by Susan Hayes
* * * *
Jaeger was the weariest he had ever been. It wasn’t the physical drain of the almost sleepless night followed by the trip across the Drift to chase after Cynder. His medi-bots could keep him on his feet for days if necessary. It was the emotional roller coaster he was on that had him reeling. In all the years since his release, he had moved forward without ever dealing with the past. He buried his guilt and regret deep in the back of his mind and left it there, hoping it would die a quiet death. Wishful thinking. He knew that now. Hell, he had known it then, too, but he had ignored everything anyway.
Now, he was paying the price. Falling for Cynder meant dealing with the past. It might have been easier to keep everything boxed away, but that wasn’t going to work. Not anymore. Not for any of them. The trouble was, he had been carrying those buried feelings around for so long, it wasn’t going to be easy to let them go. Cyn was right, though, he didn’t get to pick and choose what got forgiven. It was an all or nothing deal. For her, he would make it work somehow.
“I don’t think we thought this through. Now you’re both naked, and I’m dressed. You’re going to have to let go of me so I can get naked, too, and I’m too damned comfy to want to do that,” Cynder muttered without moving an inch.
“Then don’t. I think between the two of us, we can figure out how to get you naked. I’m not keen on the idea of letting go of you right now,” he said.
“Me either. And as it happens, this hot little leather thing you’re wearing has the laces in the back.”
“I’ll start on her boots, and we’ll meet in the middle.” Jaeger pressed an open- mouthed kiss to her bare shoulder before moving down to her feet. He wanted her, but it wasn’t the time for sex. They were all raw, tired, and ragged after the events of the past day. There would be time for bed sport later. For now, he wanted to take care of her, to protect and cherish her in every way he could. He had never felt this way before. Everything that happened from now on would be unfamiliar territory, for all of them. They would have to find their way together.
He took his time undressing her. Stripping away boots, jeans, and finally, the tantalizing bit of silk and lace beneath. He sent a quick message to Toro, suggesting they pamper their girl, and his brother responded with a brief nod.
When he was done, he moved back down to her feet and lifted them into his lap. When she looked up in confusion, Toro kissed her and then murmured in her ear, so softly he could barely make out the words.
“We’re going to take care of you, sugar. Lie back and enjoy it.”
“But—“ she started to protest, so Toro kissed her again, cutting her off.
“Shhh. There’s no rush, is there?” he asked, pressing his knuckles into the arch of her foot.
She let out a low moan and shook her head.
“That’s right. You came out here for a break, right? Indulge yourself a little, Cyn.”
She didn’t speak, but some of the tension left her body, and she settled back onto the bed. The bodice she’d worn had been laced tight enough that there were red marks on her skin, and Toro started to kiss each and every one of them while Jaeger focused on massaging her feet.
Soon the rhythmic touches and caresses had him feeling almost as relaxed as she was. He worked his way up her legs, and when Toro coaxed her to turn onto her stomach so he could reach her back, she did so without a word of argument. They worked together, kneading and stroking her until she was uttering soft, sleepy sighs of contentment. For him, there wasn’t a more satisfying sound in the galaxy.
They didn’t stop until Cynder was close to falling asleep. Moving together, Jaeger lifted her off the bed and cradled her in his arms while Toro pulled back the covers. They got into bed and settled her between them, and that was when she finally stirred. Her eyes opened slowly, and a sense of déjà vu hit him hard as she smiled up at him. They had come full circle, back to last night. Before all it all went to hell.
“You’re doing it again, Diceman. Looking at me like I’m the only naked woman you’ve ever seen.”
“I’m never going to stop looking at you that way. You’re too beautiful.”
“From now on, you’re the only naked woman we’re going to see. Our girlfriend, the sexy, ass-kicking cyborg.”
“I’m your girlfriend?” she asked, slightly dazed.
“I think we’re past that bit. We love you; you love us. If that doesn’t make you our girlfriend, what does?” he asked, amused by her reaction.
“Well, fraxx. That seems logical. I should probably warn you, I’ve never been anyone’s girlfriend before.”
“And I’ve never been in love with someone before. We’re all in over our heads, beautiful.”
“You’re sure you want to do this? It could get messy,” she asked.
“Never been surer of anything in my life,” Toro said.
“Me either. We’ll worry about everything else later. After we’ve gotten some sleep.” He kissed her cheek and then settled in beside her. With her in his arms, maybe he would finally be able to sleep again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was Cynder’s hunger that finally forced her to wakefulness. When she opened her eyes, several facts hit her at once. She wasn’t in her room, she was naked, and she wasn’t alone. A very big someone was in bed with her, and he was as naked as she was. She turned her head, relaxing again when she recognized Jaeger. He was still asleep, but even unconscious, he was holding her close, his arm crossing her waist and his body spooned up tight behind hers. At least one of her guys was here with her, but where the hell was here, exactly?
