Woven

by Elle E. Ire

  But instead of stress and anxiety, Vick’s emotional aura reflects calm contentment. “We are,” she assures me. “A lot has happened in four days. I’ve been in contact with Secretary Hothart back on Earth. She’s more than a little grateful to me for saving her daughter’s life, twice, and she’s added her voice to your mother’s petition to have me declared legally alive and human by Earth’s laws. It hasn’t officially passed yet, but they expect it to go through in the next One World session. That means I’ll be even wealthier, once I inherit my father’s Earth holdings. Won’t fix my issues on Girard Moon Base, but it’s a start. It also means—” She pauses dramatically. I glance up. Her eyes are alight with joy. “—we can marry for real, legally, on Earth.”

  “Oh!” I hug her again, bouncing up and down in my excitement. “We’ll invite everyone! Mom and Dad, Lily and Tonya and Michelle. Not too many, just an intimate gathering. I’ve always wanted an elegant, romantic wedding.”

  Vick laughs. “Well, I’m not sure how well I’ll do at ‘elegant,’ but I’ll try my best.”

  “You always do.” I reach up to stroke her cheek. She leans into my touch, wanting, needing, and I detect a different set of emotions building within her, desire at the forefront of them, stirring my own. “And your… other issue?”

  Vick’s grin is wicked. “One World wants to keep human cloning as secret as possible. Apparently, there are some very important, high-powered people looking to make use of the process if they can ever resolve the memories issue. Genetics transfer. Knowledge and memories still don’t. Not without implants, and no one in their right mind wants to go through that.” Vick pauses, taking a deep breath. “But it’s still illegal, even on the moon. They’ve explained away my ‘double’ at Klenar as some really good plastic surgery, and my name’s been cleared back at Girard Base. But the One World government has told the Storm board of directors in no uncertain terms that if the Fighting Storm pursues me, tries to force me to come back to them, they will reveal the Storm’s cloning research to the moon’s legal representatives. It’s all a delicate dance, but the negotiations are holding. For now.” She cups my face in her hands, looking deeply into my eyes. “We’re safe, so long as we never go back there, so long as I never set foot in their jurisdiction again. I assume you’re okay with that?”

  I nod. “I’ll miss Lyle and Alex, but yes, I’m okay with it.”

  Vick grins again. “You may not miss them for long. I’ve talked with them too. When their current contracts are up at the end of the year, I’ve invited them to come work for me. I’ve got an idea for opening a private security company—Torrent Protection Services.”

  Torrent. Vick’s real last name. I wonder if she’ll go back to using it or if it’s just a memorial to her father. Either way, she won’t be retiring and settling down. I never expected she would.

  “And we might be getting Robert as well,” she goes on.

  A wave of relief washes over me for the injured OWL. “He made it, then?”

  A shadow of darkness passes across Vick’s face but quickly disappears. “Yeah. His injuries were pretty severe, though. He’ll mostly recover, but he won’t be OWL quality. I think he’ll fit in great with us. I just need to convince him.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way,” I say, patting her arm.

  A comfortable silence falls while we continue to hold each other. Vick breaks the stillness with, “So, you’re better. A lot better. Right?” Her tone is a study in casual calm, but my empathic skills pick out the urgency beneath the words and I laugh.

  “Yes, much. Definitely up for… whatever you’ve got in mind,” I say, lowering my voice to a sultry purr.

  A shiver passes through her, and I feel her heartbeat pick up speed through her thin T-shirt. Instead of a verbal response, she leans down and presses her lips to mine, conveying everything in one desperate kiss.

  “Let me give you what you need,” I breathe when we come up for air.

  “Oh no,” Vick whispers, her eyes dark with want. “You’ve been giving me that since the day I met you. Tonight, I’m going to do everything in my power to give all of it back.”

  Chapter 51: Vick—Love and Secrets

  I am woven.

  WRAPPING MY fingers around Kelly’s, I tug her toward the door. She hesitates, gesturing toward the bed with her free hand, her eyebrows raised. “I thought we were—”

  “No,” I tell her, opening the door and stepping with her to the top of the open staircase with a railing overlooking the two-story living room below. “I have something special planned.”

