Kingston 691: Book Two of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined (17 page)

Seetha shook her head and fought not to cry. “Meant to be? How would you know? You don’t remember anything. Maybe I’m lousy in bed.”

King laughed and swung her around in his arms. He bent and kissed her until her arms wove around his neck. He lifted her backside in both his hands and pulled her close. “Storage area…or my bedroom? Choose because I’m ready to find out how good you are.”

Seetha laughed and let him draw her inside the house with him. Then she stopped laughing.

She turned to King, her lip trembling. How could he hurt her this way?

“What kind of game are you playing with me, King?”

King looked around, saw nothing unusual in the space. He looked at Seetha, read about a zillion signs of distress, and scratched his head. “I don’t understand. What bothers you about my house?”

“
Your house?
” Seetha demanded. “Are you going to stand there and tell me you didn’t replicate the house we lived in on purpose?”

King shook his head. “No. Are you telling me I picked out furnishings like what you used to own? Seetha, that’s impossible. I did this over a year ago. Most of this furniture came from a single estate sale. Some woman disappeared without a trace and the mortgage company was auctioning off her…
ah
…
holy shit
. I never put it together before.”

His hand ran over his head, automatically feeling for his cybernetic compartment. He needed to feel like he wasn’t living a horror movie—or at least more of one.

“I saw the estate auction ad online…don’t remember how exactly…and when I went to the sale I ended up offering the woman one price for everything that was left.”

Seetha crossed her arms—hugged herself. “Look at the end of the table. Is there a gash on the edge, like almost a half inch deep? If so, this is the exact furniture I owned. Mother said she let the house go back to the mortgage company because she had to use her money to buy you.”

“I didn’t buy the house because I had already bought this one. I just bought all the furniture…or nearly all of it.”

Seetha dropped her arms and walked in a daze to his living area. “Lights on half,” she ordered the home com, not surprised to see her matching couch and chair, as well as coffee table, end tables, and lamps. “What happened to the big chair like the one at Mother’s?”

King stood at the edge of the doorway. “I don’t know. I never saw it there. Someone else must have bought it. If a replica of that chair had been here, I would have figured it out before now. And I sure as hell would have warned you before I brought you here. None of this was intentional.”

Still not sure what to believe, Seetha turned without commenting and walked down the hall. Instinct or intuition or shock guided her. She didn’t know which at the moment. Her senses were numb. She stopped at his bedroom door and took a breath before stepping inside.

“Lights at twenty percent,” she ordered quietly.

She blinked at the bed—the bed where she’d spent many long hours making love to the man she could feel staring at her. She turned and glared back at him. How was she supposed to believe that he accidentally found and bought the exact contents of the home they’d once shared together? Shaking her head—because she couldn’t believe it—she started to walk by him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“I swear on my life I had no idea. I saw this stuff, liked it, and it felt right, which Kyra harps on every cyborg paying attention to. I just thought I’d gotten very lucky. In truth, I’d like to say I remembered it or recognized it, but I didn’t. You have to believe me, Seetha. I’m not in league with anyone to drive you crazy, I swear.”

Seetha hung her head and studied the floor. “I don’t know what to believe, King. This has completely freaked me out. For all I know, you could have been programmed to buy this shit and set up to rescue me. Anything is possible and you have to admit this coincidence is over the top.”

“I don’t know how strange this coincidence is, but your apprehension is understandable,” King said. “If it helps you, I’m not doing so hot dealing with this myself right now. My processor is spinning and making my head hurt.”

Seetha’s gaze came up to his. “Every time I turn around, it’s like I’m tripping over the previous version of you. Now your home is living evidence about the past we lost. I feel like I stepped into a movie without knowing my lines.”

“Would you rather I got rid of the furniture?”

Seetha snorted. “No. I’m sure once I get over my shock, I’ll be happy you have it…and think it’s incredibly sweet the way you bought it for yourself. It’s just unexpected. I don’t trust that anymore.”

