Gideon was crouched on the floor, studying her. Bronte stared back at him with a mixture of embarrassment, distrust, and fear. Jerico and Gabriel joined him, peering at her with expressions she found impossible to interpret.
All three men were breathing deeply from exertion, their hair wild and their faces battered and bleeding. After staring at her for several moments, the three exchanged accusing glares.
“Do not even think about it,” Gideon said in a low, warning growl when Jerico and Gabriel bristled at one another. The two men turned to glare at him, but they subsided.
“Soldiers get rowdy when they have been too long from action,” Gideon offered.
Bronte stared at him. Apparently he recalled that they had seen ‘action’ only the day before when both Jerico and Gabriel had been shot escaping with her. “It was a long flight to Earth,” he added uncomfortably.
He blew out a breath of irritation and turned to glare at the two in question. “Go and clean up the mess and repair the damage to the mid-section.”
Neither man looked terribly pleased by the order, but they shot to their feet, saluted, and left. “Are you hurt?”
Bronte thought that over, but the only injuries she could claim were self-inflicted when she was trying to get away from the fight. When he asked, she felt twinges, bruising from slamming into everything in her path in her mad dash to reach safety. “No,” she said finally instead of pointing out that that was because she’d had enough sense of self-preservation to get as far away from the battle as fast as she could. If she’d been caught in the crossfire they could’ve knocked her head clean off her shoulders, or landed on her and crushed her.
“Can you get out?”
She couldn’t prevent a blush as his gaze assessed the space she’d crammed herself into. The question, though, was did she want to? And could he make her get out if she didn’t want to?
He took the locker apart shelve by shelf. She wasn’t certain if the shelves had been designed to be removable, but he removed them anyway. When he’d removed the shelves, he reached in, grabbed her by her upper arms and hauled her out.
Chapter Five
Bronte had to lock her knees to keep from falling when he set her on her feet. She winced as she straightened, every muscle and joint in her body protesting from being cramped up so long.
Apparently he saw the wince. He moved his hands over her, carefully checking bones and joints for breakage, she supposed. Just as she was lulled by the gentleness of his touch, he grabbed the front of the suit and ripped it open from neck to crotch. Bronte sucked in a sharp breath of surprise, too stunned even to protest as he casually stripped the suit off of her. By the time she’d caught her breath, she discovered that he was still examining her, her flesh now instead of the bones, though why he thought he needed to when he could see at a glance that she wasn’t bleeding was beyond her. A frown drew his brows together as he examined the long bruises on her forearms and those on her shins from her dive into her hiding place.
“Get dressed,” he said finally and moved away.
Relieved, Bronte bent to grab the suit puddled around her ankles and pulled it up, shoving her arms into the sleeves. She was still trying to align the mesh on the front closure when his hand closed around her wrist. Without a word, he dragged her toward the bunk. She tripped over the pant legs as they reached the bunk, sprawling across his lap as he sat down and tugged her toward him.
She nearly impaled herself on the scalpel he held in his hand. Fortunately, he could move fast. He dropped it before she could fall on it. He gave her a reproving look as he righted her—as if she’d dove toward the thing on purpose!
Pushing her back so that she plopped down on his knee, which was behind her, he caught one wrist and straightened her arm. “Hold still,” he said, a thread of irritation in his voice as he picked up the scalpel he’d dropped.
Bronte shot to her feet, or rather tried. He hooked his other arm around her waist and held her, giving her a look that dared her to move. She would’ve jumped to her feet again anyway except that the second time, he grabbed the sleeve and slit the excess fabric before she had time to try to snatch her arm back or jump to her feet.
“Oh,” she said weakly when she realized he was only trying to cut the suit down to size.
He sent her a dry look as he caught her other arm and cut the end off of that sleeve. Feeling more than a little sheepish, she lifted her leg and placed it across his opposite knee when he’d finished trimming the sleeves. He sent her a look, but instead of pointing out that she could trim the pants legs as easily as he could—which she belatedly realized—he merely pinched the fabric up and trimmed the material off just above her ankle.
“I can do that,” she said uncomfortably as he reached for her other leg.
He ignored her, grasping her ankle and lifting her leg. The move overbalanced her. She made a grab for him as she felt herself tipping backwards and clawed three furrows across his chest before she managed to hook her hand around his upper arm and catch herself. Fortunately, it wasn’t deep enough to draw blood, only to raise welts. Feeling a little nauseated, she checked under her nails for skin anyway.
He was glaring at her when she looked up from examining her nails. The look made her uneasy, especially after what had happened the last time she’d hurt him. Reaching over, she rubbed her fingers over the welts soothingly and leaned down to blow on them for good measure. “Better?” she asked hopefully when she straightened again.
He rolled his eyes heavenward. Shaking his head, more as if from disgust than in answer to her question, he caught her waist, as if he meant to set her away from him. Instead, he paused once his hands had settled on her hips. He seemed to wrestle with himself.
