by Cara Bristol
She’d lie here for a while to satisfy whatever social propriety existed with a one-night stand then untangle herself with an appropriate excuse. He already knew she had a meeting with her “business partner.” With a sigh, she relaxed against his hard body. If she had to cozy up to a man, this one wasn’t as bad as most. She pressed her face to the damp hollow of his throat and inhaled his scent. He smelled good. Too good. Her womb fluttered, and she eyed his cock, an impressive bad boy even in its relaxed state. But, erect? Holy shit.
She tore her gaze away from his penis and peeked at the ceiling. Like one of those old, old carnival oddities, the mirror overhead reflected a distorted version of the truth. Entwined, they resembled lovers instead of first-name-only strangers. Had he told her the truth at all? Maybe he’d never abandoned his criminal activities. Or maybe that was the lie? Perhaps Mr. Straight Arrow fantasized about acting like a tough guy.
She eyed his reflection. No. When it came to toughness, this dude was the real deal.
Her story had been false, but that was beside the point.
His arm tightened around her shoulders. “No regrets.” His voice rumbled against her ear.
She hated the way he could seem to read her. “Why do you say that?”
“You’re scowling.” He jutted his chin at the mirror.
Crap. She was better at hiding her feelings than that. “No regrets.” She hesitated. “Just questions.”
He untangled and stretched his legs. She could get away now if she chose. “Like what?” he asked, and stretched his arms over his head. The design on his upper right biceps appeared permanent. Centuries ago, tattoos had been all the rage. In the early twenty-first century, you’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone under forty years of age who didn’t have one.
This century? A rarity.
He intercepted her gaze. “The gang I belonged to got tats to signify our allegiance to the brotherhood.”
“They’re easy enough to remove.”
“I keep it as a reminder of what I used to be.”
“Are you married?” Where the fuck had that come from? She didn’t care about his personal life. She didn’t need to know anything about him, although personal code forbade poaching on another woman’s territory.
“No.” He chuckled, a rich warm sound causing her stupid pussy to clench. “But, if that mattered to you, shouldn’t that question have preceded ‘your place or mine’?”
Asshole. Fuck him for pointing that out.
“How about you? Are you married or partnered?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t you have asked before you shoved me up against the wall?” She used his words against him.
“Come now, you can do better than that.”
Humiliation flooded her in an acid wash. You can do better than that. Familiar words scored a bull’s-eye in a circle of old hurts. She sprang out of bed and lunged for her clothes. “Yes, I can do better.” Than you.
He sat up. “What the hell? What did I say?”
Nothing. The comment had been innocent. Teasing. He hadn’t meant anything by it. She was overreacting. Awareness could not halt reaction. She grabbed her clothing—discovered it had been her tunic that had torn—and yanked it on then pulled on her trousers.
He stared like he couldn’t believe his eyes. No doubt by morning, he’d thank the stars in the Virgo Supercluster for his escape from the crazy broad.
How’s that for ruining the moment? Yes, she could have done better. Now she needed to escape his incredulous scrutiny and be grateful she’d never have to face him again.
She rushed for the door.
“Wait, Amanda.”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered and fled. They shared something in common: he, too, could do better. He could find himself a woman without issues.
Chapter Three
Sonny slid out of bed. Picking up chicks like her explained how people ended up having to buy their body parts back on the black market. Everything had seemed to be going so well. They’d been joking around and then, kaboom. What in the galaxy could have set her off?
At least he wouldn’t have to deal with her again. Not my Arcanian festival, not my ringed wervic.
Except, damn his cybernetic senses. He’d spotted the flash of pain in her eyes before she’d camouflaged it with anger. Without intending to, he’d hurt her. How? Perhaps he should go after her to apologize. For what? He didn’t even know what he’d done or said.
And find her how? He didn’t know which pod she’d been assigned or her surname. He might be able to hack into Darius 4’s database to retrieve the information, but if a little pillow talk had freaked her out, he could imagine what showing up at her door would do.
