by Ann Vremont
“You’d be dead, too,” Cayce said, and came around his desk. He pulled her to him, tried to still the trembling that vibrated throughout Arlissa’s compact frame. He tilted her chin up until their gazes met. His voice was jagged as he spoke to her, “I’m not entirely sure that you’re safe now.”
“What could Dautrich want with me?” Arlissa asked. She tried to feign incredulousness but her mouth quivered at the edges.
“What if Dautrich was not only planning to steal my money but also sell Five Thousand to a competitor or even some foreign government—do you think he would think twice about kidnapping its creator?” Cayce asked. His arms tightened protectively around her as a second idea began to form. “And you’re forgetting about Five Thousand.”
Arlissa pulled back far enough to gaze questioningly into Cayce’s eyes, “What do you mean?”
Cayce hesitated, bit down his response. “Nothing, but you’re staying with me until Dautrich and Five Thousand are found, and I know that you’re safe.”
“I’m perfectly safe at my place,” Arlissa began to protest.
“No,” Cayce countered. His jaw was firmly set, and his eyelids dropped to heavily hood the sensuous brown eyes. “You’re staying with me, and it won’t be at Cayce Estates, either—Dautrich designed the security system.”
“But my clothes…”
“I’ll buy you new ones,” Cayce assured her. “They only managed, after all, to get a few million. And, when the Department of Defense realizes just what Five Thousand can do…well, R&D funding will no longer be an issue.”
Arlissa jerked back in surprise at his use of “a few million” and the implication of Five Thousand’s future uses. While she wasn’t so naïve that she had never contemplated more sinister uses of her creations, the day’s events had cast a harsher light on the issue. Cayce tried to pull her back, and she struggled against his tight grasp as she continued to protest. “But my…”
“Those you don’t get anymore,” he growled playfully into her ear. “Do I have to go about reminding you all over again?”
Arlissa’s face flushed a bright pink, and she managed to push away from him. “Segrin Cayce! I was saying that my journals are at my condo, you thickheaded—”
“Journals?” For an instant, his tone held a very CEO-like note of disapproval. “Are you saying you’ve smuggled research notes outside the lab?”
“No…” Her answer was drawn out, hesitant. “But I have worked on formulas—” She stopped abruptly, her mouth thinning at the need to get his permission to return to her apartment.
Cayce brushed his lips across Arlissa’s and stopped the rant that was building inside her. “Well, of course,” he relented. “You can get your journals and pack a suitcase or two of clothes and such. But I’m going with you.”
Chapter Eight
“I would really rather do this alone,” Arlissa argued, as she shoved her key into the deadbolt on her front door.
“But then I couldn’t be sure of what will—or won’t—find its way into your bags,” Cayce countered, as he took the key from her and opened the second lock.
“I told you, I don’t find that funny!” Arlissa hissed the words at the same time she felt her body gravitate toward him. Damnit, she thought and flung the door open. The madder he makes me, the hornier I get.
“If you think you’re going to help me pack—” Arlissa halted in the center of the front room as a loud thud sounded behind her. She turned to see Segrin crumpled on the floor. Her gaze traveled up the pant legs of the form bent over Segrin until she was staring into the brown eyes of Five Thousand. Arlissa looked around for the weapon he had used to hit Cayce—saw nothing but the small tear of latex smeared with blood on the unit’s right wrist.
Please, she prayed. Let that be Cody’s blood. Her gaze quickly swept over Cayce for some sign that he was still alive.
“Don’t worry Lissa,” Five Thousand said, his voice a well-modulated version of Cayce’s. “He’s unconscious—not dead. At least not yet.”
Arlissa felt a painful contraction in her chest and she leaned against the back of her couch. “What do you mean, ‘not yet’?”
“Well,” Five Thousand began. He straightened and stepped over Cayce’s inert body until he was standing in front of her. His hand reached up to caress her cheek but fell to his side as Arlissa cringed.
“He has some information that I need,” he explained. “Three point seventy-five million isn’t a lot of money for two fugitives.”