“We are not accustomed to being around women … only other soldiers like ourselves,” he said haltingly and then frowned. “Disputes are often settled with fists, especially when there is no officer around—and no danger of ending up in the brig as disciplinary action. Not one of us would harm you—not intentionally. Beyond the fact that we are under orders to bring you back safely—and it would mean our lives if we failed—we do not make war on women.” His gaze flickered over her. “But you are human....”
Frowning, she looked away from him.
He caught her face and made her meet his gaze. “Frail compared to us—even our women. In the heat of battle....” He broke off and shrugged. “You were wise to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible, but you do not need to hide. No one will come after you. No one will turn their anger on you. The next time, just return to the cabin and wait for the argument to resolve itself.”
She gave him a look of disbelief. “But you....”
Something gleamed in his eyes at the reminder, but she didn’t think it was amusement. “I did not say you did not have to concern yourself that there would be no consequences for your actions, only that you need not be afraid that we will hurt you.”
He almost seemed to shrug. “You are in no less danger aboard this ship in that respect than you would be in any other if you were to find yourself among men—human men—who have not touched a woman in a very long time.
“Men, I might add, who have no mate waiting for our return and little prospect of finding one.”
Bronte stared at him in disbelief. “Well! If you think the prospect of being gang raped by three men is any less of a threat than being beat up, you certainly don’t know a damned thing about women!”
He closed his eyes, as if seeking patience.
Or maybe not. His eyes were blazing when he opened them again, and not with anger. “I never said anything about rape, Bronte. Believe me when I say you would be more than willing. I know exactly how to touch you and where to touch you. There is nothing about human sexuality that I do not know. I could give you more pleasure than you ever imagined possible and when I took you, you would be begging me to.”
Bronte opened her mouth to dispute that despite the fact that his words, in and of themselves
, without a single touch, had made everything inside of her go warm and liquid and quivery. His lips curled, as if he was waiting for her to issue the challenge trembling on the tip of her tongue. It gave her pause.
She still had to fight the urge to issue the challenge, not because she doubted for a moment that a denial would be a challenge to him but because she had an insane urge to see if he could do what he claimed.
And she was suddenly absolutely convinced that he could.
He lifted a dark blond brow when she said nothing. “You do not want to test it?” he asked pensively.
Bronte shook her head. Looking mildly disappointed, he set her away from him and rose. “I felt honor bound to warn you,” he said as he paused at the door, “that I can not guarantee you will arrive at our destination untouched. In fact, I am as certain as I can be that you will not.”
She glared at the door after he’d left, trying to ignore the anticipation fluttering in her belly at his threat/promise.
She would’ve liked to have been able to convince herself that it was fear, not excitement, but she knew it wasn’t. She wished that she could dismiss everything he’d said as pure egotistical, male arrogance, but she knew better. She’d suspected right off, the moment she got a look at everything when she’d dressed Gabriel and Jerico’s wounds, that they were fully functional pleasure bots, even if they had ended up being sold to the military instead as soldiers.
And if only half of the things she’d heard about them was true he was neither lying nor exaggerating.
How bright was it that the men who’d created them had gathered together the combined wisdom and techniques of the best lovers, added data compiled from god only knew how many sexual research studies, and then designed the perfect body to deliver that sexual atom bomb, she thought indignantly? But then again, scientists had always been prone to view their work as an extension of themselves and suffered besides from a combination of egotism over their brains and a lack of common sense or imagination. And it still seemed utterly stupid to her that they’d marketed pleasure bots that were ten times better than any human lover could hope to be.
And she was trapped on a ship with three of them!
Shivering, she looked around and finally sat down on the bunk.
She was no prude—far from it, despite the fact that she had not really had a lot of opportunities for sexual experimentation. She might have had more if she hadn’t felt so driven to make her father proud of her, to live up to him and his reputation, that she’d not allowed herself to be distracted by her hormones. She’d been tempted a few times but the timing had never seemed right and nothing had ever come of it. She had actually gotten fairly deeply involved with a fellow medical student when she had been in college—been involved with Howard throughout most of their last two years of study, but then he had been as driven to succeed as she was … which meant that neither of them had had much time for an actual relationship. The truth was, she supposed, they hadn’t really been a lot more than a convenience to each other, a reliable fuck when they needed it, and they’d stopped being even that ‘close’ when the heat had gone out of the relationship—which was when they’d discovered they were interning at different hospitals.
She’d barely had a half dozen dates since and less than half of them had interested her enough to have sex.
She thought that probably explained, to a large extent, why she found her captors so attractive—aside from the fact that they were. No doubt it also explained why she was tempted even though she knew they hated her just because she human.
