Nate wasn’t around when they got to medical, but a quick communication from one of the healers netted them permission to use the scanner. Darcone grunted as he listened to Bri bitching about taking off her adornments.

“Complains always, she does,” he said softly.

Sheena snickered and nodded at the truth. “Yes. If Bri is ever uncomfortable at all, you’re going to hear about it.”

“Patience, she needs. That I have now,” Darcone said, nodding his head.

Keeping her gaze on the bank of monitors, Sheena laughed at the friendly alien’s answer which was the longest sentence she’d ever heard him speak to anyone. She wondered if the alien even knew what he’d just admitted to in his fairly good English.

She turned her head just in time to see Darcone avidly watching Bri strip down to her skin. Her sister didn’t often bother with bindings or anything else under her clothes. She said underwear was too restricting. Naked at last, Bri stomped into the scanner, innocently unaware of Darcone’s lustful gaze.

“Let’s go, Sheena. It’s freaking cold in here,” Bri called through the many layers of glass.

Her sister’s irritation was loud enough not to require the intercom to hear. Sheena looked up and nodded as she set the controls for the strongest level of discovery. Shields dropped between the areas preventing her and Darcone from being exposed to the ethereal imaging rays. She studied the screen as it built a scanned image of her sister. There was nothing until she got to Bri’s head.

Sheena pressed the intercom. “I need to do your head again. Turn around.”

“Kiss my cold, naked ass,” Bri answered, but turned as ordered when Sheena spun her finger in the air.

“Nice ass, she has,” Darcone commented.

Sheena laughed. “Hey, that’s my sister you’re lusting for there.”

“Yes. Much aware, I am,” Darcone replied gravely.

Sheena snorted. “It’s okay, Darcone. Briana thinks your ass is nice too. She told me so.”

Appalled at herself for what she’d revealed, as well as knowing she was interfering in her sister’s love life, Sheena winced afterwards. But really… if Bri was hell bent on hooking up with an alien, at least Darcone was someone they both liked and trusted.

Sheena saw Darcone’s gaze widen once understanding sank in. She laughed when the man mumbled something she didn’t understand and walked away in a daze. It made her shake her head.

“I guess I freaking suck as a matchmaker. Glad Mom and Dad didn’t try to make me become one,” she grumbled under her breath.

Turning back to the monitor, Sheena sighed and frowned. What she saw on the screen worried her, but she wasn’t surprised by it. She doubted Bri even knew the bio-extraction port was installed, but she also doubted her sister would care. Only she knew that the Guardians weren’t as altruistic as everyone thought.

Sheena hit the intercom again. “That’s all I needed. You can get dressed now. The Brianna naked show is over.” She cancelled the imaging program and watched the separation doors lift again.

“Good. Send Darcone to the dressing area to help me put the piercings back in,” Bri called out.

Sheena nodded. She looked over her shoulder where Darcone was pretending great interest in an empty medical table. “Did you hear her?”

“Yes. All words she yells,” Darcone replied, not turning around.

Sheena made a face to keep from laughing. “Indeed she does. So are you going?”

“A good idea, that is not,” he said firmly.

When she fought laughter a second time, Sheena instantly thought of Angus. The man was both wicked and sharp about getting his way. She actually liked that about him. Being good at manipulation was a personality trait they shared, but one she didn’t get to indulge often.

Fighting the urge to grin at her own wicked thoughts, Sheena schooled her expression into her most serious scientist face. “I can’t help Bri because I can’t afford to run one of those steel pins through my hands. The medics can’t help either and for the same reason. Think Angus could find us an alien who could handle helping my sister get dressed?”

Darcone’s wide-eyed stare made her want to laugh, but she bravely fought it back.

Sheena let her own eyes widen as she pretended to be startled by a new thought. “Oh wait… there were five alien males in Bri’s matchmaking folder. Never mind, Darcone. I’ll just ask for one of them to come help her.”

A growl was all she got for a denial before Darcone nearly yanked the metal entry door off its hinges on his way back to Brianna. The laughter she’d been holding back escaped as a muffled giggle. Her mother and father would have been very proud of her scheming. Angus and Erin would no doubt have enjoyed a good laugh over it too if they had been here to see Darcone get jealous.

And…

Damn it. She was getting emotionally attached to them.

“Now I have to know the truth about what they are,” Sheena said out loud, frowning as she stared at the rejuvenator cylinder. “I just have to.”

* * *

A throat clearing in his office doorway had Nate’s head swiveling away from his workstation. The electronic communication he’d been attempting to answer lost all importance as his gaze took Sheena in.

She was wearing clothes today that covered nearly every inch of her. His mind instantly stripped them away, reminding him of what she’d looked like last night, when she’d been naked and begging him to come to bed.

