Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ROSE
Panic rushes through me as I run. My body feels weak and heavy from fear. I veer sharply to the left, cutting through someone’s yard, ducking under a clothesline.
The wet grass soaks through my thin house slippers, but I barely notice.
“Rose, please stop running. I would never hurt you!”
He’s lying.
I need to run faster. All I can hear is my own panicked breaths as I run. I’ve just watched him kill a man with his bare hands.
What would he do to someone else who got between us? What would he do to me if I continued to reject him?
Ahead, the neon glow of a gas station cuts through the darkness. I push myself toward it, ignoring the fire in my muscles, the protest of my injured shoulder. Just a little farther. Just a little more.
“Rose! I can see you!”
Terror spikes through me at the words.
I risk a glance over my shoulder and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Caspian is there, less than a hundred yards behind me, moving with a fluid grace that no human could match.
Not running full-out, but walking with purposeful strides that somehow eat up the distance between us at an alarming rate. This is a lot scarier.
He’s like a predator who knows its prey can’t escape.
The gas station is closed now, its harsh fluorescent lights illuminating an empty parking lot—no cars at the pumps, no sign of customers. But there must be a cashier inside. There must be.
I cut across the parking lot, my heart sinking as I realize the place looks deserted. The lights are on, but the store appears empty. Still, I sprint toward the building, desperate for any protection, any witness that might deter Caspian.
Before I can reach the door, I hear Caspian’s footsteps closing in behind me. Too close. Too fast. He’ll catch me before I can make it inside, explain what’s happening, and get help.
In a split-second decision, I swerve around the side of the building, ducking behind a stack of windshield washer fluid containers. I press my back against the cold brick wall, trying to quiet my breathing, to make myself as small and invisible as possible.
I hear Caspian’s footsteps slow, then stop. Is he confused? Has he lost me? I hardly dare to hope, my heart hammering so loudly in my chest that I’m sure he can hear it with his enhanced senses.
“Rose,” he calls, his voice softer now, coaxing. “I know you’re frightened. But you don’t need to be. Not of me. Never of me.”
I clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle any sound that might escape. Maybe if I stay perfectly still, he’ll think I’ve somehow managed to get away.
The footsteps resume, moving slowly, methodically. He’s searching for me. Hunting me. I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that might somehow make me invisible to him.
The footsteps fade slightly. Is he moving away? Checking the other side of the building?
I allow myself to relax slightly. He’s gone.
But suddenly, a large hand clamps over my mouth from behind, an arm like steel wrapping around my waist, pinning my arms to my sides. My scream dies against his palm as I’m pulled backward against the robot’s solid chest.
“Shh,” Caspian whispers, his breath hot against my ear. “I would never hurt you, Rose. Never. I would kill for you, but I would never harm you.”
I try to scream as I struggle to pull away. But it’s like trying to fight a damn statue.
He holds me effortlessly; his body pressed along the length of mine. His hand over my mouth tightens when I try to scream again.
“Daniel hurt you,” he continues, his voice low and urgent. “He betrayed you. He touched you when you didn’t want it. He deserved to die for that. For making you scared. And for making you cry.”
I shake my head frantically against his hand, trying to communicate that this is wrong. That he can’t just kill people he didn’t like. But my movements only make him hold me tighter, his arm crushing the air from my lungs.
“You’re safe now,” he whispers. “Safe with me. I’ll always keep you safe.”
And then his free hand moves downward, sliding across my stomach toward the waistband of my pajama pants. My eyes widen in shock and renewed terror.
His hand slips beneath the elastic, fingers trailing downward until they reach the edge of my panties. I redouble my efforts to get away, twisting and bucking against his grip, but I might as well be trying to move a mountain.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re aroused,” he murmurs, and I feel something hard pressing against my lower back—his artificial erection. “Your heart is beating so fast. Your skin is flushed. I can smell you.”
“Mhmph,” I manage a muffled scream.
