by Amy Pennza
She stood. “Just get it over with.”
He rose. “Turn around.”
She stared at him, as if weighing her options. Finally, she faced away. Her shoulders lifted on a sigh.
He gathered her hair and pushed it over her shoulder. He started at her neck and ran his palms down her back. Her skin trembled under his hands. She felt like silk. Her ass was perfect—two high, round globes that begged to be touched. He passed a hand over each cheek and then crouched so he could skim down her legs.
“Move your legs apart.” His voice was gruff.
She clenched her hands at her sides, but she widened her stance.
He slid his hand up the inside of her leg to the juncture of her thighs. She stiffened. He did the same to the other leg. He stood. Blood pounded in his cock. His eyes were riveted to the cleft of her ass. Want to touch her there. “Face me.”
She obeyed. Her cheeks blazed. Her breasts rose and fell, drawing his gaze. He wanted to feel them in his hands again—firm and tight but so incredibly soft. They sat high on her chest, the nipples tilted up like an invitation, begging to be caressed.
He cupped between her legs.
She sucked in a breath. “Stop.”
The pouty flesh was warm against his hand—warmer than the rest of her skin. For a moment, the urge to slide a finger inside—to test the heat there—was overpowering. He withdrew his hand, and his finger grazed her clit.
She tried to step back, but her legs hit the edge of the bench. He steadied her, then bent and grabbed a towel from a folded stack on the floor. “Put it on,” he said, handing it to her.
She wrapped it around her body and pressed the top against her chest. Her hair was beginning to dry in long, languid spirals that curled gently over her shoulders and down the sides of her arms. He remembered his dream of waking with that hair across his thighs, and he turned away so she wouldn’t see his arousal. If she knew how much she affected him, she’d use it against him.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “We’ll continue this discussion upstairs.” When she just stood there, he motioned for her to precede him.
She darted a glance between him and the doorway. “But…my clothes…”
“Reek of the pit. And this will make it pretty difficult to escape, don’t you think?”
For a brief second, panic flashed over her features. Then she covered it with the angry mask he’d seen her wear before. She walked to the doorway, her shoulders stiff. The towel just covered her ass. He stepped close behind her, his hands clenched to keep from touching it.
“After you,” he murmured.
At least it’s warm, Nadia thought as she climbed the stairs leading to Ivar’s chamber. He was right—she wasn’t going anywhere in a towel. In a way, it was worse than the auction. At least then, she’d assumed her nudity was temporary. Now, she had no way of knowing when she’d have clothes again. She could feel his eyes on her ass. From his vantage point beneath her on the staircase, she knew he could see her bare sex every time she took a step.
He was angry. And the truth was, she couldn’t really blame him—or even fault him for being suspicious. She still didn’t understand how she’d managed to stab him. The kaptum had been around her wrist—and then it hadn’t. The buzzing intelligence had skimmed the surface of her brain like a dragonfly hovering above water. Had it guided her hand? She’d wanted to get away—nothing more. It was as if the kaptum had wanted to help her.
And Rogan. Had he made it back to his cave without being seen? If Ivar thought she was a spy, what would he think of one of his own people helping her escape? She had no way of knowing if he was okay.
She reached the landing outside his cave and stopped. It seemed impossible that she’d fled it just a few hours before. Of course, a few hours ago she’d also believed that people on Tolbos couldn’t have children. Why would Ivar lie about it? What did he have to gain by revealing his origins?
And when she’d tried to deflate his spy theory by bringing up the lung modification, he’d just stared at her.
“Go inside and sit down,” he said behind her.
She walked to the chair and sat. The towel rode up her thighs, but pulling it down would expose her breasts. She settled for clamping her legs together.
He winced as he lowered himself to his chair.
“Are you okay?”
He looked at her with hard eyes. “I’ll ask the questions.”
She folded her hands. Fine.
“Were you programmed to use kaptum?”
So they were back to that again. Stay calm. If he was willing to listen, maybe she could make him see reason. “Like I told you, I wasn’t programmed to do anything.”
“But synths are born to do a certain job. Is that right?” He looked curious, but also annoyed—as if he didn’t like being ignorant.
“Everyone is genetically predisposed to do something. The Council just pairs certain genes with others depending on what jobs need filled.”
“And what of your genes? What were you predisposed to do?” His expression told her he wasn’t inclined to believe she was anything other than a kaptum-wielding spy.
“I’ve been told my mother was a botanist. My father was a climate scientist. They worked on the first Mars settlement program after the Second Great Conflict.”
He sat back. “That was two hundred years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You never knew them?”
“No. They were donors, chosen because they were young and healthy and had good genetics. Donors enter the program knowing they won’t ever meet any of their offspring.”
His face was a mix of confusion and disgust. If he’d been born on Tolbos, maybe he didn’t understand how close humanity had come to destruction. There was a difference between being told something and seeing it with your own eyes. The sunken cities on Earth were both devastating and unforgettable.
She leaned forward. “When the oceans rose, thousands of cities flooded. There were food shortages. Riots. There weren’t enough people to repopulate—”
“I know what happened. Who raised you, then?”
