Breathing Vapor (3 page)

Her presence served as a constant reminder than no being could be trusted.

Mira turned a corner and stopped.

A familiar silhouette, shrouded in shadows, blocked her path.

“You smell like him.” Vapor’s deep voice flowed down her spine, along her arms and legs.

“Are you recording this?” It was a struggle to maintain her cool persona. She burned for his touch, her need wild and barely controlled.

He paused for one heart pounding moment. “No.”

She relaxed. Cyborgs were unable to lie. “Which
him
are you referring to? There have been so many different males.”

There had been. Once. Solar cycles ago, she had tried to lose herself in sex. It hadn’t worked so she had given up on relationships, focusing on her mom’s favorite causes—freeing the suppressed, feeding the hungry, righting the wrongs the Humanoid Alliance had created.

“You lie to me, female.” Vapor stepped into the light. The cyborg was hard—hard eyes, hard face, hard body. His tall, broad form was encased in black battle armor. His fingers rested on the hilts of his daggers. He could kill her before she made a sound and she couldn’t stop him.

That aroused her.

She was truly fucked-up.

“There haven’t been many males.” His dark eyes glittered. “I smell only one on you.”

Could he smell what K017282 had done, what she’d allowed the baby cyborg to do? “Why are you out of your cage?” Mira covered up her embarrassment with aggression.

“I had the urge to kill.” Vapor caressed his daggers, drifting his fingertips over the metal, his hands moving up and down, up and down. “The Designer frowns on us killing other cyborgs.” He leaned over her and lowered his voice. “Would any being miss you, I wonder?”

No being would. She tilted her head back, meeting his gaze. “Kill me and you’ll be decommissioned.”

Vapor extracted the daggers from their sheaths. “It might be worth it.” He brushed the flat of the blades over her cheeks. The metal was cool. His touch was slow and surprisingly gentle. “I hear every doomed cyborg gets a visit from Mira the Merciless.”

Those visits were another risk she took. Decommissioned cyborgs remained conscious while dissected, given a prolonger, so they felt everything. Her father’s explanation was that it ensured the parts harvested worked.

Mira couldn’t change that process. She’d tried and failed.

But she could save as many cyborgs as she could from that fate. When that wasn’t possible, she could ease their trauma. She visited the doomed cyborgs, under the pretense of taunting them, and injected the males with pain suppressors.

Their deaths remained horrific. She remembered the last decommissioning, the look on the cyborg’s face and flinched.

“Careful, female.” Vapor slid his daggers down her neck. “You don’t want to damage your soft white skin. Humans don’t repair quickly.”

“You don’t care if I’m damaged.” Her breathing turned ragged.

“Not caring is in my programming. I was designed to hurt, to kill.” He traced the M design on the bodice of her fabric wrap. His nose twitched. “You were designed to deceive, to tell lies with that pretty mouth of yours.”

Those lies benefited his kind. Mira studied his grim face, yearning to tell him the truth. She was tired of being alone, of no one knowing her true self and she needed his participation for her plans next planet rotation.

But Vapor could betray her. If asked a direct question, he would have to either tell the truth, revealing her secrets, or stay silent, risking reprimand, possibly death.

He wouldn’t die for her. No being would.

“Why do you smell like that cyborg you sold?” Vapor leaned closer to her.

“I don’t smell like a machine,” she lied

His nose wrinkled. “You do.”

Vapor surveyed her body with his blades.  He was careful, not making a single incision, his weapons being an extension of his hands.

“You told me a lie. Now, tell me one thing that’s true.” He skimmed the metal over her breasts, encircling her taut nipples. “That is, if you’re capable of truth.”

He expected her to fabricate an answer. She could tell the truth and he wouldn’t believe her. “When I was young.” Before her mom was killed. “I would study my father’s cyborgs, your predecessors, imitating their blank expressions, striving for that level of emotionlessness.” She gave him a truth that would hurt no other being if it were revealed. “They were his creations and I thought if I looked like them, he’d love me.”

