by daisy harris
“Fine, I gotta go. Text me if you find some other anomaly.” Bane pulled the phone away from his ear, but heard Q-ter shout and laugh.
“Hey, Bane. Hold up!”
“What!” His teeth ground together and he gripped the phone hard, fighting the urge to tear off after her.
“You’re not going to believe this!” Q-ter’s laughter exploded over the line. Bane heard his fingers clicking even as the kid called out, “Frank, you gotta hear this!”
“Just spit it out!”
Another peal of laughter sounded over the phone. ”The sicko programmed her to need feedback of the naughty-naughty kind. Man, the guy was a perv!”
Bane’s body went taut. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean if she doesn’t get touched, her programming will degrade. Like, the way infants need sensory feedback to develop the right neural connections. Well, he ratcheted up her need for it, and specifically skin-on-skin.” More clicking sounded and Bane held his breath for Q-ter to learn more. “And proprioceptive input too…”
“What?” Bane snapped. He knew he should understand what Q-ter was talking about, but was too distracted to properly listen.
“Proprioception? Like how the body moves in space. Have you noticed her fidgeting a lot, hopping up and down or anything?” Q-ter giggled as he spoke, clearly unable to maintain professionalism in the face of the innuendo.
Bane thought about Josie’s squealing excitement when the boat sped up, the way she seemed to run her fingers along anything and everything she could find. “Yeah.” He scrubbed his jaw. “I may have noticed something along those lines.”
“I’m going to need to look into this more. I can’t tell if all she needs is some arm stroking and running around, or if she’s going to eventually require full-body contact.”
Bane chewed at the side of his lip. He took a deep breath and thrust his jaw out in determination. Neither of us will remember any of this in a few days, he chanted. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Don’t work too hard, buddy.” Bane could almost hear Q-ter’s smarty-pants grin over the line.
“Just text me when you know the whole story.” He clicked the phone off and shoved it in his back pocket. Sure it wouldn’t work off the boat, he’d gotten lucky with the 24G on Patos, but Bane felt naked without it.
Naked. Man, Bane hadn’t touched a female intimately in a long time. If he was honest, he’d never touched a female intimately. His handful of sexual experiences in his undead life consisted of drunken screws in back alleys. The thought of doing something like that with a wide-eyed virtual child who didn’t even know the meaning of the word forced self-loathing like tar through his circuitry.
He put the thought out of his mind and jogged along the path in the direction he’d seen her explore.
* * * * *
The tiny animal didn’t want to come to her. Its rounded head was different than Cat’s, and it had a bushy tail. It held its clawed hands in front of itself, studying her with onyx eyes. “Come, animal!” Josie spoke in the authoritative way Adam had, but the animal failed to obey.
“Would you come here please?” The animal neither responded nor spoke, which she took as a no. Tomorrow she would bring it food.
She rose from her crouching position and folded the blanket over her arm. The air warmed and the walk had heated her muscles. Josie liked the looks of this island quite as well as Adam’s, though she missed her friend, Cat. A bird cawed from a tree above, a crow stared down, its head tilted in question.
“I don’t have any food for you today. I’ll bring some tomorrow.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps then you’ll let me touch you.” Her fingers twitched and Josie rubbed her palms together, then stroked her fingers up her forearms. Her skin felt tight and hot. She remembered Bane’s hands on top of hers as she steered the boat. Sensation had zinged up her arm like electricity.
She trudged farther down the path, looking for more animals. Josie wouldn’t touch him again if she could avoid it. He’d laughed at her, ordered her around, put her under voice command and threatened to do it again. She thought of the mindless creature she became under Adam’s control. Her chest hurt that the man she’d thought so beautiful would want to do that to her.
Josie spotted something slimy and yellow on the trail and bent to touch it.
Footsteps sounded behind her, precise strikes at the ground. “I wouldn’t do that. Banana slugs are slimy.”
