After looking around, she finally decided to sit on the floor awhile and when she grew tired of that, she lay down on her side and curled up into a tight little ball. She lay listening to the sounds outside at first, a little surprised that they seemed to actually carry on conversations—not that she could make out what they were saying, but it sounded like it must be a conversation. She could hear first one voice and then another. She heard them passing back and forth by the room where she was holed up. A few times, she heard footsteps approach the door, pause for a few moments and then go away again.
She dozed off. She had no idea how long she’d been locked in the bathroom, but after a while the shaking stopped and she grew warm and relaxed.
The noise that woke her made her shoot to her feet in alarm, but it was only a deep seated, instinctual reaction to threat. It didn’t do anything for her equilibrium or even awaken her mind enough to really function. Opening wide, burning eyes, she stared at the hole where the door had been as the blond haired cyborg casually set the door he’d just ripped from the hinges to one side, stepped inside with her and caught hold of her before she could even consider trying to elude him. She staggered drunkenly as he hauled her out of the bathroom. He caught her against his chest and then bent and scooped her into his arms.
“Wha …?” she managed as he added dizziness to her already teetering world when he swiveled around with her and strode purposefully … she didn’t know where he was going. Only that he seemed in a great hurry to get there. “Whas gon …? Where …?”
“To bed.”
Bronte’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head at that. “Bed?”
He settled her on the bunk where she’d treated the others’ injuries earlier. She fought a short round with him over her cloth, but it was a losing battle from the start even if she hadn’t still been too disoriented to be able to defend herself. When he’d taken it from her, though, he rolled her across the bed, dragged the tucked blanket from beneath her, and then rearranged her on the bed and tossed the blanket over her. She caught hold of it with both hands, snatching it up to her nose and peering at him over it. He settled his hands on either side of her, leaning his weight on them as he stared down at her. “You will sleep here when you need to rest.”
Bronte blinked at him, more because her eyes were still stinging from being so abruptly wakened than because she didn’t understand the order. It wasn’t precisely delivered as an order, but his tone didn’t encourage argument. He studied her a moment longer and finally settled a hip on the bed beside her. Grasping the edge of the blanket, he pried it from her fingers and settled it across her shoulders.
“You are in no danger,” he said quietly. “You do not need to hide in the facilities … and, as you see, it would make no difference if any one of us wished to go after you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Bronte demanded shakily.
He tilted his head at her. “Yes.”
“Well, it doesn’t!” she said forthrightly.
He frowned faintly. “What would make you feel better?”
“Going home.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Finally, his lips curled up in amusement. “Besides that.”
Bronte thought it over. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Nothing.”
She frowned at him. “Then why did you take me?”
“Orders.”
“Orders? Like … military, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Bronte studied him with some irritation. “Can you, maybe, string a few words together so that we could exchange information a little more efficiently?”
This time his lips merely twitched, but she could see a distinct gleam of amusement in his eyes. “I will try.”
“Do you have a name?”
One corner of his mouth tipped up this time. “Yes.”
She waited for a long moment. When he said nothing else, she let out an irritated huff and turned on her side, presenting him with her back. She felt the bed shift as he rose. A moment later, she felt warmth as he leaned over her. “Gideon,” he said in little more than a whisper near her ear.
She whirled her head to see what he was up to as she felt him lean over her. She met him almost nose to nose as spoke next to her ear. For several heartbeats, they merely stared at one another. He seemed as disconcerted as she was, but he made no attempt to draw back. Instead, his gaze wandered over her face. Finally, he straightened. “You do not need to be afraid, Bronte. No harm is intended toward you, and none will come to you … not at our hands.”
Bronte sent him a scared look. “Whose?”
He shook his head. “I can not speak for your own people. Only mine.”
She thought that over. “You’re talking about the militia trying to blow up the ship?”
“It is unlikely we will run afoul of more this far out, but, yes. If they spot us they will try to blow us up.”
He’d nearly reached the door before she thought of another question. “Where are we going?”
“The Cyborg Nation.”
Bronte sat up in the bed and stared at him in horror. Nation? “Why are you taking me there?”
He tilted his head curiously. “That should be obvious—to attend our young.”
Bronte was certain that she was thoroughly awake by the time Gideon left, but, although her mind was busy going back over what he had told her for a good while after his departure, she drifted to sleep again eventually. She had just reached deep sleep when she was jostled awake first by the feel of two arms shoved beneath her and then, when she’d been deposited nearer the bulkhead, the coldness of the sheets above and below her. Shivering, she tried to move back to the spot she’d already warmed. Even as she rolled toward it however, the outside of the bed dipped. The dipping gave her roll more momentum than she’d calculated on. Instead of landing on the floor, however, she came up against something as big and solid as the wall … except a lot warmer.
Disoriented, she sat up and looked around groggily. The man who’d just climbed into bed beside her pushed her down on the pillows again. “Go back to sleep.”
“Ok,” Bronte mumbled and rolled onto her side, planting her butt next to the warmth in the bed. The little space left for her, however, was the patch of ice next to the wall, for he took up most of the bunk.