“Didn’t Dautrich—” Arlissa began, but Five Thousand stopped her with a pointed glance over her shoulder. Arlissa slowly turned to look at the space beyond her couch. On the floor, wedged between the couch and coffee table, was Dautrich’s body.
“Dautrich has served his purpose, Lissa,” Five Thousand answered. He grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her to him. “I’m surprised you didn’t catch on to him and Cody—I think it’s because you’re too trusting.”
“You said two fugitives?” Arlissa balanced on the edge of consciousness. Her body swayed into contact with Five Thousand, and he released her wrists to wrap his arms around her waist.
“You and me, Lissa,” Five Thousand answered. Arlissa felt the glide of latex lips along her jawline as Five Thousand caressed her with his mouth. He tilted his head back to look into her blue eyes. She closed them and could feel the slight hum of electricity beneath his shell of artificial skin.
“Down!” Arlissa commanded.
A sly smile played along his lips as he ignored the command to power down.
“You are my mother, my creator,” he offered. His grip on her waist tightened until she was pressed against the flat panel of his groin. “But you’re so much more than that, Lissa. You’re my soul, my flesh, my lungs and heart, and the blood and air pumping through them.”
She tried to pull free but he held her in a grip that threatened to crush her.
“My love.” The soft, mechanical voice bordered on breathlessness, and he kissed her again. “My lover.”
“But you…you can’t,” Arlissa protested. From the corner of her eye, she caught the small, involuntary jerk of Cayce’s hand as he struggled to regain consciousness. Hope soared in her chest, and she focused her attention on Five Thousand, afraid that she would reveal what she had just witnessed.
“But I can, Lissa!” Five Thousand argued. “Not in every way, not yet. You didn’t see to that, didn’t anticipate the need, didn’t appreciate your own genius.”
He put a hand to her cheek, traced the curve of her neck, ran a fingertip over her nipple. “But I can sense you, sense your excitement. I can see the flush of your skin, the spike in your body temperature.” He looked at his own fingers, pressed them to his mouth. “I have two million dollars of electro-sensors embedded in my skin, Lissa, sending millions of bits of information to my processor, telling me everything about my environment. I can feel your skin, how soft it is. I can smell the jasmine shampoo you used this morning.”
Again, Arlissa saw Cayce’s hand jerk. This time, the fingers curled into a fist before falling limp. His leg contracted and pulled the knee to his chest. Five Thousand twisted to look at Cayce.
“Coming round, so it seems,” he murmured.
As she had in the lab, Arlissa could feel Five Thousand activating his advanced defense features. She wriggled a hand free and placed it against his forearm. “Show me,” she whispered.
Five Thousand’s gaze broke from Cayce. “I really should take care of…”
Arlissa pressed her lips to his mouth. She felt a slight warming as the sensors beneath the layer of latex buzzed with electricity in their task of carrying to his processor the series of zeroes and ones to which the kiss translated.
“Show me, now,” she urged. Her hand moved to his chest. She had provided him with a complete torso and his nipples remained in a constant state of readiness. She had conned Cody into believing that they served some sort of mechanical function.
“Now?”
> The disbelief and longing that registered in his voice confused Arlissa, almost made her give a negative response as she sought to deny what she was hearing. The tremulous tone of his question was impossible, she thought.
“Now,” she agreed. “But not here,” she said, and urged him toward the bathroom.
“Why not here?” he half-argued, but let Arlissa lead him.
Arlissa glanced at Dautrich’s dead body. The distress splashed across her face was genuine. Five Thousand nodded his understanding, but tried to guide Arlissa into the bedroom.
“No, not this time,” she said, and pulled him back toward the bathroom.
Arlissa felt Five Thousand hesitate, and she held the sleeve of her shirt in front of his face. He inhaled deeply and his lips peeled back in a grimace.
“You smell like Cayce.” The tight edge with which he spoke was just as unbelievable to Arlissa as the earlier unsteadiness of his voice. She saw something that simulated anger flash in his dark eyes. “I had hoped that you didn’t succumb.”
