by Eve Langlais
He didn’t ask but stated and then proceeded to tease some more by kissing her inner thigh, his lips leaving a trail of soft caresses. He did it to both sides, making her tremble, so when he licked her finally, in that pulsing spot, she sighed.
“Yesssss.”
The lick was only the begging. He spread the petals of her sex with his tongue and lapped at her core, teased the opening to her channel. Found with the tip of his tongue the tiny cog ringing her clitoris.
His lips tugged at the ring, and she cried out. He kept toying with it, each tug and twist jolting her clit, enhancing her pleasure. He pressed his fingers into her, a long pair that he thrust in and out as his lips clamped down on her clit ring, tugging it, even as his fingers kept pushing inside, stroking against her sweet spot.
Her body tightened, all her gears slowing to a stop before exploding and spinning as her climax hit. He murmured against her flesh, “That’s it, come for me. Frukx, you feel good.”
Then he was kissing her, his lips on hers, the taste of her still on them. The head of his hard shaft pressed against her damp sex. She wrapped a leg around his hip, coming down from her orgasm, but ready to feel the hardness of him. To have him—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The banging at the door couldn’t be ignored.
“Are you frukxing serious?” he barked. Pushing away from her, he buttoned his pants and reached for the gun at his side as he strode to the door. The picture of a male ready to shoot whoever disturbed them.
He flung open the door. “This better be good.”
Lowqi barged in and exclaimed, “I think I tapped into the main signal of the drones.”
“And this knowledge couldn’t wait?” Wulff snapped.
“No, because, in doing so, I seem to have attracted attention. We’re under attack.”
Ursy slipped on the robe she’d snatched from the floor. “By whom?”
Just as she asked, there was a distant explosion and the hum of power, always present, extinguished.
Lowqi said softly, “Everything electronic.”
12
“A Siyborgh with gears has no need of a chip or control board because your brain is your computer.” – The Mighty Mecha Bible
Wulff chuckled. “Are your house bots revolting?”
“You laugh, but I’m serious. Everything capable of receiving a transmission has gone haywire. I was attacked by a dusting bot.” Lowqi raised a hand to a bleeding cut on his temple.
“Maybe it just didn’t like you. I can understand the feeling.” Having not come, the frustration and arousal made for a cranky Siyborgh.
“Why is the power out?” Ursy asked, having hidden her lithe frame in the robe. She went around the room collecting her clothing, dragging her goggles over her head to dangle around her neck, finding her shirt, and sliding the robe off—
“Cog dammit, Ursy,” he growled, stepping into Lowqi’s line of sight. Never mind the male had seen it before. Wulff didn’t want to share the sight of her.
“I imagine whatever infected the electronics also shut down the power,” Lowqi stated.
“Infected by what?” Wulff grumbled. “Did a cleaning robot sneeze on your house computer?”
“Don’t be foolish. It was a virus carried by your drone. Must I explain everything?” was Lowqi’s hot retort.
“What makes you think it’s the drone’s doing?” she asked, buckling on her holster before pulling on her pants or boots, probably feeling less naked with a gun at her side.
“Because it happened right after I trapped the drone’s signature. As a test, I bounced the signal. A moment later the vacuum bot in my lab attacked me. Then the dusting drone. The door tried to crush me when I went through it.”
That brought a snicker to Wulff’s lips. “Can’t blame the cleaning bots for going after dirt.”
Lowqi glared. “This is serious. The virus infected all of my electronic enhancements.”
“Don’t you dare whine.” Ursy shook a finger. “What did I tell you about trusting things that can think for themselves?”
“They’re machines. They obey their masters,” Lowqi said stubbornly.
The lamp closest to the scientist took that moment to explode, covering them in shards of fine glass.
“This place is dangerous,” Wulff observed, noticing Ursy had managed to duck in time to avoid damage. He, on the other hand, lacked a shirt. His chest was peppered with bloody spots.
