by Lucas
The door behind her shut, startling her. Once again she wished for the dog.
It does bother me, asshole. That didn’t stop her from watching him step into a glass enclosure in the corner that sterilized his hands and clothing. Their eyes met through the glass.
“No. It doesn't bother me.” She pulled her gaze away from his and rejoiced in her small victory. Her hands clenched at her sides and sweat coated her palms. I can do this. I'm safe here. I'm safe with him. A Cyborg doctor would never botch this. He’s done this before.
Don’t freak out.
Exhilaration slithered through her.
It's really happening.
Her lips lifted. Her hands slid over her belly and its soft rounded curve to rub the spot where her scars were. Her wariness vanished, and suddenly she wanted to jump up and down and scream to the skies and move on with her life.
“Are you okay?”
Yes! “Yes, I'm more than okay.” She didn't try to suppress her smile and was taken aback when the Cyborg flashed her one in return.
“I guess my excitement is catching,” she laughed. He turned away and slipped on a pair of gloves.
“It is, and if you're ready we can get this over with.”
Clara nodded and wanted to dance. Afterward, she told herself. Once I'm healed, I'll dance the night away where no one can see me.
Next, Dr. Canis helped her into the same sterilization chamber, his eyes locked on hers as a gaseous mist coated her skin and clothes. When it cleared and the chamber reopened, he gave her a plastic-sealed medical shift to put on. He then donned a crisp white lab coat.
She moved to the corner, turned her back, and began to peel out of her clothes.
A cough sounded behind her. “I can leave.”
Clara didn't care; her giddiness and the nearness of her goals were at the forefront of her thoughts, not the handsome man who was locked with her in the medical lab.
She shook her head without looking back. “No point, I don't want to waste time. Just turn your back if it’s modesty you’re worried about. It's not like you won't see me in a short while anyway.”
She didn't wait for a response, instead pulling off her clothes and folding them. She slid on the shift and smoothed the wrinkles down.
Her skin was covered in gooseflesh and her nipples were taut, poking through the cloth of the medical dress. It was from the cold, and once again she told herself she didn't care. I'm going to be fixed!
Who cared that it was going to be a dangerously handsome, asshole Cyborg doctor—created to wage war—that was going to fix her? She squeezed her thighs together and told herself it was because of her lack of dress, and not because there was barely a scrap of tissue paper cloth between the two of them.
When he turned around and looked at her, she was ready for his cold indifference, not for the warmth and comfort that shone in his eyes. Eyes he kept fixed on her face.
Why does that disappoint me? Her grin didn’t budge as she scrambled to the bed. He offered his hand to help her into it. She clasped it without a thought.
The moment they touched, something shifted, something unassuming and potent as his large hand tightened around her small one. It wasn't the gentle stiffening of a helpful hand, but the tightening of a hand that wanted to feel more.
They locked eyes and a rush of heat slithered through her. So many shivers for so many different reasons, but as she stared into the depths of his dark eyes, a sense of familiarity poked her memories.
Before she could place it—and the look he gave her—he helped her maneuver into the oval pod. When she was lying down—at her most vulnerable with her heart racing and ready to burst from her chest—a twinge of nervousness returned.
He still has my hand...
“Don't be nervous. You're safe with me.” His face softened and a lock of hair fell over his face. Clara nodded and swallowed, and held back from reaching up and brushing his rebel hair away from his brow.
“I feel safe,” she mustered out. It was the truth. He gave her hand a slight squeeze. So handsome, so wrong. So wrongly handsome. She missed the asshole because she had no defenses against the kindness.
“This won't take long,” he told her. “You'll feel some discomfort when you wake up and you won't be able to lift anything heavy for a day or so, but I promise there won't be any pain.”
“I like that promise.” Clara couldn't take her eyes off his face and she didn't want him to let her go. “Will you be here when I wake up?”
“Yes, I'll be here.”
She briefly closed her eyes with relief. “Thank you, Dr. Canis.”
“Call me, Reid.”
“Reid,” she said softly.
Her body heated outward from where they were connected and she craved more of it. But as Reid released her with a soft caress over her knuckles, Clara realized as he moved away that what she felt was the need to be held, comforted. Well, by the fantasy of him in her head. She was freezing and for a brief moment, he had warmed her up.
Reid had also given her a lifeline of hope that not all men out there were bad and... that was dangerous.
He’s dangerous.
She shook her head and looked at the room around her. This is neither the place nor the time to be thinking about men.
He turned back to her with a scanner in his hand and ran it over her body; the medical feed appeared on a screen beyond her view. His hand held her gaze, clasped over the device he moved up and down her body, and her toes curled, thinking, imagining, that he was doing it for an entirely different reason.
A non-medical reason.
What the fuck is wrong with me? She closed her eyes.
Reid was being entirely professional and she was on the verge of being an aggressor. Clara wanted to open up her legs and ask for a quick, blissful, non-committal climax to get whatever she was feeling out of her system.
Her eyes snapped open and back to him. His focus was on the readings, not her. His attention wasn’t on her.
