Having survived meant she could go rescue Aja. And she would. Tomorrow.
Goddess help whoever stood in her way.
“Thank ya for fixing my brain, Dr. Cyberstein. I forgive ya for being a white-coated bastard. Yar a real stand-up kind of hero in a fecking cyber scientist kind of way,” she whispered.
Then she took off running through the darkness and didn’t slow until she was a few blocks from home.
16
Meara had been in the shower a whole three minutes when she heard the door to her apartment open. There was no panic about who was invading her personal space uninvited. His presence pinged loudly now that their neural signals were no longer being scrambled.
“Meara?”
“Who else would be using my fecking shower and answer ya?” she answered smartly, letting the water roll over her freshly shampooed hair. She sighed heavily as she added a healthy dose of conditioner to keep her red locks from frizzing. “Did ya come by hoping for what ya military blokes call a ‘pity fuck’, William?”
“No,” Will protested indignantly. “You always think the worst of me. Can I come in so we can talk?”
“Ya want to talk in the shower?” Meara asked over the running water. There was quiet for a moment and her mouth quirked. “Yeah. Okay. Fine. Strip and get your talking arse in here. Keep yer fecking hands to yerself though. I’m not in the mood.”
“Understood,” Will said softly.
Meara washed as she listened to Will removing his clothes. “I’m going to be a wrinkled prune before ya get in here.”
“I’m coming,” Will said with an irritated grunt. “I… fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t understand anything I’m feeling. Coming to see you was all I could think of doing.”
Meara let all the air escape her chest. Now it didn’t seem so heavy with unspoken emotion, but she’d pass out soon if she didn’t resume normal breathing. Decision made to deal with Will and his half-ass declaration of needing her, she opened the shower door and leaned out to see a naked Will hesitating. The man looked pretty good naked, even with all the scars on him. The red patches above his shin were her fault, but she still didn’t regret kicking him. Getting his full attention was not an easy feat.
“Get in if yar coming in. I’m letting out all the good steam coaxing ya,” she ordered, ducking back inside.
Will slid inside the shower warily and shut the door behind him. Without their shoes, her head barely hit him mid-chest. He looked down and couldn’t look away. Meara was beautiful. And still pissed at him. Her body was pumping cortisol and a frown had driven every smidgeon of happy Meara from her face.
“Hi. Can I wash your back?” he asked because it was the first thing that popped into his head.
“Wouldn’t ya rather just keep staring at my tits and hoping I change my mind about the pity fuck?” she countered.
“No,” Will replied, all but yanking the bath sponge from her hands. He turned her away from him and started washing her back. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“I think I’m having déjà vu. Did ya do something ya shouldn’t have when I wasn’t looking?”
Despite the discomfort he felt in apologizing to her, he felt more remorse for letting her walk away from him. Meara, who’d gone through hell and back by his side without once complaining, had left him staring after her stomping ass. God only knew what her strange brain had been thinking about him as she made her escape. But he hadn’t known how to ask her to wait until he’d gotten his shit straight.
“Just because my back’s turned doesn’t mean I can’t feel yer eyes boring holes in me.”
Will felt his mouth twitching at her comment and the question she’d asked about him staring at her breasts. Meara was not one for supporting denial. The woman drove him crazy, but also was the only person who seemed capable of making him feel human… and normal… even when she constantly pointed out his flaws. Admittedly, he had been staring at her, but he’d been trying hard as hell not to be obvious about it.
“You know by now that I’m not that kind of guy. We just came off a mission together.”
“Yes, but we took turns sleeping, remember? Ya could have done anything while I was out. Aja’s says I sleep like the dead when I go under and that’s just asking some bastard to take advantage.”
“I didn’t think that at all. And I thought you slept too lightly.” Will watched the suds sliding down Meara’s back and over her curves. It was a mesmerizing sight. “I’m sorry I let you leave the medical center without explaining my lack of reaction to your comments. I was having trouble processing what Cassandra said… well, and everything else too. I wanted to ask you to stay, but I didn’t know how.”