  I release her and she steps to the rail, a gasp escaping her soft lips. I join her, taking in what I spent hours setting up earlier today. The overhead lights are out, but dozens of artificial candles in crystal holders glow on every surface. They cover the coffee table, the end tables, the bookcases against the far wall, bathing the room in warm romantic light. A fire roars in the large stone fireplace, casting flickering shadows across the room. I pushed the furniture back, leaving an open space in front of the hearth where I scattered blankets and throw pillows. An ice bucket with a bottle of chilled champagne sits within easy reach of the cozy nest.

  “It’s breathtaking,” Kelly says, turning to me with a beatific smile.

  I shrug. “Guess I can do ‘elegant’ after all.” I didn’t even use the implants for suggestions. This is mine, all mine, as perfect as I can make it for her. Kelly deserves no less.

  She starts down the stairs, taking them carefully, holding on to the wood railing, and I worry I may have rushed this. I’ve been monitoring her recovery. I knew she’d be up and around today, but maybe this is more than her body is ready for.

  “If you’re too tired—” I begin.

  Kelly halts at the halfway point, turning to face me. I’m two steps up, and she grabs the collar of my jacket and tugs my lips down to hers, but before I can kiss her, she speaks. “Love and romance are exactly what my empathic senses need. Positive emotions are better than any medicine. I want you, right there,” she says, pointing at the collection of pillows, “and right now. If you hesitate again, I’m going to take you on the stairs.” Then she spins around and sashays the rest of the way down to the first floor, swaying her hips and making me melt inside.

  By the time I catch my breath and catch up, she’s standing in front of the fireplace, the flames behind her giving her an ethereal, angel-like appearance, and even as pale as she still is, I swear she’s never been more beautiful. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows making up the opposite wall, snow falls in an increasing curtain of white, dampening sound and causing everything to sparkle.

  I am not worthy of this woman. I never have been. But for some reason, she wants me anyway. My hands shake as I reach for the hem of Kelly’s pajama top and draw the soft fabric up to reveal her slim waist. She raises her arms for me, and I tug it higher, over her bare breasts, then off. I toss the top aside. Goose bumps spring up along her arms, and her nipples harden to taut nubs. Despite the heat coming in waves from the fireplace and the central system in the cabin, she shivers, an abrupt, violent tremor that works its way from her shoulders to her middle. I rub my palms up and down her arms, creating warmth, concerned for her comfort. Her healing isn’t complete. I don’t want her to catch a chill.

  She crosses her arms and covers my hands with her own, stopping my motions. “It’s all right,” she whispers. “You’re going to heat me up soon enough.”

  Okay, then.

  Since the Rodwell assault, I haven’t done much leading in our sexual encounters. With VC2’s memories woven with mine, I have those negative images back, even if they are blurred. I’m nervous about how this will go. When I reach to remove Kelly’s pajama bottoms, my hands tremble so badly that I end up snapping the elastic waistband back into her skin.

  “Eep!” Kelly jumps backward, then laughs, pointing down at the multicolored plush pjs. “You know, in a setting like this, I should be wearing satin or lace, not plush. There goes the r
omance novel.”

  I shake my head, stepping to close the distance between us again, and pull her to me. Her breasts press against my T-shirt, the hardness of her nipples sending my pulse rate skyrocketing. “You’re adorable. And beautiful. And the pjs are perfect.”

  “Well, you chose them. Right?”

  “Are they okay?” Other than the clothes on our backs, everything we both owned was either abandoned on Girard Moon Base or at the Klenar Facility. I’ve had new wardrobes delivered to the cabin, ordering for Kelly by going off the sizes of the clothes she escaped in, but styles? I picked things similar to what I’ve seen her wear, and for the rest I selected by choosing the absolute opposite of anything I’d buy for myself.

  “I love them.”

  “There’s lingerie too,” I admit, feeling a blush creeping into my face.

  Kelly raises up on her toes to breathe into my ear. “Good. Next time. I like variety. Now take these off me.” She snaps her own waistband.

