by Brenna Lyons
Marked
An erotic short by
BRENNA LYONS
Published by Phaze Books
Also by Brenna Lyons
The Last of Fion’s Daughters
We Shall Live Again
“The Fire God’s Woman”
from Coming Together: Under Fire
Last Chance for Love
Rites of Mating
In Her Ladyship’s Service
Matchmaker’s Misery
Animal Instincts
Night Warriors
Will of the Stone
Bearing Armen
Veriel’s Tales: Crossbearer Turned
Veriel’s Tales II: Losing Regana
and many more…
This is an explicit and erotic novel
intended for the enjoyment
of adult readers. Please keep
out of the hands of children.
www.Phaze.com
Dedicated to The Putzboy Club.
Marked copyright 2010 by Brenna Lyons
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Phaze Production
Phaze Books
6470A Glenway Avenue, #109
Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222
Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC.
To order additional copies of this book, contact:
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www.Phaze.com
Cover art © 2009 Deborah Lewis
eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-60659-982-2
First Phaze Edition – February, 2010
Created in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
January 12th, 2262
Alec Lawton sat in the form-fitting leather chair, sighing as the back slid silently downward to accommodate his relaxing body. It was a toy, one of the many conveniences his famous father, Houston Lawton, had provided for him over the short forty years of Alec’s life.
He fingered the disc over his heart sadly. It was no toy; neither was it an interesting gadget meant to give him ease or amuse him. It wasn’t even his to control. He knew what it was meant to do, of course. Any bio-mechanical engineer worth his salt could have figured that much out, and Alec was without peers. He smiled wryly that he himself had been engineered that way.
Unbidden, her face at the height of climax taunted him, accompanied by phantom flicks of her tongue against the head of his still-engorged cock. It hardened more painfully, and he groaned.
“Hannah,” he breathed. He’d wanted it to come out a curse, but he couldn’t even fake the sentiment; he wanted her too much to do that.
It was the disc. He knew it. For the last ten days, it had been forcing cross-links in his memory core and the associated human mind he possessed, stimulating his very human endocrine system to flood his body with heavy doses of conflicting chemicals, driving him to distraction, then near-mad in this clawing need for her.
He couldn’t remove the disc. The most perfunctory examination would show that it had attached itself to his vital processor functions in those precious few hours his human mind and body had required sleep, and the examinations Alec and Gabriel had subjected it to had been neither careless nor quick and superficial.
Removing the disc would mean death, first for his processor and his augmented mental and physical functionality by extension...then for his human tissues, when the loss of hydraulic control led to the crushing weight of his hardware exerted onto the softer tissues, destroying autonomic functions and, if he lived that long, destroying his spinal column.
The disc could do nearly anything, up to and including forcing a shut-down of his processor. It wasn’t a weapon created to blackmail him.
Even if he hadn’t been programmed with Houston’s cyber morality code—a code that would cause Alec to choose death rather than betray family, company, country, or cause harm—his personal ethics, fully capable of tempering the very polar, binary responses of his machine-self, agreed that death was better than such a betrayal of others.
If Hannah knew enough about his systems to design the disc, she knew it couldn’t be used against him that way. It had been designed to kill him...to kill them all.
* * * *
“May I join you?” Her voice was dark and sultry, smoother than a purr, a bold invitation that no man—or cyborg—could have remained oblivious to.
Alec looked up at her, noting the drink she offered in surprise. While alcohol affected his lesser human functions—coordination and speech patterns by extension—his processor kept his primary “thinking mind” clear. As a result, he rarely had more than one drink a night...just to keep up appearances.
The woman holding the drink was more mouth-watering than anything he’d seen in months. Her auburn hair was only shades darker than his own, than the hair that his brothers also possessed. Her eyes were just that perfect shade of Kelly green, almost surreal in their perfection.
She stood at five-point-two inches shorter than he—his processor extrapolated. A lush body that doctors would term “overweight,” erroneously from his point of view, completed the picture. In fact, she was nearly his ideal woman, offering her company, a walking dream.
Not that he had wet dreams; his processor saw to that.
“I’d like that,” he invited her, motioning to the seat to his right.
She sat, crossing one plump thigh over the other. The drink settled in front of him, and her cleavage drew his eyes. Was she leaning forward on purpose?
“Slow, comfortable screw against the wall?” she asked, naming his favorite drink.
“I’d love to.”
Alec snapped his mouth shut, horrified. Where had that come from? He ran a diagnostic exam on his processor, but it seemed to be functioning properly. There were no alarms or warning beacons. His track of all active programs was cut short by her reply.
“I was hoping you felt that way.”