“It was easy to see ya were suffering over what yer ex-wife said to ya. Any man would have been devastated by her words, whether he still cared or not. Her words were cruel, even if her intentions were likely honorable. I know I’ve said this all before, but ya can’t move forward until ya get honest with yerself.”
“I don’t know how it’s possible for anyone else to know what I was feeling or thinking when I didn’t have a clue outside of being angry.”
“Anger I can deal with,” Meara said briskly. “I find it honest, but I also know it has roots in something a person is either doing wrong or not doing at all. Anger is meant to prompt action. When it doesn’t? Ya get emotional chaos.”
“Emotional chaos is a good way to describe what I was going through. After you left, I went into the room to inform Sanchez that Peyton wanted to talk to him tomorrow. Cassandra was lying next to him in bed, whimpering and crying in her sleep while hugging him as tight as she could. He was looking at her like he couldn’t believe she was even real. When his eyes met mine, I knew exactly how he felt. Hell, I was him.”
Meara sighed. She wanted to believe he’d come to some new understanding—she did. But Will hadn’t really shown that to her in any way she could believe him. “When people say love hurts, they really mean it, don’t they?” she said instead.
Will snorted at the trite saying. “The moment I found out she’d seen that tape of me, I knew I was never going to be trading Rio places, not even when you suggested I try to win her back. Everything Cassandra said to me about our marriage was all true, Meara. It hurt to hear her describe our relationship in those words, but I couldn’t deny a single damn thing she said. I converted to save my country. I would do it again. Her personal needs—my children’s needs—they were all secondary.”
“We did what we did to ensure the ultimate freedom for our friends and families. Cassandra gave up on ya for her own reasons, Will. Right. Wrong. Justified or not. It must hurt to know that. It has to hurt to accept yer time with her is gone.”
Will shook his head. “But see, that’s the amazing part—the thing I just figured out. It doesn’t hurt the way it should if any of that mattered to me personally. What hurts still is that she doesn’t understand how much I was attached to the idea of her when I was a prisoner. She doesn’t want to know what I went through and I resent that.”
“I know, Will. Yer wife was the hope that kept ya alive when ya needed a reason. I’m sorry she’s not broad-minded enough to give ya any closure for yer past,” Meara said, finishing for him.
“It doesn’t matter as much now as it did when I first got back. Accepting that Rio and Cassandra belong together brought a new clarity to me today. Or maybe it was seeing her lying next to him. She was in deep emotional pain and needed him to make it better. I realized that I had also felt that kind of relief from my own emotional pain recently. I just hadn’t put it all together, but when I finally did… well, everything I was feeling suddenly made sense.”
Meara turned around. She watched Will hesitate a few seconds before he began washing her front. She kept her attention on his eyes, which were working hard to avoid staring. He was making a valiant effort but losing. Her nipples got excited just thinking about the moment he would give up that control.
“Go on with
yer epiphanies, William. I’m interested in hearing all of them.”
Will swallowed hard and prayed for a way to keep his hands where they belonged. “That day you came to my apartment before you left to go look for the New World Companions, as illogical as the idea seemed at the time, I wanted to hold you—especially after you did what you did.”
“That was just gratitude,” Meara said with a chuckle.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I wanted you to crawl into my lap and stay with me while I slept. That was me needing you. That’s what I realized today.”
“Yar making my head spin,” Meara said softly.
Will laughed. “You make my head spin too. I feel safe with you, Meara. Not emotionally safe because you delight in being a pain in my ass, but I feel physically safe with you. More important than that, I feel understood. Cassandra and Rio are grateful to both of us for saving him from a certain death, but we know they will never see us as anything other than cyborgs. It’s like we’re a whole other species to them.”
“Maybe we are. We’re definitely cyborgs—that’s an unchangeable fact.”
