Programmed To Protect (The Tau Cetus Chronicles) (19 page)

But how the hell would they be able to get close enough to the assassins to get to this switch?

Another rivulet of doubt wound its way through his brain.

Maybe Ginger would have a suggestion as to how to get Wyatt and his men close.

Wyatt glanced up. He didn’t like the way Ginger sat there motionless, dead, her beautiful green starburst eyes even more unseeing than usual. In an odd sort of way, she’d given her life for this experiment.

Good lord.
She’d given her life.

In a panic, Wyatt fumbled for her switch. He’d just had a horrifying thought. Would Ginger still be sentient when she revived, or would she default back to regular robot mode, her miracle of sentience gone? He’d never forgive himself if he’d robbed her of her humanity by turning her off. And he’d never be happy again if he lost the woman he loved.
Damn it all.
Why hadn’t he considered this earlier? He never should have chanced it!

He pressed her switch.

“Ginger? Ginger!”

The Doll blinked slowly, and turned her eyes to him.

For a moment, Wyatt’s heart stopped beating.
How the hell could he tell for sure if she was still sentient?

“Ginger, is Anson Carron a good man or a bad man? Do you have an opinion?”

“He’s a bad man, Leith. And you’re going to stop him.”

Thank God.
Thank God she was still Ginger.
His
Ginger.

Wyatt felt an instant, overwhelming need to make love with her, and understood his reaction for what it was: immense relief at her safety. The desperate joy of not having lost her. The desire to show her how much she really meant to him.
He loved her.

Nothing else was as important as this simple, elemental, driving need. The need to celebrate life.
Her
life.

He wrapped both arms around her. “Ginger, I… I—”

“You want sex, Leith?”

Wyatt hesitated. Ginger may never be able to feel or even truly understand the entire range of human emotions, but that was okay. For every height of pleasure, there was invariably a depth of despair. Ginger’s life would be much easier if she could exist in equanimity. He was perfectly happy to feel for the both of them.

“Yes, Ginger, I want sex.”

“So do I, Leith.”

The tone of her voice made him pull back an inch to look into her eyes.

She blinked. “I am happy with you.”

As usual, her beautiful eyes were unreadable, but maybe, somewhere inside all of her sophisticated circuitry, she was experiencing an iota of the depth of emotion he was feeling right now. Maybe she loved him, too. In her own way.

He released her from his arms, and turned his back to her on the bed. “Unzip me.”

She had his jumpsuit undone in three seconds, and he was out of it in even less time. His boots, socks and underwear followed. Climbing under the sheet, he simply held her for a moment, memorizing the feel of her naked body against his. How her soft curves and hollows melded so perfectly against his hard muscles and bone.

It felt right. Comforting.

Even if it was human skin pressed against synthetic polymer.

“I wish to please you, Leith.”

He wished he could please her, too.
Physically
please her. But that was impossible. Still, because he knew that pleasing him
would
please her, he smiled. “Well, I heard about a couple of interesting positions this morning. The padlock and the plow.”

Ginger smiled. “The padlock requires a table, or at least a piece of tall furniture. Do you wish to leave the bed?”

“Hmm. Tell me about the plow.”

“We can incorporate the bed in that one, but we’ll both have to move.”

“Show me.”

“Very well. Stand up.”

As Wyatt got out of bed, Ginger threw back the sheet, and crawled to the bottom of the mattress.

Watching her, Wyatt swallowed hard. Damn, she looked so fucking sexy with her tousled red hair cascading like a luxurious silk curtain down her back, and her lush hips swaying with each knee she put forward to move down the bed. Wyatt’s cock hardened not only from the sight of her, but also from the hot anticipation of being inside her.

When she reached the bottom of the mattress, Ginger turned and propped herself on her elbows, positioning herself half-on and half-off the bed, with her upper torso still on the mattress, but her lower body kneeling on the floor. It looked to Wyatt like some version of doggy-style as he went to stand behind her.

“Now lift my legs and enter me.”

“What?”

“Step between my legs, grab me by the hips, lift my lower body, and penetrate me. If it’s easier, you can hold onto my thighs as I raise my legs. It’s meant to be like you’re guiding a plow. I’m the plow. That’s how we start.”

And I’m going to plow into you.
Wyatt felt a rush of pure sexual adrenaline as he followed her instructions. He thought the position might be awkward, but her lower body maneuvered easily, and as soon as he pulled her up and entered her, Ginger bent her legs to wrap her calves and feet around his buttocks to hold him close. And the fact she was on her elbows on the mattress would offer them a wide range of motion as he thrust.

Still, no human woman could do this.

Except, maybe, an acrobatic one.

Ginger looked back at him over her shoulder with an inviting smile. “Fuck me, Leith.”

Wyatt needed no further encouragement. He held onto her hips as he thrust. The motion was so easy. He could hold her still while he pushed his hips forward, or he could pull her back against his rigid cock. Or a combination of both. And the sensation was fucking incredible. He was deep, deep inside her, the sensitive head of his cock exploring unknown territory, the friction new and exciting.

He quickly found his rhythm, and the pleasure began to build.

“Ginger,” he ground out,
“tighter.”

She complied instantly. Her opening narrowed, causing the stimulation along Wyatt’s sensitized shaft to increase dramatically, forcing a guttural moan from somewhere deep in his throat.

He was lost. The pleasure was just too much. His fingers dug into her hips and his strokes became faster, frenzied, until he finally reached his breaking point and shouted his release. His cock contracted violently, spilling inside her with powerful spasms, milking the amazing pleasure for as long as possible.

“So… fucking… perfect,” he gasped, his legs suddenly feeling wobbly.

