Body Talk

by Cara Bristol

  The dream would evaporate as soon as he confessed he was a cyborg. If he didn’t tell her, she’d figure it out soon enough on her own. Hell, maybe as soon as morning, when she got a look at his back.

  “Brock?”

  “Hm?”

  “I’m so sorry for the accusations, for ruining your life.”

  “You didn’t ruin my life.” Altered the course quite a bit, and, for that, he had held a grudge for a while, but after seeing the woman she’d become, the past had ceased to matter. “Don’t worry about it. It’s over.”

  He removed his hand from his eyes and turned his head. “I don’t suppose in your dash to collect supplies like rocks,” he forced a joke, “you happened to grab a change of clothes for me?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. There’s a shirt and a pair of pants in the bag.” She grinned. “But you’ve been demoted to flight steward.”

  “Figures.” He sat up, dug out the uniform, and donned it to cover his good-as-new back. Out of sight, out of mind. Hopefully.

  “Why are you getting dressed?”

  “Precaution,” he lied. “Given the exigent events of the past twenty-four hours, I figured it’s best to be dressed.”

  “You’re right. Good idea.” She sat up to unearth her clothing from beneath the thermal blanket. He watched, recording to memory every last glimpse of her nakedness.

  Settling in the cradle of the boughs, he ordered his microcomputer to reawaken, placed his senses on full alert, and energized his nanocytes in hopes the combined effect would erect a barrier between him and temptation. Pia scooted against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Heat overpowered his nanos. Tell her you need to stand guard below. But he slipped his arm around her shoulders. He threaded his fingers in her hair. Despair and peace entwined.

  “Go to sleep,” he said, anticipating a wide-awake night for himself. “I foresee a…long day tomorrow.”

  She sighed and cuddled closer, pressing her palm against his thumping heart. He listened to her breathe as she slipped into slumber. Surprisingly, he followed her into sleep soon thereafter.

  * * * *

  Penelope blinked. Night or morning, she couldn’t tell which because it was still dark, but she awakened to full consciousness and awareness: the attempts on her life, the crash landing, making love with Brock. In sleep, he held her, his heart drumming a soothing rhythm. The impossible had occurred. He’d desired her, and he’d forgiven her for what she’d done to him. If anything positive had come out of crashing on the planet and being stranded, it was that.

  She’d waited so long, she’d abandoned hope that he would show her any personal attention. Deluded herself into believing her love had died.

  Never give up.

  Her body ached from a night sleeping on the boughs, but she felt light and carefree. His absolution had allowed her to forgive herself.

  Lesson learned: life followed its own course. She’d experienced many twists and turns over the years: adolescent infatuation, attraction, anger and jealousy, bitter remorse and recrimination, unrequited love. She’d entered into public service, in part, to right a wrong she’d committed against one man. To make the universe better for all because she couldn’t undo transgressions against the one.

  The air had grown cool, but Brock’s body radiated enough heat to warm them both, as if he’d cranked up his internal thermostat. She marveled at his muscle definition. He’d always been built, but the years had added bulk and hardness. She smoothed her hand over his washboard abs and lower. Definite hardness. An impressive woody. How could she resist such temptation? She pressed her palm against him. Solid.

  One by one, she undid the fasteners of his trousers. His erection sprang out, and Penelope drew a line along its considerable length. She closed her fingers around his girth.

  A vise clamped around her wrist. “What are you doing?”

  “Exploring the terrain,” she said. His hard-on pulsed in her hand.

  “Penelope…” His voice sounded strangled. He tightened his grip on her wrist but didn’t pull her away. She scooted downward, wincing as a branch poked her through the thin thermal blanket, but focused on her goal. She bent over him and lowered her head until her breath caressed his cock. With the tip of her tongue, she teased the weeping crown of his manhood, before swirling around the glans.

  “This is not a good idea,” he groaned, but released her wrist to grab a handful of her hair.