“Slimy?” Her finger darted out and stroked down the length of the slow moving creature. Its surface was slick, a bit like soap, but stickier. Smiling, she rolled the goo between her fingers. “Hee!”
Bane tromped to the front of her and grasped her hand. “You know how hard it is to get that off?” A sizzle of energy stole up her arm at the touch of his calloused fingers on her wrist.
She yanked her hand back. “Don’t touch me.”
He stared her down. His deep-set eyes took her measure. ”There are some things I need to tell you.” His expression softened, though his jaw clenched. “You need to know what you are.”
Josie crossed her arms over her chest and placed one leg in front of the other, holding and protecting herself at the same time. “And you’re going to tell me? Why?” Adam’s reasons, though twisted, made sense. Adam had loved her and wanted to take care of her. This man didn’t even seem to like her.
“Because it’s a big world, and you’ll need to take care of yourself.” His eyes shadowed, and she knew Bane wasn’t telling the whole truth. But his resigned stance told Josie he was telling some. “Come…” Josie flinched at the start of the order, and Bane held his hands palms up in surrender. “We should sit down.”
He tugged the blanket from her arms, careful not to brush her skin, and laid it on a boulder. Then Bane sat, patting the spot next to him. “Would you sit? Um, please.” The last was said between gritted teeth.
She settled on the farthest tip of the blanket even though Bane’s body radiated an excitable heat that made her want to edge closer. He smelled of sweat and man, and just a hint of metal. And he placed his hand inches from hers, flipping open and shut his shiny lighter.
“Well, the first thing you need to know is that you used to be dead.” His tone was all business, and he prepared to list something else, when Josie cut him off.
“What does that mean?”
With what appeared to be great effort, Bane paused. He scrubbed his hand at his neck before continuing. “You remember what happened to Adam? When I shot him?” Josie nodded. “Well, you were like that.”
“You shot me?” The idea hurt her feelings.
“No! I didn’t kill you. Likely no one did, you… I mean your body probably died because you… I mean it was sick, or something.” Josie opened her mouth to ask another question, but Bane held up a finger to cut her off.
“Adam brought your body back to life and built your mind using some of the connections your brain had before, and some new ones.” Again she tried to speak, but Bane’s thumb stroked along the ridge of her index finger, stealing her breath. “The point is that there are billions of people in the world, but very few of them are like us. Most were born as babies, to mothers.”
Josie searched her repository for more data and found an image of a tiny pink person. “Will I ever have a baby?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t know. Probably not. Okay, most likely not.” Those curved lips pinched into a hard line, and Josie had a wild urge to kiss them softer. “But you can do a lot of things, anything you want. But I have to take you to my people. They’re called the Zombie Underground, and they help people like you. They’ll clear the programming Adam installed and…”
“Why would I want that?” Josie eased her hand closer to her body, away from his long, teasing fingers.
His eyebrows shot up. “You like being someone’s slave, having men put you under to force you to do things?” His voice shook with some hidden emotion, and Josie sensed the need to speak carefu
lly.
“You don’t have to order me to do things.”
A breeze blew from the water, rustling the trees overhead, and a bird cawed and flapped its wings above.
He didn’t meet her eyes. “Frank, my boss, can help you function better, fix any hidden problems. You could live with others like you, or out among humans.”
Josie noticed that another small animal had crept out of the underbrush to watch their conversation. It wasn’t the same animal from earlier, but looked to be the same kind. “I like it here though.” She made tiny sounds to lure her prospective friend.
Bane sat up straight, seeming to lose his patience. “Yeah, this is beautiful, but you can’t stay here. Among other things, Synaviv would snatch you up in no time.”
She whispered, more to herself than to him, “Not if you’re here.”
He looked away and Josie thought he might leave. “We need to go to Seattle.”
Josie focused on the animal, with his scratchy-looking hands. She ran her fingers over the felt of the blanket.
“And another thing. You're going to have to let me touch you… Sometimes.”
