Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lara slowly came to awareness after waking.
Her eyes were tired and irritated, eyelids too heavy to open, her limbs felt leaden, and there was a strange ache between her legs.
Had she had another one of those dreams?
They’d been frequent and vivid over the last few days, especially during Ronin’s absence, but she’d refused to touch herself.
She was too conflicted about her desires.
With a deep inhalation, she stretched, stilling abruptly when she realized there was a body tucked against hers. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes and lifted her head. Her breath hitched.
Oh... This is definitely not a dream.
Ronin lay on his back beside her, one arm resting atop his chest while the other had been beneath her head, acting as her pillow. He didn’t move, didn’t speak.
Lara cocked her head as she gazed down at him. Did bots sleep? She’d never once seen Ronin in his bed, and the only time the bedding had been disturbed at all was when she’d sat on it to sew his shirt.
She glanced around the room. Enough gray, early morning light streamed in through the window for her to make out the dark shapes of the furniture. She and Ronin had slept together. That was the simplest way to look at it, even though there wasn’t anything simple about it at all.
Lara sat up, tugging the blanket over her bare breasts. She was in Ronin’s room, in his bed, lying naked next to him.
Memories rushed back to her. Ronin comforting her, kissing her, touching her, fucking her.
Her brow furrowed. Whatever he’d done, it hadn’t felt like fucking. It’d felt like so much more, like something she couldn’t define.
But before all that, he’d told her…
Tabitha was dead.
Lara had spent much of the night crying. Even now, more tears threatened to escape, and she fought to keep them in. They couldn’t bring Tabitha back.
Crying only made her feel like a weak, sniveling, pathetic human being.
But fuck, this grief hurt like a bitch.
She curled her lips in and covered her mouth with a trembling hand to lock in her sobs.
Suck it up.
Tears trekked down her cheek. Lara wiped at them angrily, returning her gaze to Ronin.
His words drifted up from memory.
I buried her. West of town. Away from…all this. Now, Tabitha is free.
She didn’t know many humans who would’ve done the same for a stranger. A dead body meant potential items to claim, or, for the most desperate of people…a meal. Burials required time and effort that was better spent on survival.
She reached out to touch him, hesitating with her hand hovering an inch above his chest.
He was a bot. What could he know about tending to the dead? What could it have mattered to him? But he’d done so anyway, had given his time and effort, because he knew Lara cared deeply for Tabitha.
Flattening her hand on his chest, she marveled at his warmth and solidness, at the feel of his skin beneath her palm. It was different than human skin, but she found unexpected solace in that.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“For what?”
Lara jumped, yanking her hand back. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Ronin opened his eyes and lifted his head, brow creasing. “I’ve been awake for one hundred and eighty-five years.”
“So…you weren’t sleeping just now?”
“Bot’s don’t sleep, Lara. We go into low power mode when necessary to conserve energy, but usually optics and audio still function in that state, albeit at a lower quality. There’s…” He dropped his head, pupils dilating. “There’s on or off. Nothing in between for us.”
“Oh. Is that…is that what you were doing? The low power thing?”
“No.”
“You just laid here with me all night?”
“Yes.”
Lara stared at him. He’d told her that he went into the Dust seeking his purpose, because otherwise he would stare at the walls until he shut himself off.
That would’ve left him no different than the furniture in an abandoned house, sitting forgotten in the dark, collecting dust and slowly breaking down as the building crumbled around him.
How could lying with her all night be any more exciting than watching paint peel off a wall?
“Why?” she asked incredulously.
“Because I enjoy being near you. Enjoy holding you, hearing your slow breaths, and feeling the rhythm of your heart. Every other night I can remember, I’ve spent alone.”
Heat blossomed on her cheeks and spread down to her neck and chest. She looked away, knowing he’d fixed his penetrating gaze on her.
He’d lain with her all night. Awake. A few weeks ago, she would’ve found that strange and unsettling.
Now, it was comforting, especially after the hell of being alone in this house for two days.
Every sound had made her skin crawl and added to the ball of dread in her gut. What little sleep she’d managed had been fitful. Though she wanted to deny it, she felt safe when Ronin was around, and knowing that he’d been with her all night long…
Nervously, Lara tucked hair a lock of hair behind her ear. “I was thanking you for what you did for Tabitha. I know I didn’t say it last night, so I wanted you to know it means a lot to me.”
“Never buried anyone before,” he said after a long pause. “It seemed…right. The bot will remain for centuries, perhaps longer, but your sister…she’ll become part of something larger.”
“You get it.” She looked back at him, smiled softly, sadly, and shook her head. “I don’t think any of the others do. Don’t think they can.”
Ronin sat up, making the bed groan beneath him, and turned his body to face her.
The green of his eyes was darker in the diffused light.
“I understand that organics break down over time and are reclaimed by the earth. I understand that all of this is important to you. And…I think I am beginning to understand why.”
Lara’s gaze dropped, roaming over his bare torso. She again noticed the discolored patches of skin. “What are those?”
He looked down. The differences in shades were subtle, but she could make it out even in this dim lighting.
“The closest I can get to scars,” he replied.
She reached forward and touched one of the spots. Her fingers glided over his skin, feeling no difference between the mismatched portions.
