t been under a lot of stress, but I had no other answers. I took the psychiatrist’s word for it as he came highly recommended and I had paid a lot of money for his diagnosis. Afterward I often had reread his report to soothe myself. I even had it on my computer’s desktop so that I could easily access it when I was anxious about not knowing what had happened to me. My aunt and roommate provided me with no details other than I had been traveling in Germany.
But this is what I had been missing all along, Axl. I kiss him back as his hands travel up and down my body. Pulling up my pajamas that I’d been wearing at the stress center. He seems momentarily surprised to find underwear separating his hand from my vulva, but he quickly puts his hand inside my underwear. His touch feels amazing. His fingers caress me in a way that makes me arch my back. “I missed this.”
“I’ve thought about you every minute of every day,” he says as he kisses my neck. “I never wanted anyone but you.”
Then a thought occurs to me. “I want those binding tattoos.”
“I’d rather be dead than be with another woman again,” he says with such conviction I know now that he really did sleep with the Empress against his will. I don’t know if it’s possible to rape a man or if Axl would ever admit to such an act, but something terrible happened there. With his other hand he pushes my pajamas over one of my breast and then teases my nipple.
I’m so sensitive, I jump a little and he replaces his fingers with his mouth. Sucking hard and I feel like I could orgasm from this alone. He must recognize this because his fingers begin rubbing my clitoris with intent. I tense from this intense pleasure. Frozen as if time is standing still. There’s nothing else that matters only Axl. I close my eyes and momentarily wonder if I am dreaming all of this.