WarriorsWoman (7 page)

Wet, dark-blonde curls caressed the corners of his mouth as he alternated between tongue lashing the rigid button at the top of her folds and rimming the sensitive entrance to her tight core.

More whimpers from Minka prodded him to work faster. Stronger hip jerks prompted him to tenderly bite her clit then use the flat of his tongue to lick away the sting. She bucked again and shouted his name. He plunged his tongue into her channel in time to swallow the fresh gush of her sweet cream and to savor the flutters of her orgasm.

He stayed in close to keep her open as he gently moved her legs from his shoulders and slid a pillow under her bottom before positioning his cock at her entrance. Small spasms from her climax continued, sipping at his sensitive cock head.

Determined not to cause her a second of pain, he nudged into her satin sheath an agonizing millimeter at a time. Her swollen walls tightened around him, clamping around his shaft, tugging his sac closer to the base of his cock and squeezing the trigger on his release.

Unable to pull back, and unwilling to thrust faster and risk hurting her, he forced himself to grind to a stop. He locked his jaw and reached deep for the discipline he always commanded without effort.

The irresistible Minka’s soft sighs and silken pussy shredded his restraint with frightening efficiency. He struggled to gather any of his usual titanium control.

After his heart rate slowed to a forced march and he breathed without panting, he held himself over her with one arm and used his free hand to cuddle her breast and rub across the taut nipple with his thumb.

Her breath caught and then she huffed out a cry of pleasure. Hot cream seeped around his cock, and the grip of her sheath eased enough for him to edge farther into the paradise of her silken cunt.

“Tell me if I hurt you and I will stop,” he growled.

Minka groaned and angled her hips to take him that last few millimeters until his sac nestled against seam of her ass.

“Don’t stop, you feel so good.”

Pleased by her approval and determined to keep it, he withdrew until only his thick crown remained inside her tight sheath then pushed back into her satin heat nice and slow. Her long legs wrapped around his hips and her heels drummed on his butt, urging him faster and deeper.

His determination to keep his strokes slow and gentle lasted until she said, “Quit treating me like I’m some fragile treasure. I’m not going to break. I want more.”

He came to a full stop, looming over her. Careful to keep his weight on his forearms, he leaned closer and brushed her mouth with his. “You are so small and I cannot stand to hurt you.”

Her soft fingers threaded through his brush cut and fastened on his ears. “If you don’t move a little faster and a lot harder, then you need to start worrying about me hurting you, champ.”

Laughter bubbled from somewhere deep in his chest and spilled off his tongue. “You please me greatly, little one.”

Her pretty eyes narrowed and her hips jerked up to swallow more of his cock. She ground her pelvis against his pubic bone. The next thing he knew his shaft was pounding into her heat, slamming balls-deep with every stroke as her satin walls milked the last strands of his control right out from his mind.

Minka’s delicate frame shivered and shook as she screamed his name and soared into the infinite ecstasy of utter satisfaction. He was so caught up in the miracle of her orgasm, that his own ropy blasts of cum caught him by surprise as he joined her in a heart-stuttering climax.

While he kept his crushing weight off Minka, he struggled to regulate his heart and breathing with the goal of living long enough to make love with Minka again and again.

The release was as different from his past sexual experiences as mechs were from cyborgs—technically the same, but nothing in common.

For hours he had considered alternate approaches to winning her cooperation. Without her acceptance of the triad, protecting her from further cyborg assaults would be close to impossible. Never had he dreamed that she would welcome a mech as her lover. He was surprised, relieved and gratified by her attitude toward him. He could not have formulated a better strategy to improve her trust and willingness to cooperate with their mission to protect her.

Chapter Four

Silly man, treating her like some kind of fragile blossom. Minka grinned to herself. For all Batzorg’s overwhelming power and fierceness, he was sweet and way too serious. She wound her arms tighter around his neck and tugged him closer, encouraging him to press against her.

Whoa. Sudden crushing weight compressed her lungs. She couldn’t talk, fought to breathe, and slapped frantically at his back.