Clara smiled, knowing he wasn’t looking, and imagined the scenario and shifted her hips a little without meaning to.
I'm fairly certain he'd kick me out of the facility if I did that. She bit back a laugh but couldn't stop the yawning ache between her legs and the idea of her fantasy coming to life.
“Are you ready?” His voice was rough and deeper than before. Her pulse skipped as she was thrown from her thoughts.
The softness of his features had vanished and his eyes had grown dark and menacing; his muscles twitched and strained under the lab coat. He looked mad, yet restrained, and Clara resisted the urge to cover herself up behind her arms.
There's no way he knows what I was thinking.
“I'm ready,” she whispered, letting her previous thoughts burn up in flames.
He brushed his finger over the back of her hand, dousing that fire. Before the pod closed up behind a glass shield and a euphoric mist filled up the space, he did it once more. Clara snatched her hand away from the contact. Their eyes met. He touched me by choice? Again?
She didn’t get a chance to ask why before the glass cut her off and another, thicker gas filled in around her. She sucked it into her lungs. It calmed her heart, took away her excitement, and her adrenaline; her body grew heavy while her thoughts went airy and light.
That touch of his fingers stayed with her until she succumbed to sleep.
CLARA WENT UNDER IN less than a minute. Reid studied her vitals. And when the mists dissipated and her body came back into view, a surge of primal instinct shot through him. It felt like a bullet to his gut and he took a step back. Her smell...
Something he did, she liked; he had made a mistake. He clenched his gloved hands around the scanner, hearing a plastic crack. Even now he could smell her excitement, the heady scent of arousal. His body hardened, his cock stiffened, and he swore to himself that it would pass as quickly as it had begun.
He turned around and counted to ten. Slowly. Then he did it again. It was enough for him to
regain control over his beast.
His fingers relaxed at his sides and he sighed in relief as her smell was replaced by the clinical antiseptic gas released from the machine. He looked upon her with indifference. At least that's what he tried to convince himself of.
The glass lifted away and he loosened the straps on either side of her shift, revealing the lower half of her body.
Reid stopped. He stared. The metal plates in his body expanded.
Every shred of control he had gained back vanished as his eyes traced her pelvic area. An anger rose inside him and his coding flared red alert throughout his mainframe. Clara’s belly was covered in crisscrossing white scars, a web of uncontrolled frenzy. It was chaotic, and even though they were healed, he could feel the pain of her old wounds inside him. The scars ran from one hipbone to the other and down below her pelvis where they vanished beneath the band of her underwear.
He’d read that she’d been stabbed—it was in her file—and even then it had angered him, but seeing them was worse.
A need arose in him to protect what was now under his care and his authority.
Reid wanted to shift his face and growl, to feel the rumbles of his anger vibrate through his body. He wanted to shift and seek out her attacker, whoever he was, and stalk him in the dead of night. He wanted to rip out the man’s throat and feel the slick essence of that bastard’s life force bleed over his gums.
He could already taste the coppery tang of the man’s blood in his mouth.
But it wasn't his place to insert himself into Clara’s life or her past. It certainly wasn’t his place to seek out her enemies. Reid allowed his heart to freeze over again. Right now, there were better things to do with his time: to do for her.
I can heal her, and I can make her future more secure, but I can't save her.
He hooked one finger in her underwear and pulled the top down to see how far down her scars went.
His mouth watered as a delicious, tart scent flooded his nose, and he ran his gloved fingertip through the soft, groomed curls between her legs. The scarring vanished within and left only small trails of white where her hair no longer grew.
So soft. He traced the scars with his finger until it stopped an inch above her clit. His gaze locked on it, pink and perfect, and unhidden. He leaned forward, wondering what it tasted like, what she tasted like and if it was anything like her scent. She’s just waiting to be played with.
Her pretty pink clit looked like a perfect target for his mouth. He wanted to practice.
Reid jerked back as if he’d been burned. The seam of her panties righted back into its position over her, hiding her from his prying eyes. What the fuck is wrong with me?
His jaw ticked as he stretched his tense muscles and he composed himself.
He got to work.
Chapter Six
Reid was sitting at her side, waiting for her to awaken when his wristcon buzzed. He glanced down at the screen, noting that the one human guard in his employment had sent him a message, and opened communication.
‘There's a woman out here insisting that she see Clara.’
He messaged back. ‘Who is she?’ A moment later her IP address flooded through and he had all the information he needed.
Marsha Tannett of Pecos PD. He knew of her, having listened in on Clara's phone call that morning. Her file checked out; Marsha was a sworn officer of the law. Why would someone from old Texas be out in no man's desert America? Furthermore, how did the cop know Clara was here? Clara hadn’t disclosed her location.
The image of her scars rose up in his mind. His gaze shifted back to the sleeping beauty breathing softly in the pod next to him. An innocent who had been hurt by the worst of human society, the dregs.
Reid left her side and headed for the gate, annoyed.
“Let her through the first barrier but tell her to wait. I'll be right there.” He was out of the facility, through the parking lot, and past all the inner gates and checkpoints within moments. He smelled Marsha the cop long before he saw her.