Better to let her go. He collected his clothing. A smudge in the shape of her body smeared the window. Two denser round spots marked where her ass had been, and a higher one indicated where her shoulders had rested. He grinned and rubbed the gouges and a scratch on his shoulder. She’d dug into him pretty good, leaving bloody crescents to remember her by. Nanos would facilitate healing, ensuring the wounds disappeared faster than her exit. She’d been so wet, yet so tight, gripping his dick in her sheath like she would never let him go then pounding on his butt to get him moving. He’d had a hunch she would kick ass!
He just hadn’t guessed she would haul it, too. Sonny chuckled. He’d remember this woman for a long time.
He rinsed off with a quick ChemShower then slipped back into bed and fell asleep.
* * * *
Artificial sunlight hit the glass and highlighted the imprint, leaving no doubt what had transpired the evening before. Memories and sensations crashed in a wave, and despite the ending, stirrings of desire zinged through him again. Sonny ordered his nanocytes to tamp down the heat. Duty called. From this point forward, he had to keep his head in the game. He couldn’t allow distractions like last’s night’s adventure. A single misstep could result in capture or death.
He would be infiltrating the home planet of Lamis-Odg.
“Due to the extreme risk, I won’t order anyone to do it,” the Cy-Ops director had said. “I’m asking you because your background makes you the best fit.” Carter had shaken his head. “I won’t sugarcoat it. The odds are against success.”
Decoded, “odds against success” meant a slim chance of getting out alive. A possible suicide mission. Just the kind he frequently signed up for. Why endanger another cyberoperative when he was ready, willing, and able? “I’m on it. What’s the specific objective?”
“Your partner will fill you in.”
“There are two of us?”
Carter nodded. “Manny has a plan and will lead but needs backup. When you two meet, he’ll provide the details.”
Scanning the garden seven floors below, Sonny spotted the dining pavilion where he was supposed to meet his partner. Until this assignment, he’d never heard of the man. They’d communicated via wireless, but he had no idea what his cohort looked like. He shouldn’t be too hard to pick out, though. Watch for the biggest, bulkiest male in the crowd. A man who resembled him, minus the facial scarring.
Opening a secure channel, he hailed the other cyborg. I’m on my way to the pavilion.
Manny responded immediately. Got here a few moments ago.
No trouble finding it?
No. I could see it from my room.
Sonny slung his duffel over his shoulder and did a quick check to ensure he hadn’t left anything behind. Nope, just an ass print on the glass. Fuck, she’d felt fantastic. Ready for him at the start. Too bad the fun and games had ended so abruptly. Maybe Manny had had better luck with his hookup.
He exited and strolled toward the transporter. How did your hot date go?
Not bad. He scratched the itch, Manny said.
Better than nothing, I suppose.
That’s the way I see it.
Sonny boarded the ascender. See you in a few.
I’m at a table on the right side in the back.
Roger.
> Once on the ground floor, he entered the garden and picked up the pace, his human mind and cyborg brain shifting to operational matters. He’d rescued kidnapped heiresses and corporate business people, swooping in to steal them out from under the noses of their abductors. He’d served on undercover protective details for key political figures. He knew next to zip about this mission, only that it involved landing on Lamis-Odg. Carter had considered it risky enough to ask for volunteers instead of assigning someone, and it required two people. The stakes would be high.
Make no assumptions; errors could be deadly. When you thought something was simple and straightforward, it spun around to bite you in the ass. Like the time he’d been called in as an extra bodyguard to protect a Faria who’d been threatened by her unstable ex-lifemate. Hell, she’d been hidden in an underground facility with tighter security than Cy-Ops HQ. Easy peasy, right?
Except they’d been betrayed by an insider, and Sonny had damn near been gutted by the ex-lifemate. Fortunately, cyborgs weren’t so easy to kill. His robotic nanocytes had prevented him from bleeding out. But, Carter, who hadn’t been a cyborg at the time, almost had bitten the big one.