His personal torture amped up to a nearly intolerable level of arousal. He mumbled swear words under his breath as he rubbed his nose.

“Stop it, Nate,” Sheena said sharply, glaring at him.

“Stop what?” he nearly yelled back, feeling cranky as hell.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re all but drooling. Are you going to be able to talk rationally to me or should I come back later?”

Nate snorted and finally tore his gaze away. “If I’m churned up beyond what’s polite to show, it’s your damn fault. I’ve gotten hard every five seconds all day long which is about how often I’ve thought of you naked and begging me to make love to you.”

“You know it was the ale,” Sheena said firmly, drawing in a big breath for courage. She came into the office and slid uncomfortably into a chair in front of Nate’s boring metal desk. “I can’t believe this place looks just the same as it did a hundred years ago. Even the furniture. Don’t you ever want to change anything?”

“Only my underwear,” Nate joked, watching her eyes light with irritation over his flip answer. He shook his head and sighed at her seriousness. “No, Sheena. I don’t seem to crave constant change the way many people do. Sameness suits me.”

“You got that from your mother. The Provost never changes her mind about anything. That’s one of the many reasons I knew I could never work with her.” Sheena sighed as she looked around. “I still can’t eat the same thing for breakfast more than once a week. I don’t know how we ever managed to stayed married for twenty-three years.”

“It worked because we were complementary opposites,” Nate said softly.

Sheena’s eyebrow raised at his accurate, even if textbook, definition of their former relationship. “Did you get a psych degree after I left?”

“Of a sort. I spent more than a century with your matchmaking parents. Plus, I read a lot on the subject of complex relationships,” Nate said, shrugging off his answer. He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d also married not one, but two women, who were relationship therapists. Both had declared him a hopeless case.

Sheena swallowed tightly and brought her gaze to Nate’s. “Tell me what Angus and Erin are.”

Nate released a slow breath, thinking about the limitations he was under. “They’re normal humans just like me and you. I wish you could just accept that and let the rest of the explanation go.”

Sheena shook her head. “What are you keeping from me, Nate? They’re less than half my age, but look exactly like my parents did when they were younger. There are only one or two possible explanations for such a situation. I know the aliens did not give us technology to rejuvenate my parents that much. Your new matchmakers even openly admit they’re not my parents. Ergo, Angus and Erin have to be clones.”

Nate shook his head and firmed his jaw. “They’re not clones, but I can’t tell you their origin story. The Guardians have denied your clearance to hear it. I’ve sent forward an appeal on your behalf because I knew you’d want to challenge their decision.”

“Of course, I want to challenge it. If Angus and Erin were made from any DNA belonging to any now deceased McNamara, Bri and I have a right to know. Use of any Familial DNA would make Angus and Erin our lawful property.”

Nate snorted, and then he grinned. “Please tell them both that story within my hearing. I’d love to see their faces when you explain they’re your DNA property. That would absolutely make my day.”

Sheena ignored the sarcasm. “When I arrived, you offered to show me their DNA reports. I’d like to see them now.”

Nate nodded. “Sure… but it’s going to cost you after the torture you and your sister have put me through.”

Sheena threw up her hands. “I can’t believe you want money to tell me a truth I have every right to know. You’re a bastard, Nathaniel Tiberius—a real bastard.”

Sheena pushed herself out of the chair and stomped around for a moment while she struggled to keep her temper in check. When she’d calmed down, she turned to find her torturer standing less than a foot in front of her and grinning like an idiot.

Her gaze lifted reluctantly to his. Nate always seemed so much taller when they were standing up. “Okay. I’ll pay your fucking price. How much do you want?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nate chastised. “I don’t want your money. I want some damn relief.”

Sheena made a face and felt like screaming. “From what? If you’re suffering, it’s from your stupidity for keeping too many blasted secrets. All you have to do is tell me the truth and you’d feel a hell of a lot better.”

That was the final insult Nate could handle in his tormented condition. His mouth was on Sheena’s before he could talk himself out of kissing her when he was so upset. Sheena’s protest was silenced by his tongue doing to her mouth what another part of him wanted badly to do to another part of her. They both moaned as he pressed against her, his hands molding her body to his. He wanted to keep kissing her more than he wanted his next breath.

Pulling Sheena to her toes, Nate surprised them both with an aggressiveness he’d probably never shown her before today. After a hundred years of not touching the woman, he was a much more desperate man, especially now that he knew Sheena was a one of a kind bliss.

He would have liked nothing better than to tell her that some things had changed for him in the last century. For one, his ability to weaken Sheena’s legs had evidently more than quadrupled. When she fell against him in surrender, Nate felt a sense of accomplishment nothing else in the last hundred years had given him. Her breath was choppy and erratic when he finally let her up for air.