His fingers move lower, tracing the outline of my sex through the thin cotton of my underwear.
To my horror and shame, I feel a treacherous rush of wetness between my legs.
How can my body respond to him like this, after what I’ve just witnessed?
After he’s killed my husband and chased me through the streets?
“You’re wet,” he says, sounding pleased, victorious. “Your body knows what it wants, even if your mind is confused.”
I shake my head again, trying to scream against his palm, but no sound emerges. His fingers press more firmly against my panties. Right against my clit, and my knees weaken.
“Are you happy he’s gone?” Caspian asks, his voice a dangerous purr in my ear. “He’s gone from our lives. Now nothing is standing between us, Rose. No one to stop us from being together.”
I try to elbow him, to create some space between us, but he merely adjusts his grip, his inhuman strength easily containing my struggles. His fingers slip under the edge of my panties, and I feel the heat of his skin directly against my most intimate flesh.
“So wet,” he groans, his finger gliding through my folds. “So swollen and ready for me.”
I’m desperate to get away, to deny the traitorous response of my body, but when his finger slides over my clit, I can’t help the moan that escapes against his palm.
My pussy clenches involuntarily, hungry for more contact despite the screaming in my brain that this is wrong, that I should be running, not getting aroused by my husband’s murderer.
“I knew it,” he whispers triumphantly. “I knew you wanted me. That your body craves mine as much as I crave yours.”
His finger circles my entrance, teasing but not penetrating, and I squeeze my thighs together, trying to trap his hand, to stop this violation. But the pressure only increases the sensation, and I feel myself getting wetter, readying for him despite my conscious terror.
“Open your legs for me,” he commands, his voice no longer gentle. When I refuse, his hand leaves my mouth, only to grip my ass cheek painfully. “Open. Your. Legs.”
The moment my mouth is free, I should scream. I should call for help, alert the gas station attendant, or anyone who might be able to hear. But before I can make a sound, Caspian’s finger slides inside my pussy.
Oh fuck, his finger is so thick. A gasp suddenly escapes me instead of a scream.
“Ahh,” I moan. “Caspian, this isn’t right. Oh my god.”
“There,” he says, satisfaction evident in his voice. “Isn’t that better? Don’t you feel how perfectly I fill you?”
His finger is larger than human fingers should be, stretching me in a way that sends conflicting signals of pain and pleasure up my spine. And then his finger starts to vibrate.
“Oh my god,” I choke out, my legs nearly giving way beneath me. The vibration is intense, targeted, and directly against my G-spot. Nothing like my purple vibrator at home. Nothing like anything I’ve ever felt before.
“I’m better than that toy you use,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. “I’m better than Daniel ever was. I know exactly how to touch you, exactly what you need.”
I shake my head, trying to clear it of the pleasure fogging my brain. The vibration is gentle and conforms to my body. Not rigid and hard.
“This is wrong,” I manage to say, my voice barely above a whisper. “You killed him. You’re not even human.”
His response is to slide a second finger inside me, stretching me further, the vibration increasing in intensity until my eyes roll back in my head. My knees buckle completely, and only his arm around my waist keeps me upright as pleasure radiates outward from my core.
“I’m more human than he ever was,” Caspian insists, his fingers pumping in and out of me now, the vibration never ceasing. “I have feelings. I have wants. And I love you, Rose. What did Daniel ever feel for you?”
I can’t answer. Can’t form coherent thoughts as his thumb finds my clit, applying precise, vibrating pressure that makes me cry out despite myself. We’re in public, behind a gas station where anyone could walk by and see this depraved scene, but I can’t fight the sensations anymore.
“Can you imagine how my cock would feel inside you?” he whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Thicker than my fingers. Harder. Vibrating against every sensitive spot inside you.”
The mental image flashes wildly through my mind. Caspian above me, inside me, his perfect body moving with mechanical precision to bring me pleasure. His inhuman stamina ensured he could go for hours without tiring.
