Cyborg Nation (11 page)

And what had
he
done? Rolled over and gone to sleep with that self-satisfied smirk on his face that
still
made her want to clobber him!

She halted to glare at him in seething resentment when she left the bathroom. As she raked him with contempt, however, her eyes settled on her book, wedged between his knee and the wall. She was going to have that damned book!

Stalking over to the bed, she leaned over to snatch it. Just as her fingers closed around the cylinder, she felt his hands close around her. Uttering a growl of outrage as she was flipped over him to land on the bed on her back again, she glared at him ferociously as she landed. “Don’t even
think
about it, buster!” she snarled.

The look of intent on Gideon’s face vanished abruptly. Confusion and then anger flickered across his features. “Who the hell is Buster?” he growled.

Having gained her release with surprising ease, Bronte had already sat up, grabbed her book, and scooted toward the end of the bed when he asked that question. It caught her off guard, jerking her gaze toward his.

“
I
am Gideon,” he emphasized as she met his angry gaze. “Who is Buster?”

Bronte looked away quickly before the urge to smile could get the best of her. She cleared her throat. “Oh, sorry. That was the last jerk that fucked me,” she said sarcastically as she climbed off the bed with her book and stalked toward the door.

“We will get your eyes fixed when we get home,” he said tightly as she reached the door.

She shrugged, but she didn’t look back. “I had my eyes closed … but if you think that will help clear up the confusion....”

Hah! Take that, asshole!
She thought as she left the cabin.
Let’s see how
you
feel about being used as a convenient
pole
and
then tossed aside like an empty cock wrapper!

Discovering that Jerico and Gabriel were watching her with almost identical expressions of hopeful expectancy, Bronte sent them both drop dead looks, stalked over to the bench beside the dining table, and sat down. Fuming with the realization that they had both been well aware of what was going on in the cabin and hopeful they were next in line, it took all she could do to focus on her book enough to at least appear to be reading it.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the two exchange a questioning look before they turned and focused on their instrument panels.
No!
she thought angrily.
Bronte is
not
on the menu tonight!

Assholes! Horny brutes! Cyborgs!
She thought furiously.

How
dare
they just expect her to spread her legs to accommodate them! As
if
she gave a damn if they had blue balls! “Go fuck yourselves,” she muttered under her breath as she resolutely turned to the beginning of her book, ignoring the startled glances Jerico and Gabriel threw at her over their shoulders.

Chapter Seven

Gideon glared at the door as it closed behind Bronte, outraged that she had implied she had had no idea it was him pleasuring her. “Who the hell is Buster?” he muttered, punching his pillow hard enough with his fist that it ruptured and stuffing whooshed out the hole in a small, snowflake-like cloud. Waving the particles away, he flopped back down on the bed and dropped the pillow over his face.

She could
not
confuse the prowess and superior dexterity of a pleasure bot with a mere human! He did not believe that for one moment!

Was Buster her pleasure bot then, he wondered?

Contempt curled his lips. The superior models like himself had evolved. Anything she might have would be little more than a bumping, grinding
toy
!

She had said that just to insult him, he decided.

What he did
not
understand was why she had wanted to insult him. He had pleasured her, thoroughly. He might not have utilized that particular programming before, but he had only to access his internal CPU to know that it was functioning correctly. His cock had certainly performed correctly.

Frowning, he tried replay. That was not functioning, however, because the growing, biological brain cells within his skull were beginning to interfere with some of the functions of his CPU. Giving up after a moment, he tried to access the memory cells and discovered that they produced only random recorded images. He remembered everything fairly clearly up until the moment he had begun to finesse her nipple
, per protocol
, with his mouth and tongue, and then he remembered what she had tasted like, the way the tight little bud had felt against his tongue, the way she had moved against him, and the little sounds of pleasure she had made in her throat. Beyond that, he discovered he could not recall a single thing except the way
he
had felt.

Prod his malfunctioning memory though he would, he could
not
recall that he had carefully sought out and located each nerve bundle and properly stimulated it. He could
not
recall her shaking with need as the pleasure built inside of her, although he could recall that
he
had been. He could not recall her begging him either, which made him wonder what had prompted him to proceed with penetration. Per protocol, he was not to invade her body until he either readily identified the signs that the female body was nearing its peak, or until the female identified imminent crisis by demanding he penetrate so that she could achieve orgasm.

The only thing clear in his mind at the point of penetration was the sense that
he
was about to explode and a sense of desperation
in him
to feel her body close around his flesh and pump inside of her. His
balls
had felt as if they were on fire and at the same time as if they were lodged in his throat, choking him.

His cock hardened and stood up as that memory washed over him, and with it the memory of the convulsions that had gripped him as his cock expelled the fiery fluids from his body into hers. He had felt totally drained afterward, weak as he could never recall feeling in his memory.

Trying to ignore the fresh ache in his cock and painful tightening of his balls, he groaned and rolled onto his belly, grinding his teeth and reaching down to adjust himself when the movement brought him excruciating pain.

It did have the desired effect, however, of making the swelling in his cock go down.

His programming, he realized, had blitzed, short circuited, malfunctioned ….
Something
had happened, for he had failed to perform … somehow. Otherwise, she would not have given him that look of loathing when he had made sexual overtures the second time.

She would
not
have insulted him!

She would
not
have stalked from the room.

She would have
welcomed
him to fuck her again!

“Damn it to hell!” he ground out as it dawned on him that her notable lack of enthusiasm at his performance meant she would not welcome him the next time he tried either.

