She’d alerted him, however, by the sudden tension of her body. Even as she swung into action, he countered her strike, slamming her into the back wall of the stall. For all that, the collision was carefully controlled and didn’t even knock the breath from her. Amaryllis blinked the water from her eyes and looked up at the man pinning her to the cold metal wall.
“Dante!” she gasped, torn between relief and dawning anger.
He was furious. That much was instantly obvious. “That was either unbelievably careless … or calculating,” he ground out.
Right up until the very moment he spat the accusation at her, Amaryllis had carefully avoided the fact that she had dallied in the shower because she knew Dante would be returning soon. She’d convinced herself that she would be in and out before he returned, but she’d made no attempt to hurry.
She’d wanted to bait him.
She wasn’t certain why, but her transparency embarrassed her and because it did, it also angered her. “I don’t have an internal clock like you do!” she snapped.
The reminder angered him far more than she’d expected it to. Grasping her hand, he guided it to the crotch of his uniform, molding her palm over his heated erection. It was huge, rock hard, and throbbed at her touch like a live thing. Amaryllis’ eyes widened. Her heart faltered, then began to race. Heat curled low in her belly. Her mouth went dry and the breath froze in her lungs.
“Does that feel to you as if I feel nothing?” he ground out. “If I were no more than a cold, unfeeling machine, do you think desire would torment me every time I look at you?”
She licked her lips nervously, tried to gather moisture into her mouth. “You were probably designed as a pleasure droid,” she said a little shakily.
Several emotions chased across his features before they hardened once more with anger. “I was designed to kill … but I can give pleasure, as well. Do you want me to pleasure you?”
Under the circumstances, no. She wasn’t about to ask for it! But she needed it, she realized, desperately.
To her relief, he didn’t wait for a yeah or nay. When she hesitated, he lifted her against the wall, pinned her there with his body and pressed open mouthed kisses along her throat and shoulder, licking the moisture from her skin and leaving fire in the wake of his touch. She gasped as he invaded her senses, shuddered as his mouth moved hungrily across her flesh and settled over one erect, throbbing nipple. Her mind and body melted as the fire of desire engulfed her. Weakly, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, clinging as he moved against her, caressed her with his mouth and tongue, scorched her skin with the heat and touch of his hands as they moved restlessly along her body, exploring her, giving pleasure that left her dizzy and disoriented.
Her body quickened. Moisture gathered in her sex. The walls of that nether throat trembled with want, quaked in supplication of his possession.
Tightening her grip on him, she arched against him.
He seemed to know what she needed. Shifting, he aligned their bodies so that her cleft enveloped his shaft. The fabric that separated them chafed her as he pressed against her, frustrated her, but she moved eagerly against him as keen pleasure stabbed through her from the rough caress of his cock against her clit, along her cleft. It teased her as much as it pleased her, fed her desire, frustrated her body’s attempts to reach culmination.
When he lifted his head at last and gazed into her eyes, she saw her own tumultuous desire reflected there, saw that his need matched her own. She lifted her lips, brushed them along the hard ridge of his jaw.
He drew in a ragged breath, tipped his head to brush his lips along the sensitive surface of her own.
Fire poured into her, anticipation like acid in her veins. Her mouth watered to taste him, tingled with the need to feel the rough caress of his tongue.
When he pulled back suddenly, lifting his head in alertness, Amaryllis felt a stab of both surprise and disappointment. Then she heard the sound, as well.
Fear smothered the flames of desire so abruptly it made her dizzy, faintly nauseous.
Rigid now with the possibility of danger, Dante allowed her to slide slowly down until her feet touched the floor. There was warning in his eyes as he jerked his head in the direction of his cabin, but it wasn’t necessary. As shaky as she was, Amaryllis fled for the door on tiptoe the moment Dante released her. Shutting off the shower, he followed her out.
Neither of them said anything as they dried off quickly and quietly.
Dante’s uniform was dripping wet. It clung to every beautiful inch of his well honed body. As much as she would’ve liked to watch him undress, to see the body she’d only imagined thus far, Amaryllis was also embarrassed by her lack of control and the dangerously stupid error in judgment that had almost gotten them caught. She turned her back to him, pulling her own garments on jerkily as he peeled the wet suit from his body and tossed it aside.
Behind her, she heard the rustle of cloth as he quickly dried his body, heard him step to the locker and remove a change of clothing. She didn’t dare look at him, afraid of what she might see in his eyes.
Instead, shivering with reaction, she settled weakly on the floor across from him once she’d dressed, listening to the movements in the cabin adjoining Dante’s.
After a time, they heard the door to the corridor open and close again, and then footsteps that diminished into the distance.
Amaryllis licked her dried lips. “What would happen if we were caught?” she whispered.
Dante looked at her for a long moment. “Cyborg or not, that is not something I am particularly anxious to discover,” he said finally.
Chapter Seven
Amaryllis gaped at him, realizing for the first time that she was playing Russian roulette with his life, not just her own.
