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“I am.” I had to give him a side hug so my baby bump wouldn’t prevent my arms from reaching around him. “I’m looking forward to a warm bubble bath.”
He walked his fingers down the front of my shirt. My breasts, bigger from pregnancy hormones, tingled from his touch. “I’m looking forward to what comes after you step out.”
“You mean a bowl of taboga plant chips and my strawberry drink? Mm, I can hardly wait.”
“You’re teasing. Right?”
I kissed his lips. “Maybe.”
He shook his head, good-natured. “I can’t keep my mate and the mother of my child away from her chips. I'll let them know in the control room to launch us full speed to HQ.”
“You do that. I’m going to listen to music on my headphones.”
I proceeded to walk to where the headphones were sitting on the table. I paused as I felt a warm, wet trickle run down my leg. I cast my eyes down and discovered it spreading on my pants. “Rone, I think my water just broke.”
Nothing in the universe seemed to throw this commander for a loop. Today, for the first time ever, I saw his eyes get big in his head. “Your water broke? It can’t.”
“But it did.” I pointed to the evidence.
I never saw him break off into a sprint, either, in closed quarters. He barreled into the bathroom and came back with a towel. “We’re on a ship.”
“What? There’s some rule that a pregnant female’s water can’t break on a Wanderstar Fleet ship?”
“There’s no medic on board. Bhesur is at the clinic back in HQ.”
“Oh, ssh—" I didn’t complete my curse as I experienced a deep contraction. “Okay.” I remembered to breathe through it. “It’s cool. This was supposed to be a quick trip. We’ll be back soon, right?”
Rone did not appear convinced by my optimism. “Our ETA is thirty minutes.”
I relaxed my shoulders as the contraction resided and his answer both gave me relief. “I heard labor can take hours for first-time mothers. So, everything should be in-ah.” A second, deeper and more painful contraction snatched my words away.
“I don’t think the child cares about your research. You need to get on the bed.” Rone guided me to it, helping me sit down and swing my legs onto the mattress. His face was inches from my stomach. He witnessed the round globe shift and change shape into an oval and back again as the baby delivered a Taekwondo-worthy kick to let us know it wanted out stat. “We’re going to need more towels.”
Rone kept talking. To me, then to his com link. His words sped through my ears but I was unable to focus as I dealt with contraction after contraction. “Help me get my pants off.”
He assisted in tugging them down. I heard another voice chattering from his com link. “That’s Bhesur. I’m going to put him on a monitor so he can see what’s going on.”
“Is it not obvious?” My voice filled the room at a volume I didn’t know I was capable of reaching. Judging by Rone’s face, he didn’t, either. “Sorry. These contractions are coming hard and fast.” I had another one and groaned from the pain.
Rone went away from my field of vision. I shut my eyes and practiced breathing techniques. Either I wasn’t doing them properly or whoever said they were helpful was a bald-faced liar. When I opened my eyes again, Rone was back with a tablet. He dragged the bedside table to the front of the bed and set the tablet on it. The medic was on the monitor screen. A smallermirror image of me in my sweaty labor state was in the right corner.
“Hello, Cammie, how are you doing?”
"I feel like a swallowed a kickboxer who’s trying to fight their way out.”
“When did the contractions start?”
“I don’t know. Ten minutes ago, maybe?”
“How far apart have they been?”
I cried out as another contraction came. The medic looked to Rone for an answer.
He shook his head. “I don’t think we’ve been counting.”
“Rone, tell the cook on board to boil some water.”
I attempted to quiet the baby within me by patting my stomach. It gave me a high five in response before kneeing me in the bladder. “They’re not far apart. Ow.” Sweat beaded my brow as the child practiced its roundhouse. “They’re coming one right after the other.”