Sleep eluded him for the first time in his memory. Ordinarily all he had to do was to compose himself comfortably and he dropped instantly from awareness into rest mode. Either because he could not seem to dismiss the thoughts rambling about in his mind, or because his ego was still stinging, or because his body—undisciplined confusion of biology and mechanics that it was—wanted more of what it had already had, he could not achieve the composure he needed to sleep. Stubbornly refusing to acknowledge defeat, he continued to struggle for rest until about three quarters of the way through his rest period, when he finally slipped under.

Everything else might have been malfunctioning, but his internal clock worked fine. When his time was up, his eyes popped open. Feeling as if he had been run over by a tank, he got up to shower and change.

Bronte was seated in the dining area he discovered as he emerged from the cabin. Deciding to ignore her when she did not even look up, he strode past her, cutting a glance in her direction when he neared her.

It was as well his resolve failed him, he decided angrily. Otherwise he would have missed the evil glare she focused on him as he strode past.

Gabriel took one look at his face and bolted out of the command chair. Dropping heavily into his seat, Gideon glared at the panel before him without really registering the read out, most of his attention on the woman behind him, burning holes in the back of his head with her eyes as if she had laser sight, and on his companions, who he knew were looking at him questioningly.

“Jerico,” he growled finally. “Go rest!”

Frowning, Jerico left.

After glancing at him several times, Gabriel finally leaned on the arm of his chair nearest Gideon’s. “Problem?” he asked in a low voice.

Gideon slid him a fulminating glare. “Why would you think that?” he snarled.

Gabriel shrugged. “It
sounded
like everything was going well, but then there was death in her eyes when she came out. I would not have believed she could manage such a look.”

Gideon dismissed everything but the first part. “Sounded?” he prodded in hopeful interest.

Gabriel shrugged. “A good deal of gasping and moaning and groaning. We could not hear
her
very well over you, but....”

Gideon felt his face heat. “You are developing a sense of humor,” he growled, unconsciously adjusting his aching balls.

Gabriel’s brows rose in surprise, but he didn’t miss the movement. “Am I?” He sounded surprised but pleased, but then frowned. “You did not achieve …?”

Gideon slid him a warning glare. “I did,” he said coldly.

“Why is that still bothering you then?”

“Because …!” Gideon bellowed before he thought better of it and then broke off. “I do not know,” he finished finally, his voice a low growl.

A sudden thought struck him, the culmination of the hours he had spent pondering his situation instead of sleeping as he had intended. “I achieved orgasm,” he added slowly, trying to wrap his mind around the realization.

Gabriel sent him a disbelieving look. “Simulation....”

“It was no simulation,” Gideon said sharply. Abruptly his lips curled in a pleased grin. “I spilled my seed inside of her.” The smile vanished as another thought hit him and he frowned. “I think.” He cupped his balls in his hand, studying them with a good deal of admiration, even though they were still aching like a son-of-a-bitch. Finally! His body had evolved as the others had. He had begun to suspect that they were either lying or that some essential element was missing from his own make up and he would never evolve entirely and become ‘real’ as they were, a new life form capable of reproduction of his species.

Gabriel eyed him resentfully and somewhat enviously for several moments. “Well, you did not do something right,” he said finally. “Else
she
would not have been looking as if she wished she had a weapon when she came out of the cabin.”

* * * *

Strain though she might, Bronte could not hear the low voiced conversation between Gabriel and Gideon. Their voices were little more than a low drone and unless she got up and moved closer, which they would notice, she could only guess what they were discussing.

A product of paranoia or not, her first thought was that they were sharing the lurid details of what had happened between her and Gideon. She fumed over it for a while, certain that must be it. As angry as she’d been when she left the cabin, she didn’t believe she’d misinterpreted the expressions of Jerico’s and Gabriel’s faces. Either they’d known when he went into the cabin what he had in mind, or they’d been able to hear just enough to figure out what was going on.

Considering Gabriel had just tried and left with his cock in his hand, she finally decided he wouldn’t have been Gideon’s cheering section. It seemed to her, though, that he would have been angry about failing where Gideon had succeeded, but she supposed he thought once one of them had ‘tapped’ it the rest would get the chance.

He shouldn’t hold his breath!

It irritated her almost as much that they didn’t seem to resent her having had sex with Gideon as it had that Gideon hadn’t even attempted to cuddle afterward.

Not that she’d been in any doubt about the way they felt about her!

But she would’ve thought pleasure bots would have been programmed to please a woman in
every
way, and what woman wanted a man to just fuck them and then go to sleep! God! If a woman wanted that she could just stick with a real man!

Four out of five of her lovers had behaved like that anyway and one out of four had been downright nasty about not wanting to be touched afterward. When they were done they were hot and sweaty and out of breath and just wanted to be left alone to sleep it off, the hell with whether or not she needed a little reassurance or wanted to feel appreciated. One had actually rolled over and told her to lock the door on the way out. If some woman hadn’t bashed the bastard over the head by now, she would be surprised.

So much for thinking she could avoid being used if she could avoid them! She couldn’t avoid them any more than she could escape. The tiny ship was crawling with horny cyborgs!

Contrary to logic, instead of cooling her temper and her resentment, the fact that all three men gave her a wide berth over the following week did nothing but make her more resentful. By the end of their second week in space, all three had begun to watch her broodingly any time she moved, Gideon most of all.

She had never considered herself a vengeful sort of person, but the hurt and anger she felt about their behavior toward her finally drove her to do something that would have appalled her if she’d even considered it before. She decided to get even with Gideon by allowing one of the others to seduce her.

It wasn’t as if he actually cared, or would be hurt by it, after all. None of them had any inkling what caring was.

In any case, they had made it clear that they considered her their enemy. It wasn’t as if she could wage war on them in any other way, and if fucking them resulted in the three of them trying to kill each other … well, she didn’t have a pilot’s license, but she was fairly certain she knew enough about computers to turn the ship around and retrace its path.