Gently, he disengaged himself from her body and lowered her hips until her legs were back on the floor. He practically fell to his knees beside her in sexual exhaustion, then managed to kiss her beautiful ass, her back, and up her long, graceful neck, finally making his way to her earlobe.

“I need to get you dressed,” he whispered, giving her a little love bite. “We’re going to see Theus.”

Chapter Eleven

“What the hell is this?”

Wyatt blinked. He had expected Theus to be upset that he’d delayed their meeting to discuss the developments in Terra Acer, but he hadn’t expected him to be quite so… furious.

He shifted on his feet in front of the premier’s desk. “Sir, let me explain—”

“What the hell is a
Beautiful Doll
doing at the headquarters of the High Council?”

Wyatt glanced at the woman in the camouflage jumpsuit standing quietly next to him. “Sir, this is Ginger. She’s—”

Theus slammed a hand onto his desktop. “I know what model of machine she is, agent Wyatt. What I want to know is what the fuck she’s doing
here.”

“Sir, with all due respect, she’s not a model. She’s
Ginger.
She’s—”

“Silence!”

The air in the room seemed to evaporate at Theus’ deafening command. Everything went completely still. Wyatt knew better than to speak, or breathe, until Theus made the next move.

“Tell me,” the premier said, his voice now dangerously calm, his eyes two cold black chips of ice. “Did you delay your meeting with me this morning because of this machine?”

“Sir—”

“Tell me.”

Wyatt swallowed. “Yes. But there was a good reason—”

“I can
guess
the reason. I warned you not to let a Doll interfere with your job, agent Wyatt. I cautioned you not to let your
head
lead your head. A Beautiful Doll is just a machine, no matter what you may project onto it.”

Ignoring the fury in Theus’ eyes, Wyatt forced himself to speak. “She’s
not
just a machine, sir. She’s sentient. A technological miracle.”

Theus growled in frustration, and pushed his chair back from his desk. He gave Wyatt a disgusted look.

Wyatt ignored that, too. What he had to say was too important. “Sir, Anson Carron has plans to assassinate all five members of the High Council.”

Theus’ face went from fury to shock. He shot forward in his chair.
“What?”

“And Ginger is going to help us stop him.”

That startling pronouncement temporarily silenced the premier. Wyatt quickly grabbed his opportunity. “There’s a lot I need to update you on. May we sit?”

Theus shoved a hand roughly through his black hair, blew out a harsh breath, and indicated the chair in front of his desk. Wyatt directed Ginger to sit in it, and remained standing next to her.

“Damn it,
agent Wyatt, what the hell’s the matter with you?” Theus spat out. “Let the Doll stand! It’s not as if it’ll get tired. It’s a fucking machine.”

“I’m almost-human, Sir Theus,” Ginger said quietly.

Theus arched an eyebrow at her response, and turned his fierce gaze to her. “No, I’m afraid you are not. No matter what agent Wyatt here may have told you.”

The Doll didn’t even hesitate at Theus’ response. “I am self-aware, Sir Theus. That makes me sentient, does it not? And I know right from wrong. Mr. Carron wants to terminate your peace-keeping High Council members using his robot soldiers, so I’ve shown Leith how to shut the robots down. Mr. Carron is a bad man.”

Theus’ mouth dropped open at Ginger’s patient explanation.

Watching the premier’s reaction, Wyatt’s chest expanded with an enormous sense of pride at Ginger’s spirit and courage. “She’s an android, sir,” Wyatt said quietly. “She’s no longer just a robot.”

Theus waved a hand at him, but never took his eyes off Ginger. “Agent Wyatt, there’s another chair in the corner of the room.”

Wyatt smiled in relief as he retrieved the chair from a far corner, and brought it back over to Theus’ desk. He positioned it next to Ginger’s, and sat. “You may remember I told you there was something different about her when I warned you a sex disc might be coming.”

Theus scowled. “Start from the beginning.”

So Wyatt did. He brought Theus up to speed on everything that had happened in the last few days, starting with Ginger.

“They wanted to addict me to her,” Wyatt explained, “because they want me in their pocket, in order to use me. I realized it from the start, so I played into this supposed obsession by begging Carron and Veraine to let me take Ginger home with me when the three of us returned from Terra Acer last night. In reality, it was to get her away from them before they realize she’s sentient.”

“What?
They don’t even know what they’ve created?”

“I’m 99-percent certain they don’t. Ginger says Veraine has been experimenting on her in private using various programs, but that she’s been very careful to hide any… changes… she’s noticed in herself.”

Theus gazed at Ginger speculatively.

“It’s true, Sir Theus,” she confirmed.

Theus’ gaze switched back to Wyatt. “So you took her home.”

“Yes.” Wyatt continued. “I knew they would use this supposed ‘gift’ of her to establish a tighter hold on me, use Ginger as leverage to force me to help them with their plans. This morning, they made their move.”

“What do you mean,
this morning?
I thought you were with the Doll this morning.
”

Wyatt shifted in his chair. “Um, Carron called me to his factory first thing this morning.”

“And you answered
his
summons and not
mine?”
Theus roared.

“Sir, Carron’s summons came before yours. And then, too, I felt I had to appear as if I’m under their thumb. To play the part. They want me vulnerable, so I feigned vulnerability. They laid out what they want me to do, and as I expected, they threatened Ginger if I don’t cooperate.”

“What do they want?”

“Nothing less than control of Tau Cetus. Anson Carron wants me to set up a meeting of all the members of the High Council, ostensibly so he can proudly demonstrate the abilities of his robot soldiers.”

“You mean their ability to kill us. To wipe out the entire council at one convenient time and place.”