“Get dressed,” Ursy snapped.
“With what?” he asked, retrieving the remains of his shirt and waving it.
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
He grinned. “She just couldn’t wait to get it off me.”
“Are you bragging?” Ursy exclaimed, stalking past him. “You really shouldn’t. I came twice my first time with Lowqi.”
Twice? He trembled with annoyance as the other male smirked.
“I would have made you orgasm three times if we’d not been interrupted.”
But he spoke to thin air. Ursy stomped down the hall rather than wait for the men to follow. With the power out, shadows reigned. Despite there being no enemy, Wulff pulled out his weapon and activated its light. The beam bobbed as he quickly followed her.
“Are all the doors and windows electronically controlled?” she asked, stopping a few times to pry at the shutters clamped shut over the windows.
“All the exterior ones, yes.”
“All of them?” She rounded on Lowqi. “Why would you do that?”
“It makes it easier to remotely secure the house in case of emergency.”
“Bloody death trap,” she muttered. “How do we override it?”
“Like this.” Wulff didn’t wait for an answer, simply shot at the nearest shutter even as Lowqi yelled, “No, you idiot.”
When the laser blast bounced, everyone had the presence of mind to duck. It took a few ricochets before the fiery shot fizzled.
Ursy sighed. “You made them laser proof?”
“Hurricane, actually.” Lowqi rolled his shoulders. “The entire place is built to withstand even the strongest of storms.”
“Why me?” She rubbed her brow with her eyes closed.
Wulff recognized her angry thinking face, not to be confused with angry annoyed or the hangry one.
While she decided whom to kill first, Wulff sought a solution. “Storm proofing doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to get out. There must be one door or window, even a wall, that is less secure.”
Lowqi’s brow creased, and he neared Ursy, who’d progressed to the muttering stage of angry, also known as the brief moment before the killing of things started. While usually Wulff would approve a bit of massacre, she didn’t have many options around to bleed.
Lowqi, who obviously did not know her as well as he thought, said, “It’s impenetrable.”
Ursy hit him. The poor male sat down hard, blinking.
“Must you try and kill the only person who knows the layout and security of this house?” Wulff snapped.
“He irritated me.” She glowered at Lowqi who rubbed his jaw with a baleful expression.
“If you need to hit something, hit me.”
Most people would laugh at the offer. Shrug off their irritation.
Ursy slugged him. Hard.
He absorbed the blow. “Feel better?”
“No. I’m trapped inside a house with attacking machines.”
“You must feel a little better after, you know…” He waggled his brows.
An incredulous expression met him. “Are you serious?”
“Admit it, it might have been only once, but it was good. As good as—no, make that better than—him.” He glared at Lowqi who, having recovered, paced, head bowed in thought.
Her expression pinched. “Now is not the time.”
“You’re right. Later, we’ll settle it. Three times,” he emphasized.
“Who says there will be a next time?”
Before Wulff could reply, Lowqi exclaimed, “The atrium! The door i
s on a separate system since I had it installed after the house was already built. If we can make it through, the glass there is tough but not shuttered. We should be able to blast through.”
“Isn’t that the same place that terrible vacuum came after you?” Wulff mocked.
“Let’s see if you’re laughing when it tries to hump your leg clean of flesh,” Lowqi grumbled, leading the way.
They had to deal with more exploding lights on the way, one whirring mop that spilled its oil solution for shining the floors in a puddle that sent Ursy slipping and sliding. Wulff made the mistake of reaching out to steady her.
The glare should have been warning. He ended up on his butt, in the oil, and she stalked off.
“Offering her a helping hand?” Lowqi shook his head. “And here I thought you’d learned.”
The other male appeared convinced Ursy preferred no help at all, but Wulff had a different thought. Ursy believed she had to prove herself constantly. That was why everything was a competition. What would happen if she finally trusted someone enough to be a partner? Her equal?