Josie’s head spun so fast, a crick stung at her neck. “What?”
Again Bane raised his palms to her. “Hey, I’m just telling you what my guys told me.” He picked at a piece of string along the seam of the blanket. “Adam seems to have built you to need touch like you need food. I’m sure because he planned on doing a lot more than just touching you.”
Josie knew she could determine his meaning if she thought hard about her time with Adam, but she refused to revisit those memories.
“But if you come with me back to the ZU, I bet Frank can fix that, make it so you could go days not touching anyone and be fine.”
Her fingers curled on the blanket at the thought. Already with his warm body so close, Josie had to bite her lip not to reach over and stroke her nails through the gold fur in his arms. Given how Bane had laughed at her earlier, she didn’t want to be at his mercy.
Her body leaned toward his, and Josie’s sharp senses drank in the musk emanating from his skin. “Can I touch you instead?”
Bane didn’t answer, but when she looked at him, the apple in his neck bobbed. “If you want.”
Josie extended her arm. She gasped when the pads of her fingertips met the flesh on his wrist. Then she walked her fingers higher, to where the hair thinned at the bend of his elbow and his skin bulged with muscle. Before Josie could process the onslaught of sensation, her hand snuck into the arm hole of his shirt.
Bane shifted so he faced her, but closed his eyes. Her arm snaked farther into his shirt, coming to rest behind his shoulder blade. He held still while she explored. His skin was rougher than hers and his muscles hard beneath his flesh. Josie bit back a sigh. She wanted to press herself into him, her whole body against his, so close they could feel each other breathe.
His eyes opened and his gaze darted to her lips. Their faces hovered close together. She could smell his breath, see the short, rough hairs on his jaw. Those hard, pink lips called to her, and Josie leaned forward and placed her mouth on his. He made a sound like a purr, but deeper. Josie’s fingers dug into his shoulder, she pressed her chest against his.
The feel of his body flush against her softer one brought a scream to her throat. Her arm wrapped around him and her leg pitched over his lap until they were face-to-face. Her mind zinged with sensation. Buzzing filled her ears so that it took her a moment to register that his tongue had slid into her mouth.
Chapter Five
The space between Josie’s legs swelled with heat. He did it again, and Josie shouted against his lips. Her mind filled with faded images of bodies locked in an embrace. She wanted to throw her head back and crawl into his body all at the same time. He smelled so intoxicating she abandoned his mouth to bury her head in his shoulder and run her tongue over his smooth, tan skin. He tasted like sweat, a hint of salt water and the sheen of misty rain.
She bunched his t-shirt in her fists and dragged it over his head, crying out again as acres of warm flesh were bared to her hungry gaze. She tugged her own shirt up, looping her hair to fit it through the opening.
The material fell to the forest floor, and dragging in a breath, Josie eased her bare torso onto Bane’s. The sensation exploded along her nerve endings. She felt every crest and valley, the tiny puckers of scars along his ribs. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm, and she could feel his doing the same. Overcome, she laid her head on his shoulder, her face pressed into the warm muscles. Sharp bits of rock poked at her knees, and Josie adjusted her legs to wrap around the seat of his pants.
She hadn’t known anything could feel so good, and her mouth opened to tell Bane as much, to ask him if he felt it too, when his hands smoothed down to her hips and gripped them. Bane tugged her in closer, so that the damp, swollen center of her crushed into the lap of his rain pants. She felt a ridge beneath the fabric hard against her sensitive flesh. He thrust his hips up into her and Josie’s eyes rolled back into her head. Sparks flew wild and fast behind her eyelids at the feeling his movements wrung from her. Josie writhed on his lap, adding friction to his already firm strokes.
A wave of feeling started at the juncture of her thighs. It made her want to press her legs closed and spread them wide at the same time. Her breasts brushed at the wiry hair on his chest, creating a circuit between them. Bane’s hand released her hip and reached lower, stroking along the crease in her behind and down to the pelt below. Her back arched and she threw her head back, a cry escaping her lips and echoing through the trees.
