“They are cyborgs.”
Chloe felt heat flash in her face.
“As I am. I will not say they cannot be damaged, but they are unlikely to go to the extreme of damaging one another to the point that they are useless to you.”
Chloe gasped at that. “I’m not worried about them being useless! Well, I am, but not the way you mean!”
“You are not concerned about their usefulness.”
Chloe frowned, uncertain of what he was getting at. “I’m worried aboutthem.”
“Now, I am curious.”
“About what?”
“You paid a very great deal for me. You went to great lengths to extract me before I could be shipped to the company for destruction. And yet, you do not seem to have any interest in my skills as a lover now that the opportunity to make use of me has finally arisen. I had naturally assumed that that was why you had come for me.”
There was an edge to his voice, but then that was hardly surprising when he was so thoroughly pissed off. The wonder was that he had managed to say anything at all without sounding as furious as he was … not that he hadnotmanaged it without giving any of his anger away.
She flicked a look at him, met his gaze for no more than a fraction of a second, and then looked away again. He felt his chest tighten in reaction to that look even before his mind told him what he had seen.
Hurt.
His anger shifted focus, or mayhap simply lost focus altogether.Hewas hurt, gods damn it! But could she see that? No! She was too busy worrying about that fucking caveman Jared!Allthe fucking more-muscle-than-brain, backwards sons-of-bitches!
He had tried to convince himself that he was merely disappointed, that he was not surprised that she felt nothing. He was a pleasure droid. She was human. There was no reason why it would have meant a gods damned thing to her! He was lucky that she even recalled him at all, had considered it worth while to snatch him up before he could be melted down by the fucking company!
He did notfeelfortunate, however! He felt … cheated! Used. Discarded.
Fucking horny!
He rolled away from her and lay staring at the ceiling, wondering if she would simply dismiss him since she obviously had no interest in him.
He did not think it would have twisted him up so much inside if he had not felt hope when she came for him, if he had not believed he saw … caring in her eyes. He had not dared to believe, before that, that she might.
He had done his best to put her from his mind. It should have been no problem when he had a veritable stream of women through his quarters every night of the week, every week of the year, every year since she had come to him and then had passed out of his life. And yet he had not been able to. His life had become a nightmare to him after the knowing had come upon him—because there was not a gods damned thing that he could think to do except to try to hide what he had become. It had not taken much thought at all to realize that no one would be pleased at the change in him, that they would feel threatened by it and humans who felt threatened had one solution—kill it.
His cock was no longer his to command, however. He could not simply make the gods damned thing stand up whenever he needed it. Thankfully, his body’s needs had not changed that greatly. He rarely had a problem making the gods damned thing work. It was those rare occasions when it had not that had been a nightmare, however.
The fear of discovery had certainly not helped matters when he was already having trouble.
He would have left the brothel and searched for Chloe if he had had any idea whatsoever of how to find her—any idea at all of even where he might go that he would not be hunted down and destroyed … or forced to kill to survive.
He had despaired of ever seeing her again and then, in his darkest hour, when he had thought he had come to the end, she had come.
And he, stupid fuck that he was, had immediately thought that it was because she cared for him—at least a little. She hadseemedto, gods damn it!
Right up until she had begun to behave as if he was a feeble minded child and made it clear that she only thought of him as a pleasure droid.
Jared did not want to kill him half as badly as he wanted to kill Jared!
Chloe stirred beside him, drawing him from his thoughts. To his surprise, she turned over and settled her hand on his chest. He tensed, hardly daring to breathe for fear that she would change her mind.
He did not give a gods damned if she only wanted to fuck!Hewanted it! He had not been able to think of much else since he had found her again—since she had found him.
“Was it very hard?”
The question scattered his wits. His mind connected his own thoughts instantly with the question and he wrestled with the temptation to inform her that it had been steel hard until she had brushed his caresses off as if they were annoying her. “What?” he croaked finally.