“Were you?” His normal clear thinking deserted him, leaving him adrift in unfamiliar waters. It almost seemed as if two programs were acting at cross-purposes, an error he hadn’t encountered since he was twelve years old, but none of his “oxymoron alarms,” as Houston had called them, were warning him off.
Her hand settled on his thigh beneath the table, and Alec’s body reacted fiercely to the stimulus. He’d bedded women before; it was part of his cover as a fully-human man to do so, though his processor could easily suppress all sexual urges. He’d even enjoyed bedding them, a natural extension of the processor stimulating his drive at the appropriate time, but he could tell he’d enjoy this a whole lot more.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, leaning close to his ear and giving him another nearly-heart stopping view of her cleavage. She moved her hand higher, cupping his length.
Alec’s ragged breathing wasn’t being smoothed by his processor as it normally would.
“Are you interested?” she asked, rubbing lightly at the proof that he was.
“My place is upstairs.”
Again, he had no idea where the words had come from. Al
ec never took women home with him. It was always her place or a neutral location for a fuck, then home for his rest cycle...alone.
She shifted from her chair onto his lap, her buttocks taunting his sensitized cock. Her hand wrapped around his neck, pulling Alec’s mouth down to hers.
Sensations coursed over both halves of his brain: her scent, taste, the feel of her body against his, memories of her cleavage so close to his face that he could have dipped down for a stroke of his tongue, the sounds of her moans, half-muted in his mouth...
Alec broke off the kiss, noting the bartender’s questioning look out of the corner of his eye. He pretended not to see it.
One portion of his mind reasoned that he couldn’t continue this in the bar. Another wanted to finish as soon as laws and ethics allowed. He didn’t dare try to sort out which mind screamed which. The binary solution, delivered by both halves in unison in a nanosecond of time, was to get her into his private elevator. Now!
“Let’s go,” he rasped.
She smiled sweetly and nodded, rising to her feet.
Alec wrapped an arm around her, guiding her to the elevator in the employee corridor behind the bar, aware of every curve touching his body.
There was no button at the elevator. It had been designed that way; what someone unauthorized to use it couldn’t call couldn’t be hacked for some nefarious purpose.
There was no need for a call button; his processor and those of his brothers would call the elevator and authorize a destination. Only they could use the elevator, unless they brought guests onto it. Until now, they never had.
The door slid open, and she smiled a stunning smile. “Remote access?” she guessed.
It was a good enough lie. “Yes, it is.” Then why did telling her that lie feel wrong to him? It made no sense. They’d been lying to people about this since toddlerhood, and so had Houston.
They stepped on board, and Alec gave the command for the penthouse aloud. It wasn’t necessary to do so, but the V.A. circuitry with voice recognition for family members had been added for just such an occasion.
The doors slid shut, and the elevator started its smooth ascent.
She was suddenly pressed against him. “Can anyone else use this elevator?”
“No one,” he assured her, hoping he was reading her intentions correctly in his scattered state.
Her mouth tipped up to his, and Alec kissed her, lost in passion in a way he’d thought impossible. Weren’t the interlocks supposed to prevent this?
I’ll check the damned software in the morning. Anything that interfered now was unwelcome.
She pulled his tie to mid chest, all but yanking the knot out completely. Button after button slid open on his dress shirt thanks to her nimble fingers. Then his trousers were undone.
Alec ordered the elevator to slow to a snail’s pace. He’d agreed to a slow, comfortable screw against the wall, and she was going to get as close to that as he could arrange.
Her fingers circled the head of his cock, massaging him, and Alec realized he had no hope of delivering the first two portions of that mix. He pulled off his shirt, tie, and jacket together, breaking off the kiss long enough to accomplish it and drop them to the floor.
She pushed his trousers down to his upper thighs, casting an appreciative glance down his body. That was Alec’s breaking point; he dragged her skirt up, groaning at the lack of underwear beneath.
His next coherent moment was sliding to the hilt in her, her legs hooked loosely around his waist, her back to the elevator wall. She ground against him, encouraging him.
Alec thrust wildly into her, becoming more avid...no fevered, as her gasps became moans, then screams of delight. Her spasming body rocked him to orgasm, his sterile fluids pouring into her.
Her face nestled to his sweat-soaked chest, and their breaths came in tandem...not in unison but complimenting each other. It was peaceful yet disconcerting. Surely, there was an error somewhere in his systems.
“What is your name?” he managed. He’d just fucked this woman in his private elevator, and he didn’t even know her name. He’d never bothered to ask it.
The gossip columnists are going to serve my balls for lunch. Sautéed, please.
Oh, well. They’ve been trying to get something concrete on me for the last twenty-two years. At least this encounter had been worth the public trouncing he was sure to take for it.