“Are you going to stare at my buttocks all day or use that brawn for something other than a drain on gravity?” she snapped.
“Don’t get your cogs in a twist. I’m coming.” Approaching her in the last hall leading to the atrium, he noticed the dilemma.
The ventilation unit, inset in the wall, had chosen to spew its guts all over the hall. Electronics, wires, and metal bits littered the floor. But what Ursy wanted was for him to help move the decorative column that had fallen over and now blocked their passage to the lab.
“You used real stone,” he noted, stepping carefully over the debris. Something about it seemed odd. It had fallen almost in a pattern with wires and chunks of twisted metal all touching, leaving only a few bare places to set his feet.
Standing amidst the wreckage, he put his shoulder to the stone column and heaved. It shifted to the side and landed with a thud that didn’t even vibrate the floor under foot.
Which was why he didn’t understand the metallic clang. Followed by a whoosh.
He had only a moment to see the water spew from the hole in the wall to realize the intent of the trap. Before the fluid had a chance to cover his feet, he’d reached for Ursy and lifted her.
“What the frukx!” she yelled even as he tossed her over the sudden hazard.
Just in time. Power flickered back into the area, spreading through the metal and wires on the floor, amplified by the puddle he now stood in.
Wulff jiggled, the dance probably reminiscent of the one he did at Jwls’s wedding after a few drinks.
A shove in the back broke the electrifying connection. He reeled into the steps, steadied by Ursy, blinking spots from his organic eye while his damned bionic one fritzed.
But at least his cogs all seemed to be working, if moving erratically, the lingering electricity in his body causing his nerves to spasm.
“Damn. A machine did that?” he queried.
“I told you to never trust anything with a computer,” Ursy mumbled. She planted her hands on her hips and observed the deadly swath of water separating them from Lowqi. “You’ll have to jump.”
“Not a chance,” Lowqi replied. “It’s too far and I don’t have the right kind of enhancement to endure what your paramour did.”
“He’s not my lover.”
“Yeah, I am,” Wulff slurred before giving his head a shake. The deadly puddle appeared innocuous, but Lowqi was right. It might kill him. Wulff would have succumbed, too, if he’d stood in it a moment longer.
“Once I get outside, I’ll find a way to set you free,” she promised. She ran up the rest of the steps then down the hall, faster than the exploding bulbs. Since she seemed determined to be first, he slowed down. No point in rushing toward the dead end ahead.
Ursy came up against the closed lab door. No amount of cursing at it forced it to open.
“Stupid thing.” She kicked it but wisely didn’t fire her weapon.
Arriving by her side, Wulff took a moment to truly look at the door, its frame, the lack of pry-able edges. Power flickered in the area, yet their presence didn’t activate the door. “Is it locked, do you think?”
“I don’t see a keypad or even a hole with a mechanism we can pick.” She frowned at the door. “If we try and shoot it, we’ll probably have the same problem you did in the hall.”
“Maybe if we found something to wedge in the seam.” He placed his hand on the portal, running fingers along it, feeling the tiny cog in his thumb clink against the surface. “The door is—”
Whirr. Whoosh. The door opened suddenly, almost dumping him on his face.
“Let’s go.” Ursy didn’t question how and why it opened. She just bolted in.
He glanced at his thumb. Had the tiny piece of God Gear opened the door? Was that its special property? A lock-picking thumb could be handy in his line of work.
“Are you coming?” she yelled, threading through the various apparatus in the workshop and heading for the far glass wall.
She never saw the cable snaking across the floor after her. Wulff shot it, severing it only to frown as the amputated end kept thrashing and sparking.
Ursy never even glanced behind her, making him wonder if she didn’t care. Or could it be she trusted him to have her back? Because really, hadn’t he always been there for her when it counted?
“We need to break it,” she declared, having reached her window of choice.
“Why don’t you do that while I handle our friends.”
