Programmed To Protect (The Tau Cetus Chronicles) (24 page)

“Or not,” Ginger pointed out logically.

“Or not,” Wyatt agreed, turning back to her with a small smile. “Let’s hope not.”

Wyatt walked back to the bed and sat on the edge. He took Ginger’s hand in his and looked into her starburst eyes. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. Hell, that’s all I’ve been doing all night.” He blew out a breath. “I once told you that, as a police agent, I’m programmed to protect my people. Well, as a man, it’s also ingrained in me to protect my woman. I want you to stay home today, where you’ll be safe.”

Ginger’s eyes widened in surprise, and she sat up in bed. “No, Leith. I wish to come with you. I can help you.”

“You’ve already helped us tremendously by letting us practice on you yesterday. Besides, I can’t risk you coming. In the chaos of today’s confrontation, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to protect you there. I’ll need all my concentration to focus on the fight.”

“You don’t have to protect me. I can defend myself, Leith.”

“You probably can. But I’d still be worried about you. I’d be distracted.”

“That’s illogical, Leith.”

Wyatt shrugged. “I lost my mother and sister in the Great War, Ginger.”

“Lost them?”

He squeezed her hand, and stared into her beautiful green eyes. “They’re dead.
Terminated.”

“Oh.”

Wyatt sighed. “There was nothing I could do to save them. I don’t want to lose you, too. I’d never forgive myself if something were to happen to you today. I love you.”

Ginger paused, and tilted her head. “Is that what I feel about you? Is this sensation called
love?”

Wyatt smiled. “I sure hope it is. Because I’m utterly and completely in love with you.”

“Well, then, I love you, too, Leith. I would never want you to be terminated. But I can still be of service to you during the fight.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Her insistence gave Wyatt pause. Ginger was not like his mother or his sister. She could protect herself. If he could just put aside this fear for her safety, could Ginger actually help their cause, give them an advantage during the fight?

Of course she could.
He
was the only one of them who had a problem with it. Ginger knew no fear or anxiety or worry or dread at the upcoming confrontation with Carron. She was confident of her abilities. She was simply…Ginger.

A sudden wave of hope flooded through his body. Ginger would be another ace up their sleeve. She just might tip the tide in their favor.

“You are an amazing woman, sweetheart. All right, thank you. You can come. And who knows? You may end up being our secret weapon in today’s confrontation.”

“I will help you save the planet,” Ginger declared with a beatific smile.

Wyatt knew it wouldn’t be that easy. But attitude was everything, and he needed to draw on Ginger’s confidence. To banish any of his doubts.

“Would you think it selfish of me if I said I wanted to make love with you right now?”

“You want sex, Leith?”

“Yes. I want us to share a very human moment. Even though you don’t experience sex the same way I do, I want you to know how much I value you and cherish you. Sex is the most intimate activity two humans can share.”

“But I’m
not
human, Leith. I’m only
almost
-human.”

He smiled and dropped a light kiss on the tip of her nose. “You’re
very
human to me, Ginger. You’re the woman I love.”

Ginger looked at him, then started blinking rapidly. If she’d been fully human, Wyatt might almost believe there would be tears of happiness running down her cheeks. She’d had this same reaction when he’d told her in Titus Veraine’s lab that he had come to rescue her.

Her reaction made him love her all the more.

He climbed back into bed, easing her down onto the pillows. He spread himself out alongside her, propped on one elbow, his fingertips gliding across the perfect features of her face, memorizing every detail. It was a poignant moment for him, because there was a very real possibility that he might die today. This could be his last time with her.

With that keen awareness in mind, his reverent fingers skimmed down the side of her long, alabaster neck, across the top of her silken shoulder, and then down her soft arm. Damn, he’d never get over how human she felt!

Back up her arm he moved, grazing his fingertips along her collarbone, and then trailing a path to her chest, to stop at one perfect breast. His palm settled there, cupping her, loving how her lush flesh overflowed the wide grip of his hand.

“You’re so perfect, Ginger.”

“I’m glad you approve, Leith.”

He leaned down to suck her erect nipple, the slightly rubbery taste of it reminding him of her true nature. He ignored that thought, kissing his way down her stomach, past her hips, to the top of her groin, where the unique inverted vee pattern of her pubic hair was a Beautiful Doll trademark meant to ‘point the way to pleasure.’

He dropped a light kiss on her curly red hair there. “I’m going to make love to you now.”

“Yes, please, Leith.”

She sounded as eager as he felt. With a contented sigh, Wyatt spread her thighs, positioned himself between her legs, and gently eased himself inside her. There would be no violent thrusting this time, no wild copulation. He wanted to feel everything, to remember every nuance of the pleasure her body could give him.

“Do you want me to move, Leith?”

He looked down into her beautiful green eyes. “I want you to move
with
me, Ginger. Not
for
me – like you sometimes do to enhance my pleasure – but
with
me. Just react to what I do.”

He levered himself up onto his hands, shifting his hips so he could pull out of her, then push back in. Damn, she felt amazing. So slick and tight around him.

On his next thrust, she tilted her hips to take him deeper inside her. “That’s right, sweetheart. Just react. Doing this together is a different kind of pleasure. It’s not so much about the climax as it is about the sensual journey to get there.”

He pulled out. Pushed back in. He noticed that Ginger’s eyes had drifted closed and her back arched a little off the mattress. A small sound, like a tiny purr, escaped from between her full lips.

A very human response.

Wyatt smiled and thrust again. This time Ginger’s legs came up to wrap around his waist, the heels of her feet sinking into the soft cheeks of his ass, forcing him deeper inside her.

He groaned. “Damn, that feels so good, Ginger.”

“I like you inside me, Leith.”

