Cyborg Nation (17 page)

Her heart was hammering so hard by the time he reached her breasts they were trembling with the pounding beat. Extending his tongue, he traced a circle with the tip around one nipple and along the side of her breast, across the valley and up the next mound, lazily, mind shattering circles around first one and then the other until her breath was coming in short little gasps and she was dizzy with the heat surging through her blood. She bit her lip as the need tightened inside of her for him to take the aching tips into his mouth. Instead, he merely teased her, on and on, never quite touching her where she yearned to be touched, until she bucked against him, struggled to jerk her wrists from his hold.

“What do you think I should do to you for trying to sabotage the ship?” he asked in a low, husky voice.

Bronte swallowed with an effort. “I wasn’t.”

He flicked a glance at her.

“I wasn’t!” she said testily.

He studied her for a long moment and dipped his head again. Bronte sucked in a sharp breath when she felt his lips close on one engorged tip. She held it, waiting hopefully. He merely nipped it lightly with his lips, however. It wasn’t what she wanted, needed. It was bad as what he’d done before, just enough pressure to almost feel good. He nipped at it until she was ready to scream at him and then moved to the other nipple and teased it in the same way. She curled her fingers tightly into her palms, trying to close her mind to the movement of his lips. It was just enough pressure to make it impossible to ignore and not nearly enough to satisfy. Her skin felt as if it was growing too tight. The warmth in her belly spread outward, warmed her skin and then heated it more until it was stinging, driving her crazy.

“What was the plan then?”

Dizzy from her gasping breaths, Bronte opened her eyes and tried to glare at him. “I didn’t have a plan,” she finally muttered.

“No plan?”

There was disbelief in his voice, and that didn’t augur well for an end to the torment. She licked her lips with a tongue that felt almost as dry. “I was just wondering where we were.”

He lifted his head. “Try again.”

“That was all … really,” she said a little weakly. She was
not
going to tell him about her half-baked plan to take over the ship when they killed each other! He was bound to think she’d been plotting to try to murder them and she would really rather not give him that idea.

He went back to teasing her with the tip of his tongue. She struggled against him again until she couldn’t find the strength to struggle any more. “Gideon! Please!” she said a little desperately.

She nearly came out of her skin when his hot mouth closed over her nipple and suckled. She hadn’t realized until that moment that the blood was building tighter and tighter until her nipples had grown painfully swollen. For several moments it was almost more torture to have him tugging at the engorged bud than it had been when he’d been driving her crazy with the teasing. She lost her breath, groaned when she finally managed to fill her lungs again.

The muscles of her sex clenched so tightly her belly cramped painfully. Moisture flooded her nether regions.

She began to think she was going to faint … or die if he didn’t stop. The only thing that she could think of that could be worse was if he
did
stop.

He stopped. She was nearly sobbing for breath by then.

“You were studying the star charts.”

Bronte twisted her head away. “To figure out where we were … in case.”

“In case?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

She refused to look at him. When she didn’t answer him, he dropped his head and took her other nipple in his mouth, suckling on it hard enough she cried out at the molten tide that washed through her. It was tortuous to feel the tug of his mouth on her … in the most wonderful way imaginable.

She began to feel desperate for the feel of him inside of her, plunging into her. The muscles along her channel clenched and unclenched frantically for the feel of him.

He stopped abruptly, released his hold on her wrists and shoved away from her. He’d already climbed off of the bed before it dawned on her that he was leaving her.

She
still
couldn’t believe it!

She shoved herself up on one arm and glared at him when she saw he was striding toward the door, feeling disbelief yield to outrage and then pure rage. He really did mean to leave her like this! “You son-of-bitch!” she snarled at him, wishing she had something to throw at him … like a knife. “I will
kill
you if you ever do that to me again, you asshole!”

He halted at that, twisted his head to glance at her over his shoulder. “I am son of none. I had no mother,” he growled. He hesitated. “You will not go near the bridge again. There will not be an ‘in case’. We are much harder to kill than you can possibly imagine.”

That comment washed over her like a douche of ice water. Dismay followed it. She didn’t
want
them dead! How could he think she
wanted
that! It was just a figure of speech. She hadn’t really meant it, for god’s sake! It wasn’t like she could
do
anything to them, damn them!

She felt like crying. Her chest tightened. Her throat closed. Her eyes and nose stung with the need and they just wouldn’t come.

She got up when she realized she couldn’t find the relief she needed and went in to take a bath. The water, usually so pleasantly soothing, didn’t soothe her at all. Her entire body still ached from being so aroused and then left unfulfilled.

Which made it impossible to ignore the fact that she wanted to kill him for arousing her and then not finishing, not because he’d aroused her to start with.

“Bastard!” she yelled angrily.

He had no mother … no father … no family … no life beyond what he had here. She felt like crying all over again when his words echoed in her mind, this time from remorse—‘I had no mother’. She did cry that time, hurting for him, for them.

Chapter Eleven

Gideon settled heavily in the command chair. Adjusting his aching member and painfully throbbing balls, he draped a knee over one arm of the chair, slouching tiredly in his seat as he stared unseeingly at the forward vid screen.

“We have checked everything twice. She did not tamper with any of the instruments.”

Instead of glancing at Gabriel when he spoke, Gideon lifted one hand and rubbed it down his face, settling it over his lips and chin for several moments before he lifted it away from his face and frowned down at the tremor in his hand. “That is good at any rate,” he said finally, dropping his hand to the arm of his chair.

“You did not hurt her?”

Gideon’s head swiveled sharply in Gabriel’s direction. “I would not so far forget myself no matter how angry!” he growled.