“A Council school. A series of them, actually.”
“You have no family of any kind, anywhere?”
She shook her head.
“Where were you born?”
“A lab in the Green Zone.”
“Is that where your last name comes from?”
“Of course.”
“And where is that?”
His rapid-fire questions made her feel unbalanced. Was he doing it on purpose—waiting for her to trip up and say something incriminating? She took a deep breath, willing herself to slow down. “The area between St. Louis and Denver. Basically, what was left of North America after the sea levels rose and took out the coasts.”
He stared at her, his eyes assessing. Finally, he said, “You didn’t want me to know you’re a synth. Why?”
She hesitated. How could she explain? “You said you’ve never met a synth before?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You forget where you are. I thought your kind didn’t break the law.”
“That’s it! What you just said. Your kind. All my life, people have treated me differently once they found out what I am.” His stare was too…something. Too penetrating. As if he saw right down to her soul, where all her hurts and insecurities lived. She looked away.
“Different how?”
She forced herself to meet his gaze again. “Dispensable. After my sentence, when they were prepping me for transport, my fiancé said it would kill his mother if he went instead. That I couldn’t understand. He wasn’t wrong. There is no one to mourn me. Or worry about me. It’s easy for people to assume I don’t care.” She shook her head. “You can’t miss what you never had, right?”
Silence hung in the air. They stared at each other. A torch on the wall sputtered. Should she tell him the rest? His face hadn’t softened. Whatever he was thinking, it was locked away behind his hard eyes and grim mouth.
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Nothing ventured, nothing gained. She took a deep breath. “When people assume you’ve never felt love, it’s not so much of a stretch to think you can’t feel anything at all. You become a thing—something the Council created to boost the population. And if the population dips again, they can just make more.”
His expression didn’t change. “Like they made you?”
She couldn’t stop the bitter laugh that escaped her. So much for baring her soul. “You honestly think the Council created me over twenty years ago on the off chance someone on Tolbos might try to grow a potato plant?”
He didn’t react to her laugh. His stare stayed hard, his eyes flat. “No, I think they used the resources available to them.” He rose and, grimacing, pulled his shirt over his head. A puckered semicircle marred the smooth skin under his ribs. The kaptum band around his arm looked…different. The color was lighter, less bold. He flung the bloodied shirt to the desk. “You infiltrated my home. You refused my bed to work in the pit. You saw the only organic crops anyone has ever been able to grow here. What a coincidence that you happen to be the exact sort of scientist who could sabotage those crops. And when I questioned you—”
“Questioned me?” Was that what he called it? Slamming her head against a wall and holding her down with kaptum? She was done feeling disappointed. Now she was just pissed. She stood, and her towel slipped. She jerked it back into place.
“Yeah, questioned you.” He put his hands on his hips.
“You pinned me to a wall. In…in your cliff room!”
“You fought me.”
Was he serious? “I fought back when you grabbed me.”
“You were after blood.”
“Wrong. I defended myself.”
His eyes narrowed. “By forming kaptum into a knife. And you expect me to believe you’re untrained?” His face was incredulous.
“I don’t know how it happened.” She groped for an explanation—for a way to make him understand something she didn’t understand herself. “I was terrified. You tacked me to a wall next to a freaking cliff! Then you screamed in my face. People usually don’t freak out when I tell them I’m a botanist.”
“A botanist who can steal kaptum from a master and then stab him in the lung with it.” He pointed to the curtain behind her. “The Council controls our food, which means they control us. They could take out those fields with a few blasts from a plasma gun, but they’d blow up the mine and maybe half the planet in the process. And we can’t have that, can we? They need their kaptum. And they need their slaves to get it for them.” He put both hands on his desk and leaned toward her. “So why not send the perfect weapon to get rid of the problem?”
Weariness washed over her. The long day of work in the pit felt like a million years ago. She shook her head. “Ivar, I’m not a weapon. Or a kaptum master. There is nothing special about me.”
“Exactly.”
It was as if he’d slapped her. She jerked, like her body had to absorb the impact of his cruelty.
He straightened. “You said it yourself. You have no one. You are dispensable. You just described the perfect assassin.”
IVAR COULDN’T SHAKE how rattled he felt.
If she was the actress Porter had called her, she had a remarkable gift. The hurt in her eyes looked real enough.
Doubt swirled in his mind. So much of what she’d said rang true. She was a synth—the code on her foot proved that. He’d sensed she was truthful about feeling different her whole life. He was other in a place where fitting in was necessary for survival. He understood better than she might think. And the part about her fiancé… Clearly, that son of a bitch needed killing.
Yet, her actions since she’d arrived all pointed to her being here for a specific purpose.
His side pinched. A helpful reminder.
He must have made a face, because her gaze dropped to his ribs. She looked…concerned.
Watching her now, it was hard to believe she was coldhearted enough to take out the mine’s food supply. Or to commit murder. Was it all just one big, convenient coincidence that a botanist had arrived on his doorstep just when the fields were starting to produce? An exquisite botanist with the hottest ass he’d ever seen? She adjusted the towel. The cloth parted, exposing a length of slender leg. His balls tightened.
