Page 29 of The Brotherhood

His mouth followed the path his fingers had laid down her naked body, his tongue replacing his hand in a slow caress. He took his time learning the delicate terrain of her body, marking every tremor, every delicate sigh, every frantic clutch of her fingers against him. At her breasts, he moved his tongue in slow, torturous strokes, circling, teasing, retreating. He stroked her mouth with his mechanical fingers and used his other to explore her delicate womanhood. The heat in his body pulled deep groans from his chest as he focused his lips and tongue on her taut nipples. She bucked her hips with a gasp when his finger slid inside her, curling, stretching and feeling her.

“Handy,” she gasped, trembling beneath him. Tension coiled tighter and tighter, her body shuddering with frustration, with desperation. He drove her to madness, her reckless begging instantly becoming pure euphoria to his system. There was nothing else in the universe but the slow, unrelenting pleasure he gave her.

His fingers found the precise angle and rapidly pounced against her core. Every inhibition burned away and she arched her body and took two of his mechanical fingers into her mouth, sucking with such a hunger it jolted him with desire.

When she broke, his name was all she knew and her pleasure ripped through him like a live current, searing and consuming. Fuck, he wanted more. He wanted everything. As she shuddered through the remnants, he kissed her, his tonguedoing to her mouth what his finger did to her pussy, what his cock craved.

This was his punishment.

To want her like this, forever.

It was a hell he’d happily suffer.

****

Beth went limp in Sinrik’s arms.

Her breath was steady. Heartbeat strong. No distress.

Yet, his grip didn’t loosen.

The moment stretched too long in the suddenly heavy air. His jaw tightened as calculation misfired somewhere in his mind, a break in the clean execution of protocol. He should have already issued commands. Should have had her transferred, restrained, processed. Should have placed her where she belonged—under observation, behind glass, beneath scrutiny. Instead, he was still standing there. Holding her.

He flicked his gaze up. His men were watching. Waiting. Their faces were unreadable, the way they were created to be, but something unspoken settled into the silence.

He adjusted his grip and turned, walking with her to the door. No one questioned him as he walked out, moving without hesitation, though the route he took wasn’t the one he should have taken. His feet didn’t carry him to Med Lab One.

The corridors stretched long and silent, security locks hissing at his clearance. She was weightless in his arms, but her presence was something else entirely. It pressed against his skin, seeped into the spaces between logic and instinct, twisted something out of shape.

He had encountered manipulation tactics before. Pheromones. Neurochemical disruptors. Sonic wave induction. But this—this wasn’t any of those. This was something else. Something dangerous.

The elevator doors slid open, and he stepped inside, shifting her in his arms as the doors sealed them in. The quiet in the lift was absolute. She sighed against his chest, a soft, breathy sound. His fingers twitched against the fabric of her clothes as the instinct to tighten his grip burned through his muscles.

He was suddenly on the floor where his quarters were. When had he decided that? Fuck.

He carried her down the darkened hall, past security checkpoints that recognized only him. By the time he reached his room and the locks engaged behind him, the realization settled into his chest like a foreign weight. She was there, in his space. Where no one else had ever been.

His fingers flexed as unease unfurled through him. He had made a tactical decision. He would assess the threat. He would regain control. It would not escalate.

But as he lowered her onto his bed, the sensation of her heat lingering against his skin, he already knew—it had alreadyfuckingescalated.

****

Beth surfaced from sleep in layers—first, the awareness of her own breath, then the weight of her body against unfamiliar sheets. The air was different. Carrying something she couldn’t quite place. Her mind fought through the remnants of exhaustion, sorting through scattered impressions. She had been restrained. Scanned. Questioned.

A jolt of panic popped her eyes open to dimmed lighting and him, in a chair near the bed. Watching. Their gazes locked as she studied his stare. It wasn’t the way a man watches a woman or even the way a predator observes prey. It was sharper. More like a scientist with a hand on the pulse of a living experiment—one he hadn’t quite figured out yet.

Beth swallowed against the dryness in her throat as she shifted slightly. The movement felt strange. Her body wasn’t in pain, but it felt different. Warmer. A pulse of uneasiness threaded through her stomach, low and lingering.

He leaned forward slightly, his forearms resting on his thighs. The movement was casual. His focus was not. “How do you feel?” he asked, voice unreadable.

Beth licked her lips, and his eyes tracked the movement. “Tired,” she admitted. “But… okay.”

Silence coiled between them as his stare penetrated skin and bone.

She blinked out of his gaze, needing to ground herself. “Where am I?”

“The south wing. You’re still in my facility.” His gaze flicked down her body, but not in a way that felt lewd. It was like he was checking something. Measuring.

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