Nate sat on his sofa with his head in his hands. He’d been that way pretty much since he’d gotten back here. Dinner was still on the table, but he hadn’t been able to make himself eat.

He needed to contact his mother, or rather, he needed to speak to the Provost, about what she’d done and why. Yet he just didn’t have it in him to have that discussion. All he could think about was how angry Sheena had gotten when his crew had walked in on them.

His men had gotten a little too used to him being alone, and after his last wife had left, he’d gotten used to it as well. He’d always told them to bypass his security in case of a genuine emergency, but… damn it. His body hardened again just at the thought of Sheena’s hand gripping him and stroking. Knowing she wanted him had met some long ignored need.

When the entry warning light flashed over his door, Nate swore viciously but rose reluctantly. His captain was going to get a stern boot to his ass first chance he got. Nothing could have surprised him more than Sheena walking inside alone. Nate looked over her shoulder, but saw no one in the hall. How in hell had she bypassed his security?

“Did Berg let you in here?”

Sheena crossed her arms and glared. “No. I’m sure he’d never do such a thing. Berg is in medical with Angus and Erin. Your mother upset Erin by sending Carleton and Elsa here. I have to say that woman’s a damn accurate clone of my mother. She got all of Mom’s sensibilities and her temper when it comes to protecting the people she loves. You’re lucky Erin didn’t come kick your ass.”

“Damn it, Sheena. Erin’s not a clone. You know that now.”

Sheena lifted a hand. “Do I? Her DNA doesn’t look like anyone else’s in recorded New Earth history. What exactly is she Nate?”

“Human. Female. A pain in my damn ass.”

Shaking her head, Sheena paced with arms crossed. “Still keeping your secrets, I see. All these years have gone by and you never figured out how to be loyal to the right people.”

Nate didn’t take the bait. It was an old argument—a very old and tiring one. “How did you get in here, Sheena?”

“Same way I get in wherever I want to go,” Sheena replied. “I’ve gotten quite adept at breaking and entering—better than Bri even.”

“Berg will eventually find you missing, you know.”

Sheena laughed. “So what? None of your guards are dumb enough to take on my boys, but don’t worry, I won’t let hurt them your precious aliens. I’ll be back before Berg has a chance to miss me.”

Nate walked over to her. “You need to go back now. I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

Not meeting his gaze, because that would just make this harder, Sheena took his hand in hers. She walked Nate back to the sofa and tugged him down beside her. “You look tired, Nathaniel Tiberius. You need to go to bed and get some genuine rest. I don’t know how you deal with this much stress without having a major meltdown. I take a sedative when I get as wrung out as you are.”

“The only thing wrong with me is a bad bout of sexual frustration. Are you trying to get me in bed?” he asked, not trusting Sheena’s sudden change of heart.

“Yes, I am,” Sheena said, chuckling at her own answer. “Not for sex though. You really do need to rest.”

“All I need is you and about twelve uninterrupted hours in bed,” Nate shot back.

He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Sheena’s. Her lips moved hotly under his at the same time her mouth opened to let his tongue slip inside. One his hands cupped the back of her head as her hand slid to the side of his neck. Her fingernails scratched him as they gripped, but Nate didn’t care. Arousal moved through him again as he kissed her hungrily.

When he pulled away, Nate leaned back into the sofa, suddenly weary to the bones. Sheena was right. He needed rest—real rest. “My relief that you’re not still mad at me has worn me out. I thought you’d never want to kiss me again after we were interrupted today.”

“I wish I didn’t want to, but that’s not the case,” Sheena said softly, her hand coming out to cup his jaw. “You look very tired, Nathaniel. I really think you need to sleep now.”

“Maybe I’ll just close my eyes for a few minutes.” And Nate did just that. “Will you stay?”

“I’ll definitely stay until you fall asleep,” Sheena promised, because that had been her plan all along.

* * *

When Nate’s breathing became even, his fingers unwound from the grip he’d had on her hand. Sheena slipped away and went to the door. Bringing in one of her boys, she had him carry Nate to his bed—the bed she hadn’t gotten to share with him. Sadly, his bedroom looked exactly like it had when she left him all those years ago. Did none of the other women he’d married ever care about the starkness of their sleeping space?

“Query, Number Five. Is it possible to erase all evidence of me being in this suite?”

“Affirmative. Access to privacy logs is confirmed. Time tables can be amended.”

“Good. I’ll be out in twenty. Start the privacy protocol while you wait. After we leave, just remove our arrival and flash the log forward.”

