by Lisa Lace
“No,” he answered quickly. “I need to get out.” The television had been prompting his memories of speaking, and his sentences were complete without any effort at all. In rare instances, he took a moment to think about the right word or phrase. When Fury had a delay, Natasha had to force herself to not help him. He was doing well on his own, and if she started feeding him words, it would inhibit his development.
Natasha sighed and picked up her phone again. They had talked about leaving the house, and she didn’t think it was a good idea. He had grown angry with her about the topic, and his rage could make him swell up and look larger than usual. She shook inside when she saw his anger, but she refused to budge from her position. It wasn’t worth arguing about again. “You know that can’t happen,” she casually said as she added a new yoga mat to her shopping cart.
“I can’t stay here. Everything’s the same. I need to see something new.”
Natasha hadn’t heard that type of urgency in his voice before, and it made her look up. She could see veins standing out under the skin of his neck as though he were about to burst. “Where do you think you’re going to go?” Natasha didn’t want him to leave, not after everything they had been through together.
Fury crossed the room and put his eye against the split in the curtain panels, staring down the driveway and wondering where it led. “Wherever I need to be.”
“I know it’s frustrating, but what choice do we have? What if one of the former employees from the Cyborg Sector recognizes you? Some of those scientists get to know their projects a little too well. You’d be dead before I went to bed.” Perhaps John had been right when he predicted there would be more difficulty as Fury’s memories returned. She hadn’t thought the cyborg would move along so quickly, but he was beginning to feel more like a roommate than a science experiment.
The soldier flexed his muscles. He had kept himself occupied during the day with rigorous workouts and practicing exercises prescribed by Natasha. But he was already fit as hell and capable of doing almost anything he would need to do to be able to live on his own. Natasha wasn’t surprised he was bored and restless.
“It doesn’t matter. I need to do something. It’s too much to make me look at the same walls every day. Do you think you can stop me, Natasha?” Her name sounded less awkward on his lips than before. She enjoyed hearing Fury say her name even when he wasn’t pleased with her.
Natasha prepared to grab a tranquilizer so she could immobilize Fury, if necessary. It didn’t seem fair to use the syringe on him; but he was right, she couldn’t possibly overpower him if he decided to leave.
A knock on the door stopped both of their plans. “Go into the kitchen,” Natasha whispered. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
A peek through the curtains revealed Nick on her porch again. He swatted at the bugs gathering around the porch light, and he staggered slightly on the concrete. Natasha opened the door with a sigh. “What do you want?” She had no energy left for polite greetings.
“That’s no way to say hello to the love of your life,” he responded with a lopsided grin. The stench of old whiskey washed over her as he spoke. “How are you doing, beautiful?”
“I was doing pretty well until your sorry ass showed up. Go home, Nick.” The nurse kept her body in the doorway to block his entry.
“I can’t. You have to listen to me. I need you, Natasha. You mean the world to me. I messed up.” Tears glistened in his eyes as he pleaded. A moth landed in his hair, but he didn’t notice.
“I don’t have time for this. I’m tired.” She started to shut the door.
He reached out and grabbed the door handle, stopping her with an unexpected amount of force considering his inebriation. “You do have time, and you have to listen to me. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and I threw it away because I thought I needed more. But nobody could be worth more to me than you.”
Natasha felt sorry for the miserable wretch, but she had a feeling there was more to the story than he was sharing. “Sharla left you, didn’t she?” No doubt the skinny blonde bitch had gotten enough free drinks out of him and had moved on to something better.
“Of course not,” he insisted. “I left her. I told her I couldn’t see her anymore. You’re my wife, and I need you.”
“Can we talk about this in the morning?” Natasha asked, mentally adding, when you aren’t drunk anymore. Her eyes felt tired, and she had enough things to handle without Nick adding to them.
“No, I need to see you right now.” Her husband didn’t seem to be able to stay still. He moved restlessly, losing his balance before he barely regained it.
“There’s nothing more to say, Nick.”