“What friends?” she asked, whirling to look behind her. Her eyes widened at the sight of all the machines in the room coming to life, many of them wobbling, rolling, and clanking as they reached for Wulff. Lights exploded overhead to shower them in shards. Even the machines bolted into walls and on counters hummed and strained as if they would escape.
“What’s happening?” he murmured even as the cog in his thumb heated.
“It’s as if every machine is possessed!” An apt comparison.
Items on the large workshop table beside him quivered and shook. Pieces of the drone he realized just as they began sliding across the table toward him.
Meanwhile, Ursy aimed her blaster at the window, the material less resistant than the shutters. Glass rippled as it melted, softening enough that she kicked at it and the melted sections flopped out, leaving a hole big enough for them to dart through. Ursy went first, with him quickly following, ignoring the clang of metal as parts of the drone hit the floor and slid.
Was the cog in his thumb also some kind of super magnet? Except only the drone parts sought him; everything else just attacked.
Outside, the island appeared just as dark as inside the house, the only light coming from the bouncing beams on their weapons.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We get to the roof and my ship.”
Climb? He glanced at the house with the straight walls and few handholds. “How would you suggest we do that?”
“Don’t your super boots have sticky climb ability?”
“No.” Zak’s did. And they cost him quite a chunk, too.
“Me either, so I guess we climb.”
Getting past the first floor proved easy. The awning over the patio off the main living area required only a simple shimmy up the post.
As she eyed the path past the second floor to the roof, he said, “How we going to help your friend get out of his death trap?”
“Once we get to the Bandit, we’ll blow a hole through the front door.”
He winced. “Isn’t the door some kind of antique?” In his boredom earlier that day, he’d spent some time listening to the info plaque set beside it.
“He can buy another if he lives. Speaking of which, give me a boost before you get busy.”
“What?” He crouched and cupped his hands to hoist her.
She sprang and grabbed the lip of the roofline, pulling herself up to the flat top by strength alone. “Behind
you,” she yelled.
Whirling, he saw nothing, but he did hear the hum of a small machine. Blinking his bionic eye, which thankfully rebooted and remained unaffected by the virus, he switched to a lens that turned night into day. Just in time for the tiny drone to smash into his face.
“Ow. Dammit.” He swatted at the machine, and it hit the balcony. Stomp, crunch. It moved no more.
Yet he could still hear humming. As if it were thousands of angry bugs.
A rope dropped down in front of his nose. Glancing overhead, he saw Ursy leaning over the edge. “What are you waiting for? Climb.”
Hand over hand, he pulled himself up, hearing the hum intensify. He reached the edge of the roof deck and pulled himself onto it. Then closed his eyes as bright light blinded him. He blinked to clear his vision and, as it came into focus, first noticed the Unicorn Bandit. Yet it wasn’t the lights illuminating the zeppelin that truly drew his attention but rather the blinking lights from a swarm of drones heading their way.
“That’s not good,” he muttered. “Um, Ursy. I think we have problem.”
“It’s not those little pests you need to worry about. Duck!” Ursy yelled.
He didn’t question but flattened himself to the roof. Just in time as a ball of plasma shot over him.
“What the frukx!” he yelled.
“It’s Lowqi’s ship. It must have a computer on board. It’s arming the cannon again. We need to move.”
Indeed, he could hear the whine as power was pulled into a ball strong enough to blast him to pieces. But what of the smaller guns it was surely armed with? As if he jinxed it, they came to life.
Rat-tat-tat. Bullets whipped past, and one left a furrow on his bicep before he managed to dodge under the offending ship itself, Ursy by his side.
“Now what?” he snapped. Because as soon as they popped out again, they’d make excellent targets.
“We need something to distract the ship.”
“And what of the army of incoming drones?” They were close enough to fill the air with an ominous hum.
“One problem at a time,” she grumbled. “If we can get to the Bandit, we can fire back.”
“Or the Bandit will kill you.”