Page 30 of Kiss of Steel

“You should learn how to use this one. When we get a day off, we’ll go into the outback where no one will see or hear, and you can get some target practice.” He’d have to find a way to recharge the blaster, but he felt confident he could jury-rig something.

“A romantic date!” She grinned.

He ached to kiss her, but after working with the hornigers all day, a rather smelly odor clung to him. “Let me clean up, and we’ll go to dinner?”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll stuff our dirty clothes into the duffel, and we can drop them off at the laundry on the way.”

“Good idea. I won’t be long.”

He grabbed clean clothes from the closet and disappeared into the bath. When he emerged, the duffel sat by the front door, and Honoria waited on the sofa. He shoved his dirty clothes into the bag.

When he turned around, she stood behind him. That she’d come up behind him without him being aware testified to how much he’d let down his guard.I trust her.Trusting someone was another new experience.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask how your day went,” she said.

“Fine.” More than fine. Surprisingly satisfying. “I’ll tell you on the way to the mess. But first things first.” He pulled her into his arms. “We didn’t say hello properly.”

She smiled and wound her arms around his neck. “My bad.”

“My bad, too,” he said.

“Then let’s make it good.” She stood on tiptoe, and he lowered his head and claimed her lips with confidence and hunger, desire rising. Again, that sense of coming home, a rightness, settled over him. Could life really be this good, this simple? Their tongues met and caressed in a pantomime of more intimate contact. Had she changed her mind about not wanting to have sex with him? He hoped so. He’d changed his mind.

One kiss led to another and then another before they broke apart. “We’d better go to dinner.” He slung the duffel over his shoulder. Outside, he took her hand, not to protect her from the cold but because he wanted to.

“Well, tell me about your day,” she said, swinging their clasped hands.

“I spent part of it breaking hornigers—trying to, anyway.” He grinned at the pleasant memory.

“Break them? What does that mean?”

“Trying to ride them. Getting them used to being ridden.”

“How does one do that?”

“You hop on. Five seconds later—if you last that long—you go flying through the air.” He laughed. Battling the stubborn, dangerous animals offered an outlet for his pent-up aggression. He would have gone insane if he’d had a job like Honoria’s—working at the mercantile. Maybe there had been something to the “psychological profile and aptitude” questionnaire he’d filled out. He hadn’t been entirely truthful, but apparently, he’d been truthful enough that he’d gotten a placement that suited him.

She covered her mouth with her free hand. “You got thrown? You could have been injured! Are you all right?”

He’d been thrown dozens of times. Dusty had been astounded when he immediately jumped to his feet and bounded onto the animal again. He would have continued indefinitely, but Dusty, growing worried, had called a halt after a couple of hours. “You won’t be any use to us if you kill yourself on the first day.”

Cyborgs were engineered to withstand extreme abuse and keep going. He could fight up until the point he keeled over dead. He wasn’t invincible, but he could endure more and recover faster than any human, than most beings.

“I’m all right,” he reassured her. “A little achy, but not bad.”

He’d been quite bruised and sore when he’d been forced to quit, and he’d limped out of the enclosure. Since then, however, the nanobots in his blood had worked their magic and sped healing. He’d noted in the shower the bruises had disappeared, and only a mild ache reminded him of the fun day.

“You could be seriously hurt!”

“Nah. I’m tough. The hornigers have met their match,” he boasted. He and one particular horniger had a grudge match. But there would only be one winner, and it would be him.

“I got the impression they were going to try to ride hornigers captured as calves and then raised in captivity.”

“That’s correct,” he said. “Raised in captivity doesn’t mean tame. They are more familiar with people, but they’re still wild.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t like this. It’s dangerous.”

That’s what he loved about it. A sedate, safe job would bore him into a stupor. He didn’t have a death wish, but, short of dying, he was game for anything. He eagerly looked forward to the next workday and the chance to teach the hornigers who was boss.

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