Vapor’s gaze dropped to her breasts, lower to her hips, and then returned to her face. “You don’t look like a cyborg.”

She didn’t act like one either. She was her mom’s daughter, caring too much, risking even more. “I wasn’t successful and he never grew to love me.” She was a distraction from her father’s work.

Vapor looked at Mira for one, two heartbeats, pausing in his exploration of her form, his brown hair mussed and his face unreadable.

“I asked for the truth.” He shook his head. “And you tell me a story about your father loving his cyborgs.” He raised his daggers. “I should cut you for that, teach you a lesson.”

Mira wasn’t afraid of him. Vapor was a killer but he wasn’t cruel. “I should scream, let the guards capture your rebellious ass.”

“You won’t.” He leaned forward, his nose close to her right breast and he inhaled. “That’s not accidental spittle. The scent is too intense for that. You allowed the cyborg to suck on your breast, to mark you.” His eyes flashed with fury.

“I didn’t allow anything.”

“You’re mine.” Vapor sliced the cloth. “No other male marks you.”

Her fabric wrap fell to her waist, exposing her curves. “What are you doing?” She clutched the edges, trying to cover herself.

“Stay still.” He pulled her hands away from her body. “I have to remove his scent from you.” The cyborg crouched until his face was at breast level. “It’s making my processors malfunction.”

How did he plan to remove the scent? Alarm swelled in her, mixed with sexual excitement. “I’ll enter the cleansing chamber later.”

“Later isn’t soon enough.” He palmed his daggers and cupped her breasts, his grip thrillingly secure, his fingers firm. Mira bit back a moan. “I’ll hunt him down and hurt him if I don’t do this.” He pinched her nipples.

The pain was exquisite. “He’s not a threat to you. He’s a baby.” Her voice was strained.

“He?” Vapor gazed up at her.

Shit. She’d made a mistake. “It.”

“You permitted this baby, as you call him, to put his mouth on you.” He licked her breast. A million points of pleasure exploded over her skin. “That indicates a bond between the two of you. Why did you sell him?”

“Credits.” She wiggled, the bliss lasting. “I’m tingling.”

“That’s my nanocybotics.” Vapor laved her with the flat of his tongue, the sensation shooting straight to her pussy.

A cyborg’s nanocybotics sped his healing and allowed his mechanics to grow in concert with his organic side. She didn’t realize they could be transferred, could feel so damn good.

“You lie.” His lips vibrated against her form. “You don’t need the credits. Tell me the truth. Why did you sell him?” He flicked her right nipple with his tongue.

“Credits,” she called out, clinging to that lie and to her sanity.

“Hush, stubborn female. Your father’s males will hear you.” Vapor nipped at her skin and she jerked. “When they arrive to save you, they’ll see a cyborg sucking on your breast.” He covered her flesh with his lips and did exactly that, the tug and pull making her writhe.

Fuck. She wanted, needed more, but she had to stay silent. Others viewed cyborgs as machines. If they witnessed her desire for Vapor, they’d think she was depraved, perverted, out-of-control.

That description would be accurate. His clasp on her breast was intense, the bliss scorching her brain.

“Vapor.” She threaded her fingers through his hair, holding him to her. “Please. Don’t give me pleasure. I don’t deserve it.” She’d failed her mom, others, caused too much pain, too many deaths.

“You’ll take all of the pleasure I allot to you.” He nuzzled against her curves, his eyes black with desire. “You have no choice. I’m in control.”

“No,” she protested, knowing that was the truth. Her body was his to command.

“Yes.” Vapor nibbled on her and she trembled. “Why did you sell him? You’re too far gone to lie to me, human.” He drew her breast into his mouth and she moaned, her pussy pulsating to the rhythm of his lips.

She was close, so—

He released her and she swallowed her scream of frustration. His eyes glimmered. The damn cyborg knew what he was doing to her. “Tell me the truth and I’ll allow you to muffle your cries.”

