by Rena Marks
She made a soft sound of protest when his hand disappeared, pulling away from her body.
“Shh,” he soothed. He slid out from behind her, lowering her gently to the ground. She was flat out on her back, legs spread, and naked to the waist.
Until he smoothly pulled her scrap of panties down her hips and over her legs.
Steele covered her fair skin with his, dancing his hips into her. Her open pussy, warmed from the sun, connected with his heated skin.
He brushed his groin against her, making her gasp. The head of his cock teased her slit, pushing and retreating.
His head swooped down and he covered her mouth with his. They opened their mouths at the same time, tasting and exploring with lips and tongues and muted groans.
She gasped when his erection pressed against her again, and he smiled against her mouth.
“I need you so much.”
“You know I’m just as turned on.”
“Words. I need the words.” He punctuated his words with kisses strung along her collarbone.
“You turn me on like nobody’s business, Steele. I want you so bad it hurts. I’m so wet with wanting you, it’s all I can do to keep sane. All I want in this moment, in this world, is for my lover to sink inside me.”
He shivered against her, and then his mouth found hers again. He pulled away long enough to mutter, “I need to see how wet.”
She smiled. “You already know how wet.”
His large, thick finger breached the core of her body anyway, stretching her lips and making her hiss as she arched into him. His finger curled into her, moving inside her slickness, and his thumb pressed down to stimulate her clit. She raised her hips into his hand.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said, caressing the muscles all the way up his arms. “So strong. So sexy.” She tightened her internal muscles around his finger, and he groaned.
“Much as I love your long, sexy fingers. I want more. Please,” she begged, wiggling her hips and forcing his finger deeper. She wanted to groan when his hand left her body, but it was just to come up and brace himself on his forearms on either side of her. Then his cock pressed against her vaginal lips, and they parted eagerly for him.
He pushed in the barest inch, and he was thick and wide as he dipped into her slickness. She made a sound of utter satisfaction at the erotic invasion, and he growled.
“I love you so much,” he muttered. Then sank immediately into her depths.
She wanted to shriek with the complete, utter ecstasy of becoming one. The sun warm on their skin, the fresh air clean, the crisp, clean smell of the fresh water as it lapped the beach.
She wanted to shatter with the feeling of his cock pounding in and out of her. She could feel every inch of him as he entered her swollen folds, and pulled back out, triggering nerve endings to light up with each steady movement.
“You feel so damn good,” he muttered in her ear, rocking his hips into her. He thrust his hips, driving back into her deep.
Suddenly her body exploded. Her muscles locked and she cried out as her peak washed through her with intense pleasure. Wetness drenched, rushing from her body to wet her thighs. Steele groaned at the sudden clenching of her muscles sending spasms around his cock.
“Robyn,” Steele muttered against her throat. His voice was so sexy as it rumbled against her skin. He shifted his hips and pushed into her again. The delicious feeling of intimacy enveloped her, and her nails dug into the skin of his shoulders.
“Keep moving,” she said, lifting her hips to meet his thrusts. “It feels too good to stop.”
“I know,” he growled. “I can feel the tightness of you...the wetness...so good...” He rocked into her. “I can’t control it.”
“Don’t control it. Come into me,” she breathed.
He continued to pump, rhythmically, in and out, over and over. His hands gripped her hips, fingers curling into her skin. There was nothing but endless pleasure between them. She was lost in the wonderment of it all, the heavy feeling of Steele thrusting into her, the endless pleasure as she lifted to meet his movements, the sound of him panting her name.
She tightened her sheath and watched the cords of his neck bulge before he shouted, emptying his semen into her.
He collapsed into her, forehead down on her shoulder, arms taking his own weight. She panted as her heart raced, her legs locked around his waist as her internal muscles quivered uncontrollably.
“Wow,” she said. “I like outdoor sex.”
He raised his head to smile at her. “Privacy is amazing. We’ll have to do this more often. I’m sorry. I wanted to go longer, but I couldn’t. I wanted you too bad.”
“We don’t have to go back to the compound right away. We can go back to the bunker and come back when the moon is out,” she said.
His lips covered hers in a tender kiss. “I love that you make time for us.”
He pulled out of her body and she felt his seed trickle out. He stood and held out his hand for her. When she was upright, she giggled and began to pull him toward the water.
“Oh, no. That’s going to feel cold after the warmth of the sun,” he warned.
“Come on. It’s going to feel amazing.”
He pretended to stand firm, but then picked her up and ran toward the water, sinking in. She screeched, bucking as the water reached up and hit her bottom first. He let her go, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “You were right, it’s cold.”
He laughed. “It’ll warm up in a second. And the sun will dry us in just a few minutes.”
She separated from him, cleaning herself a bit, while he splashed her. She splashed back, laughing as they headed out of the water, back to the shore from where they came. Steele caught her to him, holding her close while he ran his hands over every inch of her body, rubbing away the droplets of water. A warm wind kicked up and it didn’t take long to dry enough to put their clothes back on. They began to walk closer to the dry sand, up where they’d stripped.
“Where are our clothes?” He was adorably bewildered, looking around the sand where they’d left the piles.