The cyborg’s voice came booming out of the house. “She told you to leave.”
The voice behind her made Natasha freeze on the spot. She had never been good at hiding her emotions. Anyone could read her feelings just by looking at her face. She couldn’t stop her eyes from widening or shoulders from stiffening. The nurse could feel the presence of the cyborg behind her, and Nick couldn’t help but see him.
“Who the fuck is this, Natasha?” He said her name like he was spitting. Nick’s attitude had completely changed in the fraction of a second it took him to notice the man standing behind his wife. “I come over here to apologize, and you’ve got another man at your house? I never realized you were such a whore.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Fury boomed. He picked Natasha up by the waist, swung her around, and planted her on the floor behind him. The cyborg filled the doorway as he confronted Natasha’s husband face-to-face.
“I’ll talk to her any way that I want to, asshole.” Nick’s alcohol level didn’t let him see what a formidable opponent the cyborg was. “She’s my wife, and I can do whatever the fuck I want to with her.”
Even though Nick’s words infuriated her, Natasha didn’t want him to die. She leaped up to grab Fury’s arm as he pulled it back to strike a blow. She didn’t need blood on her front steps or anyone to call the cops when the cyborg knocked her husband’s arrogant head off. Natasha knew he could do it easily. “Stop!”
Fury didn’t punch Nick, but kept his arm cocked. “Is he going?” The question sounded like a threat.
Nick leaned over in an attempt to look around the bulky man and speak to his wife. “Who is this clown? Are you into bodybuilding cave men these days? Last week I thought your type was computer nerds. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.”
A metallic taste of nausea filled Natasha’s mouth. There was no reasonable explanation for the man currently sharing her house. “He’s a handyman, sent over from the Cyborg Rehabilitation Center. It’s a work release program.” The lie came quickly to her tongue and was close enough to the truth. The CRC organized paid internships for cyborgs who had progressed enough to enter the real world and practice for the job market.
“At ten o’clock at night? What the hell kind of handyman has any work to do that late? You’re fucking him, just like you fuck whoever you can get your hands on. Hell, you’ve probably been doing this behind my back all along. Do you want to talk about all the things I did wrong? You need to take a look in the mirror, bitch.”
Natasha tried to hide behind the soldier. Nick was right, unfortunately. Not about her cheating - she had always been faithful. But Natasha had been an idiot to lie. Should she have come up with a plausible cover story in case anyone came snooping around? Why hadn’t she ignored the accusations like she did when John was there?
In her heart, she knew the reason. Natasha wasn’t sleeping with John, but she had slept with the cyborg. There was more to hide, and she felt like there was far more at stake.
Fury didn’t think much about Natasha’s lie or whether Nick bought it. He was more interested in the fact that the drunkard on the porch had just called her a bitch. He launched a fist forward, making Natasha’s husband fly backward into the grass, feet completely coming out from beneath him.
“No!” Natasha exclai
med as the cyborg took a step out the door to finish the job. “Just leave him alone!” The bar owner was going to be nothing more than a smear on her lawn if she didn’t find a way to control Fury. She moved to follow him.
Fury turned around to face her. He stepped back into the house and slammed the door. A framed picture of two boats sailing on a river fell and crashed to the floor. The cyborg’s face looked menacing as he loomed over her. “You shouldn’t talk to him anymore.”
“He’s technically still my husband. I’m going to have to deal with him.”
“No!” Fury exploded. “You don’t talk to him. I’ll talk to him. Only me.”
At the moment, Fury looked terrifying. She could barely keep herself upright under the force of his argument. “But what if he comes back?”
“That’s no excuse. He is no good for you, and I will keep him away.”
The cyborg barely had himself under control. If this incident had happened right after the upgrade, there was no telling what the cyborg might have done. Natasha could tell he was on the verge of dropping his safety protocols.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered.
“Don’t apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong.” Despite John’s advice, Natasha had given the cyborg a guest bedroom. He stomped down the hallway and slammed the door.