He stroked her again, the gentle movement sent fire crawling up her spine. Another firm grind against his pelvis shot sparks into her core and Josie felt on the precipice of something. She didn’t know what, only that she would die if forced from his body.
Bane’s hand stole into her damp flesh from behind and Josie flew. Shouts and cries left her lips, her body crumbled in shivers on his, and the center of her clenched and spasmed, the joy of it almost painful. White lights and colors danced in her vision, contrasting with the earthy hues of Bane’s flesh, and warmth blossomed in her heart.
She never wanted to be parted from this beautiful creature.
“You are so damn gorgeous,” he growled in her ear, and Josie knew he felt the same way. Her heart ached even as it danced.
Bane lifted her from his lap a fraction. He fussed with the fastenings of his pants while Josie floated in bliss. Her cheek rested on his skin as she looked forward to feeling yet more of his lovely flesh on hers.
In a wild, harsh blur, an image invaded in her mind—Bane bending her over the boulder, kicking her legs apart, a huge appendage jutting from between his legs and stabbing into her.
She jumped up from him and scurried to grab the shirt off the ground. Her hands clutched it to cover her body and when she chanced a look at Bane, he sat on the rock, a purpled, erect…thing in his hand.
Josie tugged the shirt over her head and yanked at the hem to cover her thighs. She didn’t look in Bane’s direction again until he’d stood and started walking away.
His shoulders hunched and his head hung low. He stretched his t-shirt between his arms to fit it over his head. After a few steps, he turned to face her. “Listen, you could have just said no, all right? I’m not a fucking rapist.”
Her mouth opened to reply, and then closed. When she didn’t say anything, Bane started walking away again.
But like last time, he stopped after a few feet. “I’m sorry, okay? I… I’m just sorry.” He didn’t wait for her reply before turning back to the path and heading toward the dock. “We need to find a spot to camp for the night.”
Josie trailed behind him and sifted through what had happened. They crested the hill and looked out over the bay. The boats floated in the gray-green water. “Bane?” She placed a hand on his shoulder and he stopped but didn’t turn.
“Yeah?” His muscles tensed under her touch.
“Why did you do that
?”
He started walking again, away from her and down to the boat.
Josie hurried behind him. With each step she took, her anger grew that he hadn’t answered.
Bane hopped down into the boat and started gathering things from the cupboards.
She remained on the dock and placed her hands on her hips. “Would you please answer me?”
He stuck his head out the door. “Why’d I do what, exactly?”
She made a little sound, halfway between a scoff and a laugh. “That stuff in my mind, why did you…” Josie searched for the question. “Why did you put it there?”
His forehead knit together and he looked at her with an expression of complete confusion. “Why did I put what where?” He stepped out of the cabin but stayed in the boat’s aft, looking up at her.
“You didn’t do it on purpose?” She felt a hint of relief.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You freaked because I whipped it out, right?” He gestured to the front of his pants.
A hot blush climbed her cheeks. “Um…” Josie rubbed her fingers against her palms. “Well…I saw things when you did that.”
Bane’s eyebrows rose and he cast a meaningful glance at his trousers again.
A hysterical giggle rose in her throat. “Not those things. I mean, I saw a scene…in my mind. I thought you put it there.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up, as if he was trying not to laugh. “What did you see?”
Josie’s face burned. “It’s not important.” She flicked her hair back, trying to make herself believe it. But then she whispered, “Adam put pictures like that in my mind too.”
Bane hopped onto the dock. His deep-set eyes darkened with understanding and his jaw hardened with feeling. He took her hands, and his voice was soft and gentle when he said, “I am so sorry.” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t project anything on purpose. Adam set you up to network with your husband, and I guess that’s part of the program.”
She wanted to lean into him, collapse with the force of her relief, but Bane kept a few inches between them.