Anxiety and fear. He should've known.
Somehow, in one day, he had become embroiled with women who needed his help. Reid sighed. He needed to make this quick so he could get back to Clara’s side before she woke.
A woman in her late thirties stood outside the vehicle. He looked beyond at the border guard and gave him a nod before he addressed the woman.
“Marsha?” He stepped right outside her personal bubble and she took a step back. No protector of the law let a stranger get close. He had the upper hand though, always had and always would.
Cyborgs outranked cops, preprogrammed with the laws that governed Earth and its people, and although he abided by its laws, there were others that took precedence.
The woman’s hand drifted over the gun belt at her hip. “Yes.” Her voice was strained and her lips were dry. “Who are you?”
“I'm in charge of this facility and I've been told you’re here for one of my patients?” He canted his head.
She nodded and peered around them, casting a quick glance back toward the security gate. It was only for a second, but he’d noticed, and before she could meet his eyes again, he turned around and looked where she had.
The dust rolled off in waves far out into the arid wastes beyond and factories and ramshackle buildings dotted the landscape throughout. Reid scanned the horizon.
She’s being watched, tracked... He knew it. The whistle of the desert wind blew across his ears, bringing with it the creeping knowledge that they weren’t alone.
There was another lifeform nearby and it wasn’t the security guard or Clara. And although Marsha didn't have a gun to her head, it didn't mean she wasn't in trouble. Reid hoped that whatever was watching them knew that he knew. They were on his radar.
She cleared her throat. “What are you looking at?”
“The same thing you were.”
“There's nothing out there—”
“Then why are you here?” he cut her off, turning her way, startling her.
“Sir, I work with the Pecos Police Department and I’ve been in contact with Clara for quite some time—”
“Why?”
She licked her lips and shifted her stance, her legs widening, readying for a standoff. “That's not for me to say. Who are you again? I don't believe I got your name.”
“Does it matter? You're on my ground and you’re a fucking liar. You know what I am right?”
She visibly checked him out and her hands clenched at either side of her waist; the knuckles over her gun were white. “I don't care what you are. My job doesn't concern you. My job concerns the safety of the citizens in my jurisdiction.”
“But we’re not in your jurisdiction and I'm only going to ask you one more time. Why are you here?” Reid said slowly, deliberately.
“Sir—”
In a flash, he grabbed hold of the cop, locked her arms behind her back, and disarmed her of her weapons. Reid let her go. She scrambled back with a gasp and moved to defend herself, but it was too late.
Her gun and the bullets hit the ground at their feet as she spun to get inside her car. He slapped his hand against her door and stopped it from opening, leaving an indent in the middle.
“If this is how you want to play it, we’ll play it.”
“I don't think you understand that you just threatened a cop,” she said in a rush, and he could smell the fear waft between them.
She took a deep breath and he commended her for keeping her cool. “Look,” she said with a shaky breath. “I'm not here to cause problems, and Ms. Warren isn't answering her phone calls. If you allow me to speak to her, we can forget this exchange ever happened, and we’ll both go our separate ways.”
He towered over the woman and watched a single bead of sweat trickle from her hairline and over her forehead. She didn't smell sweet or delectable like Clara, but instead smelled of mint and cold steel, of thousands of hours burned out and wasted in a mediocre job. Easy. The tired are always e
asy.
Reid changed his demeanor, smiled, and nodded. It put her on edge. “Very well. I'll take you to her.”
He walked toward the building, giving his back to whoever was watching them outside the gate. He heard the cop’s footfalls behind him.
“Thank you... This won't take long.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” He let Marsha through the second barricade without a background check. “Clara is recovering from surgery.”
“She's what? Is she okay?”
“Yes, she's okay.”
“She hasn't been hurt, has she?”
“Not unless you count everything she's already been through.” He wondered how much Marsha knew about his breeder.
He glanced back at her. She tensed under his gaze and quickly looked back at the gate. Her movements twitched erratically, worsening with every step she furthered herself from it.
“Unless you count that...”
Reid held open the door to the reception. Marsha looked around with a shudder; her breath hitched. He made no move to enter and blocked the exit. When she got her fill of the quiet, cold place, she noticed she’d been trapped and turned back toward him. “This is a-a cybernetics facility.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth tightened into a straight line and a spark of judgment flashed over her eyes.
He continued, “Who's following you?”
Marsha startled but then stiffened. “I don't know you're talking about.”
“You're in trouble. How is he threatening you?”
She licked her lips again and her hand dropped onto her belt where her weapon had been. “No one's threatening me. Take me to Clara.”
“Is it your family?” Her jaw tightened. That was it; he had her. “Does he have them now?” He held her gaze. “Tell me,” he demanded.
Marsha let out a long, shuddering sigh, deflated and suddenly haunted. “My girlfriend. He has my girlfriend.”
Reid led her further into the room and asked her to sit. He sat across from her. Her face was nothing but grim although no tears showed in her eyes.
“What are the terms? Bring Clara out of here, to him? And you get your girlfriend back?”