Natasha fell to the floor, lost in a puddle of emotions. Tears stung the back of her eyes, and she let them flow freely. They flooded down her cheeks and silently dripped down her face.
Chapter Twenty
When Natasha finally dragged herself to bed, throat sore and eyes aching, she collapsed onto the mattress without even washing off her makeup. She didn’t have the strength to do anything more than put her head on the pillow and slide under the blanket.
Her alarm went off like a blaring horn, startling her out from under the covers. She had forgotten that it was her day off. The commotion the night before had disrupted her schedule. The sun was beginning to peek through her curtains, casting a dim gray light into the room and reminding her that life went on. The frequent and unwelcome visits from Nick made her want to shove her head back under the pillow and forget about the world. Natasha’s concerns were compounded by the nebulous relationship with Fury.
She didn’t regret her decision to get the update and focus on his rehabilitation, but she wished it hadn’t happened at such a vulnerable point in her life. Fury always seemed to be in control, and Natasha liked that. But when she felt herself wanting to surrender herself to him, it made her worry. She had let Nick have the upper hand in their marriage, and that had led to disaster. Would Fury, who was a human at his core, be any different than Nick? Wouldn’t he eventually turn into a bully too? Time was the only way to answer her questions. The redhead didn’t feel patient enough to wait.
The scent of breakfast cooking wafted under the door, making her inhale deeply. Natasha recognized the seductive smell of coffee brewing, her favorite thing in the morning. There was also the alluring bouquet of melting butter, frying eggs, and melted cheese. Without bothering to get dressed, Natasha raced down the stairs in her pajamas.
Fury stood in front of the stove with a pan on the burner in front of him. He was carefully folding an omelet into thirds, patting it down with the spatula to ensure that it stayed in place. Behind him, the coffee pot gurgled to itself. The cutting board showed signs of chopped onion and pepper.
She stood in the doorway, flabbergasted. When it came to breakfast, Fury’s culinary skills so far had amounted to pouring a bowl of cereal or putting a couple of pastries in the toaster. What he had created in the kitchen was nothing short of a miracle. He had only had the software upgrade for two weeks.
The cyborg looked up at her. “Sit down. Food will be ready soon.”
With no choice but to comply, Natasha took a seat at the table. She hadn’t put on a bra yet, but maybe he wouldn’t notice. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I did.” Fury scooped the egg concoction out of the pan and onto a plate, setting a toasted English muffin and a slice of avocado next to it. “You don’t want me to take care of you with fists or weapons. You can’t stop me from cooking for you.”
“How do you know how to use the stove?” Natasha marveled. The meal in front of her was a thing of such beauty that she hardly wanted to sink her fork into it. Her mouth, however, had other plans. It began to water. “Were you a cook before the operation?”
The cyborg shrugged. It was a gesture Natasha hadn’t seen before. It made his shoulders look too large for his body. “I don’t know. But there are other ways to learn than Cyborg Sector. There are videos and books.”
“I see.” So that was what he had been doing while she was away at work. She knew about his workouts but didn’t know he had been studying. Natasha wanted to ask him what other things he had learned. She had a feeling he wouldn’t tell her. Apparently, the soldier liked surprises.
Fury sat down on the other side of the table. As she looked up, she noticed a vase of freshly cut flowers. The big bunches of hydrangeas in variations of purple and blue filled the jar. Someone had cut each stem so its flowers didn’t interfere with the next one. Bits of greenery appeared among the flowers.
“Where did these come from?” If Fury had learned how to call a florist, she thought she might fall right out of her chair.
Her companion did not look up from his meal. “Outside the house. It was dark.”
Natasha’s stomach trembled, and it wasn’t from hunger. “Someone might have seen you.”
The cyborg shook his head. “I know how to stay hidden.”