He angled his hips back. Then forward. Her legs moved with him, allowing him just enough space to maneuver, but not enough to get away. As if he had any intention of getting away! Hell, he wanted to stay right here forever, rocking into her, setting a rhythm that was bound to start him down the road to bliss any minute.

“May I try something I’ve never done before, Leith?”

Ginger’s curious statement was enough to make Wyatt pause. There was a position a Beautiful Doll had never tried? He was dying to know what it could be, amazed that his Ginger could be a virgin at anything. “Go right ahead, sweetheart.”

Ginger moved her left leg, propping it against Wyatt’s chest, her ankle resting on his collar bone, her foot near his right ear. The change in angle tightened her grip on his cock significantly, and Wyatt groaned in pleasure even as his brain acknowledged that this was a common human position. Hell, it was even one he’d tried before.

But Ginger never had.

“Is that good for you, Leith?”

“Damn, yes, it’s more than good,” he swore, turning his head to kiss his way along her calf, thrusting his hips experimentally in this new position. Fuck, she was so damned tight!

“Should I move my other leg, too?”

But Wyatt didn’t need any more stimulation. He gritted his teeth and started rocking, thrusting, luxuriating in the snug, slick, singular stimulation along the length of his cock that only Ginger’s body seemed capable of giving him.

She was perfect. This was paradise. He could easily come this way.

He shoved his hands under her ass and tilted her up to take him deeper inside her. Just a few more thrusts and he’d be lost…

That was the moment Ginger chose to move her other leg, easing it over his right shoulder. The position managed to capture his cock in a vice-like grip deep inside her body that was too powerful for him to resist.

“Ah…ahh…fuck…Ginger!”
He thrust hard and came in a violent rush, spilling himself inside her, loving the way her body wrung every last bit of pleasure out of his super sensitive cock.

When he was spent, he gently eased her ankles off his shoulders, and then he fell on top of her in perfect sexual satiation, a handful of thoughts fiercely crowding into his brain.

He would fight for this. He would fight for
her.

There was no way he’d let Anson Carron defeat them today.

#

Anson Carron stood looking at the five inert robot soldiers lined up in Titus Veraine’s lab. His programmer was due to arrive at any moment to activate them, but Carron was savoring this morning calm before today’s chaos.

I will be the ruler of Tau Cetus before the end of the day.

The giddy thought had kept him awake most of the night making mental plans for his new reign.

As soon as the five members of the High Council were dead, he planned to issue a worldwide proclamation declaring himself sole ruler of all Tau Cetus. Then, he would have his five-thousand strong robot army – which fortunately was already deployed in Terra Acer – immediately march to destroy any of the aggressive, unruly factions farther to the south that might balk at the idea of bowing to Carron’s singular rule. He would pound his enemies into submission if he had to; he would show no mercy. Then he would quickly ramp up production of more robot soldiers at his factory, and send units of them to establish military bases in all of Tau Cetus’ major cities. That way, he could secure an iron grip on the planet, and ensure that there would be no doubt he was the most powerful man in the world.

No one would be able to touch him.

“A simple, yet elegant plan,” he said aloud. “Always the best kind.”

A satisfied smile tugged at his thin lips, and he turned his attention back to the five robots who would guarantee his lofty future. They were his own personal soldiers of fortune, so to speak. Feeling a bit like a general before a battle, he straightened, clasped his hands behind his back and paced the row of camouflaged men, inspecting them. Hmm. Homogenous faces and standard-issue bodies. It really was a shame that he’d had to shut down his Beautiful Dolls sex business with its luscious fembots and mascbots of all shapes and body sizes.

Hell, he could have used a female sexbot last night to take the edge off this nervous anticipation.

He missed Ginger.

No matter. If agent Wyatt stayed loyal to him during today’s demonstration, Carron would let him keep Ginger. Hell, Carron might even indulge himself like he’d promised to do for Verraine, and create a personal sexbot just for his own private use.

Hmm.
Maybe he’d fashion one after that little spitfire ex-partner of Leith Wyatt’s, agent Jai Turner. Carron had wanted her from the first moment he’d seen her last year, had even entertained fantasies of forcing her sassy mouth to take his cock and suck him dry. Mmm. This idea was sounding better and better. He would definitely derive a certain satisfaction by fucking a robotic doppelganger of Marque Callex’s woman.

In fact, once he had Tau Cetus firmly under his thumb, maybe Carron would even reinstate his Beautiful Dolls business. After all, the Dolls had made him a very rich man.

Carron barked out a small laugh. Hell, this was going to be fun. He almost couldn’t wait to get the day – and the rest of his life – started.

“What’s so funny?” Titus Veraine entered the lab and looked around, obviously searching for the source of what Carron had found so humorous.

Carron shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just lost in my own thoughts.”

Veraine crossed the room, dumped his backpack on his desk, and started powering up various computers on his lab console. “You’re in early. Couldn’t sleep?”

“No. And I’m certain you had trouble as well.”

“You could say that. It’s a big day.” Veraine settled into his computer chair, and glanced at Carron over his shoulder. “What’s with the outfit?”

Raising an eyebrow, Carron looked down at himself.
Well, I’ll be damned.
He’d unconsciously dressed entirely in black this morning, just like the current premier of Tau Cetus’ High Council. The current
short-term
premier. Theus would be dead by this afternoon.

“Think of it as an omen, Titus,” he cooed smoothly. “The day will surely be ours.”

Veraine frowned, continuing to flip switches as the robots started to power up. “I still don’t understand why you’re coming to the demonstration at all. Aren’t you afraid Theus’ men might seize you? Why take a chance with your safety? Let me and the robots do our work, and then, when it’s all over, you can swan in and take command.”