“Been through a lot of places,” he said. “Not all of them have the means to reskin synths. Some of those that do don’t have the resources to match coloring. I don’t notice it much anymore. It’ll all be replaced again, eventually.”
“Are they all from bullets?” Lara touched the skin on his abdomen, where there had once been holes.
It was likely her imagination, but it felt like his skin warmed with the contact.
“Bullets, knives, metal rods, rocks. This one”—he placed his hand over hers, guiding it to the spot where a human’s heart was located—”was from a steel beam in a dust storm. It penetrated two millimeters to the left of my power cell.”
“And you survived all of that.” She was awed, even as her chest ached at the damage he’d suffered, at the pain he must’ve endured.
His other hand slid beneath the blanket. Lara’s heart fluttered as he ran his palm along her thigh, around the back of her knee, and to her calf. It settled over a long, crescent-shaped scar there.
“We’ve all survived our own trials.” His fingertip brushed back and forth over the slightly raised skin.
Clutching the blanket, Lara curled her fingers against his chest and pressed her lips together, forcing herself to focus on his words. But her body was responding to his touch and the heat trailed in its wake.
“I was salvaging,” she said, “and I don’t remember if I slipped or tripped, but I landed on a broken beam.
Didn’t feel it at first, but there was a sliver as big as a knife stuck in my leg.
Then it hurt like a motherfucker. Tabitha got all the bits of wood out and we cleaned it up as best we could, but I still got sick. ”
She lifted her knee as he continued to stroke the scar. “Like real sick. I can’t remember much of it, but Tabitha said I almost died. If it weren’t for her, I would have.”
“Bots were created to endure. Sometimes it seems like humans were created to suffer. I’m more impressed by your survival than by mine.”
Lara smirked. “You trying to flatter me?”
Ronin’s finger paused. “Flattery isn’t a function I perform. It implies a level of insincerity. I’m simply speaking the truth as I perceive it.”
“Flattery can be true, if you mean it.”
“That wouldn’t be flattery. That would be a complimenting or praising.”
“Look, whatever you call it, it doesn’t hurt to tell a girl when you admire something about her. You should try it sometime. Maybe you—”
“Everything.”
Lara blinked, heart suddenly racing. “What?”
“Everything I’ve come to know about you, I admire.”
“Oh.” From anyone else, she wouldn’t have believed those words. Part of her couldn’t even accept them now. What was there to admire about her? But there was another part of her that was melting at the praise. “You’re, uh, pretty good at flattery for someone who says he doesn’t do it.”
“If you say so, Lara Brooks.” Ronin wrapped his fingers around her hand on his chest and squeezed gently. His thumb traced a delicate path from the base of her pinky to her thumb. “How did your sister come by her scar?”
Lara swallowed, chest tight. Guilt had plagued her every time she saw that scar, and now that Tabitha was gone…
“I gave it to her,” she said softly.
“Sounds like a story to be told.”
“I—”
Don’t want to talk about it. Can’t talk about it.
But that wasn’t true, was it? Tabitha was dead, but Ronin had been right—she lived on so long as Lara kept her memories, kept her love.
“Not much of a story, really. She was teaching me how to use a knife, and I was frustrated and ready to give up. She came up behind me, I think to correct my grip, but I jerked away, insisting I could do it myself. I didn’t realize I’d cut her until I saw the blood.
” Lara’s fingers twitched against his chest. “I was a lot more careful from then on, but she never held it against me.”
“She must’ve been an amazing woman.”
“She was.”
“You learned a lot from her. She would be proud of you.”
“There you go, with the flattery again.” She turned her face away so he wouldn’t see how his words affected her, and though she wanted to brush them off, they sank deep into her chest. Tabitha was gone, but…
things could still be okay. Whatever Lara thought about herself, Tabitha had always had faith in her.
“Lara?”
“Hmm?”
Ronin’s hand on her leg retraced its path, sliding back up her calf, stopping high on her inner thigh. He brushed his thumb over the sensitive flesh. Holding her hand captive against his chest, he leaned forward. She turned her head toward him slowly to find his face only inches from hers.
In a low, rumbling voice, he said, “I want you.”
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. She couldn’t form a response.
Those three words, so small, so simple, made her breath ragged and her blood hot.
She recalled the explosive sensations he’d awoken in her.
After the crushing news he’d delivered, she’d needed a distraction, but he was so much more than that.
And what she’d experienced with him last night…
she craved to feel that again. Need to feel that again.
Lara stroked her thumb over his chest. “I want you t—”
Ronin kissed her before the last word was fully past her lips.
His mouth was crushing, hungry, devouring, and sent a blaze of searing need through Lara, straight to her core.
Placing a hand on her back, he eased her down onto the bed.
The blanket rasped over her sensitive nipples as he pulled it away.
They beaded into tight, aching buds in the cool air.
She raised her knees to cradle his hips as he moved over her, settling heavily between her thighs.
When he cupped one of her breasts, she moaned against his mouth, arching her back to press more firmly into his palm, needing more.
This time, she wasn’t running from her pain. Lara wanted to feel what only he could make her feel—alive. Free.
She wanted him.