A quick look around filled in some blanks. Bland, white walls. Thin pillows. A bedspread with some sort of faded orange and yellow sunburst pattern on it and not a scrap of blue in sight. She was definitely not anywhere in the club. Recollections of the past twenty-four hours trickled in slowly as she came fully awake. She groaned as everything fell into place. Where she was and why she was there. The fight, the trip with Phyl, and finally the long, emotionally charged conversation with the men she loved.
Loved. Whoa. That thought had her heart beating fast and hard against her ribs. She loved them, and they loved her in return. Both of them.
Both…she sat up and looked around the hotel room. There was no sign of Toro. She checked her watch. They’d been asleep for three hours. Not long at all.
“Jaeg, wake up. Where’s T?” she said, twisting out of his embrace so she could roll over and face him.
“Hmm?”
“Toro’s gone. We should go find him.”
Jaeger cracked open an eye. “Or I could ask him where he is without leaving this nice, comfy bed. You might not want to be linked to your siblings via your internal comm channel, but it does come in handy sometimes.”
“My brothers are bossy pains in the ass. Would you want your former commanders in your head all the time?”
“If it meant we’d tracked them down, then yeah. I’d put up with the chatter. At least for a while. You know, we could add you to our comm channel. That way you’d be able to talk to us even if we weren’t together.”
She opened her mouth, intending to say no, but she stopped herself. Instead, she asked, “Can we do that? I know we were all more or less designed the same because everyone was stealing each other’s ideas and reverse engineering every technological advancement, but we weren’t on the same side. Wouldn’t they, I don’t know, want to make sure we didn’t talk to each other that way?”
“I know it’s possible. When our batch was decimated in a raid, they merged us with the remnants of several other batches. Some of those soldiers were from a smaller corporation we’d already defeated.”
“We’d still need a lab tech to do it.” The idea of letting one of them near her made Cynder’s skin crawl. After everything the corporations had done to her, she couldn’t imagine putting herself in the hands of one of their people.
“I’d never let a tech come near any of us again. Not if I had any choice. I think I can
figure it out, given a little time. It can’t be as tricky as building a bomb, right? Dr. Jefferies might know where I can get the information I’d need.”
“I’ll think about it. Once you know more, we’ll talk about it again.”
“I’ll find a way. I like the idea of being able to whisper dirty, sexy things to you while you’re up in your office, working on boring paperwork.”
Her still slumbering libido came awake with a roar at his words. “If you did that, I’d never get any work done.”
“You work too hard. A little playtime would be good for you.”
“Playtime isn’t what I want. I want time with you and Toro. Speaking of T, you find him yet?”
“I got distracted by the naked woman talking to me. Hang on a second.”
Jaeger was silent for a few seconds. “He says he couldn’t sleep and went to blow off some steam. He’s working out at a club he used to fight for. Wants to know if we can meet him for dinner in an hour or so.”
“He left to go work out?” A dark flower of doubt bloomed in her heart. Why had he left? Was he having second thoughts already?
“He wants me to tell you that he only left because you needed rest. He’d rather—and please remember these are his words, not mine—he would have rather been pounding you than a punching bag.”
“Tell him next time, wake me up,” she said, relieved and amused at the same time.
“Done. And by the way, this proves my point about you needing to be linked to us. I’m not spending the rest of my life relaying messages between the two of you.”
“The rest of your life, huh? You sure? We don’t even know how long our lifespans are. The doc’s best guess is we’ll still be in our prime at one hundred years old. That’s a long time to commit to one woman.”
Jaeger cupped his cheek in her hand and gave her a look that turned her insides to molten gold. “I’m sure I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t care how many years we have together, it isn’t going to be long enough.”
Love and desire flared up together and fused into something new. Something stronger than anything she had ever known. She turned her head and brushed a kiss to the heel of his palm. “For a man who has never been in love before, you certainly know the right things to say.”
“I’m always this charming, haven’t you noticed?”
She laughed and nipped at his hand. “I must not have been paying close enough attention.” The truth was deeper than that. Jaeger was charming on the surface, but it was a glib, glossy charm with no depth. What he said to her a moment ago wasn’t glib. It was something heartfelt and real. It was the real Jaeger, and she loved him.
“Minx.” He kissed her hard, but before she could kiss him back, he moved away again. The next thing she knew he had thrown the covers off them both and flipped her onto her stomach.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Collecting on a debt I’d forgotten about until now. I did say you were going to get spanked for leaving us without a word.”
“Don’t you even think about—“
Smack. His hand came down on her ass with enough force to burn, but not quite enough to hurt.
“What happened to your vow of non-violence?” she demanded, not sure if she was more pissed off or turned on by what he was doing.
All she got in response was a dark, sensuous chuckle that flowed over her, sending a bolt of raw need straight to her clit. He stroked the spot where his hand had struck, and she discovered that the skin there was more sensitive to his touch.
The next blow hit her other cheek, and this time, he put a little more force behind it, enough to make it sting. To balance it out, he spent more time soothing the spot with his fingers afterward. By the time the third one landed, there was no denying that she was turned on. Her skin was tingling, and her clit was throbbing, aching to be touched. She slid her hand between herself and the mattress, intent on making herself come.
