“She can fight.” The man glared at Dawn. “Attack me now, human. I am prepared so you won’t fool me twice with your small body and weak appearance.”
“Shut up, Vollus,” Iron snapped. “She got the drop on you and we all damn near died. The hull is compromised so the docking doors are useless until we repair them.” His focus landed on Dawn. “What I want to know is how you got those doors open in the first place. You aren’t big enough to drag his body to the scanner and you don’t have access to open the doors.”
Dawn crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips tightly together. She wasn’t going to tell him a damn thing. He could just—
Cathy sniffed. “She repairs everything on Vonder Station and fixes the planting equipment that is sent down to the planet. She’s the mechanic. She is also good with electronics. She can get any door open.”
“Be quiet, Cathy.” Dawn got to her feet, shrugging off her injures, sure they were just a few bruises. “They don’t care about that. They just care about how healthy we are. They are cyborgs.”
“I don’t understand,” Cathy whispered.
Dawn turned to glare at the redheaded cyborg named Iron. “How about we make a deal? You make deals, don’t you?”
The man cocked his head as his eyes narrowed. “You want to make a deal?”
She nodded. “If you let her go safely and alive, untouched and totally as is, I’ll repair anything wrong on the Rally. I’ll work for you if you swear you won’t harm her. I’m really skilled.” She paused. “I can patch the hole I just created.”
He frowned. “We do our own repairs. We don’t need a mechanic.”
Dawn wanted to curse. “All right. How about this? You and I will fight. If I win, you let her go.”
The big redheaded cyborg blinked. His mouth opened and a deep chuckle escaped his lips. “Is this a human joke?”
Dawn shook her head. “No joke. If I win the fight, you let her go unharmed.”
“We have no intention of—”
Iron cut the other cyborg off. “Shut up, Vollus.” He grinned, shaking his head. “I have no interest in beating up a fragile human in an unfair fight. One hit and you’d be in a med bed.”
Frustration welled in Dawn. “Name what you want for her life.”
“They are going to ransom us,” Cathy said. “You told me that.”
Dawn turned her head to eye Cathy. “I lied. I didn’t want you to know what they were really going to do to you. They are cyborgs. They…” She sighed. “It won’t be good, okay? I tried to prevent it but that plan didn’t work out.” She turned her head to glare at Iron. “Name what you want for her life. Is there any humanity left in you? Look at her, she’s only a child really and she’s a good kid. She doesn’t deserve to die out here like this.”
Iron wasn’t amused anymore. He arched a brow. “And you do deserve to die out in space?”
Dawn hesitated. “I’ve learned all the risks out here and I stayed knowing what I was facing. She’s clueless and innocent. Name what you want if you don’t want me to do repairs.”
Iron tilted his head, watching her closely. “I swear she won’t be killed or harmed if you become my personal slave.”
Surprise tore through Dawn. She hadn’t expected that. “Your slave?”
The big man nodded. “My slave. You follow my orders and do everything I tell you to do.” He moved closer, looking down at her. “Everything I want.”
“You’ll let her go free the first chance you come across another ship heading to a safe port, or Earth, if I agree?”
“No.” He shook his head. “But she won’t be harmed and she’ll live.”
Dawn shook her head. “No. That’s not good enough.”
Iron frowned at her. “That’s the deal. She’ll be alive and…” His blue eyes glittered with amusement. “She’ll stay whole. That’s what you’re afraid of, correct? That we are going to use your bodies for spare parts? Gut you while you’re alive and screaming, to take what we want?”
Cathy gasped. Dawn flinched, swallowing hard. She glared at the cyborg, knowing her bargaining power was almost zilch.
“What will happen to her exactly if I agree to this? I want to know what she’ll be in for.”
Iron turned his head toward the other cyborg. “You’re sexually attracted to the other one, correct?”
Vollus glanced at Cathy. He nodded and looked back at Iron. “Yes.”
