She pressed her forehead against the cold gray tile and flattened her palms against her temples. While one of her hands boasted pretty, olive-toned skin, the other gleamed silver. The alien metal had been melted and poured over her arm, disintegrating the skin before hardening into a thin yet nearly indestructible shield. She hadn’t wanted it, had begged to be left alone. Her body had never been her own, however, so she had been given the metal arm despite her protests.
Guess that’s what happened when a person was created and raised in a lab, their DNA sculpted and honed purposefully. Nothing was their own, nothing was their choice.
“Life is good,” she muttered.
Except for the people hired to train her in combat and seduction, doctors and scientists had been her only companions the first few years of her life. They’d experimented on her constantly. How much pain could she endure? How long could she go without sleep? Without food and water? How long could she remain in one place, crouched and quiet?
Because she’d lived that way from infancy, she hadn’t known any better. She’d thought every child was subjected to that kind of torture. Only when she’d begun leaving the lab for jobs had she realized what she’d been deprived of. Affection, respect. Choice. By then, however, the chip had been surgically implanted in her brain and there’d been no way to escape. Not alive. They could track her anywhere. They could press a button and kill her instantly.
Little wonder hate was sometimes a living entity inside her.
The knowledge of her helplessness was always in the back of her mind, driving almost all of her actions. What she wouldn’t give for a single moment of peace. A moment for her and her alone, finally experiencing what the rest of the world took for granted: pleasure.
She inhaled quickly, exhaled slowly. The men she’d been with had come in all shapes and sizes, species, and backgrounds. Some had been sadistic, some merely interested in getting off, while some had genuinely sought to please her. None had, for she’d hated them all equally. They’d been a job and she hadn’t chosen them. Handsome or ugly, evil or good, they’d sickened her.
Jaxon, though, she thought she might have chosen on her own. They’d only been together a few weeks. Days, if only counting the time he’d been awake. But he attracted her in so many ways. His scars were proof of his intimate relationship with pain and that pain was a bond between them, whether he realized it or not, though most of her scars were internal. His courage and determination were awe-inspiring; she wished she were more like him.
Was he attracted to her in return?
Sometimes she would swear that he was. There was a heat in his eyes, a white-hot pulse of desire just under his skin. Other times, he gave her that blank stare. She sighed. If Jaxon loved a woman, Le’Ace suspected he would do everything in his power to protect her, would guard her with his life. Would cherish her as if she were a precious treasure. Her stomach fluttered with the thought. In jealousy? In sexual desire?
In longing, she realized then. So much longing. Had anyone ever treated her that way? “Hell, no.” She breathed in the scentless spray, feeling it prickle through her nose, down her throat. She could have added fragrance like a normal human, but the scent would have clashed with the “natural” aroma her creators had added.
“Jaxon is not meant for you. Get him out of your mind. You have work to do.”
With another sigh, she turned off the spray and stepped from the stall. Bypassing the body dryer, she stalked from the bathroom still damp. Shock stopped her short.
Jaxon had wheeled himself into her bedroom. Had her thoughts conjured him? He sat on the edge of her bed, the wheelchair discarded and in the corner. He was facing her, his silver eyes intense and boring into her. His nostrils flared when he spotted her. Something utterly primal flashed in his expression, there one moment, gone the next.
He’d switched off all the lights but one, the lamp on the nightstand washing him in magical gold.
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Her heartbeat picked up speed, wild, primal. She was naked. He could see every inch of her, every flaw. But her feet were rooted in place, preventing her from striding back into the bathroom for a towel.
“What are you doing here?” she croaked.
His hot gaze slid over her, down…down…then back up again, landing on her hardening ni**les and staying. His pupils dilated, and he swallowed. “I came to, uh, talk.”
“My br**sts are flattered,” she forced herself to say, “though I doubt they can answer any of your earlier questions.”
Red stained his cheeks, and his eyes snapped up to hers. “You’re the one walking around naked.”
“You’re the one sneaking into other people’s rooms.”
He pushed out a sigh as conflicted as hers had been in the shower. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked.”
He meant it; the embarrassment was proof of that.
“I don’t regret it, though,” he added.
Most men wouldn’t have bothered offering an apology at all, so she didn’t mind the addition. Did that mean he liked what he saw? Warm shivers trekked down her spine, spreading to her limbs. “I tried to talk to you fifteen minutes ago. You told me we had nothing to say to each other.”
“I lied. What happened to your arm?”
Shit! She jerked her right arm behind her back, hiding the silver metal. “Rogue alien,” she said, repeating his lie to her.
His eyes narrowed, dangerous slits. “Why—”
“Listen,” she said, cutting him off. “You picked a bad time for conversation.” She strode to her dresser as if she hadn’t a care, barely managing to keep her hands at her sides when she passed him. The need to reach out, sift her fingers through his hair, glide her palms over his shoulders and chest threatened to consume her. “I have somewhere to be. You’ll get to spend the evening all by your lonesome like you probably wished.”
He sucked in a breath.
“What?” she said, spinning to face him.
As though entranced, he licked his lips. Suddenly she wanted that tongue inside her mouth, thrusting deep and hard.
“Your back,” he finally said.
Damn it! She turned away, flicking the long length of her hair over her shoulder, hiding her tattoos and the embarrassing scars underneath them. “What about it?” she asked with pretend nonchalance.
“The artwork is lovely. Truly lovely.”
There was arousal in his tone. Rich, dark, husky. Is he lying? she found herself asking the chip.