“You may hate me for what I am, but you are not … indifferent to me.”
The comment took the wind out of her sails. “What?”
Releasing her jaw, he trailed his fingers lightly down her throat, across her collar bone and down between her breasts. Amaryllis’ breath caught in her chest as he traced a light circle around each trembling globe. Even through the cloth, his finger felt like a firebrand. Her nipples puckered, stood erect, begging for his touch.
Her reaction embarrassed and infuriated her. Before she thought better of it, she swung at him. As if he’d anticipated her retaliation, he caught her wrist mid-air, pushing her back against the bunk and pinning her with the weight of his body. His eyes gleamed as he stared down at her. “I am cyborg, no more than a machine. Surely you are not offended by my touch?”
Amaryllis swallowed with an effort.
After holding her gaze for several long moments, his gaze slid downward, settling on her breasts, heaving now with her efforts to drag in a decent breath of air. With deliberation, he leaned down, covering the tip of one breast with his mouth. Heat, like fire, instantly flowed through her, clouding her mind. She tensed, tried to block her mind to the pleasure that immediately assailed her. Her heart began to thunder in her ears so frantically that she could hear nothing but its drumming and the rush of air as it sawed almost painfully in and out of her laboring lungs.
She might have been completely naked for all the difference the thin fabric made.
She was sorry she wasn’t.
She wanted to feel the moist heat of his mouth on her skin.
As if he’d read her mind, he nudged the fabric aside and covered her nipple with his mouth, sucking, teasing the sensitive tip with his tongue. She gasped as a fresh rush of mind sundering sensation boiled through her. Her belly clenched almost painfully. Her femininity quaked, gathering heat and moisture.
With an effort, she summoned her defenses, closed her mind against the maddening stimulus, certain that he would stop if she could convince him she found no pleasure in his touch.
He seemed to sense her battle. Instead of accepting the lie she tried to tell with her body, instead of teasing her and then releasing her, he continued to suckle and torment her nipple until her shaky defenses crumbled, until she was drunk with the euphoria of pleasure, her mind chaotic, and she became so weak she felt as if she would black out.
It wasn’t until all resistance was leached from her and she went limp that he ceased to torment her. It took several moments to gather the strength to lift her eyelids when he released her at last and lifted his head to look at her once more. She couldn’t even manage a look of reproach, certainly not one of indifference.
Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he rolled off of her and lay down on the bunk on his side, tugging at her until he’d tucked her back against his chest. “Rest now.”
It took several moments for that to sink in to her heat fogged brain. Rest, Amaryllis thought, abruptly outraged? Her whole body was on fire!
How could he do …thatand then just fucking stop?
As irritated as she was, Amaryllis only tensed, yielding without any more protest than a slight resistance. She’d had time to cool, if only slightly, and time to remember, belatedly, that she was supposed to be lulling him into a false sense of security, supposed to be trying to seducehimso that she could overcome him.
She stank at this.
It didn’t take a mental giant to see that she was in far more danger of being seduced than he was.
She also had a bad feeling that the longer it took to accomplish such a mission, the less likely it was that she’d be able to go through with it. Machine or not, he had personality. It might be as maddening as it was appealing, but it wasn’t something that she could feel indifferent about.
It was one thing, she realized, to target an unknown entity, trust that it was no more than a runaway machine, and blow it to bits. It was quite another to cozy up to one who looked, and felt, and acted like a human being and commit an act that would feel like cold blooded murder.
She was fairly certain she wasn’t going to be able to go through with it.
Why couldn’t he have been like he was supposed to be? Cold. Mechanical. Unfeeling. Why couldn’t he have been insane?
Damn him anyway! How could he have seen through what she’d been so carefully hiding from herself? She wasn’t going to be able lie to herself, or to him, that she was immune to him.
Maybe it was merely a psychological reaction to being taken captive? She’d never been captured before. She’d had training for it, but no scenario had been anything like this. The expectation had been that she would be tortured—with pain, not pleasure.
Maybe she hadn’t properly assessed the situation to start with? Maybe killing him was not only not necessary to her own survival, but entirely the opposite? Contributing to her downfall?
“It would be easier to avoid broaching a painful topic if I knew what it was.”
Despite her distraction, it didn’t take her two seconds to realize he was harping on their earlier disagreement. Amaryllis gritted her teeth. “Jeez! Could you just drop it? It doesn’t matter.”
“If it did not, you would not be angry.”
She tensed, considering rolling from the bunk and stalking across the room to put some distance between them. His arm tightened as if he knew exactly what was running through her mind. She relapsed, fuming.
