Page 5 of Stalker
A wave of dizziness hit her, and she staggered, trying to maintain her balance. Along with the dizziness, her whole head was throbbing. Her stomach was starting to feel queasy as well.
Then Stalker was in front of her, grasping her upper arms to steady her. He steered Neely back to the couch. “Here, sit down. You have a concussion. You need more rest while the nanites finish repairing the damage. Stay here, and I will get you some water off my sky bike.”
Neely moaned her assent and leaned her head back, closing her eyes against the spinning room. He was back in less than a minute with two water bottles and a couple of wrapped bars. She didn’t realize he was back until she felt the cushions shift as he sat down beside her. She opened her eyes to find him holding a plastic bottle of water in front of her.
“Here’s a meal bar in case you are hungry.”
Accepting the bar and the water, Neely drank several swallows. She couldn’t remember when she last had some. Dehydration could make her feel lightheaded and queasy. She wasn’t quite ready for food.
She hated feeling weak, especially with this cyborg ranger who could do anything he wanted with her, and she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Would she even want to?
Glancing at him, she couldn’t deny he was incredibly attractive. All bulging muscles, sandy hair, and midnight blue eyes with soft-looking full lips. And he smelled so damn good. It was all too easy to imagine fucking him.
It had been a long time since she got laid by a male she enjoyed. She felt her cheeks heat at the turn of her thoughts, and she frowned. The last thing she should do is encourage this guy. She would never get rid of him.
“Neely, look at me,” Stalker said.
She hesitated, then turned her head to look at his face.
“I don’t know how much you know about cyborgs, but nothing will happen that you don’t want. It is not in me to do anything deliberately that would hurt you.”
She stared into his eyes, wishing something there would give her a reason not to believe him. There wasn’t.
“Even if I believe that it doesn’t mean I want to be your breeder. I don’t want to be anyone’s breeder or mate. I don’t want to be tied down like that,” she asserted. “I’m a smuggler and sometimes a spy. I don’t stay in any one place for very long.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.” Stalker reached up and stroked her cheek with his fingertips. “Your flyer got shot down because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You won’t be much of a smuggler without transport.”
His tone was gentle as his caress on her face. Why did he have to be so damn sexy? How could one cyborg male be so intoxicating that her nipples tightened and her core clenched at his slight touch?
Neely had an intense urge to straddle his lap and rub herself against him. Just as intense was the urge to jump up and put some distance between them. Only she had already tried that and nearly fell on her butt.
“What have you done to me? I never feel like this around a man. You are all trouble that I don’t need,” she said, pushing his hand away from her face.
“You mean because you are aroused?”
She huffed and said, “No—”
“You are. I can smell your arousal.”
Of course, he can. He is a cyborg. All of his senses are enhanced. Neely looked away, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.
“Neely, it’s not your fault.” He applied his fingers lightly to her cheek, coaxing her to meet his gaze. “We are genetic mates; our pheromones make us want to breed. It’s biological…. At least for you, it is. Cyborgs are programmed to love our genetic mate in our virtual lives before awakening. I interacted with an avatar that looks very much like you.”
“You mean I don’t have a choice?” Her eyes filled with angry tears. This time she got up slowly. She needed to think, and she couldn’t think clearly so close to the cyborg playing havoc with her libido.
“I’m the one who has no choice. It’s you or nobody. If you reject me, there will never be anyone else. That’s how we are made.” He paused. “We fought throughout the galaxy for the promise of a mate to love and make a family with. Every time we got hurt, they patched us up and sent us out again. We all did it for her, the genetic mate we were promised at the end of the fighting. It was an empty promise. The people who made it were dead by the time the war was over.”
Neely let out an ironic laugh. “From what I know of history, that’s not surprising. People in government promise you anything to make you do what they want. I’m sorry, I just don’t think I can be that woman for you.”
“Doesn’t it make you curious about the life we could have together, given the attraction you feel?”
Neely turned away and looked out the dirty window as the sun peeked over the horizon in the distance. Was she curious? It was too easy to picture herself naked with him pounding into her until they were both sated. Even with her head still throbbing, she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
She wished she could go home to her tiny flat in the Farringay Starport City and be alone. Yet, she couldn’t. Her cargo was destroyed, and Overlord Berke wouldn’t get his money for the rifles she was on her way to deliver. Nor could she return them because fucking Colton Price destroyed her flyer with them inside.
It wouldn’t matter if she reported it to Berke. He would expect her to work it off in one of his brothels. She’d rather take her chances with the cyborg. Neely was done using sex to get by a long time ago. She was enraged at Price for shooting down her flyer for what it cost her to get it in the first place.
That little cargo plane was her independence. Now she had nothing but the few clothes left in her furnished flat. She wouldn’t risk getting caught by Berke’s gangers to go back and get them.