  I get a firmer grip and ease the supersoft material over her hips and buttocks, letting my fingers trail over the smooth skin of her bottom as they pass. Following her pjs to the floor, I kneel before her and lift first one bare foot, then the other, to remove the pants fully. Then I toss them onto one of the couches and focus on the gorgeous naked woman standing in front of me.

  My mouth comes approximately to her belly button, so I kiss around it, then tease my tongue into the sensitive spot. Kelly squirms, giggling, her fingers digging into my shoulders. I slide my hands over her curves upward to her breasts and massage them, brushing my palms across her nipples and tugging those between my thumbs and forefingers. Her skin is flawless, soft and smooth where I’m calloused and rough, but that doesn’t seem to bother her. On the contrary, she presses her breasts more firmly into my grasp while her hips give occasional, involuntary thrusts against me.

  “Mmm,” she murmurs.

  I glance up at the sound. Her head is tilted back, eyes closed, a half smile curving her full lips. Instead of continuing to kneel up, I settle onto my feet, lowering myself farther, and drop my hands to part her legs. I slide my thumbs up to the juncture of her thighs and stroke her sex from top to bottom. She’s warm and wet—very wet—and a shiver of pride and anticipation passes through me. Mine. Kelly is mine, as impossible as it seems. And I am hers.

  “So good,” Kelly says, hips thrusting forward more rhythmically while I continue to stroke her, spreading her wetness everywhere I can reach and easing the passage of my fingers over her slick skin, then inside.

  She moans as first one finger, then a second enter her, slowly moving in and out, then picking up speed as I increase my pace.

  “Vick, please.”

  “Please what? I’ll do anything you want me to.” I mean that, and when her eyes open and she looks down at me, I know she feels the truth of my words through our connection.

  “Love me always.”

  For a split second, my rhythm falters. I cover it by curling my fingers inside her, drawing forth a long, desperate almost-growl as I hit her most sensitive spot, but my mind is racing. Kelly is wrapped up in the pleasure I’m giving her, too distracted to detect my momentary anxiety, but there are things she doesn’t know, knowledge VC2 possessed that transferred to me, like the fact that Dr. Alkins never really solved the clone aging problem, that this body I’m inhabiting isn’t aging at a normal rate, but rather one that is much, much slower than an ordinary human’s.

  Whether I live a more careful life over a greatly extended lifespan, or I’m killed and transfer to other cloned versions of myself, I’m going to outlive Kelly one way or another, by a tremendous number of years.

  We’ve always assumed she would lose me first, but now I know.

  Sooner or later, I’m going to lose her. I’m going to have to face living without her.

  I no longer have self-preservation programming. That’s a bridge I’ll cross or burn when I come to it.

  I push the depressing thoughts aside, focusing all my attention on the woman I love. Her walls tighten around my fingers. She’s panting, her hips rocking in time with my thrusts. “So close,” she moans, her knees trembling, hands gripping my shoulders to maintain her balance. “Now, Vick. Take me over the edge now.” With those words, the channel between us opens fully, and her extreme arousal hits all my senses in one erotic surge.

  “Ohhh…. God.” My own nipples harden to painful points. I’m instantly wet, soaking my undergarments as a flush of heat suffuses my entire body. I wrap my free arm around Kelly’s waist and hold her upright. I bury my face between her legs, my tongue darting out to flick her clit, and through our connection, my own as well, adding to both our pleasures, but I keep my eyes focused upward, watching Kelly’s face as her orgasm hits. Hard.

  “Vick!”

  For the first time in my implant-enhanced life, I fully appreciate my 100 percent sensory-perfect photographic memory storage, because the image of Kelly utterly losing herself at my hands is one I will replay over and over for the rest of my days. She throws her head back. Her spine arches, thrusting her harder against my tongue and my fingers.

  I’m so overwhelmed by the sight that when my own orgasm crashes, it takes me by surprise. I let out a low groan, my hands slipping from her as I curl into a ball of overly sensitive nerve endings. Then Kelly’s there, on the blankets beside me, sliding her hand beneath the waistband of my trousers, into my dampened undergarments, and then her delicate fingers inside me. I writhe at her touch, pressing into her palm, increasing the friction until I reach a second climax. She holds me through the aftershocks, each one less violent than the last, until my body stops shaking.

