Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Lara stared at Ronin’s ruined flesh. Pulling the pieces of metal out of his casing had been like plucking out splinters, which she’d done more times than she could count for herself and Tabitha. But this…
This was skin! Even if it wasn’t living flesh, it was a part of Ronin…and he wanted her to cut it off.
She bit her lower lip, looking up to meet his steady, one-eyed gaze. “Does it hurt?”
“No. Not anymore.” He turned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I can take care of it.”
She pressed her hand more firmly against his chest, and he froze. It was eerie how suddenly and completely his movement halted.
“I’ll do it, Ronin. Just…tell me what I need to do.” Her hand fell away from him.
Slowly, he turned his head, eye dipping to follow her hand. “You’ve done enough already.”
“Damn it, Ronin!” She sprung off the bed and strode to the chest. “I said I’ll do it. It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.”
Stubborn robot.
Lara looked over the array of tools. Unsure of which she needed, she collected several of them and spread them on the bed. “I’ll get your back first.”
He was quiet for a long while, keeping his lip-plates pressed together. Just as she began to wonder if he had shut down, he twisted and picked up the knife she’d placed down.
He deftly spun the knife on his palm, holding the grip toward her. “Use this to cut around my waist. Four or five centimeters below the scorch marks.”
“Four or five centi-whats?”
“Sorry. An inch or two.”
“Okay.” She wrapped her fingers around the handle. The knife was impossibly heavy.
Ronin stood and turned away, hooking his thumbs on the waist of his pants to tug them down below the burn marks. While his chest had been devastated, The damage on his back was mainly around his shoulders and sides.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lara raised the knife, stopping the blade right before it touched him. Her stomach churned. She’d never cut anyone, apart from the accident with Tabitha. Now she was about to slice into the only other person she cared about.
He said it doesn’t hurt.
That didn’t change the fact Lara was about to cut him.
I need to trust him.
Inhaling deeply, she pressed the blade to his skin. The pressure it took to finally break through nearly killed her nerve, but she pushed on.
For him.
It was an agonizing process. The give of his skin was contrasted by the solid, often uneven metal beneath, and she wasn’t sure if she should’ve been more concerned about damaging his casing or the knife.
She cut up from his hips to his armpits and then, wishing she could look away, worked her fingers beneath his skin.
It peeled off with surprising ease, revealing intricate metal plates beneath.
She shuddered as some of the burned portions flaked apart in her fingers, but she continued her work. After placing the strips of skin on the floor, she shifted her attention to his arms, picking away scorched shreds of skin and cloth. Ronin remained silent throughout.
Lara glanced up at his face when she moved to his front. His eye was focused straight ahead. Had he withdrawn from her again?
She sliced the flesh over the waist of his pants, gently peeling and scraping away everything above the cut. The pile on the floor grew. Unsure of what her reaction to the sight would be, she made sure not to look down.
When she was finally done, she stepped back and checked Ronin over. Below the waist, he was human. The rest of him was something else entirely.
His metal casing mimicked human muscles—the bulges of powerful shoulders and biceps, ridges on his torso like pecs and abs. None of the lines were quite the same without skin laid over them, but his parts came together with an elegance she’d never seen.
“Done?” he asked, jarring Lara from her thoughts.
“I think so.”
“No more overload.”
“You turned it back on already?”
“Doesn’t take long.”
She trailed her fingers along the edge of skin at his hip. “You feel this?”
A moment’s hesitation. “Yes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” Had his voice softened?
“Good.” Lara lowered her hand. “Anything else?”
Ronin shook his head. “I’m going to the clinic for repairs. You should get some sleep.”
“Wait.” She gathered the tools from the bed. “Stay till morning. It’s only a few hours, and I can scrub the scorch marks from your casing.”
“It will be more bearable for you if I—”
“Get on the fucking bed and lie down.” She fixed him with a stern look before dumping the tools on the chest and stalking to the bathroom.
Why was it so difficult for him to get it through his thick metal skull? It didn’t matter.
So what if he was made of metal and powered by electric cells instead of food and water? He had a mind, had his own thoughts, opinions, and desires. When he was covered in skin, anyone would’ve had a hard time guessing he was a bot. Only his metal hands had given Ronin away when Lara first met him.
She took a bucket from the little storage closet and filled it with hot water from the tub. Grabbing a handcloth, she carried the bucket into the bedroom.