Iron looked at Dawn. “I’ll give her to him. She’ll live with him and provide sex but he won’t harm her.”
Shock tore through Dawn. She stared at the large, alien-looking men. They were big, thickly muscled, and from what she understood, cyborgs were mechanically enhanced. They were basically super humans. They had sex? That was a frightening thought. It put a whole new spin on why Iron wanted her as a slave. She shivered. Did that mean he’d want to have sex with her?
The other cyborg nodded. “I won’t harm her.”
Dawn looked over the man she’d attacked. He was big, but not as big as the redhead. “Just you? You won’t let the other cyborgs at her?”
He shook his head. “Just myself. I will treat her well and I will not injure her in any way.”
Cathy sobbed, the sound making Dawn inwardly cringe. It was a better fate than death. The man wasn’t going to whore Cathy out, if he could be believed, and he was saying he wouldn’t abuse her. Her attention went back to Iron. She found herself nodding. She’d do whatever it took to save Cathy from being cut up.
“Deal.”
Chapter Two
Iron had brought her to a small room in the crew quarters. He’d let her use the toilet and then he’d tied her down on the bed, leaving her alone for hours to worry about her fate. When the doors opened, filled with dread, she watched the big cyborg walk in.
“We are moving to my quarters on the Star.” He had a really deep voice.
“What’s that?”
“A class-A cruiser.”
Shock rolled through her. “Earth designed?”
He untied her and gripped her arm so she couldn’t get away. “Yes. They were able to dock with us and repair the damage you did.” He sounded pissed off. “You won’t be given another opportunity to cause trouble. I will punish you if you pull another stunt. You are my slave. I still control the other human so she will pay as well if you misbehave or embarrass me in any way.”
Anger surged as she glared up at him. “You’re an asshole.”
His eyes narrowed. He gripped her arm and pulled her along to the cargo area. The docking door had been welded to seal the damage she’d done. The docking sleeve was extended, allowing them to walk onto the other ship. She was led through a huge cargo hold. From the size of it, she knew the cyborg hadn’t lied about the classification of the Star. He took her to a lift and they shot up nine floors, letting her know for sure it a damn big ship. He then led her down a corridor. She saw that all the doors were spaced close together, indicating that they were on a deck of crew quarters.
His room was decent sized, beating the closet she had on the Vonder. This one had a bed, a cleansing room with a top-of-the-line foam cleansing unit and there was even some spare floor space to walk around the room. Not a lot, but enough. On the Vonder, she had a shelf in the wall that had a slide-down door for privacy. The cleansing room was shared by thirty other sleeping compartments and they used rubbing gel to get clean. When the door closed behind them, the large cyborg glared down at her.
“Remove your clothing.”
She took a deep breath. “Just like that, huh? No getting to know each other first? No dinner and a vid?” She paused, knowing she was totally being a smartass. “Don’t I at least get replicated flowers?”
He blinked at her, a frown curving his lips downward. “I want you naked on my bed.”
Her gaze went to his bed as she swallowed the lump that formed in her throat. Her heart pounded almost painfully. She’d made a deal with the big bastard to be his slave. He obviously wanted to fuck her
. Her attention shifted back to him, taking him in from head to foot. He had to weigh at least two fifty, maybe more, with that massive frame. His arms were solid muscle. She nodded while inching away from him to put a little more space between them.
Her hands shook as she removed her jumpsuit. As much as she hated the brightly colored one-piece outfit, this was the first time she dreaded taking it off. She unzipped it slowly while her gaze roamed the room, looking for a weapon. She might not have dated or had sex with a man in a few years but this wasn’t her idea of a way to finally break her dry spell. Cyborgs had never factored into her sexual fantasies.
She stripped down to her undergarments and then turned fully to face the large man. He was standing in the exact position, hadn’t moved an inch from when she’d turned away from him. Their gazes locked.
“I said remove all of your clothing. I want you naked and stretched out on my bed on your back for me.”