Tears brimmed in Arlissa’s eyes and she caressed Five Thousand’s cheek. “It was you that I wanted. Can’t you see that?” She knew that the warm flush of a lie would be instantly noticed and tried to convince herself that what she said was true. “All those hours you and I spent in the lab, talking to one another…my feelings… I didn’t realize it until Cayce, your twin in appearance, walked in. He was a substitute for what I thought I could never have—you, Five Thousand.”
Forcing her hand to remain steady, Arlissa reached into the shower and turned the cold water on. The bright imitation of anger in Five Thousand’s gaze flickered once, and then was extinguished as he stared at the slow unveiling of Arlissa’s body. Naked, Arlissa backed into the shower. The icy water sent needles of pain along her back and she strangled the cry of protest that fought to escape her. Holding out her hand, she drew Five Thousand into the shower.
“This is not warm.” He paused over the last word, as he searched his vocabulary for something to describe the lack of heat.
“Correct,” Arlissa answered, and pulled him closer to her. “It is cold.”
“I do not feel this cold,” his said, and his voice grew distressed.
“No, because cold doesn’t damage you. But this?” she asked and placed her palms against his cheeks. “You feel this, yes?”
Five Thousand smiled, and clasped Arlissa’s ass with both hands. “And this, this is warm, Lissa.”
“Because everything around it is not warm,” she offered. Through the frosted glass, Arlissa could see the dim shape of Cayce struggling to his hands and knees. She wrapped her arms and legs around Five Thousand, and urged him to lift her.
As he held Arlissa, her back pressed against the tile, his hands traveled slowly from her ass to her pussy. “This is warm, Lissa,” he said, as his touch left the round curve of her bottom. “But this, this is hot.”
The last word escaped in a metallic moan and she wrapped her body more tightly around him. She used her legs around his waist to support her while her hands hovered above the access panel between his shoulder blades where the security pad was located. Uncertainty caused her to hesitate. As a security feature, the sensors to his access panel were hypersensitive—and if someone had overridden her down command, her security code probably wouldn’t work either.
“You’re shaking,” Five Thousand observed. Fresh doubt clouded his voice, and his gaze narrowed in suspicion.
“Because you’re not kissing me.” The lie didn’t frighten her this time. Her skin was cooling rapidly under the icy water, which made it easier to fool him—but at a cost. If she didn’t come up with a plan soon, she would be of no help to Cayce or herself.
“Kiss you where?” The smile was back on Five Thousand’s face and he lifted her higher until his mouth was even with her nipple. “Here?” he asked, and took the frozen tip into his mouth. His tongue swirled around it, and Arlissa could feel her body involuntarily responding to the sensation.
“Yes, there, keep kissing me there,” she whispered with false immediacy, while she studied the thin layering of latex over his scalp. She dug her fingers into his hair and pressed his mouth harder against her raw nipple. She wiggled her pubic mound against his stomach and tore at the scalp.
“I want to feel inside of you, Lissa,” he moaned against her breast.
Arlissa felt her vagina contract as the entrance sought to guard itself against his potential touch. “Soon, Five Thousand.” Arlissa faked a moan, as she peeled back a layer of latex. She ran her hands through his hair, destroying the protective layer one caress at a time until she could feel the clear, nearly indestructible plastic that served as a skull to house the powerful processor that rested a few inches from the surface.
“Now, Lissa,” Five Thousand protested. “I want its heat, I want your heat for me, Lissa.”
“You have to tease the outside first,” Arlissa said. She took a deep breath and popped open the casing occipital curve of his head. She kept one arm draped across his shoulder, but widened the distance between their upper bodies. Her free hand slipped between them to stroke her frozen clit. “Like this,” she said, and pretended to school him in the art of lovemaking. “Watch my hand, Five Thousand. This is what I want you to do to me.”
Five Thousand dipped his head to watch the languorous strokes Arlissa made against the folds of her labia. As he watched her circle the entrance to her vagina with the pad of her thumb, his processor case flooded with water. She felt his grip on her begin to slip, saw the electric pulse of understanding beat once in his pupil, and then found herself crashing through the glass door as his system shut down.