He levered all the way off her. The sturdy, wooden bed frame creaked and groaned in protest as he eased to his feet. Worry creased his brow. “Are you all right?”

She rasped in enough breath to say, “Fine, you just squished me for a moment.” She paused to take another few deep drags of air before she tried a teasing tone. “You are really heavy.”

His dark eyes went flat and bleak. “Mechs come with a lot of metal components, a weapons specialist more than other members. I weigh approximately one hundred and eighty kilograms without my armor, clothes and pack.”

She frowned and did the math conversion from metric to pounds. Sure she’d screwed up somewhere, she recalculated. “You weigh close to four hundred pounds?”

“Correct.”

“You carry it well.” Her lame attempt to lighten his dark mood fell flat. She pulled on her undershirt and long johns—thin armor, but better than nothing, and tried again. “You’re solid muscle. Where’s all this serious weight?”

Batzorg stayed quiet for so long she began to think he wasn’t going to answer. Then he grasped his left elbow and a control panel hidden on the inside of his wrist popped open. His gaze met hers in a mute question.

Probably the same one she was asking herself.
Do I really want to know more?

After sucking in a deep breath for courage, she gave a single, decisive nod. “Show me.”

His fingers moved over the panel, entering what she guessed was some kind of command sequence. She watched in horrified fascination as his left arm made an amazingly quick transformation into a futuristic weapon.

She blinked, but the man’s arm, which held her so tightly, had vanished, leaving nothing except the metallic instrument of destruction. She tried to remember the gun she’d seen him use to shoot the creep who’d hurt Nigel, but the image refused to come into clear focus.

At the time, with the cyborg tightening his chokehold on her throat, she’d been so scared her eyes had been squeezed shut more often than not. She’d never actually seen Batzorg pull out his weapon. She’d made a simple, mistaken assumption the gun had come from some kind of holster or case. She flapped a hand at the weapon, blaster, whatever. “What do you call it?”

“Annihilator 2300. An excellent weapon capable of stopping a cyborg from distances up to a kilometer.” Obvious pride edged his brief explanation.

And it’s part of your body.

This was the same man who’d just made love to her with so much passion he’d touched her soul. Now he seemed more machine than the man she’d been falling for and fear whispered along the length of her spine.

He scared her.

Even weirder and harder to accept was whether he was a man, a machine, or some weird combination of both, but he was still Batzorg and she still cared about him.
Besides being out of my freakin’ mind, what does that say about me?

“Do Vilmos and Lorcan have special built-ins too?” Her voice was just a little shaky.

Batzorg didn’t hesitate. “We all have enhanced systems. The triad is a battle unit.”

She nodded at the honesty in his words even with the hurt in his gaze, but when she thought about their systems, she was too frightened to give him reassurance.

“The first group of guys, the ones who threw Nigel and grabbed me, they were actually cyborgs from the future?”
Like you,
not exactly human.

“Yes.”

“You’re not a cyborg.” Her rising anxiety made it almost a question.

His face hardened, he grasped the perfectly normal-looking elbow and the weapon changed. In the blur of an instant, the metal became a man’s arm, indistinguishable in every way from the real thing.

She’d watched the second change even more closely than the first. It was still impossible for her to reconcile the way she felt in his embrace with the reality of the technology hidden under his warm, bronze skin.

Stunned by the demonstration she’d just witnessed, she blurted, “Exactly what makes a mech any different than a cyborg?”

Batzorg flinched as if she’d slapped him.

Wrong, because he’s made of metal and probably wouldn’t even register a slap.
A tiny voice inside mentioned he’d felt her beating on his back fast enough to avoid crushing her. Fear and anger roiled through her in such a rush of emotion she couldn’t listen to quiet reason.

“Mechs and cyborgs are both cloned humans enhanced with bionic limbs, reinforced skeletal structures, and are equipped with a renewable power supply and the latest armament. Both classes have technologically advanced perception and communication systems.