“No,” Jaeger growled. “Keep your hands on the bed. When you come, it’ll be my touch that does gets you off, not yours.”
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” she grumbled. She was trying to sound indifferent, but that was hard to do when the next crack of his hand made her moan aloud.
“We’re both enjoying this.” He caressed her heated skin, slowly moving his hand along the seam of her ass to her soaking wet pussy.
She lifted her hips, trying to get him closer to where she needed his fingers, but he slapped her ass again. “Don’t move.”
She twisted her head around to glower at him. “Don’t push your luck.”
“Let it all go and trust me, Cyn.”
Doubt blossomed again, staining her thoughts. She wasn’t good at letting go. “I don’t…I’ve never…”
“I know. I don’t either. It’s something we’re both going to have to work on. It’s not going to happen all at once, but if we’re going to work, we’re going to have to trust each other.”
A wicked thought formed. “I’ll do this, but one day you’re going to let me tie you up. Deal?”
He hesitated for the barest of seconds, but it was enough for her to know that this wasn’t easy for him, either. “Deal.”
His fingers started moving again, one hand caressing her still sensitive skin while he worked his other hand between her legs. She parted her thighs, giving him the room he needed without moving more than she had to. He rewarded her with a firm press of his fingers against her clit. She moaned again, tangling her fists in the sheets as a wave of bliss washed over her.
When the next blow came, she had to bite back a scream. Pleasure and pain came together in an explosion that left her teetering on the brink of an orgasm. He had to know it, too, because he didn’t give her a chance to recover before he slid two fingers into her channel and smacked her again.
She didn’t simply come; she came apart. For one brief but perfect moment, she was nothing but a collection of sensations. Everything else vanished. The club, crimson, her infertility. There was no past to run from. No loss or regret. It was bliss, and she held onto it as long as she could.
“You still with me?” Jaeger asked when she finally came down from her high.
“Barely.” She managed to open her eyes, but that was all. The rest of her body was still trembling with the aftershocks of her orgasm and didn’t seem to want to move yet.
He stretched out beside her and then drew her in close enough he could nuzzle her ear. “I’m never going to tire of watching you do that.”
She rolled onto her side and wriggled up against his chest, deliberately grinding her ass against the hard shaft of his cock.
“Teasing me again?” he asked, his voice little more than a strangled groan.
“Mhmm.”
“Dangerous. How did that end for you last time?”
“With the best orgasm of my life. If you’re trying to make an argument for me playing it safe, you’re doing it wrong.”
Hot breath fanned over her skin as he pressed several kisses to the side of her neck. “Best of your life, huh?”
“Top three, anyway.” This was what she loved best. Not that the mind-shattering sex wasn’t great, but it was the rapport she shared with the two of them that truly made her happy. She could see herself spending the rest of her life teasing and laughing with the two of them, and it filled her with a sense of joy she’d never imagined possible.
“Let’s see if we can hit the top spot, together.”
The embers of desire rekindled instantly. “Yes, please.”
He ran his hand down her side, over her hip, and along her thigh with painstaking slowness. When he reached her knee, he drew her leg up then over so it was draped over his. Still moving with measured precision, he let his hand drift down, between her legs. He stroked her clit with his thumb, moving it in maddening little circles until she was slick, wet, and eager. Only then did he move into position, the wide head of his cock breaching her with the same exquisite slowness.
; “I love you,” he whispered as he filled her an inch at a time. “I want to make love to you every day for the rest of my life. We’re programmed for loyalty, to devote ourselves to a cause. Loyalty to my corporation was never my choice; they were my default. You’re my cause, Cynder. You’re my choice.”
Her body sang with pleasure, but her heart was lifted by another song. Love and joy filled her to overflowing. “You’re my choice, too. Both of you.”
“Mine.” His arms closed around her, hands on her breasts, breath in her ear. He rolled his hips, surging deep into her body, and she rocked back at the same time, driving their bodies even closer together.
The heat built between them slowly, their tempo unchanging. Glide and thrust. In and out. Slow and sensual, his thick cock stroking along her inner walls, igniting a firestorm of passion and need that consumed everything around her. She reached back, sinking her nails into the flesh of his hip and he responded with a low groan of her name.
Teeth nipped at her throat, the scruff of his beard scratching her tender skin. He sucked on her neck, and she laughed, aware he was doing it deliberately. “Marking your territory? Aren’t we supposed to be a more enlightened species than that?”
“No man of any species is enlightened when it comes to a beautiful woman. It’s too soon for a ring, right? Until then, this will have to do.”
She tried to think of a response, but it wasn’t possible to follow any thought more than a few seconds before it vanished beneath another wave of pleasure. She gave up trying to talk or think. She let go of everything but him, and he carried her with him to the heights of ecstasy. Her release was as slow as their lovemaking, unfurling like a flower in the first light of dawn.
He came hard, locking his arms around her as he shuddered to a climax that went on for what felt like an eternity. Breathless and trembling, she closed her eyes and waited for the world to come back into focus. Neither of them spoke for a while. Both of them basking in the last precious moments of bliss.