by Megan Hart
What better way to create soldiers capable of utter carnage than to take away their ability to feel intense emotion?
It wasn’t that she could feel nothing at all, he knew that, but it made complete sense that anything beyond the mildest range of feelings would be blocked or controlled by the same tech that adjusted the rest of her body’s functions. The question was why did the tech work that way in Nina, but not in all of them? What set her apart from the rest?
Because she was different, Ewan thought. Different than the others. Different from any other woman he’d ever known.
The look on her face had made the entire morning’s worth of effort totally worth it. He’d had the staff set the table with the fancy china he usually saved for dinner parties. Candles with a real wick and flame, not the battery-operated sort most people used now that the diminishing bee population made beeswax so hard to come by. The soft, golden light glinted off the cut crystal glassware as well as the tiny diamond chips around the rims of the plates.
Nina ran a fingertip around one of them and looked at him. “Used to be a time when a plate like this would’ve cost you so much money you wouldn’t have dared eat off it.”
“I don’t spend my money on things I can’t use,” he told her. “No matter how pretty they are.”
She glanced up at him with a quick grin. “Uh-huh.”
“Always the double entendre with you,” he said, but the truth was, he liked the way she teased him. How had that happened? “Anyway, the jam spoon impressed you so much, I figured it was time to really go all out.”
“Maybe I’m not that easy to impress.”
Ewan pulled out the chair and gestured for her to sit. “Are you saying you’re hard?”
“That’s not usually me, no.”
Too late, he realized he’d opened himself up to another play on words. Nina chuckled and took her seat, waiting as he pushed it in for her. She glanced at him over her shoulder . . . and damn it, his cock twitched. For a moment, Ewan’s fingers clutched at the back of her chair as he itched to run his hands over her shoulders.
Instead, he took his own seat and waited until the server had poured them both glasses of wine and left the room before he answered. “I thought you deserved some recognition and appreciation.”
“For doing my job?”
“For everything you’ve been through,” Ewan said.
“So you’re going to feed me?” Her laugh sounded genuine, if still the tiniest bit strained.
After their conversation and the news earlier this morning, Ewan had researched Allan Hendricks. There’d been nothing in any of the media about him having a relationship with Nina, although there were several pictures of them together at some of the early publicity events from before the worldview about the enhancement tech changed, when the fifteen soldiers had been paraded around like prize sheep. Ewan didn’t want to admit how thoroughly he’d scoured the photos, looking for any signs of them being a couple. One shot had Hendricks’s hand resting on Nina’s lower back.
Ewan had stared at that one for a long time, hating how angry it made him.
Unlike his own social media legacy, however, beyond whatever he could dig up about Nina in the early days after the public reveal, he could find next to nothing more recent about her. If he’d known the names of her clients, he could have searched them to catch a glimpse of her in the background, but most of them appeared to have been as concerned with anonymity and discretion as Ewan was. He had the assets and contacts to dig deeper, but so far, he hadn’t.
Nina deserved her own privacy. Also, respect. Consideration. She deserved better, he thought now, watching her unfold the soft cloth napkin and lay it on her lap.
“As much as you can eat,” he said.
Her laugh softened at that. Right there in front of him, she blossomed like a flower in the desert that had just been watered. “You sure about that? I can eat a lot. What’s on the menu?”
He’d done his research, as best he could, to find out her favorites. It had taken researching way back into her hospital records to see what meals she’d requested most. What he’d done hadn’t been exactly legal or ethical, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d bent the rules to accommodate himself.
“Steak. Potatoes. Garlic bread . . .” He stopped at her quizzical look. “Or I could have the cook make you something else?”
“Real steak?”
He hadn’t had anything but real beef in so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that she might question what he was serving. “Yes. Of course.”
“I haven’t had real steak in ages. Only synthbeef, and really, I think I’d rather just not bother.” She rubbed her stomach with a grin. “Real steak, Ewan?”
“The kinds of company you’ve kept, I didn’t think it would be such a big deal.” He pressed the service button to start the courses arriving.
Nina rolled her eyes in an expression he was rapidly finding both familiar and endearing. “This may come as a surprise to you, but even though it’s understood that I am always to be in the same room with them, most of my clients have not invited me to sit at the table with them to actually share a meal.”
“That’s . . .”
“Common,” she finished for him when he could not find the right words to convey how appalled he was.
“Insulting,” he said.
Nina rolled her shoulders in a small shrug. “Not really. You’re paying me to keep you safe. You’re required to feed me, but nothing says you have to do it with grand fanfare. Anyway, some people like to posture and having me stand behind them while they eat, being all intimidating and stuff, it makes them happy. Whatever the client wants. Did you invite your other bodyguards to eat at your table?”
“I never had any of them living with me, they only attended public events.” He sat back to allow the server to settle the platter of meat and potatoes in front of him. “It never occurred to me not to let you sit at my table. You never mentioned it was unusual.”
“You think I was going to turn down that strawberry jam? You’re crazy. Besides, I’m so easy to get along with, what was I going to do. Argue?” She gave him a look of such wide-eyed innocence all he could do was laugh.