“Do you even believe me?” King asked.

Seetha walked a bit away from him before looking back. “I want to and I’m working on it. I don’t think I can have sex with you in that bed at this time. That’s the best I can do at the moment.”

King held out a hand. “Will you stay here and work on handling it? I don’t want to be alone with this stuff after you leave. I need to absorb this too…just like you are doing. I’m going to run this by Nero, and see what he says about it.”

He waited for what seemed like hours for Seetha to answer. Finally, she sighed and put her hand in his.

“Thank you,” King said, gently squeezing her fingers. “Okay—good. Let’s go sit in the living room…on the sofa…until my brain quits hurting. We’ll talk about this again when we feel better.”

“
Feel better?
Don’t look now, Pinocchio, but I think you’re becoming a real boy more and more.”

King ignored her veiled insult to him still being someone’s puppet, as he dragged her with him through the memory hell his home had now become.

Chapter 13

Seetha woke in the palest of light to the smell of aftershave and sleep heated man. She was bracketed with warm muscles and held to the mattress by a massive arm thrown over her.

The last thing she remembered was sitting on the couch and staring off into space. Shock had ruled…and ruined her sexy buzz.

Some time after she’d fallen asleep, King must have carried her to bed. Their old bed—she recalled now—except the mattress felt new. He must have replaced it.

Feeling the front of herself, she found her dress still in place and let out the breath she’d been holding. Her relieved sigh must have served as an alarm clock because the sleeping giant stirred beside her. King reached down and ran a hand up her thigh to the edge of her dress. She froze, afraid to move.

“Good morning,” she whispered, letting him know she was awake.

“Yes, it is a good morning…because you’re still here,” King whispered back, leaning in to kiss her neck.

When his hand roamed a little higher, Seetha arched under the caress. That same hand traveled down a thigh and back up to the edge of her dress again. He could have repeated the action a hundred times and she would have been content to let him. She liked knowing King wanted her. She always had.

“Seetha…I want to make love to you. I want it badly. In fact, I’m going insane here. What the hell do you want?”

Seetha bit her lip and studied his worried gaze. “I want to find some kind of normal where Kingston West is just this incredible guy I know, instead of being a ghost haunting me from my past.”

“He wants that too…
I
want that too. Seetha, aren’t you lonely? And aching? And wishing for someone every damn day? That’s been my condition since Annalise showed me the picture of us. I clearly remember my life before the military and during the war. Celibacy is not my default setting as a man. I think you’re the reason I’ve been staying away from women. Please let me find out why.”

Seetha snorted. “That’s not exactly the most compelling reason I’ve ever been given to have sex with a guy.”

“Okay…a more compelling reason…coming right up.”

His hand ran back up her thigh and disappeared under her dress. Seetha hissed when it stroked between her legs. Her head spun.

“King, I…” but words were taken from her when his fingers started exploring. She blinked…hot tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “There is no way I can do this and not be emotional. When I fell for you…I fell hard. You weren’t like any man I ever knew before you.”

King lifted his head and smiled. He was determined to remove all worry from her gaze. “I’m still not. Let me make us both feel better, honey. It’s nearly all I can think about.”

“Okay,” Seetha said softly.

Somehow he removed her clothing without ceasing to kiss her the entire time. It was like before…only it wasn’t. King was different. Her mind tried to find words to describe how, but they eluded her. He made her so dizzy with lust for him, it was nearly impossible to think.

When he removed his own shirt, she reached up and sighed again as she ran both hands over his chest. He froze to listen to her sighs and watch. Her gaze went to his. Her voice was husky with emotion when she tried to talk.

“You are still the most beautiful man ever created by the Goddess…or by science. Every time I get to touch you I feel like the luckiest woman on the planet.”

King’s heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest. Her voice was just like it was in the recordings…only better…much, much better for being real.

“Your body is beautiful too, and I plan to restore it to the condition it was meant to be, if you will let me.”

Seetha giggled. “So you think I need a restoration too?”