It was one thing to set out to have casual sex, though, and another matter entirely to set out to have sex with someone you knew held you in contempt, but was willing to fuck you anyway. She could have lived with indifferent. She had settled for indifferent. Except for Howard, who had at least seemed to like her when they’d begun their relationship, it had only been a matter of physical attraction with anyone else she’d been with—not extreme physical attraction, just interested enough that, given the right timing and circumstances, she’d had sex with them. And she thought that probably went both ways because afterward she hadn’t really cared whether she saw them again and they hadn’t seemed to be too put out when she wasn’t interested in round two.
Would it be any better when they finally got where ever it was they were going, she wondered? She doubted it. Except for the fact that she would not be trapped in a little space ship with three cyborgs that hadn’t had a piece of ass in a while and thought hers would do just fine, she couldn’t see that the future looked bright.
She would just have to keep to herself as much as possible, she decided. The clothing they’d given her to wear was pretty shapeless on her since it hardly touched her anywhere. That wasn’t going to tempt them.
It was going to be pretty damned hard to play least in sight, though, considering how small the ship was—to say nothing of the fact that there was only one bed and four people on board.
She had a bad feeling they hadn’t changed their sleep rotation on her account. She supposed she could ask them to, but that didn’t mean they would.
She just wouldn’t sleep on the bed, she decided. They couldn’t accuse her of trying to tempt them if she didn’t use the bed!
And she could claim the forward bathroom as hers, she decided. They all used the one off the sleeping quarters because this was where they kept their clothing.
It would probably be best, she decided, just to steer clear of the sleeping quarters altogether, though she hated giving it up because it was pretty much the only private area. If she spent all of her time in the cabin, though, they might begin to get the idea that she was just waiting for one of them, or all of them, to take her on. Of course, she ran much the same risk if she loitered within their view.
She wasn’t just going to lay down and take it, literally, though, not when every other word out of their mouths made it patently clear that they didn’t see her any differently than they viewed every other human, and that was with contempt and hate. It wasn’t that she didn’t agree with a good bit of it. Unfortunately, they were right about being superior, damn them! Their creators, stupid things that they were regardless of how brilliant they were as scientists, had gone out of their way to make their ‘creation’ a masterpiece and superior in just about every way to humans. And if it was true that the cyborgs had evolved into awareness, and she had a hard time disputing that, then everything that had been done to them, up to and including putting a price on their heads because they had ‘gotten out of hand’, created a mountain of reasons for them to hate humans.
By rights, that should have been directed at their tormenters, not the entire human race, but she knew they were all being tarred with the same brush because, whether they’d actually had a hand in it or not, most of them would feel the same way and react the same way. The cyborgs had become a threat, and humans, by their nature, dealt with threats by trying to wipe it out.
* * * *
Gideon hadn't made it halfway across mid-ship where Gabriel and Jerico were working on putting the galley area back together when Gabriel happened to glance in his direction and stiffened. Distracted as he was by his exchange with Bronte, Gideon knew instantly what had caught his attention—the scratches across his chest. Anger surged through him. He was the senior officer on board. He did not answer to either Gabriel or Jerico and even if not for his rank, he would not.
He stopped, meeting Gabriel’s challenging glare with a challenge of his own.
“She scratched you,” Gabriel ground out.
“She did,” Gideon responded coldly.
Jerico came upright and turned to stare at him, as well. “Why?” he demanded, anger threading his voice.
Gideon slid an annoyed glance in Jerico’s direction. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned almost casually against the wall. “If it concerned you I might consider answering—despite the fact that I am senior officer here and do not consider it any part of my duty to answer to my
subordinates.”
“This has nothing to do with rank, military matters—or orders—and you damned well know it.”
Gideon glanced at Gabriel. “It was not I who displayed a complete lack of self-discipline and sent her into hiding,” he said pointedly. He examined his fingernails with apparent interest. “If the point you were trying to get across to her was that you were warriors capable of protecting her, you failed lamentably. If, however, you thought it wise to make it abundantly clear that you are little better than undisciplined savages, then you should applaud yourselves. That display was very convincing.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. He slid a fulminating glare at Jerico. “It was not I, either,” he snarled.
Jerico reddened. “You frightened her and you made her cry. How you can figure that you did not start it is beyond me!”
An expression of discomfort crossed Gabriel’s features. “I am supposed to know these things will upset her before I open my mouth?” he growled. “I have not seen that telling her nothing at all reassures her. Nor, might I add, did your pretty speech seem to make her feel less threatened! And I would like to know how it is that you have come to see yourself as her champion! You claimed no interest in her yourself. You claimed that you were courting Rose!”
“I do not have a mate,” Jerico snarled. “It makes no difference if I was courting Rose before we left. She will have decided in this time to take another!”
“She is human—not cyborg.”
Effectively silenced, Jerico and Gabriel both turned to stare at Gideon at that.
“Even if you could get offspring on her, and you do not know that you can, then it would most likely be human, not cyborg.”
“You do not know that,” Gabriel said finally.
Gideon shrugged. “You will have to consider it, however. We are part human ourselves. A human and a half-human will likely produce a human … assuming, as I said, you were able to produce at all.”
Cyborg Nation Page 6