Ronin lay upon the bed as she had commanded.
Placing the bucket on the nightstand, she climbed onto the bed and straddled his waist. He stared up at her, but she refused to meet his gaze as she dunked the cloth in the water, wrung out the excess, and scrubbed the soot from his brow.
Even after all they’d shared, he still thought she was disgusted by him?
She ran the cloth down his cheeks and nose, along his jawline, and over his lip-plates, pressing a little more firmly with each passing moment. When she rinsed the cloth, the water turned black. She squeezed the moisture out with enough force to make her hands ache.
Clenching her jaw, she washed his neck and chest.
“Why?” he asked.
She looked into his eye, her eyebrows falling. He still had to ask that? “What do you fucking mean, why?” The bed creaked as she scrubbed his torso, careful to avoid the holes where the shrapnel had penetrated.
“I’m a bot.”
Throwing the cloth aside, Lara hit him. Her fist connected with one of his chest plates, and she hissed, knuckles throbbing.
Ronin gently took her hand in his and turned it to see the drop of blood welling on her middle knuckle. His lip-plates drooped.
“Because of this!” She pulled her hand from his, leaned forward, and cradled his face. “Because you care, Ronin. You care for me, and I wouldn’t have waited here if I didn’t care for you, too.”
“After all the things my kind has done to you…to all humans…”
“You aren’t your kind, Ronin.” Sitting back on his thighs, Lara slid her hands down to the center of his chest. “You’re unique.
I’m almost convinced you have a heart in there.
But you prove feelings don’t come from there, anyway.
I’ve known plenty of people who have hearts and don’t feel anything half as strongly as you do. ”
He placed his hands over hers. “I feel.”
“So do I. For you.” She slipped one hand free and trailed it lower, over the ridges of his abdomen. “Whether you’re metal”—her fingertips teased the edges of his skin at his pelvis—“or flesh.”
She dropped her gaze. His cock was swelling in his pants. It was amazing to her how similar that part of his anatomy was to a human’s, how it responded so naturally to her touch.
Taking hold of the hem of her shirt, she drew it up and over her head, tossing it aside. Cool air touched her bare skin, and she caught the look of desire in Ronin’s eye as he looked upon her naked body.
She grasped the top button of his pants, but he quickly stopped her with his hand.
There was hesitance in his expression. Insecurity. But he said nothing, and he didn’t resist when she moved his arm aside.
“Let me.” Unfastening his pants, she drew them down. His cock sprang free, thick and long. She wrapped her fingers around it. “Do you feel this?”
Ronin’s lip plates parted, and his brow fell. He nodded and ran his warm, solid metal palms over her knees.
Without breaking eye contact, she stroked her fist along his length, and he hardened further within the cage of her fingers. That deep ache blossomed low in her belly. It was different than the ache in her heart—it was needy, pulsing, hungry. But the cure for both was the same.
Ronin. He could fill that space perfectly, could soothe all her pain and discomfort, ease her sorrow. And she would do the same for him.
If he wouldn’t listen to her, if he couldn’t, she would show him.
They belonged to each other. That was all that mattered.
It wasn’t about their parts, it was about what they chose to do with the lives they had.
How they chose to live…how they chose to love.
And even in his darkest moments, even when he most doubted himself, she would be here for him.
That was her choice. That was what she wanted.
Him.
Lara rose on her knees, positioning herself over him, and guided the head of his cock to her center. Slowly, she lowered herself, taking him into her body inch by delicious inch, loving the way he stretched her and filled that gnawing ache.
His hands moved to her ass, fingers digging into her flesh. “Lara…”
“Do you feel this?” she repeated breathlessly, leaning forward to press her palms to the warm plates of his chest. Her hair cascaded around her head.
“I feel you.” Ronin’s voice was gravelly and whisper soft.
His touch and the huskiness of his words coaxed moisture from her, easing his entry as she lifted and dropped her hips, taking his cock deeper.
Lara pressed her fingertips against his chest. The slide of his shaft sent ripples of pleasure through her that lashed her core with sweet, tantalizing heat, feeding the flames there.
That fire licked at her every nerve, stoking her pleasure higher and higher.
She resisted the urge to close her eyes and kept her gaze locked with his, dipping her head until their lips were a breath apart. “Do you really feel me?”
Ronin cupped the nape of her neck. “All of you, Lara.”