King slid between her thighs, resting his erection on her pelvis. He was hard and hurting. He’d never felt more alive. “Yes, but only on the outside,” he whispered, sliding back and down through the wetness that prepared her for his entry.

He rocked in a little, straining not to plunge. Seetha was tight…wonderful…eager. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest. He could hear her blood rushing and smell her intense arousal.

When she raised her knees and wrapped her legs around his waist, he couldn’t wait any longer and made her completely his with one solid move forward. Her back arching almost ended it early for both of them.

“You’re perfect…abso—fucking—lutely perfect.”

And his
…he thought…but didn’t say it. The possessive feeling she caused in him had been growing every moment. Time in Seetha’s company only made him want more of her. A sense of rightness came with their intimate physical connection. It made his processor spin harder than he’d ever felt it do before.

He stroked inside the lovely Seetha Harrington, enjoying her response, and the way she tightened around him in reward for his thorough efforts. He whispered her name as he found blessed release from his sexual torment mere seconds behind her.

He heard her crying afterward, a quiet sniffling he could tell she was trying to stem, probably for his sake. He tightened his hold on her and pressed in hard, trying the only way he could to reassure her he didn’t care about anything from the past, so long as she wanted to be there now.

“This didn’t tell me much I hadn’t already guessed about us, Seetha. Can we do this a hundred times more and make some new memories? I think I might last a little longer than five minutes next time.”

Beneath him, Seetha laughed and wiped at her eyes. “Don’t you think I can feel you twitching in me already? I see you still have the recovery time of a sixteen year old.”

King chuckled. “I’m glad you approve. Not all women have.”

Seetha snorted. She pulled his head down to her and whispered what she knew was his favorite directive in his ear. She laughed and arched again when she felt his erection reach max capacity inside her once more.

King raised to his elbows to stare into her gaze. “Did you mean that or were you teasing? Keep in mind, I have no chip for you and I’m depraved.”

“Talk is cheap Kingston West…but I’m not. You’re going to have to work for it this time,” Seetha teased.

Moments later, her body was being bounced hard against the mattress while the man above her watched her every reaction. It took him a good fifteen minutes to make her scream again, but when she did, King also exploded hard and called out loud enough to vibrate the walls in the room.

Seetha laughed with pure joy when his sweaty body nearly slid off her sweaty one as he eased his weight down on her. When the air left her skinny frame, he rolled them until he was on the bottom and she was draped over his chest.

Time passed. She had no idea how much and didn’t really care. Finally, his deep voice broke the comfortable silence.

“Was it always this good between us?” he asked.

“Yes. It was always this good,” Seetha said, tucking her face away from him. “Sometimes it was even better.”

“Those sadistic, memory stealing bastards will one day pay for what they did. I swear it,” King said, running a hand down her back as Seetha curled even tighter against him.

***

They showered off the sweat together. King kissed her so long and well the water had run cold before they climbed out. When they towel-dried off, his unblinking gaze on her had her wondering if he was going to drag her back to bed for another round. He sighed heavily when he finally looked away and admitted he needed to go to work.

“Me too,” Seetha said. “I’m supposed to show up at Norton today. I promised Dr. Winters.”

King frowned at her statement, but nodded without commenting. She didn’t like making him unhappy, but it was going to be hard to ruin her day after its spectacular start. She also got to enjoy the Kingston West naked show as he walked around and got dressed. It was certainly turning out to be the best morning she could remember having in a very long time.

Seetha rolled her eyes as King left for the restaurant, folding his giant body once more into his tiny airjet. She prowled around his house after he was gone, staring at her old furniture in the daylight. Her creep factor was still activated, even after their reconciliation.

When her ride finally showed up, she drew herself up tall as she climbed into the pod cab and headed to her mother’s. Once there, she dressed quickly in fresh clothes and headed to her mother’s pod car. Soon she would buy her own form of transportation and it was going to be lots bigger than King’s airjet.