Liberation Origins: SciFi Romance (Robotics Faction - Origins Series Book 1)

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  “Unless you murdered him, giving her a place, I can’t say that you’ve forwarded her career aspirations.”

  “Give me time.”

  He cocked his arrogant brow. “Find her a way on that station and I’ll produce the engagement papers tonight.”

  Well, if he was going to motivate her like that, she would win.

  “Buy a second station,” she said. “Make it contingent on allowing graduate students to intern, and force them to accept your daughter as the first intern.”

  He frowned at her. “That’s very expensive.”

  “You asked me to get her on a research station studying cloud whales. You didn’t give me a budget.” She deliberately looked him up and down. “Besides, you’re getting tons of rubilum. I think you’re good for one measly research station.”

  His frown darkened.

  She remained still as glass.

  They both knew that whatever he said next, she had won.

  He produced a screen. “Four years, not in writing, plus the ports.”

  She held her breath. That was everything she wished for. In four years, if she hadn’t found her next husband, she could easily push for more time. And if she fed Domingo enough useful tidbits, he might be happy enough to keep her on.

  Despite it being everything, she couldn’t help her last question. “And my son?”

  “I pledge my protection.”

  Her breath stopped.

  No way.

  A pledge of protection was better than visitation privileges. It was a promise to honor and protect. If her son came to Domingo for help, he would give it. If they ever found themselves on opposite sides of a dispute, Domingo would ensure her son came to no harm.

  Tingles in her fingers reminded her to breathe, and she did, inhaling greatly and returning to the loud, murmuring, movement-filled present.

  “I would like that in writing. Separate from the engagement.”

  Domingo produced a screen from his pocket with the words already transcribed. He passed it to her linked device.

  There. Now she had proof.

  Proof to keep, no matter what else happened. Proof to show his father, and receive permission to take Aris away with her until he should want him back. Already this had been a victory.

  Now Domingo produced the engagement contract and signed it. He handed the stylus to Emprezia. She skimmed the contract, checking her memory against any new clauses. It took all her concentration; she kept drifting back to Domingo’s pledge.

  This was everything she wanted. More than everything she wanted. She should be happy.

  Instead, she only felt stunned.

  Stunned and confused. And possibly, just maybe, like she no longer wanted to get engaged.

  She signed the engagement contract quickly, before she could change her mind.

  Domingo held the heavy contract. “So. It’s official. What a day. I need to go lie down.”

  “Indeed.” Her head hurt. “See you.”

  They turned and ran into an even paler Kaolin.

  “Dom.” Kaolin shifted away without looking at Emprezia. “My race prep’s done. I’m leaving here tomorrow.”

  No. He couldn’t.

  Domingo swallowed and squeezed Kaolin’s shoulder. “Right now? So soon? Are you sure?”

  “I’ve been putting it off. Now you’ve got the wedding. I’ve got to move on.”

  “Come back as soon as you’re able. Your rooms are ready and waiting for you.”

  “Thanks.” He returned Domingo’s pat, glanced at her with an expression that almost seemed… what? Mournful?… and headed out into the hallway.

  She and Domingo stared at each other.

  Domingo abruptly turned away. “Pleasant dreams.”

  She muttered a polite farewell and found herself following Kaolin as though he were the magnet drawing her boat. Household staff flowed in a current against her, pooling around Domingo for their final instructions, and she wove between them, struggling past.

  Kaolin broke free, turned a corner, and disappeared.

  She started running.

  Her dress swished against her legs. Too tight. She hiked it up and ran around the corner.

  There, Kaolin was halfway to the stairs.

  She smoothed her dress down again and returned to a mincing hurry. “Oh. Excuse me.”

  He turned.

  Ah, he looked so good in profile. Long and lean, hard and trim. A strong face with a determined jaw, a firm posture, and an approachable friendliness that drew her in.

  He was exhausted. She knew it.

  Which made her next request so utterly outrageous.

  “Can you please take me to the best viewpoint?”

  “Now?” Kaolin asked.

  At her tentative nod, his exhaustion evaporated.

  “Since you’re leaving tomorrow,” she said, and bit her sweet, kissable lips.

  He had to look away.

  All he’d wanted to do since seeing that horrible woman’s gun trained on her was gather Emprezia into his arms and kiss her.

  He needed her lips on his as a grounding, to guarantee she was alive. An arm around her shoulders was nothing. She could flit away. She could disappear. She could be taken from him.

  He wanted to dip her over, fill her mouth with his tongue, and then peel apart her dress and feast on her naked body.

  Pearl her nipples in his mouth and tease them with his tongue. Kiss down her flat belly to the curve of her feminine place. Open her to his flicking tongue. And then, when she was writhing in pleasure, fill her with his cock and pump into her until they were both screaming in ecstasy.

  His cock twitched.

  Fuck.

  He sucked in a deep breath. “Um…”

  “Please. Just a short time.” She stepped forward and took his hand out of his pocket, clinging to it. “Please.”

  She asked him so sweetly. So naïvely. So unaware of the terrible things he wanted to do to her.

  Ah, fuck it.

