“We'll turn in after this then.”
“Shouldn't we head back?” Netto asked.
Rylie refused to look at him; her hand tingled every time his mouth moved. “It's dangerous traveling after dark. We wouldn't make it back before then.”
It didn't make any sense to her. Whenever a new man came into their lives and Rylie thought she could make a connection with him, Janet swooped in and took him away. Was it her? Was it because Janet was so open and friendly while Rylie kept to herself? Was she so unapproachable? Was she not...attractive enough?
Why does he affect me? Why did he follow me?When she looked back at him, he was watching her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Rylie shivered and the hair on the back of her neck rose. She pulled the towel around her tighter. They had spent an entire day within each other’s vicinity and it had only made the unease worse...
“Netto and I are different than most Cyborgs,” Zeph took the nugget from her sister and cracked it open. “We’re better in bed.”
Janet laughed. “So you’re lazy? Would’ve never guessed.” She dug her hands through the contents of the rocky shell she held and pulled out the stone. Rylie attributed her blush to the rising sun. “Or is that your ability? Kill the aliens by getting them into bed?”
Zeph shrugged. “If that were so, the war would’ve ended decades before it did.”
Rylie handed him another nugget while Janet cleaned and collected the stones. The edges were rough but after years of handling them, her hands had sealed over with callouses and tough skin. She reached below the water and ripped another one from the surface.
“Is that so? I wonder what Netto’s teeth do to a girl beneath the sheets. I’d imagine bedding him would be...intriguing. Maybe even messy if you know what I mean.”
“If you want biting during your bedplay, sweetheart, you need to look no further.”
Rylie kept her mouth shut and palmed the nugget. She wasn’t aware of the cut until a plume of red spread out through the water. She didn’t want to hear what her sister was saying, especially when it came to things Rylie knew nothing about. Despite being the eldest child, she knew little when it came to intimate relations and it had always bothered her.
How could she sleep with someone when they had already been with her sister? Her family thought her asexual and she never corrected that notion, but now a stranger—a frighteningly handsome one—had looked at her. Her. And not her sister. She was curious and she hated herself for it.
“Why is it dangerous?” Netto asked. Heat rose to her cheeks as she realized she had been staring at him. Her eyes roved over his body quickly before she looked away and shifted her gaze toward her da, who was absorbed with the ship’s controls.
“The fog,” she said, clearing her throat. “It makes it impossible to see at night and it descends every night. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, the nightly fog is a constant.” Rylie glanced back at him only to encounter his heavy stare. It made her uneasy, even more so since she had been thinking about sex.
As if, maybe, he knew her thoughts. Her toes clenched. As if he could see right through her. A thought weeded its way into her head.I wish I was Janet.
“Don’t you have a GPS?”
Netto turned to face her and the weight of his intimidation blanketed her. She didn’t want to look at him but couldn’t help it.It doesn’t help that he’s half naked.And had been since that morning, since he cornered her and she got a full frontal view of his chest.
Rylie counted six. Six abdominal muscles—toned and sculpted beyond any she had seen before. She could probably get her fingertip to the first knuckle into the grooves carved between them. No one in the settlement had a body remotely like Netto’s. Large, packed, molded into a perfectly made sea stone, and taller than she thought humanly possible. Zeph matched him in build but not height nor in looks. Where his devilish partner was exotically handsome with short wavy hair the color of amber, Netto was...Rylie swallowed...he was heroic.Heroic.
Her mouth dried up as she rubbed the tingling from her hand again. “It’s easy to get turned around. Even with the tech.”
Netto’s brow furrowed and his features hardened. “That’s not possible.” His teeth glinted in the waning light.
“It’s not reliable. We use the sun and oceanic mapping to find our way, but the mapping gets skewed at night,” Rylie said.
“Underwater currents. No tides, no moon. No stars in the fog to follow at night. It messes with a man’s head and many have found themselves lost the next morning. We generally don’t sail after dark unless it’s an emergency,” Da said off to the side.
Rylie watched the setting sun and the incoming fog. Already there was a milky haze building around them.
“You’re stuck with us tonight,” she murmured more as a reminder to herself and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. The Cyborgs’ bunks were a wall away and she had a terrible feeling that her sister was going to want to switch rooms.
She rubbed her cheek against the towel, hoping the heat in her cheeks could be erased.
Her eyes flickered back to Netto as he stood and approached her. Rylie stiffened when he took the seat next to hers.Stop thinking about him. Stop conjuring him up. Stop.She wanted to scream at her thoughts.
First, he invaded her thoughts; now, he invaded her space.
He’s too close, too near.She desperately wanted to jump into the water and swim away. Instead, they sat in awkward silence until he put his hand out.
She looked at it, then at him, only to look back at it again. Rylie relented and placed her damaged hand, palm side up, in his.
