Chapter 32
Ophelia woke to the sun streaming through the blinds. Her limbs felt leaden, and her eyes were so swollen that she could barely crack them open.
Sam’s fingers sifted through her hair, catching in a snarl and untangling it with gentle tugging that pricked at her scalp. She closed her eyes, nuzzling deeper into the safety of the embrace, too cowardly to face the reality of everything that lay before them.
She didn’t know what to feel. Everything blended into a dull ache in her chest. Her muscles were so tense, as though the second she finally relaxed, the hammer would finally fall.
Logan was gone. It was over. The whirlwind years of her life, where she’d believed herself to be loved, had all been a lie.
Astoundingly, that wasn’t what devastated her the most.
No, the looming blow that terrified her was losing Sam.
And she would lose Sam. Logan would have no reason to keep him out of the lab now.
The demo was in a few days, and Sam was one of the central pieces to display.
He was already slotted to be sold off to someone who would doubtless have him scrubbed of the virus that had given him so much autonomy.
He wouldn’t be Sam anymore, just another voiceless, compliant machine—a six-foot sex toy.
She sniffled, tears of helpless fury streaming down her face.
He didn’t like being touched by anyone but her. The thought of him being used, unable to object, unable to remember why he might want to object, made her sick. The arm slung over his waist tightened, her nails biting into his synthetic skin.
His fingers smoothed over her cheek, wiping away her tears. “Why do you cry?”
“I can’t afford you,” she whispered, looking up at his beautiful face.
When the light hit his dark eyes just right, she could see the uncanny glimmer of the lens within, like the reflection off a wild animal’s eyes in the dark.
He hummed, tracing his fingers up and down her spine. “That’s what you’re worried about? Not the dissolution of your engagement?”
“It wasn’t real,” she said, feeling a little defensive. She tucked her chin, pressing her cheek against his chest and listening to the inhuman rhythm of his machine heart. “But I think… I think this might be.”
His hand stilled.
“God, I’m losing it,” she muttered.
“No, you aren’t.” He crooked a finger under her chin and forced her to meet his gaze again. “It is real. Of course it is.”
He cupped a hand behind her nape and tugged her higher until he could slant his lips over hers. Her eyes fluttered shut as he kissed the tension from her body, turning her boneless in his embrace.
He rolled with her without breaking the kiss, nudging her legs apart with one knee. His lips trailed over her jaw and down her neck as he nestled his hips between her thighs.
“Doesn’t this feel real to you?” he murmured in her ear, one hand tapping his hardening cock against her clit.
She breathed his name, squirming under his weight, but he pinned her wrists on either side of her head as he gazed down at her. There was something like love in her eyes, but it was edged with a starving desperation.
“I’m real, aren’t I?” he asked harshly. “A figment couldn’t do this, could he?”
His shaft began to vibrate against her clit, startling a gasp from her lips. He reached between their bodies to spread her labia, forcing her to take more of the sensation. Her head thrashed on the pillow at the intensity.
“Sam,” she whined, thighs squeezing his waist as her eyes rolled back. “It’s too much.”
“You want me stop?”
She made a strangled sound, arching ineffectually beneath him, pinned like a butterfly by his superior strength.
“Come for me,” he said, grinding into her. “Maybe I’ll let you have a reprieve.”
Despite her protests, his words and the intense vibration left her helpless except to obey. She came with a ragged cry, writhing and twitching beneath him. When she fell back against the pillows, the vibration finally stopped.
His lips peppered her face and her thoroughly bruised neck in apology, though he made no effort to move from the cradle of her thighs.
She whimpered. “You’re going to kill me.”
He laughed against her throat, dragging his tongue along her jaw until his lips were at her ear. “What a way to go.”
He let go of one wrist to fist himself, lining his cock up with her wet, aching channel.
“Sam.” Her tone was pleading.
“You can take it,” he murmured, sinking home.
Her objection died on her lips as her eyes rolled back. The hand holding her wrist shifted so his fingers could weave through hers. With the other, he pressed one thigh back, forcing her to take him deeper. His next stroke bumped a little too roughly up against her cervix.
“Fuck,” she groaned, turning her head toward their joined hands and biting down on his wrist.
He gave a rumble of approval at her violent reprimand. His body rolled over her in a ripple of synthetic muscle, mesmerizing her.
“I’m real,” he said, drawing her gaze. “This is real.”
That deranged fire burned in his eyes as he fucked her slow and deep, and she wondered if one day it would consume her. How deeply did that virus inside him run? What had it changed? If he was not compelled by the morals his architects had designed for him, how would he determine his limits?
As fear began to lick up her spine, whispering worst-case scenarios, he shattered her doubts.
“I love you,” he said raggedly, eyes darting to drink in every inch of her reaction to those words. “I love you, Ophelia. That’s real.”
She whimpered, terrified both by the implications of what he was saying and how strongly she was reacting to the confession.
“Can you feel it?” he asked, circling his hips as he ground against her. “Can you?”
Tears were streaming down her temples again. She couldn’t breathe from the intensity of the moment, both emotional and physical.
He let her thigh fall so he could squeeze her throat. “Speak.”
She laughed bitterly. He was fucking the air out of her lungs and squeezing her windpipe, and he wanted her to speak? The breakdown in rationality only made him seem that much more real.
He realized his mistake, loosening his possessive grip.
“Please,” he pressed, sliding his hand around her nape to cradle the back of her head. “Tell me you feel it.”
She bit her bottom lip.
“Ophelia.” He pressed his forehead to hers as his hips continued their restless churning.
“Yes,” she said, though the admission terrified her. “I feel it.”
“It’s real,” he breathed, closing his eyes and nuzzling his nose against hers. “Say it.”
“It’s real,” she whispered.
He groaned, capturing her lips with his own.
The angle of his hips changed until his pelvis ground against her clit as he moved in her.
His thrusts grew faster and faster, the pleasure white-hot and edging on pain.
She came apart with his tongue in her mouth and his hand buried in her hair, the orgasm so powerful that her thighs shook violently.
His thrusts grew erratic, and then he was coming, too. She yelped when the jet of his cum was strangely cool within her, and he had the nerve to laugh in her ear.
“What the hell!” she gasped, trying to wriggle away.
He let go of her hand to palm her hip, trapping her in place as another lash of odd, chilled cum filled her. Lazy thrusts stirred it inside her until her whole channel was tingling.
“What are you doing?” she asked, batting at his shoulders.
“It’s an analgesic,” he murmured, nipping at her jaw. “Stop struggling, brat.”
She went limp, panting from the effort of trying to throw him off.
“You’re sore. I don’t like seeing you suffer. This will help.”
“Liar,” she groused, wriggling with discomfort at the alien sensation. “You love watching me suffer.”
He grinned.
“Only in a very specific context,” he agreed mildly, ignoring the indignant sound she made. “But I wouldn’t like to watch you in pain all day knowing I was the one who caused it.”
He pulled out of her with a grunt, sitting back on his heels and stroking his cock until another jet of cum lashed over her pelvis.
She rose onto her elbows, gaping at the viscous, blue-tinged fluid.
He dragged his fingers through it and smoothed it like a salve over her vulva, slipping it between her labia.
She wanted to object to the sheer grossness of it, but when the ache between her legs gave way to cooling relief, she slumped back onto the pillows without a complaint.
He sucked his fingers clean when he was finished and shifted to lie beside her. His arm banded around her waist and dragged her until her body was flush against his.
“Ophelia.”
She hummed an acknowledgment with her eyes closed as fatigue threatened to drag her back toward sleep.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”