“Mechs are genetically and mechanically engineered, and trained by the founders. Cyborgs are developed by the restorers.

“Founders want a world government, human rights and environmental safeguards designed to improve the planet. Restorers want each nation to determine their form of government, how to treat their citizens, and how to handle environmental issues.” His words were uttered with the calm polish of a recorded lecture.

“So there are two different political agendas?” she asked, scanning him for any trace of the passionate man.

“Yes,” Batzorg agreed.

Wonderful, the more things change, the more the next generation recycles the same my-way-is-the-only-right-way insanity.
“So what you’re telling me is both sides wage war with armies of technologically enhanced troops?”

He nodded.

She steeled her heart against the hurt she read in his gaze. “So ownership is the only actual difference between you and a cyborg?”

“No,” he barked, paused, and moderated his voice back to an even, dispassionate level. “Mechs have a superior regenerating power source and a mental link, which allows us to coordinate our actions in real time. The greatest difference is that mechs have emotions, a conscience, and a code of honor.”

Reassured by the hurt she’d glimpsed in his expression and the anger in defense of his mechs she softened her tone. “This mech ethical code, is it programmed into you or a free choice?”

Batzorg met the challenge of her question with no perceptible doubt or hesitation. “Our code is a combination of training, logic and data analysis. Mechs learn from example, from mistakes, from what we experience the same as any other man.”

Once more she couldn’t read any kind of emotion from him. He had human feelings, but either he could turn them on or off at will, or maybe he was able to conceal his emotions better than most.

“Cyborgs can’t learn or choose?”

“They are capable of assimilating new data, but they are not allowed to exercise free will.”

Memories of the terrorist cell responsible for releasing the contagion and the subsequent horrific pandemic that destroyed all human life on the planet except for few survivors flooded into Minka’s mind on a tidal wave of bitterness.
Free will didn’t work out all that well for the human race.

She prayed the new society that she hoped to help build would make better choices. “The compound in California, they’re the beginning of the founders?”

“Correct.”

Since he works for the founders, and I want to, does this make him an ally?
“In this war between the founders and the restorers, who’s winning?”

“Since we are cut off from headquarters, I do not know.”

“Really, or are you afraid telling me would mess up the time continuum?” Bitterness laced her question, but she couldn’t regret asking or her doubts, not even when Batzorg’s handsome face tightened further into a stony mask.

“Every move I make might well affect the future.”

Minka rubbed her temples, trying to ease the building tension. “Then why did you come? Never mind, Vilmos told me your mission was to rescue me from the cyborgs. You’ve already done that so you can go home now.”

“We cannot. Number one, our transporter is gone. Number two, the mission changed.”

“What’s your latest critical mission?”

Batzorg turned away from her, pulled on his black ski pants, and shrugged into his shirt. He left his armor neatly stacked near the closet. “To ensure your safety by accompanying you to the compound in California…”

He clamped his jaw shut, but she’d already heard the telling hesitation as clearly as if he’d uttered the missing conjunction. She eyed him with skepticism. “And what else?”

“That is it.”

At least she had confirmation the compound existed, if she could trust anything he said. But he wasn’t volunteering further information and she was sure there was still more. “Go ahead and tell me.”

“It is not part of the official mission, but I care about you and I want you to care about me.”

Sure you do, champ.

When he’d said that caring wasn’t part of his mission, he’d turned his face away. Aside from the shifty body language, her reliable intuition said he’d omitted something important.

Worse than the widening credibility gap between them, his tone was flat. A knot of disappointment grew in her throat. She swallowed hard.
Is that what making love is for him? Screwing me is part of his damn mission?

She swallowed again, still trying to clear the pain and disappointment. A new, scary thought flitted through her mind. “Are mechs capable of reproducing?”

Not that she minded the idea of having a baby, she just wasn’t sure this world was safe enough for her to bring a child into it.

“I do not know. The capacity to reproduce seems unlikely, but there has been no testing of that function.”