been having unprotected sex for three months now. Don’t you think that maybe someone should have told me I could get pregnant?”
“So you don’t want to become pregnant?” Karriak asked, looking and sounding as confused as Sektannen felt.
“That’s not what I said!”
Sektannen stepped closer, trying to calm the potentially disastrous discussion down, but his woman took a step back. “Amanda,” he said quietly, praying for her to look him in the eye. He almost sagged in relief when she finally did. “Karriak and I aren’t able to impregnate you while we’re going through telkobar.”
Several emotions played over her face, but she finally asked, “You’ve been shooting blanks?”
He laughed at her choice of words. “Yes, beautiful, we’ve been shooting blanks the whole time we’ve known you. That will change, however, once we go through our final telkobar. We’ll need to discuss some sort of contraception before then, but I promise you we would have mentioned it long ago if it had been an issue.” He reached over and smiled when she let him touch her face with his fingertips. “We would never have made such a decision without you. We should decide together when to start a family.”
“I agree,” she said with a nod.
“So you do want to have our babies?”
“Of course,” she said simply. They must have both been staring at her with blank expressions because she finally looked at them both and then laughed softly. “I’m sorry. I just…well, I’d already convinced myself that life without offspring was okay, and now you’re telling me it’s possible and I suddenly want to jump up and down in celebration and run away screaming at the same time.” She took a deep breath and stepped closer to them both. Considering that they were nearly twice her height at the moment, she had a long way to look up. “I want children. I want children with you. I just want to make sure it’s planned properly…that we’re all in agreement on when is the right time.”
“Okay,” Sektannen said, lifting her up to press a kiss to her lips. Karriak moved behind her, balancing her tiny, fragile human body between their gigantic ones. “How about we start a family once we go through telkobar?”
She shook her head. “I was thinking maybe sooner,” she said with a mischievous grin. Considering that sex was pretty much out of the question at the moment and they were shooting blanks, he wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. He looked over her shoulder to see Karriak grinning.
Apparently, Sektannen was the only one missing the point.
“To’h,” Amanda said to the computer but with a wink in Sektannen’s direction, “please increase the oxygen levels in the bedroom.”
“Already done,” the computer said smugly as if it had anticipated Amanda’s request yet again. Sektannen shook his head slightly. It wasn’t really possible for a computer to be that intuitive, was it?
Although, considering that it was what the computer did without orders when she’d first come on board, and it was Amanda who’d programmed To’huto, then maybe it had been planned all along.
Amanda kissed his nose playfully. “Want to come make babies with me?” she asked with a wide grin.
He nodded, already moving toward the bedroom, his woman safely cradled in his arms.
Fuck, yeah.
* * * *
Karriak had only enough sense left to remember to strip off his clothes before they stepped into the bedroom. He’d never fit into them again, but he remembered well how irritating it had been to grow so rapidly and tear the super-tough, super-stretchy material with only his skin. Sektannen laughed when he noticed, but did exactly the same thing.
“Are you sure about this?” Karriak asked Amanda as she stood out of their way.
“I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.”
“But you only just found out that we’re compatible,” Sektannen added as he, too, managed to grab ahold of his sanity.
“Not being able to have
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