Kingston 691

by Donna McDonald

  “Working there will be a bit ironic since it was Norton’s database error that put me in the camp in the first place. I look at this job as their way of making things up to me. They’ll get their money’s worth though…until I find something better. I’m a damn good engineer.”

  Dan swallowed a big gulp and winced. “Your record shows it. No one could blame you for wanting to get even with Norton for their mix-up.”

  Seetha snorted and turned back to her drink. “There is no getting even—that’s not possible. No one can ever give me those years back. I lost over a hundred pounds while in the camp. I was forced to work and tortured when I didn’t. I didn’t even have clothes to fit or decent shoes. I barely had living quarters and a way to clean myself. It was like being a prisoner of war and that’s how I will always think of it.”

  “Well, lucky for you, your ex decided to break you out. I read he and his old military group are doing that for cyborgs too. It’s like their hobby now. They run businesses, have families, and in their spare time, they steal cyborgs.”

  “Rescue,” Seetha corrected, irritated at his verb choice. “They rescue cyborgs from their enslavement.”

  “Of course,” Dan said, frowning at his now empty glass. “Sorry for my phrasing. I think the drinks have gone to my head tonight.”

  Seetha shrugged, unwilling to let him know how he unnerved her. “At least Norton seems to be doing the right things by the cyborgs these days. It makes me believe I can work for them. Calibrating cybernetic enhancements isn’t my dream job, but it will do until I find something better.”

  Franco appeared at her elbow and ushered Dan to his table. Seetha sighed in relief to be rid of his company. A short while later, her second drink magically appeared and her water glass got refilled. Mere seconds after, King slid a plate of stir fry in front of her.

  “Hi. You look amazing tonight. There are no tables, so you’ll have to eat at the bar. Are you doing okay? I can sneak away in about an hour. Franco said he would close. Quit smiling at my bartender before I have to fire him.”

  “Perfect,” Seetha said breathlessly, as King leaned into her and brushed her lips. “And I wasn’t flirting with your bartender. I was begging for mercy and trying to survive your wasabi pretzels.”

  “Greg has plain ones available too, but you have to ask for them.”

  “Now you tell me,” she said.

  She watched King wink before tearing off through the restaurant without bothering to say goodbye. A sigh escaped her as she turned back and put a fork into her food. Two bites later and she’d confirmed the dish was just as good as it had always been back when he’d made it only for her.

  ***

  “Why did you buy such a small airjet? I can barely get in and out of it. How the hell do you do it?”

  King laughed. “It’s takes some finagling. I admit I enjoyed seeing you struggle to keep those sexy legs together on the ride here.”

  “I am not buying that as the reason you didn’t spring for something big enough to fit you,” she said, finally getting free of the passenger seat. Her dignity had been gone the moment she’d folded herself into a vehicle space meant for someone half her height. “And just so you know…I’m taking a pod cab home. This tiny thing is not meant for a tall woman like me.”

  King pushed his body free of the driver’s seat, grateful the garage wall didn’t sustain any damage when he hit it pretty hard on exiting. Seetha stared at him in disbelief, and then bent forward laughing.

  “It’s not that funny. This model got the highest rating of any economy airjet. I’m saving a ton of money using it to get around.”

  “You are at least six feet seven or eight. This airjet is sized for someone under six feet tall. Those extra inches you’re packing around have no place to go.”

  King laughed and stared. “Well, that’s why I brought someone like you home. So those inches would have some place to go that fit.”

  Seetha snickered at his dirty joke. “Goddess save me…you’re a cheap ass, and you think I’m going to be cheap too. Boy, are you going to be surprised.”

  King grinned as he walked to her. “Cheap—no. As desperate as I am—yes. When was the last time you had sex…with another person?”

  Laughter died as she turned away. “I don’t think I want to tell you.”

  “Okay, I’ll go first. I did the research. It was with you…just before you returned me. You cried afterward and sent me back the next day. My time with Annalise was like a mother taking care of an invalid son. I haven’t dated…or been with a woman…since my restoration. This really wasn’t too hard to figure out.”

  Seetha shook her head. “You just aren’t going to let me keep any pride, are you?”

  King pulled her into his arms. “Did anyone take advantage of you in the camp?”

  She shook her head against his shoulder and tried not to think about how good he smelled, even if it was like food. It was a familiar thing to smell aftershave, King, and whatever they’d had for dinner. He’d done most of the cooking.

  “No one took advantage, not that I ever consciously knew anyway. They fed me prepackaged food bars for every meal. If one had been tainted with knock-out drugs, I think I would have figured it out. The AI’s had no reason to assault me and William barely remembered I was there from day to day. Honestly, I worried more about being killed than sexually assaulted.”

  King nodded. “I’m both relieved and appalled. The more I’m around you, the more I hate thinking of you there for so long. I still want to destroy something every time the subject comes up in one of our conversations.”

  Seetha sighed and pulled out of his arms. “You’re like a stranger and like the man I knew—both at the same time. Who are you, Kingston West? Who are you really? I can see now I never really knew.”