Frowning, she glared at him as she jerkily removed her undergarments, shivering from the chilly ship air that the cyborg didn’t seem to notice. Maybe the chill didn’t bother him since he hadn’t adjusted his living quarter’s controls. The room had to be in the high sixties, not really cold but definitely chillier than Dawn liked. Her nipples tightened as goose bumps rose on her skin. She glared at the cyborg as her chin lifted while she kept her fists to her sides. She fought the urge to cover her bared breasts even as a pair of dark blue eyes lowered from her face to her chest.
His mouth tensed and she saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed hard. She took a shaky breath and she wondered if he was going to hurt her. Possible ways this could go down were running through her head. He didn’t look to be the type of guy who was gentle or even sensitive. She just hoped he didn’t come at her like a charging animal. She wasn’t really sure what to make of a cyborg who wanted to have sex.
Her heart skipped a beat as the man bent over to tear at his black boots. He was going to strip down and that only meant one thing. He was really going to have sex with her. She took a step back from him and bumped into the bed with the back of her thighs, leaving her nowhere to go.
His chest was amazing, muscled and well defined. Her gaze flickered over him—a perfect male specimen. Super buff. His skin was beautiful. Not shiny, like some metal, but a dull, lustrous, light silver-gray color. It looked warm and supple. A nice shade that reminded her of some of the new metal engine parts she loved working with, but she was silently freaking out about the whole cyborg thing. Her mind tried frantically to remember any history she knew about cyborgs. She wasn’t coming up with much.
Dawn remembered they been designed to for medical purposes, had been grown in labs, similar to the way clones were grown, and then enhanced. Scientists and doctors had used cybernetics to replace missing limbs, failed organs, and they’d managed to map the human brain to help the mentally ill.
Eventually scientists had mated humans with technology enough to produce super-strong men with a projected lifespan of two hundred years. She’d been told that Earth Government had wanted pilots for deep-space-exploration flights to seek out other life and life-sustaining planets, to find new resources. With their new technology and implants, cyborgs were stronger, faster, and supposedly possessed computerlike brains, giving them super intelligence as well. Her father had told her they lacked emotions and were robotic, so space madness, which afflicted some human travelers on long space journeys, didn’t happen to cyborgs.
They had been flawed though. She had learned that they refused to take orders and had turned on humans. Earth Government had deemed the project a failure and ordered all cyborgs destroyed. There had been rumors that some had escaped before the military could put them to death. Obviously that rumor had been true since one was stripping naked just feet from her.
Her gaze roamed broad shoulders covered with tattoos that ran from his collarbones over the tops of his shoulders and then disappeared to his back. His biceps were thick masses of muscle that were bigger around than her thighs, maybe even her waist. She swallowed hard, her attention lowering to his pants, which he slowly unfastened. He had ridges of muscle just above his belt. Her heart hammered. He looked too big and too strong for it to even be safe to have sex him. If he didn’t manage to bruise her by being too rough then he’d definitely squish her with his weight.
Intense blue eyes watched her from beneath long, curly, dark red eyelashes. His luminous skin tone and red hair was shocking enough but as his pants slid down tapered hips, she was in for another stunning moment. The gasp she heard came from her own lips as her terrified gaze locked on his sex.
“Oh, hell no.” She tried to back up, forgetting she was already against his bed, only to collapse on her ass on his mattress at the sudden motion.
His full lips twisted. “You’re my slave and you agreed to this.” His voice was deeper than normal but in a lower tone that reminded her more of a growl.
Dawn couldn’t look away from the cyborg’s protruding cock, which was pointing right at her as he kicked out of his leather pants and boots, stepping free of them to remove his socks. He straightened, took a step toward her. She whimpered, shaking her head again.
“You’re too thick, too big, and I can’t.” She never thought she’d be telling a guy he was too big but she’d never seen a guy built the way the cyborg was either. He wasn’t freaky large but that was more than she’d ever seen and she hadn’t had sex in two years, four months, and some weeks. Her gaze tore from his generous sex to plead with him with her eyes. “You’ll hurt me.”
