Page 82 of Mated on Live

“Relax,” she laughed, waving off his concerns. “I went into downtown Chicago with my girls for one of my friend’s bachelorette party once. We stayed for like a full week. I saw some shit. And I had a great time. I’ll have a great time here too.”

Serval sighed, like he was giving up. She wasn’t concerned though. He was being overprotective. It was cute, if unnecessary.

“I have a question,” she looked back at him curiously.

“About?”

“How come you don’t where your beads anymore?”

“Because I’m not on Wav’aii.”

“So, you just use that opportunity to totally drop your culture?” She cocked a curious brow. She hadn’t really noticed it before. When she first met him, the way he dressed seemed like his normal, so she didn’t think to question it. Similarly, while they were with his family, he wore his beads all the time, and that seemed perfectly normal too.

But now that he was back in the simple, regular clothes he wore before, she couldn’t help but notice that there was nothing about his life that reminded her of his home. Except maybe the utensils he used in the galley, he had scrubbed his life of anything that could be linked back to his own culture. And that just kind of confused her.

Serval gave her a look. “The way my people dress is considered indecent by most. I could very well break multiple laws by walking around in my beads.”

“Okay, so you can’t go totally natural and normal with them, but that doesn’t mean you have to leave them behind completely. I plan on wearing my beads as often as I can. They’re so pretty! Don’t you think so?”

Serval was silent for a long minute. She didn’t think he was going to answer her. But after a pause that seemed to go on forever, he walked over to a drawer and opened it. From inside, he pulled out a length of beads that he wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet. Turning, he held it up for her.

“Better?” He asked.

“Do you feel better?” She countered, bobbing one of her makeup brushes in the air.

Serval looked at the beads before admitting softly, “It’s not the worst thing.”

Sophie smiled. “Then, I love them. You look more like yourself. You’re allowee, amor, be proud of it! It’s part of who you are. You can’t leave it behind, so take it with you wherever you go.”

Serval shook his head, but he didn’t try to take off the bracelet. Instead, he asked, “How long are you going to take anyway?”

“A little bit slower every time you ask me that,” she responded primly, snapping her contour palette closed.

An hour later, the two of them were stepping out of the ship, Sophie holding onto his arm as he led the way down. She was looking at everything, trying not to be an open-mouthed tourist, but unable to help herself.

Immediately, she could see why Serval considered this place seedy. Since it served multiple ships of many sizes, the docking bay didn’t have little ports for ships to slot into. Instead, tunnels extended out from the bay and connected to the ship, allowing them to have multiple ships of any size surrounding the back in all dimensions. The tunnel itself was long, but it had a moving sidewalk that dragged them along.

However, it wasn’t a smooth ride. It was kind of jumpy, like the mechanism was fighting with itself as it pulled. The tunnel was dingy and rusty without windows or any markers for how long the trip would be. It also had a weird, stale, metallic smell that made her grimace.

“Their air recycler is old,” Serval said, responding to her face.

“This whole place is old,” she countered.

“You could have stayed in the ship.”

“And waste this outfit? I think not.” She lifted her head, grinning wickedly when Serval took his time appreciating her as they rode the tunnel down. Again. He had been staring since she finished dressing and presented herself for his approval.

They were going to a dive on a seedy space station, she had dressed up like a dive chick, with a little allowee/human hybrid flair thrown in.

She raided her swimsuit collection and grabbed another bandeau style, metallic top, but this one was shiny teal, and it matched the beads of the top she’d just received from her mate’s family. The loose netting revealed her torso and flashed the metallic swimsuit shamelessly. She had paired it with a tight, leather skort – something that looked salacious but actually wasn’t – and a pair of high, strappy black heels for that extra pop of sexy. Big, golden hoops hung from her ears, and chunky bracelets in a variety of colors clicked together on her wrists. Her hair was half up in a loose bun with a few tendrils artfully framing her face.

She looked somewhere between sexy and trashy, and she walked with the confidence of a woman who knew it was both without diminishing a single thing about her.

Serval loved it, if she was any judge of the look in his eye.

The moving sidewalk deposited them in front of a door that refused to open until Serval typed in a code that he got for paying the docking fee. Which she thought was outrageous. This rundown bus stop of a space station was overcharging, no matter what they paid.

Then, the docking bay doors opened and deposited them onto a catwalk.

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