  King shook his head. “I don’t know. No cyborg knows. I can tell you the ambient temperature of the air around us. I can instantly calculate the area of this storage without needing tools to do it. I can lift this airjet and throw it through the wall if I get motivated. But I don’t know what to tell people about the how confused I always feel. I am aware that I am both man and machine. The best I can do most days is set the confusion aside and focus on the restaurant.”

  Seetha stepped back into him and lifted a hand to his face. “Vulnerability doesn’t take a damn thing away from you…that’s what shifted things between us before. You rushed away from me one day to rescue a chained up dog who was tangled on its leash. When you came back, you said you used to have a dog when you were a child. I realized then you weren’t just Kingston 691. I instantly regretted every moment I had spent thinking of you as something less than a person who was just as real as I was. I think I fell in love with you that very moment. Afterward everything between us changed. I fought Norton about your upgrades because I didn’t want you to forget the things you’d started remembering about your past.”

  “I remember them again now. I did have a dog as a child. His name was Merlin. He was a pound rescue. He died of old age just before my parents were killed. I was away at college when my mother called crying over his death. I remember skipping class and sitting in a stairwell to bawl like a six year old. Dogs just don’t last long…not compared to humans anyway. No life I’ve had since then has been the kind where having a pet made any sense.”

  “Now you can have one if you want. Having an animal is a small luxury every person should have a chance to enjoy.”

  King chuckled at her sincerity. “The restaurant takes a lot of my time. I’d end up hiring a dog caretaker for him. No—I think I’ll wait until I have time to devote to the animal personally.”

  Seetha nodded. “Guess you’re right. I wouldn’t want anyone raising my pet either.”

  “Come on,” King said. “We’re being sad tonight and that was not my intention. Let’s go inside and get comfortable. I want to slide my hands up your legs and find out what you have on under that skimpy dress. I’m excited to do what all those other men sp
ent the night dreaming about doing.”

  “You mean all three of them?” Seetha teased.

  “You’re being modest,” King said.

  “Not really. And you can’t count Dan Masterson. He’s way more interested in you than me. Every conversation I’ve had with the man comes back around to you. He’s one step short of being a stalker.”

  Ignoring her comments about the man who had gotten to chat with her two nights in a row, King took her hand. “I find you easy to be around, entertaining to talk with, and sexy to look at. This…us…it just seems like it should be. That’s why I brought you home with me. I hope I can talk you into staying.”

  Seetha shook her head and fought not to cry. “Meant to be? How would you know? You don’t remember anything. Maybe I’m lousy in bed.”

  King laughed and swung her around in his arms. He bent and kissed her until her arms wove around his neck. He lifted her backside in both his hands and pulled her close. “Storage area…or my bedroom? Choose because I’m ready to find out how good you are.”

  Seetha laughed and let him draw her inside the house with him. Then she stopped laughing.

  She turned to King, her lip trembling. How could he hurt her this way?

  “What kind of game are you playing with me, King?”

  King looked around, saw nothing unusual in the space. He looked at Seetha, read about a zillion signs of distress, and scratched his head. “I don’t understand. What bothers you about my house?”

  “Your house?” Seetha demanded. “Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn’t replicate the house we lived in on purpose?”

  King shook his head. “No. Are you telling me I picked out furnishings like what you used to own? Seetha, that’s impossible. I did this over a year ago. Most of this furniture came from a single estate sale. Some woman disappeared without a trace and the mortgage company was auctioning off her…ah…holy shit. I never put it together before.”

  His hand ran over his head, automatically feeling for his cybernetic compartment. He needed to feel like he wasn’t living a horror movie—or at least more of one.

  “I saw the estate auction ad online…don’t remember how exactly…and when I went to the sale I ended up offering the woman one price for everything that was left.”

  Seetha crossed her arms—hugged herself. “Look at the end of the table. Is there a gash on the edge, like almost a half inch deep? If so, this is the exact furniture I owned. Mother said she let the house go back to the mortgage company because she had to use her money to buy you.”

  “I didn’t buy the house because I had already bought this one. I just bought all the furniture…or nearly all of it.”

  Seetha dropped her arms and walked in a daze to his living area. “Lights on half,” she ordered the home com, not surprised to see her matching couch and chair, as well as coffee table, end tables, and lamps. “What happened to the big chair like the one at Mother’s?”

  King stood at the edge of the doorway. “I don’t know. I never saw it there. Someone else must have bought it. If a replica of that chair had been here, I would have figured it out before now. And I sure as hell would have warned you before I brought you here. None of this was intentional.”

  Still not sure what to believe, Seetha turned without commenting and walked down the hall. Instinct or intuition or shock guided her. She didn’t know which at the moment. Her senses were numb. She stopped at his bedroom door and took a breath before stepping inside.

  “Lights at twenty percent,” she ordered quietly.

  She blinked at the bed—the bed where she’d spent many long hours making love to the man she could feel staring at her. She turned and glared back at him. How was she supposed to believe that he accidentally found and bought the exact contents of the home they’d once shared together? Shaking her head—because she couldn’t believe it—she started to walk by him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “I swear on my life I had no idea. I saw this stuff, liked it, and it felt right, which Kyra harps on every cyborg paying attention to. I just thought I’d gotten very lucky. In truth, I’d like to say I remembered it or recognized it, but I didn’t. You have to believe me, Seetha. I’m not in league with anyone to drive you crazy, I swear.”