“Affirmative. Preparations are being made. Approximate completion time is about twenty minutes.”

When her droid was gone once more, Sheena crawled onto the bed beside a softly sleeping Nate. “Hi, Handsome. Can you hear me?”

“Of course. I love your voice. It makes me hard,” a sleeping Nate answered.

Sheena smiled at his loss of filters. “I like your voice too. What are the new versions of Angus and Erin? Are they clones? I need to know the truth.”

Nate thrashed a little, struggling against the question, then settled down once his unconscious mind made peace. The truth serum was infallible for the most part, but a person’s mind could resist some of it. When Nate woke, his recollection would be like recalling a bad dream. No one would ever know how she’d found out the truth. In the end, it would hopefully save the precious job he loved more than her.

“They’re alternates from Universe 6.”

Sheena gasped. “What?”

“The alien portal allows time jumps of a specific, yet limited nature. However, there are complications. Getting the matchmakers was deemed worth the risks. No one knows it works. Highly confidential. My mother can’t even know.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Sheena whispered, patting Nate’s shoulder. Her dad must have known. This must have been his idea. He’d spent three hundred years studying time travel and mirror universes.

“What kind of problems did you encounter in getting them here?”

“One of the Erin alternates died, unable to adapt. She was depressed and homesick and wouldn’t eat. Others we couldn’t find in their worlds in time to keep them from their fated history, no matter how precisely we set the parameters. The damn Universe 6 versions arrived fine, but...”

Sheena chuckled softly as Nate’s revelation faded off. Yes, she knew exactly why he stopped his story. Angus and Erin were not conforming to the stagnation that gripped New Earth worse than the alien plague had five hundred years ago. Admiral Tiberius of the AAS airship hated nothing more than he did people who thrived on change and wouldn’t follow the rules like he did.

“What did I ever see in you?” Sheena whispered.

“I have a big dick and love you madly. Just really suck at showing it,” Nate said, rolling to his side.

“You also have a colossal ego, despite what you think you know about yourself,” Sheena added for good measure. She leaned down and laid her cheek against his back. She stayed that way until Nate rolled over and blinked his eyes open.

“Sorry. I fell asleep on you,” he said.

Sheena nodded. “Yes, and sadly, I have to go back to my own room now.”

“Or you could just stay with me,” he whispered, his lips sweetly brushing her forehead.

Sheena tilted her face up to look at him. Nate was handsome as ever and as appealing as the first time she laid eyes on him in college. She brushed a hand through his close-cropped hair and ran her fingertips over his smooth jaw.

“You are my only real weakness, Nate. You always have been. I could give two shits about most people, including the other men I’ve been with, but I’ve always, always cared about you. If you’d ever learned to put me first, I’d probably still be with you.”

“I never stopped loving you,” Nate sleepily confessed.

“I knew that the moment I saw you again,” Sheena replied. She patted his cheek, then rolled away until her feet could hit the floor. “I’ve always loved you too. But love can’t thrive in a relationship where we disagree so much over politics. You think you know everything, but you don’t, Nate. There are fathoms of things you don’t know. Your mother, and the rest of your family, have gone to great lengths to make sure you stayed isolated. Angus and Erin are the best thing to happen to you in years. Knowing them might actually save you from yourself.”

“Are you leaving me again?” he asked, his half-lidded gaze watching her walk to the door.

“Tomorrow you won’t even remember I came to see you, so you won’t understand that I left. This is for the best, Nate. I’d feel guilty for doing this to you, except it was certainly a lot better than all the pointless arguing we’ve been doing.”

“You used to like me, Sheena. I want us to like each other again. I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

Sheena nodded. “I don’t want to fight either. Sleep now.”

Obeying her orders for once, Nate nodded and rolled to his side again.

Sighing at the appealing picture he made lying there, Sheena left before she gave in and climbed back into the bed. She was just as frustrated as Nate was, but he had no one to blame but himself for his problem. Another two minutes earlier today and Captain Cock-Blocker would have walked in on them both naked.

Sure, she’d figured out the emergency had been Carleton and Elsa’s arrival, but the captain could have handled meeting the shuttle. What a wimp. Nate needed to get someone with a real pair of testicles to be his second. No… what he needed was a woman. A woman would have reported in and gone on to get it done.

He’d married a strong woman like that—at least the first time. He’d been raised by a strong woman too. In fact, thoughts of Nate’s mother and what she would do to her if she ever found out Sheena had drugged her precious son kept her feet moving forward until she was out the door.