Cyborg by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page B

are so fucking observant.”
    His brows rose. “Why were you reconstructed with bionics? Were you injured in duty?” “I don’t want to talk about it,” Amaryllis snarled.
    “You have no data banks,” he observed pensively.
    “No shit.” Thank God he couldn’t access her memories!
    “The gutter language does not become you.”
    “Does it bother you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, I don’t give a fuck,” Amaryllis snapped. “I feel like using it.”
    “Why?”
    “Why don’t you just go … recharge or something?”
    His face tightened with anger. “I derive energy from food, the same as you.”
    “Really?” Amaryllis said sarcastically. “I had no idea we had so much in common.”
    “I don’t particularly care for the sarcasm either,” he said tightly.
    “Too fucking bad.”
    He caught her jaw in one hand, forcing her to look at him. She made an aborted attempt to pull free, but realized fairly quickly that she couldn’t. Instead, she glared at him coldly. He studied her in angry silence for several moments before his expression softened. “I wounded you.”
    Surprise at his perception flickered through her. “You wish,” she said derisively, but not nearly as convincingly as she would’ve liked.
    “You are wrong. I do not wish it at all,” he said. “And I think we have much more in common that you are willing to admit.”

    “Wrong. We have nothing in common,” Amaryllis said tightly, feeling her anger rise once more as it occurred to her to wonder if he meant to bring up her bionics again.
    “You may hate me for what I am, but you are not … indifferent to me.”
    The comment took the wind out of her sails. “What?”
    Releasing her jaw, he trailed his fingers lightly down her throat, across her collar bone and down between her breasts. Amaryllis’ breath caught in her chest as he traced a light circle around each trembling globe. Even through the cloth, his finger felt like a firebrand. Her nipples puckered, stood erect, begging for his touch.
    Her reaction embarrassed and infuriated her. Before she thought better of it, she swung at him. As if he’d anticipated her retaliation, he caught her wrist mid-air, pushing her back against the bunk and pinning her with the weight of his body. His eyes gleamed as he stared down at her. “I am cyborg, no more than a machine. Surely you are not offended by my touch?”
    Amaryllis swallowed with an effort.
    After holding her gaze for several long moments, his gaze slid downward, settling on her breasts, heaving now with her efforts to drag in a decent breath of air. With deliberation, he leaned down, covering the tip of one breast with his mouth. Heat, like fire, instantly flowed through her, clouding her mind. She tensed, tried to block her mind to the pleasure that immediately assailed her. Her heart began to thunder in her ears so frantically that she could hear nothing but its drumming and the rush of air as it sawed almost painfully in and out of her laboring lungs.
    She might have been completely naked for all the difference the thin fabric made.
    She was sorry she wasn’t.
    She wanted to feel the moist heat of his mouth on her skin.
    As if he’d read her mind, he nudged the fabric aside and covered her nipple with his mouth, sucking, teasing the sensitive tip with his tongue. She gasped as a fresh rush of mind sundering sensation boiled through her. Her belly clenched almost painfully.
    Her femininity quaked, gathering heat and moisture.
    With an effort, she summoned her defenses, closed her mind against the maddening stimulus, certain that he would stop if she could convince him she found no pleasure in his touch.
    He seemed to sense her battle. Instead of accepting the lie she tried to tell with her body, instead of teasing her and then releasing her, he continued to suckle and torment her nipple until her shaky defenses crumbled, until she was drunk with the euphoria of pleasure, her mind chaotic, and she became so weak she felt as if she