  Seetha hung her head and studied the floor. “I don’t know what to believe, King. This has completely freaked me out. For all I know, you could have been programmed to buy this shit and set up to rescue me. Anything is possible and you have to admit this coincidence is over the top.”

  “I don’t know how strange this coincidence is, but your apprehension is understandable,” King said. “If it helps you, I’m not doing so hot dealing with this myself right now. My processor is spinning and making my head hurt.”

  Seetha’s gaze came up to his. “Every time I turn around, it’s like I’m tripping over the previous version of you. Now your home is living evidence about the past we lost. I feel like I stepped into a movie without knowing my lines.”

  “Would you rather I got rid of the furniture?”

  Seetha snorted. “No. I’m sure once I get over my shock, I’ll be happy you have it…and think it’s incredibly sweet the way you bought it for yourself. It’s just unexpected. I don’t trust that anymore.”

  “Do you even believe me?” King asked.

  Seetha walked a bit away from him before looking back. “I want to and I’m working on it. I don’t think I can have sex with you in that bed at this time. That’s the best I can do at the moment.”

  King held out a hand. “Will you stay here and work on handling it? I don’t want to be alone with this stuff after you leave. I need to absorb this too…just like you are doing. I’m going to run this by Nero, and see what he says about it.”

  He waited for what seemed like hours for Seetha to answer. Finally, she sighed and put her hand in his.

  “Thank you,” King said, gently squeezing her fingers. “Okay—good. Let’s go sit in the living room…on the sofa…until my brain quits hurting. We’ll talk about this again when we feel better.”

  “Feel better? Don’t look now, Pinocchio, but I think you’re becoming a real boy more and more.”

  King ignored her veiled insult to him still being someone’s puppet, as he dragged her with him through the memory hell his home had now become.

  Chapter 13

  Seetha woke in the palest of light to the smell of aftershave and sleep heated man. She was bracketed with warm muscles and held to the mattress by a massive arm thrown over her.

  The last thing she remembered was sitting on the couch and staring off into space. Shock had ruled…and ruined her sexy buzz.

  Some time after she’d fallen asleep, King must have carried her to bed. Their old bed—she recalled now—except the mattress felt new. He must have replaced it.

  Feeling the front of herself, she found her dress still in place and let out the breath she’d been holding. Her relieved sigh must have served as an alarm clock because the sleeping giant stirred beside her. King reached down and ran a hand up her thigh to the edge of her dress. She froze, afraid to move.

  “Good morning,” she whispered, letting him know she was awake.

  “Yes, it is a good morning…because you’re still here,” King whispered back, leaning in to kiss her neck.

  When his hand roamed a little higher, Seetha arched under the caress. That same hand traveled down a thigh and back up to the edge of her dress again. He could have repeated the action a hundred times and she would have been content to let him. She liked knowing King wanted her. She always had.

  “Seetha…I want to make love to you. I want it badly. In fact, I’m going insane here. What the hell do you want?”

  Seetha bit her lip and studied his worried gaze. “I want to find some kind of normal where Kingston West is just this incredible guy I know, instead of being a ghost haunting me from my past.”

  “He wants that too…I want that too. Seetha, aren’t you lonely? And aching? And wi
shing for someone every damn day? That’s been my condition since Annalise showed me the picture of us. I clearly remember my life before the military and during the war. Celibacy is not my default setting as a man. I think you’re the reason I’ve been staying away from women. Please let me find out why.”

  Seetha snorted. “That’s not exactly the most compelling reason I’ve ever been given to have sex with a guy.”

  “Okay…a more compelling reason…coming right up.”

  His hand ran back up her thigh and disappeared under her dress. Seetha hissed when it stroked between her legs. Her head spun.

  “King, I…” but words were taken from her when his fingers started exploring. She blinked…hot tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “There is no way I can do this and not be emotional. When I fell for you…I fell hard. You weren’t like any man I ever knew before you.”

  King lifted his head and smiled. He was determined to remove all worry from her gaze. “I’m still not. Let me make us both feel better, honey. It’s nearly all I can think about.”

  “Okay,” Seetha said softly.

  Somehow he removed her clothing without ceasing to kiss her the entire time. It was like before…only it wasn’t. King was different. Her mind tried to find words to describe how, but they eluded her. He made her so dizzy with lust for him, it was nearly impossible to think.

  When he removed his own shirt, she reached up and sighed again as she ran both hands over his chest. He froze to listen to her sighs and watch. Her gaze went to his. Her voice was husky with emotion when she tried to talk.

  “You are still the most beautiful man ever created by the Goddess…or by science. Every time I get to touch you I feel like the luckiest woman on the planet.”

  King’s heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest. Her voice was just like it was in the recordings…only better…much, much better for being real.

  “Your body is beautiful too, and I plan to restore it to the condition it was meant to be, if you will let me.”