Take nothing for granted.
He strode into the pavilion, scanning the far right corner of the restaurant. Plenty of males, Terran, alien, and android, but none with the height and bulk of a cyborg. His gaze zeroed in on a woman seated at a small table, facing away from him. Oh hell. He recognized that back. The sight of it fleeing his hotel room had imprinted on his brain—not to mention the glass.
Should he say something? Hi, nice to see you again? Funny meeting you here? Perhaps it would be best to avoid her. After the way she had cut and run, he was probably the last person she wanted to see. But she sat in the vicinity where he was supposed to rendezvous with Manny. Where the hell was he, anyway?
He hailed his fellow cyborg. Can’t find you in the crowd. Wave or something. Sonny lifted his own hand just as Amanda twisted in her chair and waved.
Oh.
Fuck.
Me.
No.
Her shock appeared even greater than his. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. If not for the jolt ricocheting through his body, he might have found humor in her horrified expression.
He strode to her table.
She shot to her feet. “You’re not, you’re not—”
Samson “Sonny” Masters. Field agent, Cyber Operations, he transmitted via wireless to “Manny,” still clinging to hope.
Amanda jerked her head. “Son of a bitch!” She glowered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I? Why didn’t you, Manny? Whatever the hell your name is!”
“Amanda Mansfield. Manny is a nickname.” She glanced around the restaurant then hissed in a low voice, “How was I supposed to guess Samson and Sonny were the same? That you were my contact? I couldn’t share my identity with some guy I met in a bar.”
With some guy she’d picked up. Some not bad guy who’d scratched an itch.
That’s what he rated, not bad? She’d seemed as into it as he had been. He’d warned it might be fast, but she’d kicked his ass to egg him on and make it faster. If he’d been too quick to satisfy her, perhaps she should have stuck around for round two.
Not bad? He glowered.
“Listen,” she said. “We’re cyberoperatives, and we have a job to do. Let’s forget last night happened. ”
He possessed cybernetic eyes, a keen human mind, and a computer microprocessor implanted between the hemispheres of his brain. Last night in the bar, all three must have switched to off, allowing his dick to assume control. Even after she’d put down the Malodonian with the greatest of ease, all he’d paid attention to was how her breasts swelled beneath her tunic, the length of her legs, the softness of her lips, her feminine scent. Now the other details made sense: the rapier sharpness of her gaze, her military stance, a defined muscle tone that could only have been built by nanocytes. As a female, she wasn’t bulky like her cyberoperative brethren, but she was 100 percent cyborg.
Not any cyborg, his team leader who’d evaluated his bedroom performance as not bad.
“That seems like the best course of action,” he said. He’d like nothing more than to forget last night’s incident. He could erase the coded memory from his microprocessor, but his human brain wasn’t so easily wiped.
“I ordered breakfast for us both,” she said. “I didn’t know what you liked so…”
“I’m sure anything you ordered will be fine.” Appetite had evaporated, but he’d eat because he needed to. After they departed Darius 4, real food might become a rare commodity. Meals would consist of fortified but tasteless Nutri-Sup bars.
They took their seats, and, as if on cue, an android server delivered two steaming plates. A stack of Terran flapjacks, Arcanian sausages, a side of Xenian fruit, and Cerinian java, a coffee as potent as the brandy. The android departed.
“Listen,” Sonny said. The tension was as thick as the cream the server had brought for the coffee. “Whatever I did or said last night to offend you, I’m sorry.” Maybe his offense had been his mediocre performance. Not bad.
She stared at her plate. “We agreed not to discuss it.”
All right, then. “Why don’t you tell me about the mission?”
