Chapter 18
Two shifts later, Roshini stood in the doorway to their private chambers on board the modified freighter.
She had grieved over the loss of Luam and the rest of her team. And that grieving wasn’t done.
But, for now, she pushed her sorrow to the back of her mind and focused on another being.
Her much-beloved yet frustratingly stubborn cyborg.
“Why is your ass off that sleeping support?” She placed her now-healed hands on her flight suit-clad hips. “You’re supposed to be repairing.”
A thin layer of light gray skin covered the back of her male. It concealed his previously exposed shiny silver frame. There were also patches of new skin on his sides where he had damaged himself while pulling off the remnants of his fused-on body armor.
She had pumped him full of pain inhibitors when they returned to their ship. And she had cleaned him carefully and thoroughly.
He had been a bloody mess and had smelled of burnt flesh and death. She’d almost passed out when she’d first seen him. The agony he must have been endured caused her stomach to heave.
Drift had, thankfully, healed a bit, and his pain, according to him, had decreased.
Which explained why the cursed male thought he was well enough to move around the chamber.
“The most-beautiful thief in the universe has stolen our modified freighter and flown it to another location.” His gray eyes glimmered with humor. “I seek to apprehend her.”
“That relocation was for our own protection.” She walked up to him. “And for Bubs and Bujji. The Invaders?—”
“The few that remain on the planet.” Her cyborg hooked his arms around her waist and pulled her snug against him.
The tension in her form immediately dissolved.
“The few that remain,” she amended. Those beings would either soon leave Cancri B or they would die. The Cancris preferred peace, but they had learned not every being felt the same way. And they would protect themselves. “They’ll look for beings to strike back at, and I don’t want any attention drawn to the beverage outlet.”
“We have to protect the beings we care about.” Drift nodded.
She tilted her head back. “You protected me.”
“I’ll always protect you, my female.” He skimmed his lips over hers.
Fates. She wanted him. “You have to heal fully. And quickly. We might be needed for the second part of the Plan.”
“Cure will contact me if he requires our assistance.” Her cyborg grazed her lips again, and her need intensified. “Breeding will hasten my repair. According to my already-bonded brethren, transferring our nanocybotics to our genetic matches prompts our forms to manufacture more nanocybotics.” He grinned. “That’s why I’m so fraggin’ fast now.”
She studied him. “If you’re correct about the nanocybotic transfer?—”
“I am.” He sounded certain about that.
“ Then I’m why you’re so fraggin’ fast.” A smile spread across her face. She like that thought. “We broke that speed record together, my male.”
They were a team in all ways.
“That has been noted, my little human.” Her cyborg lifted her high against his bare chest and swung her around.
She should tell him to stop. Her male should be resting.
But he looked so happy and pleased with himself.
And she was sailing through the air. That was irresistibly fun.
Roshini extended her arms, trusting Drift to keep her secured, and she embraced the experience.
“I’m flying.” She gazed up at the ceiling.
They were alive and together and they loved each other.
Joy encased her. Mirth bubbled out of her mouth.
Her cyborg’s chuckles meshed with her laughter. He turned and turned and turned, and she soared until her head spun and everything else was forgotten.
Moments passed.
He slowed and then stopped. They looked at each other.
His eyes held a pussy-wetting warmth.
She wanted to topple him to the floor and ravish him senseless.
But a fuck like that would tire her cyborg more than swinging her around had. And it would aggravate his not-yet-healed back.
“You are repairing.” She reminded both of them. “The exertion of breeding might be too much for your big form to handle right now.”
Her cyborg opened his mouth.
“You transfer your nanocybotics to me after all that exertion.” She addressed the point she suspected he planned to make. “Not during it.”
“I need you, my female.” Drift slid her along his form. His cock was thrillingly hard. “I can handle the exertion.”
“You don’t have to handle the exertion.” An idea struck her. It was delightfully wicked. “Because I can handle you .”
She reached down and curled her fingers around his shaft.
Her cyborg jerked. Energy flashed in his eyes.
“I like your handling of me.” His voice lowered to an arousing rumble.
“I thought you would like it.” She stroked him once, twice, three times. “Set me down, my cyborg. I need more access to your huge form.”
She also didn’t want him to expend more effort than he had to.
He lowered her until her booted feet touched the floor.