  Victory. She smiled and then closed her mouth around his erection. When he nudged her throat, she pulled back slowly, dragging her lips along his shaft. Plunged forward then withdrew again, savoring the salty muskiness of his taste and scent. All man. Total man.

  The vibrations of his rumbled groans traveled clear down to her clit.

  She teased him, kissing the length until she reached his balls, drawn tight to his body. She flicked her tongue over his wrinkled sac. He jerked. “You’re killing me.”

  But what a way to go. She loved having him at her mercy. She worked her way to his cockhead, engulfed it again, and went to work, sucking hard.

  He seized control then, grabbing her head between his large palms and fucking her mouth like there was no tomorrow. She shielded her teeth, but he pistoned so fast, twice she scraped him. She winced, but he didn’t.

  With a groan that sounded torn from his belly, he came, pumping a stream of cum down her throat. She clamped her mouth tighter around his girth and waited for his shudders to stop. When he relaxed, and his cock ceased pulsing, she withdrew, swiping her tongue across the head to catch the pearly remnants.

  She tucked him into his pants then curled up next to him. He stretched an arm under her shoulders. His heart banged against her ribs.

  “It will be daylight soon,” he said.

  “You think?” She couldn’t tell.

  “Yes,” he said. “When it gets light, I’ll climb one of these trees and scout for clearings and for water.”

  “I still have water left.” They’d been careful to ration their sips.

  “We might need more than that.” Meaning they could be stranded for a while. “Later in the day, I’ll construct a shelter,” he said.

  “We’ll be here that long?”

  “We could be. We don’t want to be caught in the open if a weather system rolls in.”

  The prospect might have terrified her once, but, so far, the planet hadn’t been that bad, and when would she get another opportunity to spend this kind of time with Brock?

  “Good idea,” she said. She stared into the blackness. “I imagine if not for the trees, we’d be able to see the stars.” The way it used to be on Terra, eons ago. Her home planet had cleaned up its air, land, and oceans, but the light pollution had worsened, blanking out the stars. Night didn’t exist anymore. Only dusk.

  Nor could one find darkness indoors. Lights from computers, devices, monitoring screens kept buildings illuminated all the time. Nearly everyone wore a sleep mask.

  “For sure,” he said.

  “I hope I get a chance to see them before we leave this planet.” She’d seen the stars through the shuttle and space-port viewing windows, but it wasn’t the same as observing them from the ground.

  “You can look now. We can see them from the gouge.”

  “Climbing down in pitch blackness might be dicey,” she said.

  “I can guide you.” He paused. “I have better than average night vision.”

  “What about, um, predators?”

  “I didn’t hear a single bird, animal, or insect all night long. I don’t think there’s any animal life on this planet, only vegetation.”

  “So, if we have to spend another night, it won’t have to be in a tree.”

  “We’ll know for sure by the end of the day after we’ve seen more of the planet.”

  “Show me the stars then.”

  He started down first then she descended into the cradle of his body, his form protecting her. He took her hand when they touched solid ground. “
This way,” he said.

  She’d already lost her sense of direction and had no idea which way to turn. She trusted that he knew, even as it amazed her that he did.

  “You must be part cat or something,” she joked as she shuffled atop the thick leaf bed. “Able to see in the dark like this.”

  He didn’t reply, and then they emerged from the woods onto the rocky gully.

  “I still smell smoke,” she noted. “No flames, though.” In this kind of darkness, the fire would be visible.

  “It burned itself out,” he said. “I had a hunch these trees have natural fire retardant properties.”

  Pia tipped her head. Thousands and thousands of lights speckled the blackness doming the planet. Each light was a star, each star offered a chance for life on its orbiting planets. “They look so close,” she said. “But they’re not.”

  “They’re millions, even billions of light years away,” he agreed. “Some of the stars emitting the light we’re seeing now don’t exist anymore. After they burned up their fuel, the smaller ones probably became white dwarfs, and the massive ones have collapsed into neutron stars or black holes after going supernova.”