He gave her one of his own. “You? Argue? You, be . . . dare I say it, bossy?”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head, waving a hand but staying out of the way so the server could put a thick steak on her plate for her, along with a fat baked potato glistening with butter and herbs. “I’ll need another one of those, please. And ooh. Rolls.”
When the server gave her another, she continued, “I respectfully beg to differ, Mr. Donahue. You’re the boss.”
“I like it better when you call me Ewan,” he said.
Nina’s brow crinkled. “Huh. Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s nicer.”
“Fine. Ewan. See?” She added in an arch tone, “I’m super amenable and easy to get along with.”
“Unless I ask you to leave me alone while I go to the bathroom.” He dug into his steak with a small murmur of delight at the flavor. “You’re right. Synthbeef is a waste of time.”
“Says the man who can afford real steak.” She cut a slice of her own steak and tucked it into her mouth with a noise louder and more sensual than his had been.
His heart skipped at the sound of it. Watching Nina enjoy her food with such obvious and pure delight put ideas in Ewan’s head that didn’t need any help to bloom. In the time she’d been here, spending every waking and sleeping moment with him, her ability to selectively shutter her gaze against his nakedness had been fine for showering and bathroom functions. He had not, however, had any time for . . . well. While unpartnered, Ewan had been used to taking care of himself on a daily or semi-daily basis. His waking erections had grown increasingly fierce and were taking longer to go away. Now, thinking of it, he had to shift in his chair with a discreet tug at the crotch of his trousers.
Nina glanced at him, brow furrowing. “You okay?”
“Ye
s. Of course.” He stabbed a knife into his own steak, cutting it into bite-sized pieces.
Nina nodded and took a fork of potato. “You grew these?”
“Technically, they were grown in a greenhouse with assistance from automated gardeners. But yes. They were grown on my property. I told you,” Ewan added, forcing himself to focus on the food and the conversation, not the coiling tension in his balls. “I intend for this place to be fully self-sufficient.”
Nina chewed slowly, clearly savoring. He allowed himself to wonder if she’d take the time to enjoy every sensual pleasure the way she did her food, before shoving that thought down. Way, way down. She caught him looking, though, and he hoped she couldn’t guess what he’d been thinking.
“In case of a siege.”
“Yes.”
She took another slow bite. She swallowed and pointed her fork at him. “What happens if you’re away from home and you get attacked?”
“It’s happened.”
Nina nodded. “I know. I’ve read your history. It’s good for me to know what’s happened to you in the past for a lot of reasons.”
“Does that mean you interviewed all my ex-girlfriends?”
“Who’d have the time? That could take years.” Her smile tipped a little more on one side than the other, quirking. Sarcastic.
Another swell of desire pressed at him. “If I get attacked away from home, I hope I have time to get back here. Or to one of my safe houses.”
“Safer than Woodhaven?”
He hesitated before answering. “One of the things that makes them safe is that nobody knows about them. Everyone knows about Woodhaven. If I had to be holed up here, I want to be prepared. But if there’s a truly dire sitch, I have a couple places I can go.”
“Very smart. And fortunate,” she added. “That you’re able to have them.”
“If I wasn’t the sort of man with the money to afford them, I wouldn’t be the kind of man anyone wanted to kill.” Ewan sipped some wine then lifted his glass toward her. “This is very good.”
She glanced at her glass but didn’t take it. “Everything you own is very good, so I’m not surprised.”
“You’re not drinking it,” he pointed out, noticing she’d ignored his first statement.
“I very rarely can even get a buzz, but it’s not worth the risk of being even the smallest bit impaired. Like making sure my gear’s clean and ready at all times,” Nina said, “I try to make sure my body is, too.”
The words hung between them. She was flirting with him again . . . or was she? The back-and-forth game of romance had always bored him, especially since as time went on and the more money he acquired, the easier it was to find a woman interested in dating him. Also, the harder it had become to find one he was interested in being with for longer than a few dates. But, as he’d already determined, something about Nina was not like any of those women with whom Ewan had passed the time.
“I’m sure your body is always ready,” he said.
Nina paused mid-chew, then took the time to swallow carefully. “Are you coming on to me?”
“I don’t get involved with people who work for me,” Ewan said at once.
“Technically, I don’t work for you,” Nina said, evenly meeting his gaze. “Technically, I work for ProtectCorps.”
“Does that make a difference?” he challenged, muscles tensing at the sudden flare of heat that wove slyly and insistently between them.
She smiled.
* * *
“You tell me if it makes a difference to you,” Nina said. “Mind if I have more steak?”
She made a show of helping herself to another thick slab of meat from the platter, not wanting to wait for the server to come back from the kitchen. She glanced at Ewan from the corner of her eye, knowing instinctively that ignoring him would drive him crazy. The inferno that had flared between them after the drone attack had not yet returned, but hints of it tickled low in her belly. Nina already knew how easy it was for her clients to let the forced intimacy of constant contact turn into something more. People gravitated toward sex, and stressful situations seemed to make it happen even more. She’d been known to use that to her advantage, but hadn’t she also known from the very first moment she set eyes on this man that he was going to be trouble?