She pumped him. He was unrelenting against her palms, and she relished the power in his physique. His strength and his speed had kept them both safe over the planet rotation.
Drift’s fingers closed into tight fists. His lips flattened.
“I could get you off like this.” She cupped his balls with one of her hands while working his cock with the other. “One squeeze of my fingers, and you’d come so hard you’d see stars.”
“Yes.” Her cyborg vibrated with wanting.
“No.” She rolled his balls. “Because you said you manufacture more nanocybotics when you transfer them to me. Coming all over the floor isn’t transferring them to me.”
“If you’re seeking a solution, I don’t have one, my female.” His voice was now deeper than open space. “My processors malfunctioned as soon as you touched my cock.”
A bead of pre-cum formed on his tip.
She swept one of her thumbs over it, and he shuddered. “It is a problem. I can’t let you come like that, my male.”
Getting him close to that point was allowed, however. And it was pleasurable.
She ran her right hand up and down his length while she played with his balls.
His knuckles whitened under the dual sensual assault.
“My female.” He widened his stance.
“I do have a solution for our problem.” She leaned closer to him, looked up at him, and slowly, leisurely licked her lips.
His eyes brightened. “I love your solution.”
“I haven’t told you my solution yet.” She dragged her mouth along his chest.
His abs rippled. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll love it.”
She knew her male and he would love it.
Her lips curled upward.
“You can come down my throat.” She nipped at his left pec, and all of him twitched. “I’ll wrap my lips around your shaft, take you deep, and you’ll fill my mouth with your essence, with your nanocybotics.”
A hurting sound came from her male.
She lowered her voice to a husky murmur. “I crave the flavor of you, my Drift.”
“Frag, yes,” her cyborg shouted. “Taste me, my female.”
He propelled his hips toward her.
Her male was flatteringly eager. Roshini quashed a laugh.
“Oh, I’ll taste you.” She licked down his massive form. “I’ll taste all of you.” She lapped at his skin.
He tasted of minerals and metal and love.
She dropped to her knees before him.
Fates. She delighted in all aspects of him.
That must have shown on her face because her cyborg’s countenance softened. “My female.”
Now wasn’t the time for chatter. She flicked his cockhead with the tip of her tongue.
His simulated spine straightened.
That had refocused his attention.
She doused her smile and gripped the base of his shaft. Hard.
The muscles in Drift’s thighs flexed against her.
She ever so slowly pushed her lips over his cockhead, past his rim, along the length of him. His veins pulsed against her flesh. He filled her mouth and tapped against the back of her throat.
Roshini’s gaze met her cyborg’s, and she tilted her head back, taking the rest of him.
“Fraggin’ hole.” His eyes widened.
Yeah, fraggin’ hole. Her lips curved around him. She was a cock-sucking deity. And she’d use all her skills, from now until forever, to shift her male’s universe.
She retreated, inhaled and exhaled, advanced, retreated, inhaled and exhaled, advanced.
Drift’s chest heaved. His jaw clenched. His knuckles cracked.
Yet he didn’t move his hips. And his bare feet remained planted on the floor tiles.
That was unacceptable. Her goal was to make him to lose control.
She slapped his shaft with her tongue.
His huge body shook.
She sucked on him. Hard. Then she drew her head back, pulling on his sensitive flesh with her lips.
“Must. Restrain. Myself.” His face twisted. “Can. Can.”
Fates. The male wouldn’t break.
She reached his rim and she nibbled.
“Can’t.” He buried his fingers in her simulated hair, holding her in place.
Her cyborg then drove into her mouth again and again and again. His pace was fast. His rhythm was pounding. He fucked her face with a titillating ferocity.
She curved her fingers around his base and held on. Her grip on him preventing her male from blowing out her throat. But it didn’t stop his balls from smacking her wrists. Or his cock from ravishing her mouth.
And she loved that. She loved him.
He was wild. But only for her. As she was wild. But only for him.
The connection, always present between them, strengthened. Her own need built within her. Her lips hummed. Her cheeks heated.
Roshini gazed up at Drift and dropped all her subterfuge, all her disguises, all her acts.
Nothing was hidden from him. She allowed him to see everything – her desire, her hope, her love. He had earned her trust and devotion. Forever.
She was his. Completely.
Her cyborg’s tempo instantly turned erratic. He thrust slightly to the right. Slightly to the left. Up and down. At vast varieties of speed.