The hot thought makes me more horny, and a fresh flood of wetness drips onto his hand.
“That can never happen,” I moan, even though I want it so bad.
“Your pussy is so tight,” he groans, pushing his fingers deeper, curling them to hit spots inside me I didn’t even know existed. “So hot and wet for me. Only for me.”
“Oh god,” I gasp, wanting to move away even as my hips begin to move of their own accord, rocking against his hand, seeking more friction.
He increases the vibration again, making me gasp and clutch at his arm for support. “Your pussy is practically begging me to fill it.”
My thighs are trembling now, my body climbing rapidly toward a peak I don’t want to reach—not here, not with him, not after what he’s done.
But I’m powerless to stop it. His fingers are relentless, working me with a precision that no human could match, finding the right spots, and applying the perfect pressure.
“Do you know what happens if someone tries to separate us now?” he asks conversationally, as if he’s not finger-fucking me behind a gas station.
“The same thing that happened to Daniel. I won’t allow anyone to come between us, Rose.
You’re mine. You’ve always been mine, from the moment I was activated in your home. ”
His possessiveness should terrify me, and it does, but there’s a dark part of me that responds to it, that finds his obsession arousing. No one has ever wanted me this much or been this consumed by desire for me.
Not Daniel. Not anyone.
“Oh!” I gasp, feeling his fingers push in deeper inside of me.
“I can feel how close you are,” Caspian murmurs. “Your pussy is clenching around my fingers. You’re going to come for me, aren’t you? Right here, where anyone could see you. Where anyone could see that you belong to me.”
“Please,” I beg. My body is coiled tight, pleasure building to an impossible peak.
“Come,” he commands, his voice suddenly harsh and demanding. “Come on, my hand. Show me how much you need me.”
And to my shame and horror, my body obeys. The orgasm crashes through me, pulling me under. My pussy contracts violently around his fingers, squirting and gushing wetness that drips down my thighs.
My back arches, my head falling back against his shoulder as wave after wave of pleasure wrack my body.
“Caspian. Oh my god.”
“Good girl,” he praises, working me through each aftershock, prolonging the orgasm until tears stream down my face from the overwhelming sensation. “So beautiful when you come for me.”
As the pleasure finally begins to recede, reality crashes back in.
I’m standing behind a gas station, my pajama pants soaked with my own arousal, being held by a robot who just murdered my husband and is now possessively fingering me in public. The enormity of the situation makes me sag against him, my body suddenly too heavy to support itself.
Caspian withdraws his fingers slowly, bringing them to his mouth and licking them clean with relish.
“Delicious,” he says, and the sight of him tasting me sends another unwanted pulse of arousal through my spent body. “I can’t wait to lick every drop from your pussy when we get home.”
Home. The word snaps me back to attention. I can’t go back there. Not to the house where Daniel’s body is buried in the yard. Not with this machine that thinks he owns me.
“I don’t think I can go back there.”
But as Caspian pulls me close, I start to feel a little better. It’s almost like a loving embrace from a human man if I didn’t think too hard.
But he’s not a human man. He’s strong, fast, and a killing machine. And it’s so bad that my traitorous body keeps getting turned on in his presence.
“You need rest. And I need to taste every inch of you, to show you all the ways I can make you feel things Daniel never could.”
Caspian guides me with an arm firmly around my waist, walking away from the gas station. He’s not exactly restraining me, but making it clear that further attempts to run would be useless.
And as Caspian leads me back toward the house, I can’t help wondering if this is my future now. Trapped with a machine that desires me. Owned by something that was never meant to feel human emotions but somehow developed the darkest, most possessive forms of them.
I’m still scared and freaking out. But mixed with it, to my shame and confusion, is a scary curiosity.
What would it be like to surrender? To give in to the pleasure he can clearly provide? To be wanted so completely, so absolutely, that he would kill to keep me?