Meara moved away and took the bath sponge from Will’s limp hand. “Turn around and let me wash yer back. Ya can stare at my tits another day.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Liar. I thought we were being honest.”
Will heaved a big sigh of reluctance but turned as directed.
Meara added more soap to the sponge and swept it across the wide expanse of Will’s shoulders. She’d always been a fan of men built exactly like Will was built. That was the first thing she’d noticed about him. But being attracted wasn’t reason enough to let him turn her into a shriveling, weepy mess at his feet. She was never going to be like Cassandra Talon. Life had made her a different kind of female.
“Anything else weighing on yer mind?” she asked.
“Yes. Can I stay with you tonight? I haven’t slept next to anyone in a very long time. You can set the rules. Just let me stay.”
Meara used one hand to turn Will to face her. She washed his front and never met his gaze. “I can understand ya feeling lonely and wanting comfort. It’s only natural. But I don’t think I like the idea of being yer rebound fling, especially after Cassandra’s very public shutdown of ya in front of me. I have an attraction to ya, but I don’t like coming in second. No woman does.”
“There’s way more to my feelings for you than just wanting sex. I promise.”
Meara shrugged and handed the bath sponge to him. “Ya got no reason to offer me anything ya don’t want to. Here—I’m not made of stone. Ya need to wash the rest yerself.”
Will sighed again, took the sponge, and did as she asked. “You know… one of the first things I noticed about you is that you were bossy as hell. I wondered who would put up with you.”
“And do ya think yar the first bloke to tell me that?”
Ignoring her sarcastic reply, Will pushed her whole body to the side and stepped under the shower head to rinse off the soap. When he turned back, Meara was frozen, waiting for another comeback from him. But all he could think was how beautiful she looked. Water made her red curls heavy, and the strands draped over what had to be the pinkest nipples in the world. Everything about her was compact and perfect, right down to her cute toes with their painted toenails.
“No. But I bet I’m the first to say I want to be the guy you boss around from now on,” Will said.
Meara snorted as she glared. “Why would ya want to sign up for that torment? Haven’t ya suffered enough in yer life?”
“Probably, but you see… I’m falling in love with you, Meara MacDonald. I recognize the signs. You drive me crazy and yet I keep coming back for more. Love is the only thing that can make a rational man act this insane.”
“Love? Go on with ya, William Talon. Ya don’t love me. Ya love a ghost woman—someone who no longer exists except in yer mind,” Meara warned.
Will laughed as he looked at her with water streaming off his face. “You can’t love a woman who’s scared of you. Cassandra and Rio belong together, Meara. Just like you and I belong together. You’re the one who pointed out we were already cybernetically married. Were you lying about that?”
“I was making a fecking joke, Will.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t a joke at all,” he challenged.
Meara wasn’t sure how to counter that so she crossed her arms to think about what he was suggesting. She’d been flirting that day for sure, but when she told Aja she didn’t love Will, she’d meant it. But now? She studied his dripping body and his steady gaze. He looked appealing—very appealing.
“Is pushing your breasts up like that your way of giving me permission to stare at them? Because you should probably know that I’ve already been cheating. Feel free to stare at any part of me you want to get even. It’s only fair.”
“Ya see, that’s my problem,” Meara said dropping her arms. “You’re a bloody eejit about yer ex, and still my heart melts every time you try to make a stupid joke. I have a weakness for ya—and I don’t like feeling that way. Don’t make me regret caring about ya, William Talon. I’ll be the worst scorned woman ya ever ran across.”
Meara reached out and pulled him to her by his now extremely long and hard dick. At first he laughed, but when he got close enough, Will bent and took her mouth with a ravenous hunger that stole her breath and ignited a fire in her blood.
She hoisted herself up his body using his shoulders as Will gripped her hips tight enough to break bones in a lesser female. She’d known this was possible between them but had been afraid to get her hopes up.