Gabriel stared back at him unflinchingly. “You and Jerico left her alone in here,” he pointed out, “or she would have had no opportunity to sabotage the ship. You did something you should not have when you caught her or you would not have been so anxious that you had hurt her. Do not tell me you will not lose control! You have not been
in
control since we brought her onboard!”

Gideon massaged his chest at the reminder of the pain that had shot through him when she had wilted to the floor like a crushed flower. He was not certain what had caused it, or the jolt of knee weakening adrenaline that had followed it, but he thought
that
had more to do with his anger than anything else that had happened. He frowned, but thoughtfully. “I have not seen that either you or Jerico have behaved any more rationally,” he said coldly.

“You are certain we did not hurt her?” Jerico asked uneasily.

Gideon shrugged. “I could find no damage and she felt well enough to threaten to kill me when I left. I do not think so.”

“Why would she do that?” Gabriel ground out.

Ignoring the challenge in Gabriel’s voice, Gideon thought that over. “I am not entirely certain. She did not like the method I used to interrogate her, I think.”

Gabriel considered that and finally relaxed. “What else are we to do when she is so fragile, and more than our lives are worth besides? She has no room to complain,” he said resentfully. “She has tortured us far more than we have tortured her. I am almost ready to cut my genitals off and toss them into the incinerator. You two, at least, have had some relief. I have had none!”

“It is worse
afterwards
,” Gideon said morosely.

“How would you know?” Gabriel snarled angrily.

“Because I felt as you do before, and now it is worse!” Gideon growled back at him. “You should pleasure yourself to relieve the pressure.”

“I
have
!” Gabriel said indignantly. “Else I would have lost my mind long before now. It helps for a short while and then I feel worse! I begin to think the more I empty this thing, the more it produces! I am up to six times per cycle now and I am sure my balls are getting larger.”

“Precisely my point,” Gideon retorted.

“I can not think that our plan is going at all well if she is trying to think of a way to escape,” Jerico put in thoughtfully. “I was taken completely by surprise. She has shown no aggression at all—only fear, though it has not seemed to me that she is nearly as fearful as before. And I still am stunned that she would be so bold that she would seize the first opening to try something. I think we must concede that she is not at all like any opponent we have come up against before. I am not at all certain how to proceed with someone who
appears
so passive and attacks without any warning whatsoever.”

“She knows that she is not strong enough to challenge us. She is waiting for us to kill ourselves for her so that she can return home. She was trying to familiarize herself with the controls and plot a course back.”

“She told you that?” Gabriel demanded.

“Not in those words, but she inadvertently revealed her plan while I was interrogating her.”

Gabriel smiled faintly. “She is very clever. I would not have thought that she would be any challenge at all … not in that way.”

“You
have
lost your mind or you would not be smiling like a moron!” Jerico snarled. “She wants us dead! I am as certain as I can be that that means she will
not
consider a contract with us!”

Gabriel glared at him. “A man wants to feel pride in his woman!” he shot back. “I was only thinking that I am more convinced that she is perfect even than before. She is beautiful and desirable and clever
and
brave. I do not mind saying I feel far better to think of getting offspring on her. They will only be stronger for having a mother such as her … even if they are not cyborg.”

“I think you have missed a crucial point,” Gideon said dryly. “She does not want
us
.
I
am convinced, but if we can not convince
her
then we will only be that much more miserable when the others take
our
woman!”

“I will
kill
anyone who looks at her!” Gabriel snarled furiously.

“You are a formidable warrior, Gabriel, but you are
not
that good! There are still far more who have no woman than have,” Gideon pointed out. “We can not kill them all and the council would not stand still for wholesale slaughter of our kinsmen—by us. The idea is to create a society, not to finish what the humans set out to do and wipe ourselves out.”

They fell to considering the situation for a few moments. “What about your plan to present the notion to her in a tactical sense?” Jerico asked finally. “I did not think much of it at the time, but it is clear that all this time we thought she was coming to accept the situation she was merely plotting to use our weakness for her against us. If she is of that bent, then she is surely more likely to appreciate the advantage than I had thought she might.”

Gideon cupped his mouth and chin in one hand, thinking. “I am not as certain as I was that that would have the desired effect. We can not point out the merits of it without
also
pointing out
why
it would have merit and then she is liable to decide to wait and let the others kill us to get to her. I begin to think she
may
be holding a grudge over the fact that we are the ones who captured her. It is unreasonable when we were only following orders, but I do not think she properly appreciates our position in this … or that she has considered that someone else would have been sent in our place.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It was our decision to take her when we discovered the man was dead,” he pointed out.

Gideon glared at him. “Tell her that! I am sure she will be more willing to forgive us for it then!”

“I hesitate to point this out, but it occurs to me that she might be holding a grudge because she has already thought of that.”

Gideon sent Jerico a look of disgust. “It is very likely,” he said tightly. “But I
still
do not want to point that out to her. I think that we must accept that she will not begin to feel any affection for any of us, but I would rather she did not continue to hate us. If she knows that we took one look at her and instantly decided to take her instead—because we were thinking with our cocks instead of our brains—she will know the advantage it gives her. She will torment us endlessly if she realizes she has the power to do so.

“I would prefer battle wounds! Painful as those are, at least they heal and do not continue to ache and make me feel sick! She has the tongue and eyes of a laser rifle and unerring accuracy to deploy her ammunition. She made me
afraid
when I thought I had hurt her. I have never known fear before in my memory! And she was only
pretending
to be hurt. I was so blinded by rage when I realized that that I thought for several moments that I would lose control, and then I thought that I would throw up my dinner when I realized that I had considered choking her, however fleetingly it went through my mind!

“I am convinced it was a mistake when it was decided to allow the development of emotions instead of removing the portions of the brain which encourage such illogical and uncontrollable urges! One can not
go
insane if there are no emotions to twist the guts into knots and make one think all sorts of irrational things!”