If the Council’s intention had been to lead him around by his dick, well, mission accomplished.
He cleared his throat. “Do you need to use the toilet?”
“Why?” Her voice was a whisper.
“I’m going to bed, which means you’re going to bed.”
She swung around to look at it. When she turned back, her cheeks were tinged with pink. “I said I won’t— I’m not a bed slave.”
He almost rolled his eyes. This again. His side ached like a bitch. If he didn’t lie down soon, he was going to fall down. “You’re whatever I say you are. Or do you prefer I tell my people you’re a spy?”
“N-no.”
“Good.” He pointed to the far corner of the room, where a sturdy round pot with a covered lid sat tucked in the shadows. “Toilet’s over there.”
Her face drained of color. “I…can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Not with you watching. And listening.”
“Suit yourself, but don’t expect to get permission again. You might be in for a long night.”
She gazed at the corner. When she looked back, her face had the air of someone facing their execution with quiet dignity. “Fine, but…can you please at least not watch?”
“Nope. I don’t trust you.”
She flung an arm toward the pot. “What do you think I’m going to do, hit you over the head with it?”
He walked to the corner. “I’ll turn away, but I’m not leaving the room.”
With a resigned sigh, she approached the pot and lifted the lid, her distaste for the whole arrangement plain to see. She held the lid away from her body as if it were a vicious animal ready to attack her. “Would you please just turn around?”
He obliged her by moving a few paces away, but he kept her in his peripheral sight, his body angled sideways. From the corner of his eye, he watched as she placed the lid carefully on the ground, her other hand clenching the towel. Her cheeks and chest were stained a mottled pink as she straddled the pot, then bent her knees in a crouch. The towel parted over her thighs. She hovered there a moment before letting out a little sigh. A second later, a stream of liquid flew into the pot with a hollow pinging sound.
Even though he couldn’t really see what was happening, observing such an intimate act was intensely erotic. Ivar swallowed thickly. His cock swelled hard against his pants. The knowledge that she was completely in his power—completely his—thrilled him in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible. The sound slowed to a trickle and then stopped. He turned and walked slowly back to her, his eyes taking in the sight of her spread sex as she stood frozen over the basin. She was perfect there.
She made a small sound as he bent and retrieved one of the soft cloths he kept on a stool next to the pot. Instead of handing it to her, he pressed it against her flesh, rubbing it gently back and forth between her legs. She’d straightened, but the pot prevented her from closing her legs. With the wall at her back and him blocking her, she was forced to stand still while he blotted her.
“I—I can do it,” she said, reaching for his hand. The knuckles on her hand clenching the towel to her breasts were white.
“It’s done.” He tossed the cloth into a basket and then brushed the back of his hand over her sex, starting from the top of her smooth mound and moving down to her clit. He kept going until he felt the firm globes of her ass. He flipped his hand palm-up and swept it forward, his fingers tracing the outline of her labia and clit. “All dry.”
“Is this how you treat all your prisoners?”
He lifted his gaze to hers. Her eyes were a smoky green. Two spots of color burned high on her cheekbones, and her lips were parted slightly. He with
drew his hand but didn’t move away. “Slaves.”
Her breath caught. Whatever else she was, she wasn’t unaffected by his touch.
“You put yourself in my world, Nadia. You should be prepared to suffer the consequences. Although, you don’t appear to be suffering.”
“Can I please move?” Her mouth tightened. She gestured to the pot beneath her.
He stepped back and swept an arm toward the bed. “Be my guest.”
She scrambled past him and sat on the edge of the bed. He untied his pants and slid them down his hips. Fire shot through his side. He gritted his teeth. He used the pot himself. At least his erection had subsided. If he’d climbed into bed with her in that state, he wasn’t certain he’d have been able to keep his hands off her.
When he was done, he walked the perimeter of the room, waving a hand over all but two of the torches, the flames snuffing out in his wake. Navigating by memory in the darkened room, he walked naked to the bed and stood over her. There was still enough light for him to see her swallow as he stared down at her. “Lie down on your stomach.”
“Why?” She glanced at his cock.
“Because there’s no way I’m falling asleep with you free to kill me with my own weapons. Don’t make me ask again. On your stomach.”
Her throat convulsed. “Please don’t pin me again. This isn’t necessary.”
“Oh, it’s necessary. The constant burn in my side tells me that much.” He bent and rooted around at the base of the rock platform that served as his bed. He grabbed two lengths of rope and straightened. His side twinged. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning.
“You keep rope by your bed?”
He looked at his fist, where the rope swung gently. He opened his mouth to tell her that Annika had a taste for games, but he stopped. He didn’t want her to know that—didn’t want her to picture him with someone else. Anger flared. He shouldn’t care enough about what she thought to keep it from her.
She stared at him, her big green eyes wide.
In a blink, he snatched the towel from her. He flung it behind him. “Lie down, before I get bored and decide to play with my slave a little bit more.”