She needed that, badly, but she wouldn’t risk K017282’s life. “Credits.”

“Liar.” Vapor trailed his tongue to her neglected breast, coating her with his nanocybotics, the bubbling building. “Your stubbornness will get us both decommissioned.”

That wouldn’t happen because she’d be quiet. Mira pressed her lips together. She could do this.

He sucked and released, sucked and released, staring up at her with those dark fuck-me eyes, working her with his hot mouth and talented fingers, his daggers pressing against her skin.

Whimpers escaped her lips. Her body shook.

Vapor continued to feast upon her passion. He ravished her ruthlessly until she could no longer see straight and tears ran down her cheeks. Her nipples ached. Her pussy convulsed, her response verging on the edge of pain.

She’d come hard, and when she did, she’d scream. Guards would rush to her side. They’d see Vapor. Her father would decommission him. Her cyborg would die.

Because she wouldn’t share the truth, a truth she suspected Vapor already knew.

Fuck. She’d tell him.

“Sold him…because he was about…to be decommissioned,” she panted.

Vapor stopped sucking. His nanocybotics continued to fizz and pop over her skin. “You wanted to save a cyborg?” He didn’t believe her.

“I told you the truth.” She needed release. Desperately. “Please, Vapor. Give me something to muffle my screams.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s twice that you’ve called me Vapor.”

“K0001.” Shit. She couldn’t remember the rest of his model number. That’s how seared her brain was. Mira gazed at his cheek. “K000156,” she read.

“You don’t see us as machines.” He licked her breast.

Her eyelashes fluttered. “It doesn’t matter how I see you. Please, K000000156.”

His lips twitched. “You’ve added too many zeroes, female.” He presented the hilt of a dagger to her. Light reflected off its sharp blade. “Chomp down on this.”

She complied, grateful for anything to muffle the noise. The leather smelled like him, metal and male. She breathed deeply.

Vapor did also, inhaling her breast, sucking, sucking, sucking. A keening cry rose from her throat. Her back arched.

He covered his teeth with his lips and bit hard. The pinch gave her the pain she deserved. She screamed, the sound dampened by the hilt of the dagger.

Her world spun, color and sound swirling around her. She clutched his shoulders, digging her fingertips into his body armor, as waves of ecstasy cascaded over her.

They gradually eased but the ache on her breast continued. She gazed downward. Red encircled her nipple. The bastard had broken skin.

Vapor straightened. “Let go.” He held out his palm.

Mira released his dagger and it fell into his hand. “You bit me.” She grabbed the edge of her garment, preparing to cover her nudity.

He sheathed his daggers and stopped her, his movements smooth, efficient, and cyborg fast. “I marked you.” He looked at her breast. “With my nanocybotics, my lips, and my teeth.” His eyes blazed with satisfaction.

He was a sick being and she wasn’t much better. Part of her liked that he’d marked her, that he’d made her his.

“Your life is now mine, to do with as I please.” Vapor backed away from her and she fought the urge to follow him. “Remember that the next time you think about lying to me.”

Her truth was much more dangerous than her lies. “You’re a bastard.”

“All cyborgs are bastards, female. We’re conceived in manufacturing vats, never knowing our parents.” His laughter was low, husky and completely unexpected, staying with her long after he’d disappeared into the darkness.

She must have imagined that sound. Her cyborg didn’t laugh.

Her cyborg?

Shit. Mira hurried toward her domicile. He was her father’s cyborg, not hers, and he’d be deployed in two, three, maybe four planet rotations. She’d never see him again.

She shouldn’t want to see him. He’d pried not one, but two truths from her. He’d sucked her breasts, given her release, marked her as his,
biting
her.

The pain had dissipated. The wound was already starting to heal. She placed her palm on the access panel, the door unlocked and she slipped into the structure.

Her fast recovery must be due to his nanocybotics. They continued to bubble over her skin, staying with her, making her vulnerable to her emotions, heightening her desire for the warrior.