  Somewhere in there, I must have passed out for a moment. When I regain capability of coherent thought, she’s sitting cross-legged on the blankets, still naked, watching me, a smile on her face and a glass of champagne in her outstretched hand. “This will help cool you down,” she says, passing the crystal champagne flute to me.

  I guzzle half in one go, then set it aside. “Kel,” I say, then stop. My heart is full. My mind is at peace. I’ve never known contentment like this, and I have no idea how to describe it to her.

  “I know,” she says. “I feel everything you feel. I know.”

  AFTER A couple more rounds of passionate lovemaking, Kelly falls fast asleep among the pillows and blankets I laid out for us, but while my muscles ache and all my pent-up sexual frustration has found its release, I’m not quite ready to close my eyes. Instead, I stand and wander over to the floor-to-ceiling windows to watch the snow fall.

  It’s already blanketed the outside deck where I’d been standing when Kelly awoke earlier this evening. There’s a good six or seven inches of accumulation. I’m glad I had provisions brought in for several days, because even though the vehicle I rented has ice treads (aircars don’t work well in freezing temperatures), I don’t trust the safety of the surrounding winding mountain roads.

  We’re stuck up here, alone together, and while I know I’ll get antsy soon enough, right now, I wouldn’t want it any other way. Still, I do wonder how long the snow will last, whether things will get worse before they get better.

  An image appears on my heads-up display—dozens of tiny cats and dogs encased in bubble-like snow globes, surrounded by snowflakes and falling from the sky.

  I go rigid, pressing my hands to the cold windowpane for support. “VC1?” I whisper, not wanting to wake Kelly and barely daring to voice the hope.

  No response. The slightly-off metaphorical image flickers out, replaced by weather data captured from the nearest newsnet satellite. Snow and more snow—snowing cats and dogs. Like the implants are learning human slang, but not quite getting the hang of it. Not yet, anyway.

  But soon, I think. Because like me, VC1 is resilient and very, very difficult to destroy.

  The snow falls, and I return to Kelly’s side, curling around her as if we share one body. However much or little time we have together, I’ve learned the most important
thing.

  Our hearts make us human and love makes us whole.

  More from Elle E. Ire

  Storm Fronts: Book One

  All cybernetic soldier Vick Corren wanted was to be human again. Now all she wants is Kelly. But machines can’t love. Can they?

  With the computerized implants that replaced most of her brain, Vick views herself as more machine than human. She’s lost her memory, but worse, can no longer control her emotions, though with the help of empath Kelly LaSalle, she’s holding the threads of her fraying sanity together.

  Vick is smarter, faster, impervious to pain… the best mercenary in the Fighting Storm, until odd flashbacks show Vick a life she can’t remember and a romantic relationship with Kelly that Vick never knew existed. But investigating that must wait until Vick and her team rescue the Storm’s kidnapped leader.

  Someone from within the organization is working against them, threatening Kelly’s freedom. To save her, Vick will have to sacrifice what she values most: the last of her humanity. Before the mission is over, either Vick or Kelly will forfeit the life she once knew.

  Storm Fronts: Book Two

  Empath Kelly LaSalle means everything to cybernetic soldier Vick Corren—and Kelly deserves a partner who can love her in a romantic way.

  For the first time since receiving her robotic enhancements and an AI that makes her faster and stronger than the average merc, Vick thinks she can be that person.

  Vick wants Kelly for life, and she’ll do whatever it takes to be worthy. A holiday on a tropical planet seems the perfect time for Vick to demonstrate her commitment.

  And she has big plans.

  But the best intentions unravel when they’re pursued by a rival mercenary company that wants Vick’s technology—with or without her cooperation. A competitor for Kelly’s affection is determined to tear them apart, and a lover from Vick’s past has depraved plans of her own. Vick might not be able to save their lives without giving herself over to the machine she’s trying so hard to transcend.