So like her. Amusement moved his chest as he stretched, relaxing in the body print that still held her shape pressed to his. “So you don’t mind if I keep watching then?”
She snorted. “Lazy.”
“Mm.” He rolled out of the bed and padded to the breakfast bar, reprocessed the plates, and left them on the bar to fill up with food. “Both my sisters went through the phase you’re doing right now. When they were about two, they discovered breakfast nanobots. They’d pour it out over and over.”
He’d have to remind them of that when he saw them. Lucrative, toxic Dinar IV had even more advanced nanobots than this planet. Mercury especially had been fascinated.
“It keeps my brain busy.”
He sipped coffee. “Trying not to think of something?”
“Bad dreams.”
“I didn’t realize robots dreamed.”
“They don’t.”
The slight fizzing sound of the nanobots dissipating the juice molecules echoed in the stilled room. She focused on it with her whole being. Tight shoulders barely touched the couch as though simulating relaxation. The light of the morning no longer seemed cheery.
Once again, he sensed her fragility. She was, perhaps, fighting something much larger than anyone guessed. Something that pockmarked her with explosions, but only on the inside.
Last night, her shape had provided him such comfort. He hadn’t expected to be able to sleep. But he had woken more refreshed than before the day he had signed away his life to the lady rogue. Perhaps even earlier, the day he had left school and assumed the gubernatorial position on the insistence of his father.
She lifted the glass into the beam, studying the filling liquid with her whole intensity.
He programmed in the one recipe he had ever memorized. The reprocessor made the dish; warm dumpling shapes scented of coconut and filled with the essence of aprium, rose, and dusted in sweet, crunchy honey.
Aris carried the dish to her and sat next to her on the couch, easing into position, one arm around her stiff shoulders on the back of the couch.
He lifted one of the pieces and offered to feed her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Eat one and I’ll tell you.”
She regarded it skeptically. Then she ignored the one in his hand and took one from the plate.
As she wished.
Although he would love to feel her small teeth nibbling on his fingers—and just about everywhere else—he crunched the one he had held out for her. “Now you’re initiated.”
She paused mid-crunch. “Into what?”
“The Secret Summer Brunch Bunch.” He took a second one.
She studied him with more skepticism.
“Have you ever had the experience where you know something is good, but there’s no way to hold onto it?”
She kept her eyes on him as she ate, wide and liquid. His cock clenched. A man could get lost in a gaze like that.
“That’s what this tastes like to me. A perfect lazy day with my family. Never to be recaptured, never to be forgotten. What do you think? Does it taste comforting?”
She chewed the small cake. “It’s sweet.”
“Like nostalgia.”
He touched the small hairs tickling the back of her neck, watching her stiffen and release, stiffen and release, but not move away from his touch. A creature who wanted the attention, but couldn’t process it, who needed love, but had been so damaged it couldn’t allow itself to accept kindness.
“Although my father let me stay with my mother during the early years, he insisted on a ‘proper’ education, so I was only allowed to be home during the second-quarter break when we made these.”
“Aris.” His name sounded intimate and quiet on her tongue. A frown fought with her attempt to remain impassive. But no expression prepared him for her question. “Have you ever fallen in love?”
Anyone else asking that question, he would lean forward and smile. I think I just have. In her case, it would almost be true.
But the true constant north of her body drawing his cock like a magnetic compass needle was only part of her attractions, and her vastly superior mind and observations required more.
All he had was his humanity. For her, her desperate need for such made her question naked, hurting, obvious, hungry.
He needed to feed her.
“Yes.” He considered her question. The answer flew to the front of his mind, and he tiptoed past it, preferring to ease into the truth. “It’s happened once or twice.”
She turned her cautious, liquid gaze out on the private chambers of his office. “Here?”
“No. I wouldn’t risk exposing my other family.” Out of all of the women who had shared his time and his body, not one had reached the level of trust, the honest core encased in twisted, thorny heartwood. “It doesn’t matter. I can stand before a woman completely naked, and she still won’t see the real me.”
“Past your position as governor.”
“Exactly.” People who visited these chambers only want to see their own reflections in his eyes, not the man beneath. “I can’t remember the last time I lost my temper in front of another person.”
“Last night.” She folded her small hands together.
Fuck.
He wanted to hold her and caress her and nuzzle her and seduce her until she clenched his hair and her face released all her worries with a body-shaking climax, and all of the tiny hurts jangling like knives against her fragile skin melted into warm, relaxed satisfaction.
Instead, he magnetized a cloth and drew the crumbs from her hands, wiping her clean. “You are special.”
She opened her hands, allowing him to draw the cloth from her palm to the tips of her fingers. Perfect fingers, strong enough to hold up the weight of a dome or swing him to safety, delicate enough to clasp the most feminine dress and admire herself.
He threaded his fingers between hers, exploring their shape and dexterity. How would they feel squeezing his ass as he pumped into her? How would they look in her mouth as she teased him? How would it sound with them muffling her passion-soaked cries?
