by Mina Carter
His hand slid down her waist and under the hem of her sensible black skirt to stroke her inner thighs.
Claudia’s breath seemed to catch in her throat.
“All…all right,” she whispered breathlessly. “You can have more. But first—tell me if tasting…tasting my nipples helped you remember anything. Anything about your past.”
77 opened his mouth to say no when a ghost from his past whispered in his ear.
“I…I remember saving you from the hopper,” he said at last, roughly. “Shooting it and dragging you out from under it. The way you shook afterward. The way you…you came to me for comfort.”
“You saved me.” Her eyes were shining as she spoke. “You told me to call you by your first name—to call you Drew. Do you remember?”
The ghost of memory wavered and flickered before his mind’s eye…then solidified.
“I…remember,” he acknowledged. “And I remember how soft you felt in my arms…how good your hair smelled…how badly I wanted to be close to you. Like I am now.” He cupped a breast and squeezed lightly at the nipple—with his organic hand, not his metal one.
Claudia gasped and jerked at his touch. Clearly her breasts were extremely sensitive. He wanted to find out how sensitive she was lower down. Moving his hand beneath her skirt again, he stroked her inner thighs until he came to the soft triangle of silky fabric between her legs…her panties.
She tensed, her breath coming in soft little pants.
“Drew,” she whispered. “Wait…”
“Don’t want to wait anymore,” he growled, looking up at her. “Want to taste you now, Claudia. Want to spread your legs and lap your soft little pussy.”
Her eyes widened. “This must be helping, Drew! You must be coming back to yourself. There certainly aren’t any language parameters for dirty talk in your cybernetic circuitry.”
“Dirty talk?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why is it dirty to say I want you…to say that the scent of your skin…the taste of your flesh makes me remember I’ve always wanted you.”
“You have? You do? I mean, that’s what you remember of your time before?” Her eyes widened.
77 nodded. “Always. I remember watching you walk—the way your hips swayed. Thinking about how I wanted to kiss you…how I wanted to put my mouth on you everywhere. Lick you…taste you…give you pleasure…”
“I…I want that too,” she admitted. “And I think these memories we’re bringing back—these emotions—are good. I feel like the further we go…the more you remember.”
“Then help me remember more…” His hand worked restlessly beneath her skirt, rubbing the soft silk of her panties and feeling the heat underneath. “Spread your legs for me, Claudia. Let me taste you.”
Moaning softly, she nodded. 77 felt her resistance fade. He felt her thighs fall open as she stopped trying to keep him out…and invited him in instead.
“If you think it will help,” she whispered as he pushed her skirt up to her waist and nuzzled between her thighs, rubbing his cheek against her panties.
“I know it will,” he growled. And he wasn’t lying. Every touch…every scent…every taste of her seemed to carry him farther away from the cold, sterile existence he’d woken up to after the CyBRG device had been implanted and closer to the past. To the male who had been a soldier and a man, not a monster.
Then he was pulling her panties down, baring her pussy as he had always wanted to, drinking in the sight and scent of her.
Goddess, she was beautiful—her soft little mound crowned by golden curls. Lower down her outer lips were swollen and already starting to get slippery with desire. Clearly the way he’d sucked her nipples had had an effect on her.
“Drew…” she whispered restlessly and he realized he was just staring and breathing in her scent. He needed more.
Leaning forward, he wrapped his arms around her thighs—careful not to bruise her with the metal one—and split her wide.
Claudia gasped and started to fight him but he looked up, catching her eyes.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice low and grating in his own ears. Needy…hungry. “Please, I need to see you…need to open you and taste you.”
“I…I understand.” She nodded and quieted, though he could still feel her body trembling in his grasp.
“Do you fear me? Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?” he asked. “I am trying to be mindful of my cybernetic enhancements.” He nodded at his metal arm.
She shook her head at once.
“No, no—nothing like that,” she said quickly. “It’s just… a little embarrassing, that’s all. I’ve never had anyone so…interested to, uh, do this—to taste me—before.”
“Why not?” He was honestly confused. “You’re beautiful. That’s what I mainly remember, Claudia—thinking how beautiful you were. How much I wanted you.”
“You…used to go with younger women,” she said tentatively, as though she didn’t really want to remind him.
77 shook his head, brushing off the idea.
“Only because I couldn’t get you. I remember thinking you were beautiful…yet unobtainable. Now you’re letting me have you…letting me taste you.”
“To help you remember,” she reminded him breathlessly. “But please, Drew—I feel kind of, uh, exposed here.”
“Then I must cover you.” He pressed forward and lapped her pussy, starting at the bottom and allowing his tongue to slip into her wet folds as he dragged it upward over the rigid little bump of her clit.
Her sweet, salty, secret flavor exploded on his tongue, sending his brain into overload. His shaft was achingly hard between his thighs and he groaned hungrily as he lapped her again…and then again.
Claudia, for her part, seemed almost overwhelmed by his eager tongue. She moaned and arched her back again, just as she had when he sucked her nipples. Then she threaded her fingers through his hair and cried out breathlessly as he teased her sensitive clit.