He stiffened when she wiggled her ass up next to his warmth, but after a moment he rolled onto his side facing her. “You are cold?”
Bronte nodded instead of answering, but he apparently took that as a yes. Shifting closer, he draped an arm over her waist and dragged her toward him until she was nestled snugly against him. His warmth immediately began to filter through her entire back. Dimly, she realized she shouldn’t be snuggling so cozily, but she was cold and he was warm and that was all that mattered to her at the moment.
Her front side stayed cold despite the furnace at her back, though, and after a few moments, she struggled until she managed to roll over and burrowed as close to the source of heat as she could get with her arms pinned tightly to her chest. He stiffened all over again when she nuzzled her cold face against his warmth. After a few moments, though, he merely leaned away long enough to pry her arms away from her so that her elbows weren’t digging into him, arranged her to suit his own comfort and curled around her again. As hard as the surface was that she found herself flattened against, it radiated heat, and the moment she thawed enough for her muscles to relax, she went under again.
Her last thoughts and impressions before she had gone to sleep stirred her awake some time later, wandering randomly through her mind at first and spawning bizarre dreams and then not so strange but a good deal more disturbing dreams. The faces of the cyborgs swam in and out of these half-waking dreams, first one and then another. She jolted awake just as Gideon’s face zoomed in to her mind’s eye in an extreme close up.
Sucking in a sharp breath, she opened her eyes, and then blinked to try to focus the blurry image looming over he
r.
Gideon, his face propped on one hand, was staring down at her intently, his long, blond hair tousled from sleep, his deep, dark blue eyes narrowed. Bronte stared back at him blankly while her mind wrestled with the dream she’d just had, trying to disentangle dream from reality.
His hand, the one not supporting his cheek, which she discovered had been resting on her hip, settled on her cheek. The pad of his thumb stroked along her lower lip, making it tingle and itch.
And then he stuck his thumb in her mouth.
Quicker than thought, she chomped down on the digit with her teeth.
Sucking in a sharp breath, he snatched his abused member from her mouth, scraping it on the sharp edge of her teeth still digging into it.
Horror at her insane impulse to bite him washed through Bronte even before the pain she’d inflicted translated into a furious frown on his face. Instinctively expecting retaliation, Bronte threw her arms up to shelter herself.
He caught her wrists, pried her arms away from her face and shoved her arms over her head. She resisted every inch of the way for all the good it did. When he’d crossed her wrists over her head, he locked them in place with one hand, the tight curl of his thumb and forefinger almost completely encircling both wrists. She stared up at him warily when he shifted the weight of his chest over her to pin her body in place, staring down at her through narrowed eyes.
“I’m sorry!” she said on a choked breath, choked because the weight of his chest pressed down on her belly and lower chest too heavily for her to drag in more than a shallow breath.
He didn’t look appeased. She saw why when he brought his injured thumb into her view as he examined it. She’d drawn blood. His eyes were glittering when he shifted his attention from his thumb to her face again.
A twinge of rebelliousness had sparked to life, along with guilt, as she had studied his thumb. She hadn’t invited him to stick his damned thumb in her mouth after all! But the spark winked out at the look of intent on his face.
It dawned on her as she stared up at him in wide eyed wariness that he was contemplating retribution. “It was an accident,” she added quickly as his gaze moved from her face to the neck of her uniform.
The comment brought his gaze back to hers. “You accidentally bit me?”
She reddened at his tone of disbelief. “Miscalculated?” she tried. “It was a muscle spasm.”
He caught at the neck of her uniform and yanked at the meshed closure, opening the thing from neck to waist. She sucked in a shocked breath. With deliberation, he caught the edge of her stretchy undergarment and yanked that down, too. Her breast popped free of restraint, the dark aureole instantly puckering at the cool air and making her nipple stand erect. Her eyes widened as his head descended. Gritting her teeth, she yanked at her arms and rocked, trying to elude the mouth descending purposefully toward her breast.
Squeezing her breast with his hand, he extended his tongue and licked the skin all the way around her distended nipple. It knocked the breath out of her as if he’d punched her in the stomach. She tensed all over with distrust, still expecting pain for pain, unable to manage a clear train of thought, but certain he was only trying to lull her into a false sense of security. Puckering his lips, he closed them over the tip, plucking at her nipple with no more than his lips until it became so engorged with blood that it began to throb.
She was shaking all over when he lifted his head, but she almost sighed with relief.
It was short lived. Releasing his grip on her breast, he settled his hand on her face again, used his thumb to pry her jaws apart and slipped his thumb inside her mouth. She stared at him, wondering what he expected, or wanted, her to do. She wasn’t stupid enough to even try to bite him again, however.
She hadn’t actually meant to bite him to start with. It had just been one of those insane impulses that sometimes hit her out of the blue, a brain malfunction that inevitably led to disaster when the random impulses hit her.