She smiled. “Hannah.”
* * * *
Alec woke, for the first time in his life, confused at the end of a rest cycle. He felt as if his body and human mind hadn’t rested at all, as if the heat sinks in his processor were malfunctioning. He forced his eyes open, groggily taking in the sunlight streaming through the windows he’d never ordered shaded.
A hasty check showed the heat sink postulation to be a false lead, and Alec sighed in relief, grateful he didn’t have to call in Caleb and Frank to repair him. Such a repair would mean neurosurgery by Caleb, coupled with the parts replacement Frank did so well.
It would also mean up to a week of downtime, while his augmented, accelerated healing repaired all proof that he’d had work that extensive done. The only piece of good news would be that the replacement parts would be of Gabriel’s newest designs, and that meant increased productivity and decreased downtime in the future.
The realization that he wasn’t simply erect—a male condition that his processor simulated in him every morning and several times a night as part of his cover—but aroused, which wasn’t part of the stimulation he was subjected to, stopped him cold.
The sensory input of a woman’s body taking him in was so powerful, he cried out in surprise. It continued, the phantom pussy holding him like a glove, levering up and down his length.
Alec arched his back, clawing handfuls of his jersey cotton sheets, his heart hammering, his breathing erratic. His eyes slid shut...
And, she was there. Hannah. Her body pistoned up and down on his, the smell of her arousal taunting him, real in his mind in a way he couldn’t comprehend.
Her voice sent shivers down his spine.
“Let go, Alec. Come for me.”
As if I have a choice!
At any other time he would be capable of shutting down climax or even arousal, but much like the three times he’d screwed her the night before, Alec had no control and little conscious thought. Climax roared over him with the physiological and emotional force of a mag train.
A smile curved Hannah’s lips, and she shifted her hips back and forth, making him erupt in aftershocks. Relaxation made him weak, and he floated toward sleep in a stupor.
She was gone so abruptly that Alec stiffened in shock, his eyes opening to the still-empty bed, the room...deserted except for himself. He was alone, the jersey cotton plastered to his abdomen with cooling cum.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded of no one.
Logic returned a little at a time, and Alec ordered a sensor sweep of the penthouse. He was alone.
He clearly recalled rest cycle shutting him down while Hannah was in his arms. Why he would make such a suicidal choice aside, how could she leave without him ordering the elevator or disengaging the lock-outs on the outer corridors?
A memory of the sensory illusion he’d just weathered raised another possibility. What if Hannah wasn’t real? What if she’d never been real? His own memories now suspect, he ordered the security logs for the elevator.
She was there. She’d been in the elevator with him. He could prove that much. There was no log of her leaving that way, though if she could access the elevator, she could erase the log of her passing.
No, that was too far-fetched to be feasible. And if she could do that, why wouldn’t she have changed the first log to hide her presence in the elevator, then?
Then where did she go? How could she leave?
A second check of the penthouse yielded the same results. He ordered sweeps of his lab, his office downstairs, then the building in general, his unease becoming more palatable w
ith each negative response on a woman meeting Hannah’s description.
A tickle on his chest cut through his hopeless search for an answer to the puzzle of the disappearing one-night-stand. Alec raised his hand to scratch at it.
His blood ran cold at the feeling of the warm metal disc. His fingers traced it three times; it was the size of a quarter and painfully attached to his skin.
Alec stumbled to his feet and into the bathroom, a vain hope that it was another sensory illusion dashed at the sight of the skin-tone circle placed over his sternal notch.
* * * *
“This is fucking insane,” he exploded.
Alec ripped the leads from the disc and started pacing. His emotions rioted, and his adrenaline was off the charts. The fact that his processor could tell him that, but not artificially stimulate an end to the assault, told him clearly enough that the damned thing had taken control, and he had no idea if he could safely remove it.
The arousal hit him so abruptly, it nearly sent him to his knees. Alec braced his hand on the work station, sweat breaking out on his brow and lip, his muscles so taut they trembled uncontrollably. The mad idea to beat her at her own game by...well, beating off was intense. He’d never had to resort to it before, but if it would work—
The sensation of a tongue flicking up his length caused him to cry out harshly. Then it was gone again, and he was left exhausted, shaky, distracted at a time when he needed to stay focused.
The security uplink passed the information that his elevator was in motion. Alec cursed aloud, then accessed the code for the occupant who’d called it.
Gabriel? Gabriel doesn’t normally come here without checking first. What is going on today?
Suspicious after Hannah’s disappearance, he ordered a visual scan of the elevator’s occupant, letting security do the pattern recognition for him. It confirmed his youngest brother’s identity.