He froze, stared at her, looking seriously annoyed. His eyes narrowed and his expression became grim. Taking a deep breath that expanded his chest further, he growled low in his throat. The animalistic sound made her even more afraid.
“I’ll be careful. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
She so didn’t believe him. She inched back on his mattress until her head bumped the wall, telling her she was trapped in the corner with no escape. Her gaze was locked with his and fear turned to outright terror as he took a step toward her and then another, advancing on her the way a predator would, toying with its prey.
“Please,” she whispered. “You’re seriously the size of two of me and with that…” her gaze flew down to his cock again and then back up. “That’s going to hurt me.”
His eyes flashed then all expression was wiped away. He stopped at the edge of the bed, staring down at her, not even blinking now. “Open your thighs and let me see you.”
“No.”
That got a reaction from him. Iron frowned. “If you don’t want to be hurt then open up and let me see. Don’t make me say it again. I can make you do anything I want. We both know I’m much stronger than you but I don’t want to have to force you because I’d have to pin you, which might harm you.”
She hesitated.
“I want to see if you can take me without pain…or not. Like males, females come in different sizes. If you are as small as you are implying then I will see that and know that sex isn’t possible between us without harming you. Open your thighs to me and I’ll be the judge.”
She finally shook her head. “No.”
He took another deep breath, drawing her attention to his wide chest again. Then he spun away. He took a few rapid steps to his discarded clothing, bent over to show her a nice, muscular silver-gray ass, then he straightened and turned back to face her. He was gripping his belt.
“What are you going to do with that?” She went from terror to anger. “If you hit me, you better knock me out or I’ll kill your ass.”
She moved, getting to her feet on his bed. Being taller than him helped him look only slightly less intimidating. She balled her fists, tensing. She’d fight before she submitted to some asshole whipping her.
He watched her a moment before he struck. He moved faster than she thought possible for such a hulking frame. He almost dove at her, going low, not giving her time to react as his hand gripped her ankle. She didn’t even have
time to scream as he gave a mighty jerk, yanking her legs out from under her. She hit the bed on her back, in shock, before weight crushed her down as the cyborg fell on top of her.
She stared up at his face, unable to even breathe from his weight, feeling crushed into the soft mattress. Hot skin pressed tightly to her cooler flesh. She didn’t fight when he jerked her arms above her head. She was too stunned and the panic of not being able to get air into her lungs made her freeze up. When the urge to breathe became unbearable she started to fight.
His weight lifted off her, allowing her the air she needed as she gasped it in. The man pinning her used his hands to brace his upper body, their gazes locking—hers terrified and his grim. She tried to push him but her arms wouldn’t come down. She jerked and felt the bite of his belt on her wrists instead. Her wrists were tied together, attached to his headboard.
“Let me go.”
He slowly shook his head, lifting off her. “Open your legs now for my inspection.”
“Fuck you.” She locked her legs together as he moved to sit on the side of the mattress, turning to stare at her legs.
He frowned. “I could force them open but then you’d have bruises.”
Glaring at him, feeling afraid at the same time, she hesitated. “When I get free, I’m going to kill you, asshole.”
An eyebrow arched. “Thank you for sharing your plan with me.” His voice deepened. “Now open up for my inspection. Resisting me is a waste of your energy and will only harm you.”
Gritting her teeth she drew her knees up to her chest, hesitated, and then twisted her body suddenly and slammed the bastard in his chest. She kicked out hard, and to her shock, actually knocked him off the bed. She watched him disappear off the edge and heard the satisfying sound of him landing on the floor with a grunt.
He came up fast, anger on his features, and then he reached for her with his big hands. Struggling and trying to kick him didn’t work for long. The big cyborg grabbed her thighs, pressing them to the bed. He forced her legs open and pinned them down. Dawn screamed in rage. He ignored her to stare at her exposed pussy.
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