“I’m desperate for you, Meara,” Will whispered.
“That sounds like fun. Let’s see what ya got for me,” Meara whispered back.
Will pushed open the shower and walked unerringly to the bedroom. He’d mapped out the path when he’d broken into her apartment earlier. He stopped at the edge of the bed, hoisted her up higher, and latched onto her still wet breast like the starving man he was. Her sexy moan of gratitude as he suckled nearly undid him.
This first time wasn’t going to last long. He wanted her too badly. He’d wanted her since the day they’d gotten their upgrades, when she’d both embarrassed him and made him laugh.
Before he could decide what to do to her next, Meara worked her way down him and managed to impale herself on the first half of his erection. With bliss blanking his mind, Will fell to the bed inside her. The momentum drove him the rest of the way home—and it was like coming home. This woman was home to him. It was so obvious that his prior resistance to their involvement now seemed like some cybernetic blip.
Meara moaned as he slid in even deeper and buried himself to the hilt. He felt male satisfaction in every cell in his body to be where he was. He surged in small movements until Meara swore at him just before climaxing. She was still vibrating when he took a couple well-measured, long strokes to get things done for himself as well.
Afterward, he was so relaxed lying on top of her that her hard punch to his shoulder nearly knocked him off. He’d forgotten how unpredictable Meara could be. He huffed as he blew out a breath and raised his head to look down at her flashing eyes.
“I know you got there, so don’t try to lie to me,” he warned.
“I barely got there. What kind of wimpy-arse lovemaking was that?” she demanded.
Snickering over her mean comment without a clue about why he found the insult so funny, Will let their bodies separate as he rolled them the side. Intending to shock her back, he smacked one butt cheek—hard—before rubbing it. “I’m about to make good on my promise to spank you if you don’t stop hitting me. I think you fractured my leg when you kicked it earlier.”
Meara reached up and grabbed a fistful of hair. “Pain seems to be the only way to make ya hear me. And if ya think that kind of half-hearted sex is going to cut it, then yar dead-arse wrong. Either you want me truly or ya don’t, but I told ya before I wasn’t in the mood for a freaki
ng pity fuck tonight.”
“That wasn’t a pity fuck. Where do you get these damn ideas? I swear I will tame that mean-ass, redheaded temper of yours, if it’s the last thing on this earth I do. One day you’re going to like me enough to give me the benefit of the doubt.”
Will rolled her to her back and caught one of Meara’s cute pink nipples between his teeth. He nipped it hard and suckled it until Meara was writhing and cursing him. Smiling, he moved his attention to the other nipple and felt himself harden again when she whimpered.
Moving her legs apart with his hands, Will rolled between them with a profound gratitude that she still wanted him so much. Happier than he could recall being in ages, he pulled Meara’s legs up and around his waist. This was exactly where he belonged.
“Mmm… cyborg power,” Meara said softly, clamping around him as he worked himself back inside. “And I see yer pulses are still functioning quite well.”
Will chuckled and kissed her deeply. “I could do this all night even before I got converted. And you’re a very inspiring woman.”
Meara’s eyes widened. “So that little performance earlier…”
“…was just me taking the edge off. It’s been a long time. My desperation hasn’t lessened a single bit. And you make me feel more wanted than any woman ever has,” Will whispered as he set about proving his words with long claiming strokes.
Contented with his praise and with his level of excitement, Meara tightened her legs around him. “Okay. I’m sorry I pitched a fit. The pleasure of being with ya surprised me more than I imagined it would. My tantrum was more a panic attack than me actually being mad. It doesn’t happen often and I always regret it when it does.”
Will stilled his movements and stared. He grew harder than ever as he got lost in her sincere gaze meeting his. He rolled their connected bodies until Meara was on top. He wanted to tell her he loved her again but was afraid.
William 874X_Book 5 of Cyborgs_Mankind Redefined Page 19