“Drew…oh, Drew,” she gasped, bucking up to meet him. “Oh God, that feels so…so…”
But she didn’t seem to have words to express her feelings. She just moaned and shook under his mouth.
77 knew how she felt. The emotions washing over him now went beyond anything he had felt before. Hunger…lust…desire…need—they tore through him like a hurricane looking to make land and shook him to his core—the private core so deep inside him he barely even knew it was there.
Goddess…Claudia…so fucking beautiful…so sweet and wet and open just for me…
He lapped her again and then sucked her tender clit into his mouth, lashing the sensitive pearl with the tip of his tongue just to hear her moan and feel her tremble. He wanted to taste her all night—to feel like a man instead of a monster for once—but he could sense she was already getting close to coming.
“Drew…Drew!” She was gasping his name again. His name or the name of the man he had once been? The man he might somehow, someday be again? 77 didn’t know or care. He only knew he wanted to make her come—to feel her pussy quivering under his tongue and know that he was the author of her pleasure. He wanted to know he was responsible for making her lose control.
Claudia was moaning steadily now—fighting her way as her lithe body twisted under his. If he hadn’t had such a firm grip on her thighs, she might have wiggled away from him as her movements became erratic. She was close…so damn close. He could tell it. But she needed just a little more to help her make it over the edge. A little more…but what?
Suddenly the little voice in his head—helpful for once—brought up some knowledge from his past—an understanding of what to do.
77 released one of her thighs and, making sure to use his organic hand, sucked two fingers into his mouth. When they were wet enough, he slid them between Claudia’s thighs and slipped them into the hungry mouth of her pussy.
“Oh…Drew!” Her tight inner walls clamped down on him at once, squeezing him in a way that made him wish it was his cock inside that velvet vise, n
ot just his fingers.
Her back arched and she let out a wail as her grip tightened in his hair. Then he tasted fresh wetness and knew she was coming—so hard she could hardly breathe—and it was because of him. Because of the pleasure he had given her.
Claudia bucked and moaned and thrashed but he stayed with her—refusing to be thrown off until he felt her spasms of pleasure turn to occasional quivers and she began shying away from his tongue on her pussy.
Enough—she’s had enough for now, he realized. Now what?
The question puzzled him. His body knew the answer it wanted. He wanted to bury his cock deep in her tight wetness and fill her with himself. He wanted to claim her in the most primal and final way possible.
But the little voice in his head whispered that she hadn’t agreed to that. Claudia had only said he could taste her. And so he didn’t know what to do.
Until she beckoned to him.
“Come here, Drew.”
Uncertainly, he came out from between her thighs and came closer. She was holding out her arms to him, her eyes filled with hope, and he realized he didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Claudia?” he rumbled, making her name a question.
“Come here,” she said again, softly. “Hold me.”
77 understood then. He wrapped her in his arms—being careful of the metal one—and pulled her close to his chest. She snuggled against him and sighed contentedly, reminding him of a sleepy kitten.
A kitten—what’s that? Oh, an animal—from Old Earth, remember?
And strangely, he did.
“What are you thinking about?” Claudia asked, looking up at him, her silver-gray eyes sleepy and content.
“Just that…we used to have kittens at the place where I grew up,” he said slowly. “We had a cat and my mom forgot to have her spayed. She wound up having kittens on my bed in the middle of the night. I woke up to all this mewing and crying—there were eleven of them and…” He shook his head as the memory faded, like the brightest flare will fade to a dull after image a moment after it’s extinguished. “No, I lost it—it’s gone now.”
“But you had it for a moment!” Claudia sat up, excited. “Don’t you see, Drew? You had a piece of your past—you remembered. And not just about me—about your childhood. Oh, this is so exciting!”
She was looking at him with bright, starry eyes and 77 (Drew) felt her excitement jump to him as well. Could it be there was more to him than the bleak existence he’d been leading since he woke up on a cold metal table with the CyBRG device implanted in his spine?
“It shouldn’t be possible,” Claudia said, clearly still thinking about his memory. “Every subject was supposed to be brain dead. That was one of the prerequisites to implanting the device. But the brain scan monitor malfunctioned and Pike wouldn’t let me wait to get another. He said there was no use in wasting perfectly good subjects just because…”
She trailed off, her cheeks suddenly dull red with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s all right,” 77 assured her roughly. “It’s as Unit 80 said. You brought us back to life. This existence…is better than none at all.”
“Well, it’s going to be even better once I figure out how to turn off those pain sensors,” Claudia said decisively. “I’m going to go over the device you got from the other cyber soldier with a fine tooth comb and find out exactly what makes it tick.”
She was starting to get up but he pulled her back down and nestled her into the crook of one arm.
“Not tonight,” he told her, shaking his head. “You’re too tired. It’s been a long day. Tomorrow is soon enough to start. For now…stay here with me.”
Claudia looked up at him shyly.
“You mean…sleep together? Like this? I’d like that.”
“I would too.” He reached down and pulled the blanket over both of them. Claudia sighed contentedly and snuggled close to him, her head resting on his chest like a sleepy child.