She began to giggle again and then laughed harder at his expression. “The wind must have blown them away. Come on. We’ll have to run back to the bunker buck-naked.”
They ran, screaming all the way, hoping they wouldn’t run into any others.
Chapter Eleven
“Welcome back,” Amanda said. “Robyn, your mother has been calling non-stop.”
Robyn breathed sharply as her gut clenched. She should have handled this before she left. Now her mother was being invasive by calling her over and over, knowing it would be an irritant to everyone to leave a slew of messages.
Amanda’s face was carefully neutral. “She’s been a bit...”
“Belligerent? Bitchy? Rude? Snide?”
“All of those.” Amanda’s eyes were wide and her voice dropped to a whisper. “She says she hasn’t heard from you in six long months, that you’ve been alive all this time, how it’s been pure torture by not letting her know you’re back—“
“All four weeks?” Robyn said drily.
“You never once called her to let her know you were safe. She was sobbing and screaming, and then...” Amanda’s voice trailed off as she glanced quickly at Steele.
Robyn sighed. “Go ahead with it. He may as well find out what she’s like instead of just hearing things from me.”
During all this time, Steele stared curiously between the women as they spoke.
“The thing with parents,” Robyn said. “Is sometimes they’re not always good. Sometimes parents and children are so different, and the child ends up rebelling. That was when I created Eve, to my mother’s embarrassment. Don’t take anything you hear personally, and that’s the only way to get past this. Trust me, she’s difficult. She thrives on it.”
“Tell us what she said,” Steele said to Amanda, reaching for Robyn’s hand.
“She wants to know if you’re...cohabitating with one of th
ese abominations.” Amanda’s voice was neutral, and Robyn knew she changed the wording a bit. Made it nicer. Less shocking.
As if it could be.
Steele’s face was carefully blank.
Amanda continued. “That was before she asked if you had two. Apparently she watched the footage of your descent from the aircraft to Xenia, where someone in the crowd shouted that question.”
“This is why I avoid her,” Robyn said. “She’s my mother, and I never lose hope that one day she’ll behave normally. I’m constantly disappointed each time the sun rises, and I again realize you can’t change people.”
“And yet you still hold out hope?” Steele asked.
“Always.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my mother.”
“Here she is again,” Amanda said, her frustration evident, as a line lit the computer screen in front of her.
“May as well get this over with,” Robyn said, nodding at her to place the call on vid-cam.
“We’ll give you some privacy,” Amanda said.
Steele leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be out searching for Renegade. Let me know if you need me.”
Once the two of them left the room, Robyn’s mother appeared on the large screen in the office, hair strategically tucked behind her ears to make her appear worried.
“Babydoll! Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick.”
The false endearment made Robyn clench her jaw. “Why, mother? You knew I was under contract and wouldn’t be available for at least six months.”
Her mother glanced around the room to check and see if they were alone.
“Yes, but since you were on the news, I’d have expected a call right away. You know reporters are calling me left and right, wanting to know what’s going on. What am I supposed to say?”
Some things would never change. When it came down to it, she always made it about her.
“That you haven’t heard from me?”
“You’ve always been cold, Robyn. I hope to break you of that one day. With my dying breath, I’ll raise you right.”
Robyn counted to ten. She spoke calmly. “It’s a little late to raise me.” She stressed the phrase mockingly, letting her mother know how ridiculous it sounded.
“You can’t do this to me, Robyn. I spent my entire life climbing the social ladder to success. I’ll be the laughingstock of the nine cities if people found out I became a grandmother to one of those things. If that’s even possible. I understand you want your pet projects, you’ve always been disposed to caring for the ground level and all that, but you’re an adult now and very important to our society...”
“Stop. Stop right there.”
“Now, Robbie, I don’t need you taking that tone of voice with me. I’m your mother, and that entitles me to a level of utmost respect. I’m just expressing my concern for your health and safety—“
“—you’re actually concerned about your image, mother. There is no concern regarding my health, nor safety. You’re worried that people will know your daughter, the daughter of Lady Saraven, prefers to rub elbows with commoners. Those poor, unfortunate souls born to Earth-Ground. Right now, you can pretend to your peers and elders that your daughter does charity work. But heaven forbid it comes out that your offspring prefers to live at ground level.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re obviously under a great deal of stress. I refuse to discuss this with you further if you just continue to sass me.”
Robyn clenched her fists. That was a new one, and it was a completely idiotic thing to say. It was just like her mother to try to reduce her to an eight year-old. “All right,” she said, with a forced smile. “Then this conversation is ended.”
Her mother opened her mouth to speak, but with a push of a button, Robyn ended the call. Her image blinked out.
Robyn stared at the darkened screen, the reflective image of herself. Her. A mixture of features of both her mother and her father. His lighter skin tone, his darker hair.
Her mother always wanted her to have hers permanently lightened.
She forced herself to breathe. Her mother’s interest in her was only due to the fact that Robyn was strewn across the newscasts every single day. Hopefully once that died down, Glory would go back to forcing her attentions on Robyn’s brother. He actually reveled in them. And why wouldn’t he? They were cut from the same cloth.