After staring at her a long moment, as if daring her to bite him, he lowered his head again. Bronte bucked against him uselessly when she saw his intent, but it only helped him, lifting her breast to his mouth as he opened it. She flinched as his mouth opened over the nearly painfully sensitive bud, cutting her gaze down at him in horrified fascination as he started sucking on her. Her belly clenched and then everything else inside of her. Needing to swallow, she closed her mouth around his thumb and did.
A wave of heat flowed through her. The epicenter seemed to be her sex. It tightened again as he flicked the tip of his tongue across the surface of her nipple, this time producing both warmth and moisture.
Her eyelids slipped shut of their own accord. The moment they did, her entire being seemed to focus on the heat of his mouth and the gentle, steady tugging that spread tingles of awareness throughout her body, raising her temperature. And each time he sucked, her sex seemed to echo the pleasurable tug, tightening with the same rhythm.
She swallowed around his thumb again. Again the sensation echoed in her sex. The walls of her channel wept moisture, clenched tightly around the nothing it had to hold on to but seemed to want. The slow seduction of his mouth and tongue as he alternately suckled and then teased her sensitive nipple with the tip of his tongue enthralled her. After a few moments, Bronte completely lost touch with any reality except the building heat inside of her. She had no idea when she began to suck enthusiastically on his thumb in counter to the wildly seductive pull of his mouth on her breast, but disappointment filled her when he withdrew it and then compounded the insult by lifting his mouth from her breast.
It took an effort of will to lift her eyelids and look at him as she felt his gaze on her face. His eyes, she saw, were so dark she could see no more than a thin ring of deep blue around his pupils. His breath was almost as ragged as hers. “Do not bite me again,” he said after a long moment. “You may think I feel no pain. I do.”
Her brain had ceased to function. He’d released her, pushed himself off of her, and rolled off the bunk, getting to his feet before the meaning sank in. She was still staring blankly at his back, though, wondering what had happened, as he strode across the cabin and disappeared into the facilities.
A chill went through her. She shivered, looked down at her bare breast and finally adjusted the undergarment and snatched her uniform together. Shivering as the heat dissipated from her skin, she pushed herself upright and fumbled at the closure of her uniform. Her hands were shaking so badly, though, that she had to realign the edges twice before she managed to smooth the closure.
She looked at Gideon sharply when he left the bathroom, but he turned and left the cabin without glancing in her direction. He’d bathed and changed, she saw. His blond hair, combed neatly now, was slicked to his head, darkened almost to black by the water.
Chapter Four
Bronte’s legs were so shaky when she got up and headed for the bathroom it felt almost as if she was trying to walk on rubberized appendages. Having relieved herself and washed her mouth, she got into the shower to bathe and had just lathered her hair when she heard the door open. Whirling at the sound, her hands suspended in her hair, she gaped at the man standing on the other side of the clear bathing panel.
She’d expected Gideon, although she had no idea why.
Maybe she’d just hoped he had come back to finish what he’d started?
Instead, she discovered it was Gabriel who had stopped to survey her without any pretense of disinterest. Belatedly remembering she was stark naked as his gaze settled on her mound, she snatched her hands from her hair and covered herself. Her hair, laden with soap, promptly landed across her face, blinding her. She squinted at him with the one eye not covered by her hair, blinking to try to get the stinging soap out of it.
Seeing her predicament, he tilted his head, his pale blue eyes gleaming, his lips curling upward slowly until they finally parted in a grin as he waited to see just how long she could stand it before she moved one of her hands to rescue her ey
es. After debating for a moment whether she least wanted to expose her breasts or her sex, she finally tilted her head and tried to sling the hair out of her eyes.
He chuckled. Lifting one hand, he showed her the folded clothing he held, glanced around for a place to put them and finally dropped them onto the narrow counter that ran the length of one wall between the bathing cubicle and the toilet, encompassing the lavatory. He paused in the door before he left, however, turning to look at her again. The amusement, she saw, had vanished. “There is food when you are done. This time, you will eat.”
Bronte had never thought she was particularly shy, but then again she had never found herself in a situation anything like her current predicament. And she certainly wasn’t accustomed to being naked around strange men.
Cyborgs.
She let out a huff of irritation. Men, she decided. They walked, talked, looked, and behaved like men—not like any she’d ever been around, granted. But then again, she hadn’t been around that many at all, not in close quarters. To all intents and purposes, they were men.
The garment he’d brought her, she discovered, was a uniform like the ones they’d been wearing when they’d taken her. She supposed it did belong to one of them, though they’d promptly discarded the uniforms once they were on the ship again in favor of the loincloth-like garments that didn’t cover much of anything besides their genitals. Not surprisingly, it didn’t fit her. Although it fit the men almost like a second skin, it hung on her—only coming close to a fit over her breasts, and both the sleeves and the legs were way too long.
It brought home how woefully undersized she was next to them more than anything else had. God! What had their designers been thinking to make them so huge! They could have been half the size they were and they would still have been four times as strong as their human counterparts.
After studying it over for a moment, she knelt and rolled the legs up until the fabric wasn’t dragging the floor to trip her up and then did the same with the sleeve ends until she’d uncovered her hands.
Cyborg Nation Page 4
