OMG. I’d thought of what it would be like to wear one, and now I was.
I looked good. The snug black uniform did an amazing job of making me look thinner than I was. Tougher. Stronger. More confident, because I needed all the help I could get.
I gave a quick glance to my pajamas on the floor. I felt as if I’d stepped out of my Earth persona and into that of a Starfighter. Was I insane? This was real.
I couldn’t stay in the bathroom and wonder. My curiosity pushed me into the other room, which was three times the size of my little one-bedroom apartment on Earth. A kitchen area with a small table and four chairs opened into a large living space with a sectional sofa that looked like an entire basketball team could sit shoulder to shoulder with room left over. In addition to the massive sofa, two large, stuffed chairs surrounded a square table perfect for putting up aching feet or setting down a drink after a long day.
The flooring looked like short, commercial carpeting, but the strands had been soft under my bare feet in the bedroom and I sank into the simple flooring like I was walking on a cloud.
I recognized all of it. Even the lamps standing at the ends of the sofa, the throw pillows. The adorable statue of the Velerion creature—whose name I couldn’t remember—that stood guard next to the main door. A good luck guardian or something like that. Every detail I had chosen. Again, from the available menu options in the game…but still.
“Oh my God. This is crazy.”
“Is it not to your liking? You may change whatever you wish.” He looked around as if he’d never seen the space before. Perhaps he hadn’t. When I’d gone into my game menus and selected the sofa and decorations, it had all been a game to me. Fun. My one and only chance to design a living space without concern for money. Now I was standing in that space, and I knew without looking that behind the other four doors I would find another bathroom, a spare bedroom, a tactical room used to store extra weapons and armor, and the black door would take us out into the corridor, onto the moon base.
“It’s perfect.”
“I agree.” Alex turned and looked me up and down, and I knew he was not talking about our apartment. Living quarters. Whatever. The heat in his eyes made me tingle all over. My time in front of the mirror had done nothing to my confidence in comparison to how he was eyeing me.
“Do we have to clean this place? It’s three times the size of my old apartment.”
Alex chuckled. “Of course not. We have service bots that take care of maintenance and cleaning.”
“Thank God. I hate scrubbing toilets.”
His laugh this time was booming, and my smile was so tight my cheeks ached. When his amusement died down, he focused on me with the look of a man who liked what he saw in a woman. Desired her. “You please me, bondmate,” he said, his voice deep. I’d heard that tone before, but it had always been technical, not sexual.
A thrill of feminine satisfaction shot through me, and I felt my cheeks heat. I glanced away under his intense scrutiny. Then my stomach rumbled.
He grinned and held out his hand. “Come. I will feed you, and then I will escort you to your ship.”
I froze. Hot guy and food were forgotten. “My ship?”
He nodded, his dark hair sliding over his forehead. “Of course. The Valor.”
I raised a hand as if to stop him. “Wait. That was just a name I made up. It was only for the game.”
“As was I,” he replied, crossing his arms over his chest, his shoulders back.
I sighed. Yes, I’d made him as part of the game as well. And yet he was actually a real guy. A real alien. That meant the Valor was real, too.
Again, holy crap.