  He let out his resistance in a long sigh. “Okay.”

  She squeezed his hand and wiggled up to her tiptoes.

  “I’ll sign out a cruiser. You might want to put on something that won’t get damaged if you lie on dirt.”

  “I’ll get right out of this dress,” she promised, dancing to the stairs.

  She had no idea what that image did to him.

  They met at the private staff hanger shortly after. He’d signed out a cruiser and performed all the safety checks, inspecting and reinspecting the engine twice. Only the senior night mechanic was on the floor, and he said nothing as Kaolin went through the somewhat irregular procedure.

  She wore a velvety jumpsuit with a delicately woven white gold shawl, and the most incredible, intricate necklace that decorated her whole neck. She carried a small bag.

  When he asked her about it, her eyes sparkled. “You’ll see.”

  He couldn’t wait.

  They exited the hangar and floated up the levels of the castle. He drove, slow and lazy, so she could appreciate the stunning views of the castle she would soon call herself mistress of. He was proud of it, and knew she’d love it.

  “You’ll have to practice this route too,” he said.

  She held her bag in her lap, sitting neatly with her knees together, looking for all the world like a demure woman. “Does it require careful piloting?”

  “No, you can show it all to your son.”

  Her eyes glowed. A small smile curved her lips. “Yes. My son.”

  Fucking hell. She was so beautiful. His chest ached.

  “Can this vehicle go any faster?”

  “What?”

  “I heard you were a race pilot.”

  He noticed her devilish smile. “You want to see my moves off the track?”

  She nodded, gripping her bag with excitement.

  He opened up the throttle and they raced across the night sky. Her eyes sparkled with the adventure, and she laughed in delight. He showed her the other good
spots he knew, waterfalls and nesting cliffs, and then finally, too soon, he slowed and climbed up to the tallest spire of the island. Some years ago, a larger rock had broken off and fallen, leaving this almost perfectly flat knob on an otherwise sheer needle.

  He tethered the cruiser to its usual spot, anchoring it to a rod buried inside the cliff, and held his hand out to help her alight.

  She rested on him briefly, bare skin soft on his, and then she was gone again.

  He took a deep breath. It wasn’t getting any easier.

  She sat in the center of the knob.

  “Lie this way,” he gestured, “and look that direction, and tip your head. The cruiser is no longer visible. If you cup your face, it takes away the cliffs. Then,” he demonstrated, lying back with a sigh, “it’s you and the universe, like you’re floating up in space, all alone.”

  She lay beside him.

  They rested together on the patch of grass.

  Normally now he would feel a floating sensation as his mind let go of the present and he floated up, into the stars, journeying into his dreams.

  The only other time he felt such pure existence was behind the controls of a super-fast racer. The landscape flowed past his screens faster than the speed of thought, the chair and the controls hummed with the forces of nature, and he lived in the center of it all, simply existing.

  But now, her body glowed beside him like a brand, sticking him to the earth. Her scent, lilies and jasmine, curled around his cock and squeezed, awakening all his earthly fantasies and pumping desire after desire into its hardening length.

  He couldn’t disappear if his life depended on it. He couldn’t tear his mind away from the woman lying next to him.

  After a long moment, she rose onto an elbow and looked down on him.

  She was a perfect vision of female.

  Her breasts swelled the velvet, and he longed to trace a finger around the curve of its softness. Narrow straps tied behind her neck, leaving her creamy shoulders bare. When she twisted away from him to take in the beautiful night, he could mentally trace the entire sinuous curve of her spine all the way down to where it disappeared beneath the velvet again at the upper curve of her delicate ass.

  He had almost lost her tonight.

  They had driven off the assassin, but he had lost her still. To Dom.

  That’s why tonight was the last night for them. He was leaving in the morning, and this was him, saying goodbye.

  She looked down at him again, a small smile on her face.

  “What?” he asked.

  She bit her lip.

  “Do you have a question?” he asked. “Whatever it is, ask. I can’t get offended. I’m not the offendable type.”

  “How many other women have you brought up here?”

  Well, that was an easy one.

  He cast his mind back. “Let’s see. Last time Genovice was here—that’s Dom’s daughter—I took her up. Of course, I’ve taken her up loads of times. I took his mother up a couple years ago. Pretty sure I took Domingo’s grandmother up here too. And there was this one business group, I forget what they were here for, but there were about a hundred. I can’t remember how many were up here that time.”

  Her brows furrowed. Unsatisfied.

  “No?” He rose onto his elbows. “Use different words.”

  “I meant women you brought here for yourself.”

  Had he ever brought his parents here? Maybe they had come when they were first searching over the place to take measurements—

  “Like a girlfriend,” she clarified. “Or, like a wife.”

  “I’ve never been married.”

  “I know.”

  “And girlfriends, well, this is Dom’s house. Bringing my own didn’t seem right.”

  Her brow cleared.

  “That’s all?” He laughed. “I don’t care. My life is an open book, and not that many people care to read it.”

  “I care.”

  He sobered. She spoke too kindly when she was only being polite. “I’ve never brought up anyone on a date, like this, if that’s what you’re really asking.”