A new emotion stole over him—tenderness. The wish to cradle and comfort and protect—the need to keep her close to his heart and make certain she was safe. Gently he stroked a strand of hair away from her eyes and watched as she fell asleep in his arms, her breathing even and steady.
After a time, he drifted to sleep himself…
Only to be woken by the braying of an alarm klaxon. They were under attack!
Chapter Five
“Up! We’re under attack!”
Drew manhandling her off the bed brought Claudia out of sleep instantly. She gasped and clung to him for a second as sleep burned its way out of her brain. But he turned and dumped her, not unkindly, on the bed.
She scrabbled for her clothes as he grabbed a weapons rig from the corner of the room and hauled it over his naked shoulders. She gasped at the sight of him outfitted for war. The big weapons he carried so easily looked lethal in his hands.
“The alarms on the perimeter have been tripped,” he told her as they raced through the corridors to the main section of the treebase. Other, grim-faced cyborgs burst into the corridors, running in front of and behind them.
“How do you know?” she gasped, almost tripping over a knot in the wood beneath their feet, but he was already there, his hand under her arm to haul her upright.
Drew didn’t answer, just caught her gaze and tapped the side of his head. Right, his implants, she realized. All the cyborgs used a common pathway, almost like telepathy… the rogue ones must have switched the main one off and adopted another one. Pike had gone practically apoplectic when they’d gone silent on the main channel, but she hadn’t realized they’d have the presence of mind to use another.
But then… no one had realized they were working as a team now. They’d thought it was just random misfires and malfunctions of the cybernetic circuits. That each rogue was operating on its own agenda according to whatever digital bugs had gotten into its onboard computers. But everything she’d seen proved otherwise. Grimly, she realized Pike must have known that all along from the non-rebelling soldiers’ footage. Footage she’d never been allowed to see…
80 was already in the main section of the base, his face grim when he spotted Drew as the soldiers crowded around them. “We’re outnumbered three to one,” he said after a quick glance toward Claudia, obviously speaking for her benefit. “They tripped the outer sensors. We’ve been tracking them since,” he said, looking at them as he loaded the big machine gun he carried.
His hands moved on automatic and she shivered at the mechanical movement. It wasn’t a human movement, the action too precise. It had been one of the hardest things to get used to when watching them after their… conversion. The units were all as grim-faced as they prepared for battle. No emotions on their faces. They were as mechanical as the machines they’d been turned into.
But then she spotted one of the cyborgs at the back. In the middle of the precise, automated movement they were all using to check their weapons, he paused for a second. Then he turned the big gun to the side and brushed his fingers against the side of the rail. Without a pause, he returned to the same routine as the others were using but she’d spotted it and it made her heart leap.
That wasn’t a movement coded into their cybernetic systems. Soldiers often clipped things, good luck charms, to the rails of their weapons. Whatever that soldier had clipped there wasn’t there any longer, but somehow the movement, an automatic one, had survived what had happened to him. It was something from his organic side…
And it had to mean there was a way back for them. That she could bring them back to the men they were.
“Okay, get units on the perimeter…” Drew’s expression set and his eyes unfocused for a moment. She’d noticed him doing that before, accessing his internal memory or communicating with the others. “We’ll mount a defense while 86 organizes a retreat. Doc,” he turned to her. “Get 78 ready to move. Fast.”
“Drew…” She put a hand on his arm when he started t
o turn away and he stopped, looking down at her. But his eyes were warm, not the cold brown of his cyborg half, and she shivered, remembering what they’d done. How he’d touched her… tasted her… then held her in his strong arms as they slept.
“Please,” she whispered, her hands trying and failing to wrap around his huge upper arm. “Be careful. I couldn’t bear to lose you… not a second time.”
His expression shifted and, for a second, the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes crinkled and she was looking at Drew again. Pulling her close abruptly, he dropped his head and grazed her lips with his. The soft kiss rocked her right down to her soul.
“You won’t,” he promised on a low growl. “I’ll always come back for you… besides, we have more…” He smiled and brushed her lips again. “Calibration to do. Lots more.”
He let go of her so abruptly she staggered back, catching herself on a tree wall as she watched him walk away. Heat flushed her cheeks as her eyes dropped to his tight, firm ass… Flexing and clenching as he drove his cock deep inside her, again and again, until she screamed his name in pleasure.
“Seems the cap got over his snit,” 80 cleared his throat and commented. She jumped. Damn, they moved fast and so silently. The main room was already empty, the cyborgs following the silent orders of their leader.
She ignored the flush on her cheeks as she turned to him. The amused look in his eyes made her realize suddenly that if Drew could sense her arousal, so could every other cyborg unit around her. Shit… couldn’t a girl keep anything secret around here?
“78?” 80 asked, his eyebrow raised. “You tell me what needs to be done to move him and it’s done, Doc.”
“Yes, yes, come on,” she said quickly, turning toward the impromptu medical bay 78 was in.
He was already awake and trying to sit up when they reached him.
“Not a chance, handsome,” she snapped, shoving him back down flat with a hard hand. He dropped back down with a soft grunt and lay there as she quickly checked him over. His wounds were healing nicely but he was still less than a day out of major surgery.