He groaned at Sheena’s vulnerability and put his forehead against hers. “I’m truly sorry I can’t tell you everything. I’m also sorry I didn’t take you up on your offer this morning.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I thought you were some random stranger I’d taken to bed,” Sheena said weakly.

Annoyed, Nate pinched her ass hard. He smiled when Sheena yelped and bumped roughly against him. “You want me, and I want you. Maybe that attraction is nothing we can rationally act on, but don’t lie about it and make me question my sanity. If I hadn’t pushed you away this morning, you’d have mounted and rode me until we both got it out of our system. And it would have been great, Sheena. Just like it always was between us.”

“That’s not true. It was not always great.” Sheena pushed her hands against his chest. When had Nate gotten so muscular? She pushed harder. He still wasn’t letting her go. “This morning would have been nothing more than a drunken mistake and you know it.”

Grateful now that Angus had recently irritated him enough to get back on his weights, Nate snorted as he glared at Sheena for denying her feelings. He wanted to shake her and barely restrained himself. “You always told me you didn’t make mistakes, Dr. McNamara.”

Sheena huffed in response and put some real energy into her efforts to get away. “I don’t normally, but this morning would have been one. Turn me loose.”

“No,” Nate said. “I did that once and it didn’t work out well for me.”

Irritated by the shock lighting Sheena’s face, Nate let his mouth descend to hers once more, this time with a savage hunger that quickly had them both moaning again. Sheena’s hands went from pushing him away to fisting the front of his shirt to hold him in place.

He wanted to feel victorious. Instead, all he felt was mean and horny. He’d forgotten how hormonally driven she made him. Knowing this madness was not helping either of them, Nate reluctantly dragged his mouth from hers. He squeezed her tight, surprised at his unwillingness to let her completely go.

“Care to discuss the results of this kissing experiment, Doctor? Or would you prefer to see a report on that too?”

Sheena put her forehead against Nate’s collarbone and moved it from side to side. “I think I hate you right now,” she told him.

“Good. At least that’s something real,” Nate whispered, bending to drag his lips from the corner of her mouth up the side of her cheek.

He kissed her temple when she lifted her face, pulling Sheena tight against his hips trying to stop the ache he had for her. Finally, he had no choice but to let her go completely. It was either that or drag her to the metal floor of his cramped airship office.

He stepped away and went behind his desk, hoping the action would keep him from chasing after her. “Go away before I do something insanely stupid that only one of us will regret,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

Instead of leaving, Sheena turned to face him. “How can you expect me to respond favorably to your manhandling?” She refused to call it lovemaking. She refused to think of Nate that way anymore. “They’re exact replicas of my parents—my parents, Nate. You could tell me the truth about Angus and Erin if you wanted, but you won’t. Why? Because you’re still putting your bloody work first. Just admit it, Nate. You’re never going to do anything else.”

Nate nodded tightly. “Probably not,” he replied. “I’m a rule follower. I always have been.”

Sheena threw up both hands. “What exactly do you expect me to do when I disagree so strongly with you?”

“I don’t expect you to do anything except talk Brianna into leaving. Isn’t that why you came? Or in torturing me have you forgotten your original purpose for coming here?”

When Sheena was silent, Nate shook his head at her unwillingness to admit what they’d had and lost, and found out they still had, was more important than all the problems cropping up between them. Maybe his job chaos was still too much for her to deal with. After all, she’d left him over it before.

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll come up with a way to apologize for my so-called manhandling. Until that happens, I’ll send the DNA reports on Angus and Erin to your portable. Is your personal com address still the same?”

Sheena sighed as she nodded. “Yes. Carlson and Elsa have access to the links as well, but they can be trusted. Why aren’t you sending the information through proper channels? I have enough clearance for the report.”

Nate shook his head. “That was before I spoke with the Guardians. Now you don’t, but I intend to keep my word to you at least this much. For once, you’re just going to have to trust that I’m telling you all the truth I can.”

“Alright,” she answered a tense thirty seconds later, unable to think of anything else to debate. Nate was the only man she’d ever known who could shut her out to the point that his silence hurt.

“If you’ll excuse me now, I need to get back to my work,” Nate said flatly, sinking into his chair. He heard Sheena’s footsteps retreating and clenched his fists against his thighs to keep from calling her back.

It was an hour before his mind stopped churning about yet another hundred years of his life passing that wouldn’t include a naked Sheena ordering him to bed.

When his thinking returned to the present, it also reminded him about all its other problems. Starting with the fact that the new matchmakers were due in his office any time.