  Her voice lowered. Sultry. “Is this, then, a date?”

  His cock pulsed.

  “Like a date,” he heard himself saying. “This is like a date, like this.”

  Her lips hovered so close to his. Inches away. Parted, delicate and gorgeous.

  Her beautiful eyes studied him as though he were the most fascinating person in the entire world, and the rock floated them away into their own world, where rules didn’t apply and they were the last man and woman left in the entire universe. It was only her, and him, and the soft grass, and the stars.

  She leaned forward.

  Oh. Was she…?

  Her lashes fluttered to a close and her chin lifted.

  No fucking way. She’d just gotten engaged to Dom. His swallow sounded loud in his ears. “Like a date, is what I meant.”

  Her eyes fluttered open again. “Ah. Thanks for clarifying.”

  “Sure.” He must be dreaming. “What’s in your bag?”

  “Hmm?” She picked it up. “Oh. Ah, here. I’ll show you.”

  She loosened the drawstring and unwrapped two small cups, a teapot, and a small square tin with autumn leaves illustrated in shimmery greens and golds.

  “You talked about the garden party serving tea. There was also the tradition of a star party.”

  She flipped the switch on the teapot, and in a few moments, its internal engine fired and the water boiled inside the pot. She sprinkled seeds from the tin and poured over the boiling water. Flowers bloomed within the cups, unfurling in the wet heat into glistening white blossoms.

  She handed him a tea and lifted it. “It’s plum.”

  He breathed deep. The familiar scent reminded him. “It smells like you.”

  “My face wash contains plum.”

  Ah. Then, if he wanted to remember this night, all he would have to do was find the tea, or the face wash.

  The tea was fruity, and tasted sweet.

  “This reminds me of our first night,” she said, finishing hers with a sigh. “Just the two of us, alone in the vast starry night.”

  “The cruiser’s in great repair. I promise you won’t have to spend the night.”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  His cock hardened to concrete.

  Spending the night with her, here, tangled on the rock face, making love in front of the universe, was a dream.

  Dreams always faded in the morning light.

  He finished the tea and handed her the cup. “Yeah, it’s fun. I’ve done it a few times.”

  Her artful brows rose. “You weren’t worried about rolling off?”

  “Nah. I can sleep almost anywhere. Rock, couch, bench. I practically threw my back out sleeping on the front of a cruiser once.”

  She glanced at him slyly. “Most men brag about the beds they’ve slept in. Not on.”

  He laughed. “Not much to brag about.”

  She packed away the bag. “You’re too humble.”

  “Nah, not really.” He leaned back on his elbows again.

  Content to stay up here as long as she wanted, wishing the night would never end, knowing he would leave in the morning.

  “I can’t be with anyone seriously.”

  She paused. “Why not?”

  “Racing isn’t a safe sport.”

  She snorted.

  “Did you just laugh at me?”

  She looked away and covered her mouth.

  He rose. “Are you—hey.”

  She turned farther.

  He grabbed her hand. “Are you laughing?”

  She struggled, her mirth breaking through as he peeled her hand away.

  “You are laughing! I’m sharing a personal thing right now. A very personal problem.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, I know.”

  He lifted her hands so she couldn’t cover her bubbling laughter again. “Hey.”

  “I nearly died three
times since entering this solar system.”

  “Yeah, but… the race circuit is different. You’re all alone, you know. You and the cruiser. Fighting physics. Fighting to stay alive.”

  “You watch too many holos.”

  “No, think about it.” He released her hands to paint the picture. “Races are all over. The circuit is the whole universe. A race pilot never settles down.”

  “Maybe they’re not ‘settled down,’ but I think plenty of race pilots have loved ones.”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “Why not?” She removed her intricate necklace and folded it neatly on top of her bag. “My career is contracts. I require only a private comm and quiet room, and I frequently conduct it while traveling between Hubs, several million times faster than any race pilot.”

  “Well, sure, if you’re traveling between galaxies.”

  “Sure, so, on the transit to and from the event location, I could probably arrange my schedule to give me time to copilot a race.”

  “No way.”

  “Why not? What’s the problem?”

  He squinted, trying to drum up the rest of the reasons.

  They were all so logical and insurmountable before. They proved he didn’t need his last girlfriend anyway, because a race pilot was better off without a loved one.

  But Emprezia annihilated his reasons so easily.

  “If you want to be with your lover and also fly in races, why don’t you make yourself happy and do it?”

  Her conviction filled his chest with fire.

  She sat so proud, so beautiful, so certain.

  His reasons were silly and weak, the products of fear and loneliness, and they had held him back from pursuing his dreams, his true dreams, of finding a copilot for his race seat and a mother for his future children.

  Before him, Emprezia glowed like a promise. A promise of what he could earn if he won the real race.

  Right.

  He sighed. “Maybe if I’m lucky, someday, I’ll meet a woman who feels the same way as you.”

  Her conviction evaporated. “Kaolin.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can’t leave tomorrow. Is there anything I can say or do that would make you stay?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, probably. The deadline’s coming and I’m cutting it close leaving tomorrow, but if it’s important, I can always catch a super-fast shuttle…”