Page 25 of Leviathan

"Maria?" he murmured.

I put my hand over my heart, feeling it pounding against my chest as I leaned back against him, not wanting to move yet grateful for the sudden space around me. With just him touching my back, it was easier to think past the overwhelming sensation that had just encased me.

I was like a toy in his grasp.

"Lyrien," I said. I wasn't quite ready to address what just happened, the fact that he had essentially grabbed me and played my body like a fine-tuned instrument, strumming my chords to a song of his choosing. So instead, I asked the question I already knew the answer to, an answer that became clear the moment that I had given an inch and he had taken a delicious, decadent mile. "Are you an artificial intelligence?"

The silence was made longer by the thrumming of my own heart in my ears.

"No," he said, his voice soft. "I am a biological being. My species can easily merge with and control technology thanks to our neurofilaments, even tech built by other species. I'm sorry I didn't specify sooner. I knew you believed I was software, and I didn't correct your assumption."

Something eased in me, a tension I didn't realize was there. I didn't want to emotionally connect with software. The fact that he was a real, biological being eased the knot in my heart and allowed it to relax into the strange possibilities.

It helped that he acknowledged right off the bat that he had let me think that way.

Even better, he apologized for it.

My assumptions weren't his responsibility, but in apologizing, he was showing me his sense of right and wrong, and his sense of wrong included not letting me lead myself on.

"Why didn't you?" I asked as I reached out to touch the filament wall next to me.

One of his smaller filaments reached out, intertwining with my fingers.

"It was safer to leave you with your assumption until I learned more about you, especially when we're in a state like I am in," he said.

I opened my mouth to ask what state that was, but he spoke first.

"The room you call a holodeck is complete," he said. "Would you like to see it?

EIGHT

LYRIEN

I had made a huge mistake.

When she had rocked her hips against me, I had taken it, and her gasped affirmation of enjoyment as an invitation to do what I had been craving for weeks. I enveloped her, touching her all over, stroking her until she shuddered against me, her stomach fluttering and clenching, her hips shifting, her toes curling. I could taste her, the slick her body produced to ease entry into it, and it was... phenomenal. Every moment I held her, every sensation of her body encased in my grasp, was a priceless delight. I wanted to be inside her, to slide into her depths and feel how her internal muscles moved in response.

I had been stopped by the barrier of her clothing, denying me entry as I pressed against it.

If she hadn't tensed in my grasp, going from a relaxed surrender to an anxious tensing, I would have moved the fabric to the side and slid into her. But that barrier gave her enough time to react to my clear intention, and she gave the physical sign of discomfort, her entire body tensing, so I stopped immediately, realizing I should have checked in with her. Plunging into another person's body wasn't something to do without clear communication.

And I had been lying to her.

I had rationalized it as for my own safety, labeled it as acceptable because I never spoke the words of the lie, but ultimately, letting her believe I was something that I wasn't was a deception. When I withdrew my touch from her, the questions she asked made it clear that she understood. My desire to touch her, to bring her to the peak of her pleasure, to mate with her...it gave me away.

I should have told her the moment I realized her touching me wasn't platonic for me.

She walked into the room she had labeled as the holodeck. I had it set up with projection panels on the walls and floors. The circuitry for the room was complex, but I was able to manufacture all of the parts and assemble them. When she had described the room she was envisioning, it had tactile responses and something called safety protocols, but what I set up was a little different.

What I had set up, I realized now, was inappropriate.

We needed to have a conversation first.

I ran the introductory program I set up.

The projectors turned the room into a lively bar from a space station at a crossroads of different species' territories. A live band played at one end of the room, and there were booths to sit in and enjoy the music, as well as a dance floor occupied by a few dancers. I had worked up a menu for this scenario based on the bar's actual menu.

"There are two facets to this setup," I said as she headed towards an empty booth. She was about to sit down. "Wait, wait a second!"