If only they had met under different circumstances. If only she weren’t trying to kill him and all his loved ones. If only she were actually a human, and not simply a memory of one.
He folded her fingers into a comfortable clasp and dropped the cloth on the table. His fantasies were merely that. He couldn’t make love to a person unable to reach out and touch him, no matter how desperately she seemed to need to lose herself in a man’s touch.
But he was still a man. He shifted forward and rested his hand on her knee. Such a shapely knee, even through the flight suit she encased herself in as disguise. “Anyway, welcome to our small breakfasting club.”
She shifted forward. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He squeezed her and started to rise, angling himself away so that his iron rebar arousal didn’t hit anyone in the face. “It doesn’t mean much these days.”
She put her hand over his, trapping him against her knee. “For everything.”
She touched him. She touched him. She touched him.
The words chanted in Resa’s brain, echoing the same incredible shock that played across Aris’s incredulous features.
He stared at her hand on his—of her own volition. Dawning awareness fought the incredulity and denial. He understood perhaps better than she did what it had taken to overcome her natural protections, her defenses, and cross the barriers between two people to connect.
But it was his fault.
His breath hitched and his heart rate spiked.
He eased down into the seat, turning to face her, one knee pressing into her thigh. It burned like a brand. The nightmares he had so accurately identified, the night terror that had forced her from his bed to do unspeakable things with her body, the horror of losing control while her robot insisted everything was copacetic, receded beneath the single pulse-point of their touch.
It was nece
ssary, her robot argued.
Shut up and leave me alone forever, she replied.
Her robot had betrayed her. It had promised to keep her safe and failed. It hid the truth from her about the Robotics Faction involvement, and now it tried to stop her from saying the words to Aris. Words of danger, words of warning. She would never listen to her robot again.
She needed Aris. She craved him. His touch was the only thing that made her feel like herself. If she could use her feelings for him to break free of the Faction, she could warn him about what she had seen in the census data files. He made her feel alive.
Resa hadn’t intended to give in to her need. He touched her plenty. She soaked it in, and she didn’t care that he saw her soaking in those touches. Kindness after kindness, she drew his words and gestures to her like small jewels, hoarding them, sparkles and glitters, in her arms.
Yes, she was aware of his masculine interest.
Yes, she knew the Faction still thought she ought to use it against him, not truly understanding the difference between the women he bedded and the ones he loved. She could control her desire to become one of those women. One he bedded and loved.
Then he had to go and be kind to her one more time. You are special.
Aris unstuck her fingers. He looked at her with the same expression he wore when talking about his beloved half sisters. Hunger, loss, wish, need. He looked at her like that. Like she was a person he would give up everything to save.
Her controls cracked.
And he saw it.
He saw every piece of her beneath the controls. Vulnerable, striving not to be. Hard, wishing to be soft. Alone, needing so much to be together.
He saw her yearning.
He saw her.
So slowly, so solemnly, his thumb and forefinger touched her chin. Cool against her oddly hot skin. He watched her every reaction, as serious as she was serious, minute for minute.
His masterful fingers slid along her jaw and his hand cupped her cheek. He rested there, their bodies communicating so quickly her mind struggled only to convey her wish.
He leaned in, giving her every moment to draw away, to stop him. Although his muscles jumped in a hundred miniscule ways, reflecting the ways he wanted to throw her down and ravish her body, he knew the importance, the gravity of even this much. The knowledge reflected in his eyes.
For his gentleness, she wanted him so much more.
His thumb brushed her lips. Heavy, full, they swelled, tingling from contact.
He followed the gesture, giving her one last moment to stop him, and then claimed her lips with his.
Unlike their broadcast kiss days ago, rushed and off-center, this kiss met her full and self-aware and hungry. He felt firm and yielding, tentative and sure. Everything she wanted in a man. His lips teased hers, finding her soft firmness and tasting, offering himself and inviting her to play.
She parted her lips.
His tongue caressed her seam, evoking a wet heat that promised only more liquid desire. She wanted that. More. She wanted to lose herself in all that he offered.
He caressed her again, and she opened to him. A sound emerged from the back of his throat, hearty and masculine. “Resa.”
His tongue dipped into her nectar. Tasting, teasing, playing. He drew her tongue out, tangling with his, teaching her what it meant to give herself to a man.
His hand cupped her cheek; his other hand positioned her to accept a deeper thrust, a hotter touch. Yes. This was what she wanted.
She opened herself to his mastery, yielding her body to the man who played her so masterfully.
He squeezed her shape, tracing the curves at her breast, her hip, her thigh. Her breasts tingled and her nipples hardened, seeking his touch, hungry for him.
Every stroke fulfilled her deepest wishes and awoke new ones. Every thrust appeased her need and filled her with a new ache that needed him so desperately. She chased his tongue; she moved beneath his body to rub her aching breasts against his wide chest; she let go of every care. She let go of herself.
He kissed down her throat, nipping new pleasure into her collar, to the edge of her flight suit. “What are you doing to me?”
