She repressed the urge to smile. “Which was when you finished counting heads, I suppose?”
His lips tipped up at one corner, capturing her attention. He was certainly not unfamiliar to her even though she’d never worked with him. Up until Reese had joined their group, though, she’d been inclined to think Cain was probably the most attractive of all the hunters. His features were sharp, too angular to really be considered ‘beautiful’, and there was nothing at all boyish about him, but there was something so thoroughly masculine about him that he was extraordinarily attractive in an indefinable way. He had been to her, anyway, but then she’d been starved for male attention and, she thought, inclined to fall for any attractive male that glanced in her direction without a look of revulsion crossing his features.
After the corrective surgery that had made her ‘normal’ the boys she’d known throughout her childhood had ceased to torment her and tried to engage her interest, but she hadn’t trusted any of them enough to allow them to come near her.
And she’d still yearned to be courted as the other girls were and more than half hoped she would have the chance of some sort of relationship once she left the colony. It was born in upon her the moment she entered training that that wasn’t going to be an option. Fraternizing wasn’t allowed, at least not that sort of fraternizing, and Robotics, Inc. took steps to ensure the temptation was minimized by lacing their contraceptives with drugs that inhibited sexual arousal … which only meant they weren’t preoccupied with sex, not that they never thought about it.
It certainly hadn’t kept her from noticing that she was surrounded by drop dead gorgeous, extremely well built men, but then none of them, including Cain, had seemed to notice her. Not that that had particularly bothered her. She’d spent her entire life admiring from afar without expectation of actually being noticed herself and found she was completely comfortable with it … far more so than getting up close and personal.
“To be perfectly accurate, it was when you arrived for training. I was the one who signed you up, but I’m not surprised you don’t remember. I’ve never seen a volunteer look quite so terrified.”
Amaryllis blushed to the roots of her hair. She remembered. She was surprised he did, though, but then again they didn’t get that many recruits—in fact none, except her if she accepted what they’d been told. The others had all been programmed to ‘volunteer’ for service. It flickered through her mind to wonder why they’d decided to induct her when she wasn’t one of the soldiers they’d built, but she supposed after a moment that they’d feared unpleasant questions might have arisen if they’d refused her when she was supposedly bionically superior to the other recruits. “I wasn’t.”
His brows rose skeptically.
“All right, I was. But that was only because everything … was so new to me,” she finished lamely, erecting her guard with an effort, suddenly acutely self-conscious of the fact that her background didn’t even begin to match the one common to the others.
His eyes narrowed speculatively. “I was surprised they accepted you. You didn’t seem … soldier material to me.”
She gave him a look. “I was damned good at it, thank you. Good enough they considered me qualified to work solo.”
“Until your ‘accident’,” he amended.
Admittedly, her performance hadn’t been what it should have been, but faulty intelligence had played a part in the fiasco, as well. She’d been tracking one—a female cyborg—she’d never been sent out to take down a male, and certainly not more than one at the time. She knew she should’ve been more careful, but the plain fact of the matter was that she’d trusted the intelligence she’d been given when she shouldn’t have, and found herself outnumbered. “I was outnumbered four to one,” she said finally.
“I’d always thought that seemed curious. In retrospect it seems less so.”
“How is that?”
“I think the objective was to capture you—which is the reason I referred to it as your accident. Apparently Robotics, Inc. thought so, too, and that’s why they paired most of the huntresses with a hunter. I’d requested to be assigned as your partner, but your recovery seemed uncertain at the time and they assigned me to Violet instead.”
Amaryllis was surprised both by his request to be assigned to her and the suggestion that the cyborgs had had plans for them far longer than she’d suspected. “So you’re thinking Reese was assigned to protect me?”
“By Robotics, Inc., yes.”
She frowned. “But not by the cyborgs, who were really giving him his orders?”
His lips thinned. “I’d like to say yes, but, in all honesty, I doubt it. You are certainly of value to them … but more so to some than others.”
“Meaning?”
He smiled wryly. “I am not going to allow you to badger me into furthering his cause when I’ve more interest in my own.”
“Which is…?”
He chuckled. “Pledging my undying devotion, of course, before it occurs to the cyborg twins that a woman wants to be wooed before she’s ….”
“Screwed?”
Laughter gleamed in his eyes. “Made love to.”
The conversation was risqué, for her, to say the least, but she found that she was far more intrigued and entertained than offended or embarrassed.
“There’s a difference?”
His eyes narrowed speculatively. After a moment, he shifted to face her, laying an arm along the back of the couch and then propping his cheek on his hand. “Worlds. I’d be more than happy to show you.”
Amaryllis chuckled but shook her head. “You have to be in love for that … not in lust.”