His face fucking was all over the place.
She shifted her weight from one knee to the other as she sought to compensate for that unpredictability.
Her teeth skimmed along his shaft.
“Love you.” Her cyborg howled those two words and drove into her. Her fingers smacked against his base and he detonated with a force rivaling that of the cylinders they’d set.
His eyes went dark. His muscles flexed tight.
Her male’s nanocybotic-laden cum hit the back of her throat.
She swallowed. The fizzing sensation reached her stomach, pleasure blasted her, and she screamed around his cock.
His massive form quaked. He flooded her with more and more essence.
Waves of pleasure swept over her. She drank from him, savoring every precious drop.
Her cyborg’s hands slid down her neck, along her back. His body curved over hers more and more and more.
Fates. He was going to fall on his handsome face and knock himself senseless against the tiles.
Roshini released her hold on his cock and hurriedly slid under him. She reclined until her cloth-covered back touched the cool floor. And she caught his physique with hers.
Their bodies collided. His weight flattened her.
It hurt, but it was a good sort of pain, the kind a female experienced when she was under the male she cherished more than life itself.
She wrapped her arms around Drift. “I’ve got you. I love you. And I’ll always be here for you.”
She didn’t know the specifics about their future. But whatever happened, they’d be together. They were a team, a cyborg and his genetic match, a Cancri by choice and her mate.
“I love you too, my female.” He braced himself upward with his arms. The light in his eyes had returned. “I’m damaging you.”
“No.” She tried to pull him downward once more.
He wouldn’t budge.
“If you roll onto your back, your injured back, I’ll tie you facedown to the sleeping support for the next five planet rotations,” she warned him.
“That could be fun.” His eyes sparkled.
But he relaxed against her and remained where he was.
“Do you have to debrief your captain?” She knew that male would be worried about him.
His captain cared for him. And her cyborg cared for his captain.
“I’ll debrief him after the second part of the mission has been completed.” Drift shook his head. “Cure will have an update also.”
Her male didn’t appear to be worried about his friend.
That reassured Roshini. If his friend was okay, her friend should be okay.
“I’ll also relay to my captain that I’ll be staying on Cancri B with my female.” Drift surprised her with that decision.
She would love to remain on Cancri B with her cyborg. It was the only home she’d ever truly known. And she loved the Cancris.
But her cyborg had a home also, onboard a battle station. And his captain and brethren were waiting for him there.
“We don’t have to stay here.” She met his gaze. “We could return to the Dauntless. Be with your kind. They seem welcoming.”
The cyborgs were like the Cancris in that way.
“My kind will adore you.” Drift said that with a flattering certainty. “And they’ll adore Cancri B. This planet is dangerous and unforgiving, and that will appeal to them. I project they’ll visit us often.”
He wouldn’t be cut off from his kind.
That removed the biggest reservation she had about his decision to stay on her adopted home planet.
Her cyborg loved his brethren. They were his family.
She would never want that bond to be harmed.
“I’ve broken all the speed records in the battle-station categories.” Her cyborg addressed another cause for concern. “That challenge is gone.”
Her male did love challenges. They excited him.
If there were none left on the Dauntless for him, he wouldn’t be happy.
She wanted him to be happy.
“And we do have to stay here, my female.” Drift brushed his lips over hers. “We have beings to protect. This is your home.” He paused. “And there’s no planet I’ve encountered in this universe that’s more conducive to flying fast. Or running fast.”
That would appeal to her male.
Relief washed over Roshini.
Drift hadn’t made his decision purely based on what she would like or want or wish. He had also thought about what he needed to be happy.
Staying on Cancri B met those requirements.
Her adopted home planet would become their adopted home planet.
“Will you be trying to break more speed records?” A smile spread across her face.
She was relieved and happy and bursting with hope and caring.
And she made no attempt to conceal that from her cyborg.
“ We’ll be breaking all the speed records.” Drift grinned back at her. His eyes glowed with excitement. “You’re my copilot in life, my female. You’ll be by my side for all those victories.”
Roshini had taken many roles – thief, seductress, spy, saboteur, friend, and lover—but being Drift’s copilot in life was the one she most cherished.
Loving him and being loved by him was her destiny, her fate, her joy, and her forever.
“There’s no place I’d rather be.” She covered her cyborg’s lips with hers and showed him that truth.
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