“I think we need to talk about what happened last night,” she began. The nurse lifted a forkful of egg and avocado to her mouth. The smooth, nutty flavor went perfectly with the omelet, and it was almost enough to distract Natasha from what she was about to say. “Nick is a dangerous person for you to be around. I don’t trust him, and I think you should stay out of the way if he returns.” She knew it was more a matter of when Nick returned. He was not the type to give up easily. He was more like a dog with a bone, gnawing until there was nothing left and then prepared to steal from someone else.
“We don’t have anything to discuss,” Fury replied. He was calm but pensive, and Natasha knew the cyborg wouldn’t accept her reasoning. “I will deal with him. He’s not good for you.”
Natasha would have been grateful if she hadn’t been worried about someone discovering Fury’s existence. Nick was not the smartest man on the planet, but it would be just her luck for him to unravel the cyborg’s story. “He is bad,” she agreed readily, “but he might start wondering who you are. Nick thinks he should be able to control me, and he might try to do it through you.”
A rumbling noise shook the dining table, and Natasha realized it was coming from the cyborg. Fury growled as he scarfed down his meal. He didn’t look at Natasha or his plate but stared off into space somewhere into a corner of the room. “You do not belong to him,” Fury said slowly. “He can’t control what is mine.”
Natasha felt a clenching between her legs when she heard the cyborg be possessive. The notion didn’t match with her feminist values, but she couldn’t deny that it was sexy. Deep down, she wanted to belong to Fury. Natasha wanted to do as he asked and use his desires as a convenient excuse.
She could easily imagine the reactions of her friends and coworkers. The girls at the office, Brittney included, would have no problem saying that she shouldn’t do anything a man says, let alone a cyborg. Modern thought dictated that women weren’t property, and men did not have to be dominant in the relationship. There was a secret part inside Natasha that felt like a man could be in charge of her as long as he was the right man. She had never verbalized her thoughts out loud.
“He can control me, in a sense. He hasn’t signed our divorce papers yet.” Natasha decided to take a different approach and hope she could convince the cyborg. “I know Nick. He’ll do whatever it takes to make me suffer as much as possible until he’s tired
of playing around.” She had seen Nick do it to his friends, family, and employees. It was no surprise that he was trying to manipulate her now.
“No!” Fury’s fist slammed down on the table, making the dishes jump. “If he doesn’t leave you alone, he can deal with me.”
Natasha slid her chair back in surprise, wondering if one of the table legs had cracked. Fury was not in the mood to argue with anyone. “I think I’m done eating for now,” Natasha mumbled as she stood and headed for the sink.
Fury caught her elbow as she walked past. She flinched automatically even though his grip was gentle. He pulled her down into his lap and looked her in the eyes. Some anger was still visible on his face, but a different emotion was becoming dominant. Concern. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But you belong to me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”
The redhead’s eyes teared up immediately. Fury’s words had moved her and made her feel...something, but she hesitated to name it. Natasha knew she needed to talk to the cyborg about his memories and analyze his progress from a clinical perspective. The problem was that he was no longer just a cyborg or a patient to her. He was something else.
“Thank you.” Natasha knew he wanted to say more, but she wasn’t ready to hear it. Even though Fury’s lap was warm and inviting, she pushed herself up and started rinsing off the dishes. Nick had only been out of her life for a short time. She’d thought about leaving her husband before and had always pictured herself as staying single for a while before looking for a new partner. Maybe she wanted different things in life now and needed to plan how to get them.
Natasha had never imagined she would meet the right person too soon or that the right person might be a cyborg. She contemplated a potential future with Fury. Cyborgs could live relatively healthy lives. Many had jobs, and some were in relationships. If it was okay for other women to fuck cyborgs, why couldn’t she?
As she climbed the stairs to her room, intending to get dressed, Natasha realized that she knew exactly why. Fury was not an anonymous man she had met on the street, in a bar, or through an online dating site. He was not a man who would eventually tell her some secrets after they had been on a few dates. Instead, she knew the intimate details of his rehabilitation process. He was unstable and prone to violent outbursts. Even more importantly, Fury was just as likely to be terminated as live a successful life.