* * * *
The mission. Yeah, focus on that. Focus on a way to survive this hell. Samson—Sonny—had been surprised to see her, but the speed of his recovery demonstrated the situation didn’t bother him as much as it did her. Why should it? He’d handled himself fine; he didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about or requiring an apology. He hadn’t bolted from the room in a panic. Why, why, had she picked him up? What was the old Terran saying, “Don’t shit where you eat?”
She’d only wanted to have sex, to be held, one last time, in case she didn’t survive the mission or ended up in an alien prison.
What happens on Darius 4, stays on Darius 4. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What happened to her would stick with her like an Arcanian to a wealthy tourist. The mission would be dicey enough without the complication of having slept with a fellow operative, a man under her command. Maybe her father was correct. Maybe she didn’t have the right stuff. She’d screwed up already.
“We’re going to infiltrate the household of Kilead—Lamani-al-bon,” she said.
“Lamani’s son?” His eyes narrowed, but he cut into his pancakes with his fork and then took a bite.
“Yes. The firstborn.” Lamani was the leader of Lamis-Odg. Al-bon meant son of, but specifically referred to the male child who would inherit. The planet was a primogeniture society. The number one son received everything.
He tucked into his meal like it was his last, but she could only poke at hers, certain it would choke her if she swallowed a tidbit. Focus on the mission. Once they nailed down the location of the reclusive leader, Cy-Ops would move in, neutralize him, and end the terror his organization wreaked upon the galaxy.
“What’s our cover? How do we get in? Other than Malodonians, the only off-worlders allowed on their planet are hostages they’ve abducted. Are we going to spray ourselves blue or get ourselves kidnapped?” He lifted his Cerinian java and gulped.
“I’m going to become Kilead’s mate.”
He sprayed coffee across the table.
Finally, she’d penetrated his calm. Like he’d penetrated… Fuck.
He set down his cup. “Who the hell came up with that crazy scheme?”
She held her temper. With difficulty. “I did.”
“So you mate with him. Then what? You make babies together and live happily ever after?”
She shuddered. The idea of a Lamis-Odg touching her creeped her out. Some contact would have to occur for the plan to work, but the brief marriage would remain unconsummated.
“I’ll get close to him, get him to talk, and then we vamoose.”
“I don’t like it.” He shook his head. “It won’t work.”
She gr
itted her teeth. “It will work.”
“There are too many uncertainties.”
“I have researched their culture. No one knows more about Lamis-Odg than me.”
“You may have learned all we know, but that doesn’t amount to more than a few K of data. Being an expert won’t be enough.”
Like her father, Sonny assumed she couldn’t hack it. He treated her like she was a rookie fresh out of Cy-Ops academy. Her plan would work. She wouldn’t allow it to fail. Succeeding at a mission of this magnitude would prove once and for all she had the right stuff.
Attempting to convince this Neanderthal of the efficacy of her plan violated every instinct. She shouldn’t have to explain herself! He should accept her judgment because she was a trained professional. Just like him. Unfortunately, she needed his buy-in, 100 percent commitment. Hesitation in the field could be fatal.
It could be fatal anyway. Infiltrating a terrorist’s territory posed significant risk and no guarantees. But she had handled tough assignments before and prevailed.
“I did more than review intel. I had personal contact with insiders.”
He wiped at the corner of his eye. “Like who?”
“Remember the woman who defected?”
“Janai—the mate of General Obido, one of Lamani’s key henchman?”
“That’s the one. I sat in during her interrogation, and, in preparation for this assignment, interviewed her personally. From her, I learned Kilead is seeking a fourth wife. Janai had contacts who had contacts… It has been arranged for me to be presented as a prospective mate.”
“Kilead will mate with an alien? A Terran?” Skepticism narrowed his eyes.
Why, why, why had she slept with this man? Could she have chosen anyone worse? In retrospect, the Malodonian might have been a better pick. She shuddered. “No, that’s why I’ll be disguised as a Lamis-Odg woman.”
“What’s my role?”
“You’ll negotiate the terms of my dowry. Of course, you’ll accept whatever he demands.”