  “Spewing out stellar material that might someday become new stars,” she mused. “The reincarnation of the universe. The death of a star leads to the birth of another.”

  “Unending,” he agreed.

  “Vast.” She stared up at the span of twinkling lights, and awe solidified into a knot of dread. “Finding us will be like searching for a speck of stardust in an infinite universe.” She hugged herself.

  “They’ll find us,” Brock said. “They don’t have to search the entire universe, just a small portion. The coordinates for our origination and our destination are recorded.” He pointed into the sky. “See that star? That’s Terra’s sun.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked. “I’ve studied astronomy,” he said.

  “But star patterns shift, depending on where you are.”

  “I’ve studied a lot of astronomy.”

  “Well, I’m impressed.” The depth of his knowledge and abilities amazed her. With the star and moonlight shining into the barren gouge, she could make out the hulking shapes of the massive trees. “This planet has an amenable atmosphere. It has vegetative life. Why do you suppose it’s on the restricted list? Why hasn’t somebody colonized it?”

  “I don’t have the answer to that.”

  “Finally—something you don’t know,” Penelope teased. She thought he would smile, but he didn’t. If anything, he looked more serious. Anguished. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not the man you think I am.” He turned away.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t be what you want, what you need.”

  “And what is that?” she demanded.

  “All the usual things.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Listen, I’m sorry I started anything. I acted selfishly. I never should have touched you. Shouldn’t have let you touch me. It was a mistake.”

  His words hit her like a punch to the face. Penelope reeled. What had caused such an about-face?

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s go back to the tree. I’ll retrieve our stuff; we’ll have something to eat, and by then it should be light enough to set out.”

  * * * *

  Stranded with the Cyborg Description

  Ten years ago Penelope Isabella Aaron had been a pain in Brock Mann’s you-know-what. Much has changed in a decade: “PIA” as he code-named her, has grown up and is about to attend her first Alliance of Planets summit conference, and Brock has been transformed into a cyborg after a near-fatal attack. Now a secret agent with Cyber Operations, a covert paramilitary organization, Brock gets called in, not when the going gets tough, but when the going gets impossible. So when he’s unexpectedly assigned to escort Penelope to the summit meeting, he balks at babysitting a prissy ambassador. But after a terrorist bombing, a crash landing on a hostile planet, and a growing attraction to his protectee, Operation: PIA may become his most impossible assignment yet.

  Mated with Cyborg

  Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance, Book 2

  Genre: science fiction romance.

  When Kai Andros, a cyborg secret agent, goes undercover on an enemy space station, he discovers the terrorist’s innocent daughter has been marked for death by her own father. His orders are to get the intel, but instead, he goes off mission to save her. In this scene Kai and Mariska are hiding out on the Darius 4 Pleasure Resort.

  “Welcome to Darius 4,” the male and female androids said in unison. A modicum of clothing revealed they both were well-endowed for their respective genders. The male wore a loincloth, the female a breast-hugging, thigh-skimming toga.

  “I am Karina.”

  “And I am Miktos.”

  “It will be our pleasure to escort you to your cabana. Please follow us,” Their singsong voices harmonized.

  With a light touch to her waist, Kai guided a wide-eyed Mariska along a path meandering through a terraformed park where couples and small groups freely expressed their passion in open-air gazebos, beneath the canopies of trees and on not-so-secluded patios.

  “This is one of our most popular settings.” Karina swept a graceful hand to encompass the gardens where people and androids fucked like bunnies. “We also have specialized, deluxe venues.” She gestured to mirrored domes in the distance.

  “Waterfall and woodland sexscapes are frequently utilized as well,” Miktos chimed in.

  “Are they all nature settings?” Mariska asked.

  “No. We also have sets for restaurants, libraries, infirmaries, and nightclubs.”

  “Infirmaries? You mean like a medical facility? I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Roleplaying,” Kai explained.