His passionate question drove straight into her coldly logical brain and lodged there. She stopped.
What was she doing to him?
She was using him to chase away her nightmares, just like his other women used him to chase away their boredom, small lives, and disappointments. She was no better.
In fact, she was much worse.
He noted her stiffness and slowed. Ever the careful lover. Ever the kind, generous, caring man who put his women on a pedestal for admiration. Resa gripped his hair and yanked him up, off her chest. He blinked, struggling to focus.
She wanted to shout at him. Who do you see? Who do you see in your eyes?
But without her saying anything, he started laughing.
She couldn’t process this.
“You,” he said, and buried his head in her shoulder. “Oh, you.”
She tried to hold him upright, but he oozed around her, molding himself to her body, dragging her deeper into the couch. Still, he chuckled.
“What is so amusing?” she demanded, honestly unable to see it.
“The things you do to me.” He snorted, somehow amused with himself. “I haven’t lost control like that since my second decade. How scandalizing.”
He lost control? Because of her?
She struggled to articulate her question. Why, or what it meant. Whether he saw himself in her eyes, or how he saw anything with his eyes closed all the time and his nose buried in her hair.
“You are highly illogical,” she finally settled.
“Hah! No surprise there.” He sighed, his amusement leaving him as his sobriety returned.
A message notification pinged, and when he authorized the intrusion, his household staff discreetly interrupted. “Governor, your cousin hails you via your private screen.”
Surprise shot through Aris. He rose and closed his robe. “I’ll be right there.”
In the public portion of his private rooms, a view screen shimmered into existence. Poyo stared out at them. He hadn’t slept; black hollows beneath his eyes aged him, and the scruff on his cheeks didn’t disguise an old food smear.
“Poyo,” Aris said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He registered Aris. A virulent shot of hate blackened his expression. He clenched his hands and his teeth. “I have to speak with you privately.”
Aris glanced behind him at Resa. “We’re safe.”
Feelings unsettled her. No, they weren’t safe.
Poyo clenched. “The networks aren’t secure enough. Come alone.”
“At your residence in the Morning District? I’ll be right there.”
The hatred flashed a second time just before the transmission ended it.
“That’s the second time I’ve seen that expression this week,” she said.
He rubbed his face. “What expression?”
“Intent to murder.”
He paused and deliberately put aside her concerns. “He’s not interested in the governor’s seat.”
“You can’t go alone.”
He smiled down at her and took her hand, sliding his fingers between hers. “He won’t begrudge me one beautiful companion.”
She would follow him anywhere.
He reorganized his daily schedule, putting off meetings, conferences, and public appearances. Then, in preparation for their meeting, he groomed her, once again dismissing his dressers and instead assigning himself the task of drawing his fingers through her crinkly hair.
“What do you think he wants?” she asked since Aris didn’t seem to believe Poyo would hurt him.
“I haven’t yet decided.” He teased her sensitive scalp, spreading delicious tingles through her.
Even though she was the one who had stopped him, her lips craved his weight on them again. Her body craved his. She touched his moccasin-covered toe
s, feeling the hard shape contained within the plush leather. He hesitated, but carried on, twining her hair into small glittery bows.
“You’re good at this,” she said, seeking to draw him out.
“I had lots of practice. One of the few useful things I did for my sisters.” His smile changed to pain and whisked away. “But we are accruing useful things again. Soon, the past won’t matter.”
She thought he was too harsh. He hadn’t summoned the Robotics Faction assassins any more than her brother had summoned the invaders who took his life. Or so she believed. “Your sisters wouldn’t want you to risk your life.”
He shrugged. “On the other hand, they would never have betrayed me like I betrayed them. A life for two lives seems rather cheap, don’t you think?”
He worked steadily, twining the ties to gems and sparkles. “Historically, we would rather be beautiful than strong. But I believe there is great beauty in strength.”
His words seemed to be spoken into her. So sincere. They filled her with the same hungry ache. She wanted more words, more kindness from him, more touches.
She squeezed his toes.
His expression shimmered. Micro-expressions, too fast for a human eye, told her his struggles.
He felt attraction for her, she knew, and those expressions were among those he tried to hide. But others, less obvious, surprised her. He felt his own hunger, his own loneliness, his own desire. A need for kindness. Weakness masked by strength.
Recognition. An undisguised respect for her caught in the middle. And the clear determination not to be ruled by his weaknesses or fears.
He patted her shoulders and rose. “Time to dress.”
For himself, he selected a suit appropriate for the most formal occasion and dressed it down in a concealing jacket, but the rack of dresses didn’t speak to her in so many words. She touched the peacock gown, the bird of paradise petal-crown, the butterfly-feathered dress. Some would be more appropriate at a formal occasion; most would not allow her to dress down.
“I made those in school, where my half sisters couldn’t see. I always got nicer things from my father, and when I was young, I thought it was because I was better and I deserved them. Then, I discovered I was not.” He turned to the rack. “Have you decided?”
Liberation's Vow (Robotics Faction #3) Page 17