There was a small knock on the door. She called out to enter, but a female’s head poked through the doorway instead. Her hair was pulled back tightly as if she couldn’t be bothered with the long, flowing locks or like she wanted to detract from her beauty. She had no idea the style emphasized her full lips, narrow nose, and high cheekbones set in a delicate, heart-shaped face.
“What can I do for you, Tempest?”
Only then did Tempest step forth. The extraordinary Xeno Sapien gave her an eye full of her exquisiteness. Her eyes were almost human, a mesmerizing green tinged with the barest touch of gray. But on the center of her eyelids, both top and bottom, was a pop of bright violet which livened up her eyes. The color could be mistaken for eyeshadow, but Robyn knew it was real skin color.
From the neck down, her skin was completely different, marking her as other. She was a deep purple, with mottled colors merged with blues, pinks, and violets. Her colors were concentrated, the skin appearing almost a fine glitter in spots. The texture wasn’t smooth, like the skin of her face. Instead, it was that of a very fine sandpaper. Her fingernails were stained a darker purple. But most unusual was what was underneath her skin. Her bone structure. Her bones were extremely dense, and she was able to break them into fragments. Then, the pieces could be thrust from her skin to be used as weapons.
But whatever testing Crested Ute had done to Tempest made her strange. She was emotionally closed. It didn’t help that the others seemed to fear her. She made her own kind wary, and that was unusual.
She shrugged. “Dr. Becker wants me to see you.”
Robyn raised an eyebrow. Of all the Xeno Sapiens, Tempest refused to call them by their first names. It was a way of disassociating.
Robyn turned in her chair, reaching for her virtual tablet. Tempest’s eyes followed the small mound of her belly, but she said nothing. With a swoosh of her hands, Robyn brought up the 3D image in the air.
“Nightmares,” Robyn said. “You’ve been having nightmares? Are they recollections?”
Tempest’s burgundy lips turned down briefly. God, she was beautiful, the skin of her face pure and glowing pink. “Yes. And I wake from the pain.”
“What pain?”
“My bones rip through my arms. Or my legs. Or my torso.” She leaned forward for the shock value. “My ribs can squeeze a man to death.”
Robyn ignored the statement. Tempest was wearing long sleeves. Robyn held her hand out for hers, and with a drawn-out sigh, Tempest sat in the chair next to her and placed her hand in hers. Robyn turned it over and saw the scabbing at her wrists.
She rubbed the spot gently. It was knitted nicely. She pressed deeper on the arm to see if the bone had any sore spots from being broken. There were no sharp inhales from Tempest.
“I’d like to thank you for helping Lily through her hysterics the day she discovered the mirror,” Robyn said softly.
Tempest shrugged, one shoulder lifting uncaringly. “She’s a child. I don’t want her hanging around me all the time, of course. But hell, she didn’t do anything to me before, so I helped her.”
“What was done to you?” Robyn asked.
“Nothing,” she snapped. “Nothing more than what happened to everyone else.”
Robyn stayed quiet as she ran the scanner over Tempest’s arm.
“They used to laugh and call me porcupine,” Tempest said.
Robyn still said nothing but moved the scanner much more slowly, giving her time to talk.
“The first time I raged, a lot of my bones stabbed through. The humans laughed and called me porcupine after that. I had no ide
a what that stupid creature was. My downloads didn’t cover all of the language.”
“The employees had the maturity of apes,” Robyn said softly.
“They were afraid I’d cut up their precious, expensive Xeno Sapiens,” Tempest jeered. “Yet they continued to force them on me. So I gave them that fear.”
She stared at Robyn challengingly as if wanting her to reprimand her.
“Force them on you how?”
“It wasn’t a technical experiment. It was a game played by the tech aides. Let’s get her knocked up with a porcupine and see if the bones pop through her stomach.” Her voice twisted into a taunt.
“So they’d bring various Xeno Sapiens in to rape you?”
Tempest nodded. “The bastard humans were too afraid to do it themselves.”
“Who were the Xeno Sapiens?”
“Does it matter? No one can remember everything from before.”
“But some can remember a few details—”
“I said drop it.” Her voice was harsh as it cut through Robyn’s.
All of a sudden, Robyn’s hand stilled. Tempest hated Sunny and Beast. She avoided them like the plague. Robyn had assumed it was because of the budding relationship between them, but what if there was more? If Beast was forced on her, could it be why Tempest was standoffish? Perhaps she even thought he was forcing himself on Sunny.
“They brought the strongest in to you,” Robyn said quietly. “He doesn’t remember.”
“Leave it that way!” she snapped.
Under her watchful eye, a bit of bruising appeared on Tempest’s upper arm as her anger peaked. Robyn touched it lightly. “This is how it starts. The bone shifts underneath your skin, and the bruise is a result of the blood trapped. It’s a line showing you where the bone is about to protrude.” Using a light touch, she ran her hand comfortingly along her arm, from the shoulder to the elbow, tracing the bruise. “See where the bruise condenses here? This is the spot where the end is sharpest. The spot that threatens to break free.”