  “Exactly.” Karina nodded. “Our patrons refer to it as ‘the naughty nurse game’ or ‘playing doctor.’ Of course, we do have a real infirmary in the event an injury occurs.”

  “Darius 4 pleasure android programming does not allow us to inflict injury on any patron, but often guests arrive with their own partners or join up with others, and, on occasion, their game play becomes overexuberant,” Miktos added.

  “Like the Ka-Tȇ?” Mariska said.

  “The Ka-Tȇ are banned,” Miktos and Karina spoke together. “Darius 4 fosters free and open sexual expression—but not at the cost to our guests’ lives.”

  It would be bad for business if paying guests were ripped apart and killed. He was glad the androids had mentioned it to give more reinforcement to what he’d told and shown Mariska.

  “We will enter through here,” the androids said and gestured to a large dome reflecting the garden scene back at them. He wondered if the two droids were networked since they spoke in sync so often. Except for their singsong voices, they appeared quite lifelike. In a crowd composed of Terrans and Darius 4 androids, one would be hard pressed to identify the bots from sight alone. They didn’t even have the industrial-grade polymer smell. Instead, they exuded a pleasant musk—a masculine, woodsy one for Miktos, and a citrusy, floral one for Karina.

  Miktos opened the door. Mariska gasped, and Kai had to admit he was impressed. It was as if they’d stepped into a tropical island paradise. Powder-soft sand stretched out to a turquoise ocean connected to an azure sky by a thin horizon. White surf crashed gently on the beach and filled the air with a smoothing susurration accented by the cry of sea birds. Five thatched huts perched on stilts over the water.

  Part real, part illusion. His computer brain analyzed the data his cybersenses compiled. The expansive sky was a domed ceiling, arching 100.23 meters at its zenith. The water was real enough, composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen per molecule, with a 3.5 percent salinity, primarily sodium and chloride ion solutes. Except its ebb and flow wasn’t created by gravitational lunar attraction, but a tide machine that emitted a low-frequency hum most people couldn’t hear.

  The crabs scuttling over the ground minerals composing t
he sandy beach? Tiny bots. Same for the birds soaring overhead.

  Mariska dropped to her knees and sifted the sand through her fingers. “I have not seen sand since I was child on my home planet. And I have never seen water like that.”

  “It’s called an ocean. Darius 4 did a good job of replicating it,” he said. “This scene would not be out of place on Terra.”

  “We have on file that you requested our most private setting. Does this meet with your approval?” Miktos asked.

  “Who is staying in the other units?” Kai eyed the five huts.

  “No one yet. Later in the week we have a Malodonian and a Xenian scheduled. You have been placed at the far side,” Karina answered. “We opened this venue last week. We thought it would be popular among Terrans since it approximates one of the biomes on your planet. ”

  “I’m not—” Mariska started to speak.

  “This will be perfect,” Kai said while shaking his head.

  “We will leave you, then.” Karina and Miktos bowed. “To enter your unit, palm the scanner. You may order meals to be delivered or you may come to one of the four dining facilities.”

  After the androids departed, Mariska said, “They think I’m Terran! Why did you stop me from correcting them?”

  “It’s safer if they don’t know you’re Lamis-Odg.” In booking the resort stay, he had checked the Terran box for both of them.

  “You said anyone could blend in here.”

  “It’s another level of protection.” Like the blaster he had tucked into his waistband under his shirt. Darius 4 didn’t allow weapons on the premises, so he’d been forced to leave his blasters and Tasers on the Panthera, except for the easily-concealed small one. “As you saw when we passed through the garden, people are too busy with their own pursuits to pay attention to others, but if anyone does notice us, two Terrans will arouse fewer questions than a Terran and a Lamis-Odg woman. I doubt many Lamis-Odg have visited Darius 4.” Terrorizing the galaxy left them scant time for recreation.

  “But I don’t look Terran!” She crinkled her forehead. “Do I?”