The question though, was what would she do about it?
“Nina.” Ewan’s voice had dipped low and dangerous, which was not at all a deterrent to her.
She looked at him. “Ewan.”
“I was not coming on to you.”
She waved a languid hand. “Fine, if you say so. Anyway, you like blondes.”
Ewan’s fork clattered against his plate. “What?”
Nina chuckled. She put a hand over her mouth to make at least the semblance of an attempt at holding it back, but couldn’t. After a moment, Ewan sat back in his chair with a frown and a furrowed brow.
“You find me very amusing,” he said.
“I find you frustrating,” Nina corrected. “And intriguing. But yes. Also amusing.”
Ewan shook his head, the frown softening. He picked up his fork again, but set it down at once. He jabbed a finger at her. “Well. I find you frustrating, too.”
“But intriguing?” she asked with a grin, leaning back in her own chair.
His hazel eyes glinted as the corners of his mouth twitched. “Yes.”
“I knew it,” Nina said.
“What would you have done if I had come on to you?” Ewan sipped more wine. In the candlelight—and real candles, she’d noticed that—he looked like something out of an old-time viddy.
“Flirting puts people at ease. Makes it easier to connect.” She shrugged, contemplating her plate and more food, but deciding to wait for a few minutes to let what she’d already eaten settle as she thought about how to explain herself. “The gigs I work tend to be serious or complicated and stressful. A little bit of winky nudge helps. People feel better when they’re flirting. Takes their mind off the stress.”
Ewan made a gruff noise, low in his throat. “What about when it’s more than just a little flirting?”
“You mean sex?” She leaned on the table with her chin in her hand and watched to see if he’d blush again. The soft flickering glow made the flush on his cheeks hard to see, but she thought it was there.
“Yeah.”
“I like sex. Don’t you?” She smiled.
“Of course I do. But that’s not what I was asking.” He leaned forward, gaze intense.
She took a small breath. There it was again, the first tingling tease of desire. Tendrils of curling heat began to unfurl in her belly. “You want to know if I can get turned on? Yes. I can still feel arousal. And even though orgasms and fight-or-flight can seem awfully the same, I can still come. If that’s what you really want to know.”
“The tech can tell the difference between sexual arousal and defense?”
“I don’t know if the tech can,” she said. “But I can.”
Ewan shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “But not intense emotions.”
Nina didn’t answer him for a few moments while she cut her steak into bite-sized pieces. She ate one, chewing slowly. Savoring the flavor of real beef, seasoned to perfection. She ate another, her gaze lifting to meet his, but Ewan was staring at her mouth and then lower, at her throat working as she swallowed the meat. His eyes went to her lips when she licked them, and only then did he look into hers.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said.
She frowned and put her fork down. “I don’t need you to believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out why it works that way.”
At this, her irritation rose. “Well, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to figure that out? For example, oh, I don’t know. Research and development? But guess what? Your lobbying efforts, your campaigns, have effectively made that impossible.”
He didn’t reply to that with anything more than a long sip of h
is wine. When Nina saw he didn’t meant to answer, she took another few bites of steak. Her tongue told her it was still delicious, but the pleasure she’d been taking in it had faded. She pushed her plate away with a sigh.
“Would you go to bed with me?” Ewan asked.
Nina’s eyebrows rose. “Is this a rhetorical question, or do you want a real answer?”
“A real answer.”
“I thought you didn’t get involved with people you work with,” Nina answered lightly, even as winding, twisting tendrils of desire began threading through her body.
Ewan sat back in his chair. He said nothing, but his pulse had stepped up. His cheeks were the tiniest bit flushed.
He was horny.
Nina sure understood that. She’d had clients who didn’t care if she was in the room while they rubbed one out, and truthfully, she’d simply turned on her selective screening to block it. Donahue hadn’t so much as furtively stroked his boner the entire time she was here. Unless the guy had a libido as limp as overcooked pasta, he had to be getting riled up by now, without any kind of release. She hadn’t done any self-pleasuring maintenance of her own, but while she noticed it, she could certainly control it.
“No,” she told him. “I don’t intend to go to bed with you.”
“Have you ever slept with any of the other enhanced soldiers? Other than Hendricks?”
She thought of Al Chastain. Connor Blakely. “Yes.”
“And there weren’t any emotional problems with them?”
“Neither of them were the same sort of relationship,” Nina said, eyeing him curiously.
“Have you slept with any clients while on the job?”
That he wanted to know was not a surprise. That he’d actually had the balls to ask her the question was. Nina used a cloth napkin to dab grease from her lips. She considered a lie for a half-second, but why? She had no need to save his delicate ego.
“Yes. I have.”
Ewan pushed back from the table and rang for the server, who appeared immediately to start clearing away the platters. “I see.”
“I hope there’s dessert,” Nina said. “And I don’t think you do, really.”