Arlissa fell on top of Five Thousand. Around them and beneath the unit’s frame, glass splintered into thousands of fragments. Air rushed from her lungs at the impact but, just as quickly, rushed back in. An arm’s length away, Cayce lay on the floor from where he had tried to crawl to her rescue. The back of his head was a misshapen lump of fluids that pressed against his skin, and threatened to cut off the blood supply to his brain. She stepped on broken glass, cutting herself, to get to the phone to call an ambulance.
Chapter Nine
Segrin Cayce sat upright in his hospital bed. It had taken two hours of complaining and a very large bribe to the hospital administrator, but he finally had a private room. The entire reason behind his protesting, however, was nowhere to be found. Then it walked into his room carrying a small suitcase.
“The nurses say that you’re being absolutely rotten,” Arlissa accused. She sat the suitcase on a nearby chair before dropping the side rail on his bed.
“If so,” he half-joked and helped her onto the narrow strip of mattress. “It’s all your fault. Where were you?”
She pointed at the suitcase, and then at her foot. “Getting you some clothes and having my stitches removed.” She gestured at the room. “And then I had to find you—what’s the big idea with getting a private room three hours before you’re due to be released?”
“Because it’s four hours before we have to be at the airport,” he began, and pulled her onto his chest. “Followed by, what, a six-hour flight to Cabo and another hour’s drive to the beach house?”
Cayce ran his hand under the white pique shirt Arlissa wore. He exhaled in a pleased gasp when he realized she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. “Where’s your bra?” he asked, and rolled her nipple between his fingertips.
Arlissa nodded at the suitcase before her lips found his nipples and began to tease them in equal turns. She was wearing a long black skirt and she slowly pulled it up to her hips. “Next to my underwear,” she teased.
She pulled the hospital blanket down and his hospital gown up. “I see the swelling hasn’t gone down everywhere,” she smiled, and hitched her skirt higher, giving him a flash of the dark triangle of pubic hair before she lowered herself onto his cock.
Cayce pushed the white top over her breasts, and drew a nipple into his mouth. He rested his hands gently o
n her hips, using just enough pressure to guide her as she teased the head of his cock with short thrusts that defied penetration. Releasing her breast, he pressed the button on the bed control and lowered it to a horizontal position.
“I want to taste that sweet pussy before I leave this hospital,” he groaned roughly, and urged her hips forward.
Arlissa smiled a sly, wicked grin and reversed her position until her lower lips were hovering over his mouth. She took his cock in her hands and began to lick her own juices from the shaft in long strokes. Wide, swollen with need, his shaft stretched at her lips as she sought to take his whole length inside her mouth. A warm breath of air spiraled around her cunt as he sighed her name, matching her swirling tongue against the head of his shaft with a rapid flicking of his own against her engorged clit.
Stroking his cock with one hand, she reached down and massaged the smooth swatch of skin behind his testicles. Another moan trembled against her pussy. Deeper, the vibrations sent a heady shock wave of pleasure rippling through her. Cayce slipped two fingers into her, quickly losing control of his slow thrusts as he began to buck beneath her in orgasm. Her mouth and cunt contracted around their contents, rode his hand and cock until her own climax claimed her in a series of convulsions.
Satiated, she turned on the bed and collapsed against his chest. The slow calming of his rapid breathing lulled her into a semiconscious state. His voice, bathed in its own drowsiness, slipped past her defenses as he hugged her to him.
“I love you, Lissa,” Cayce said.
With her ear pressed against his chest, Arlissa heard the proclamation in stereo—one a deep rumble that moved through her body and the heart it encased, the other, light as air, but with an undeniable strength that wrapped around her mind.
“I love you, too, Segrin.”
Epilogue
He watched the young woman as she kneeled before him to set the brakes on his wheelchair. She was dark-haired and slim like his Lissa but without the same spark of intelligence lighting her gaze. She straightened, smiling at him. The smile was no more real than the one he offered in return and his attention drifted down to her nametag, E. Branson. He tried to remember if he had asked her what the E stood for.