Chapter 40
Ophelia shuffled down the aisle, biting back a shriek when one of the men between her and the aisle cupped a handful of her mostly-bare ass.
The way Sam’s face darkened suggested he’d seen it too, and she was suddenly grateful that the asshole—whoever he was—was wearing a mask.
Otherwise, she had no doubt that Sam would have hunted him down and killed him later, thwarting her plan to start a life with him that wasn’t hounded by the threat of arrest and imprisonment.
All her doubts that Logan had double-crossed her or ‘fixed’ Sam’s code fizzled out at the obvious malice in his eyes. Couldn’t the rest of them see it? The thinking, feeling man beneath that perfect synth skin was so obvious to her.
Gritting her teeth, she squared her shoulders and approached the stage, trying to look like she belonged there.
Her stilettos clicked against the hard floor with each step, a discordant beat against the pounding rhythm of her blood rushing in her ears.
Her skin was flushed and feverish, despite the breeze of cool air circulating through the auditorium.
Sam’s gaze shifted from concern to hunger as she climbed the stairs to meet him. He took her shaking hand as she approached the top step, pressing his lips to her knuckles before guiding her over to the bed.
She wanted to weep from the relief of seeing him unharmed after the days they’d spent apart.
He’d been in her life so briefly, but she couldn’t reconcile the idea of going through the world without him in it.
He startled a gasp from her by lifting her off her feet and cradling her in his arms like a bride as they reached the bed.
With reverent gentleness, he lowered her to the middle of the bed.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, but his voice was picked up by the mic, echoing throughout the auditorium.
A drone hovered over him, and the huge screen behind them suddenly projected them in high definition, large enough that no one in the audience would miss a moment of his ‘demonstration.’ Even with the lace mask on, she felt completely exposed.
Her nerves threatened to choke her, but she nodded nonetheless.
For him. I do this, and I get him. Forever.
He climbed onto the bed, kneeling between her legs.
Gentle hands undid the delicate straps of her high heels, and he dropped them off the side of the bed one after the other.
His eyes shone with some strong emotion, and she got the sense he wanted to tell her something.
Reassure her, maybe, or explain why he was about to do what he was going to do.
But he couldn’t—not with that mic threatening to broadcast his every word.
She nodded at him in understanding, willing some of the tension from her limbs so he would know he had her approval.
After a moment that stretched long enough to cause some confused murmuring in the crowd, he leaned forward and hooked his fingers beneath her lace panties. He dragged them with agonizing slowness down her hips, over her garters, until finally they were hanging from one ankle.
Sounds came from the audience now that he’d bared her, small grunts and clicks and wet sounds that made it clear that not everyone was passively watching.
When he pressed her knees wide, the drone buzzed closer, the lens whirring.
Her eyes darted to the screen, and she realized with dawning horror that it was zooming in on her bare sex.
She moved to squeeze her knees together, but Sam caught them and pressed them open, making soothing sounds.
“Don’t hide,” he purred. “You’re beautiful. Let them look. They should be so lucky.”
His hands skimmed down her thighs until his thumbs pressed against her labia, and he spread her wide, baring her to the hundred people watching them.
After a moment of contemplation, he popped the front clasp of her bra, baring her tightened nipples.
Someone moaned low, and a strange thrill went through her at the knowledge that it was for her.
She forced herself to ease back down against the covers, unclenching her core as his fingers explored her. A second drone hovered near her face. The screen beside them split, offering multiple perspectives of their joining.
She peered into that glassy lens when Sam slipped his finger inside her. Her whole body tensed at the intrusion.
“Fuck, you know she’s tight,” someone near the stage muttered.
The flush on her cheeks deepened, and she couldn’t resist the urge to look into the darkened crowd.
Her eyes met with a masked man in the front row who was shamelessly pumping his cock in his fist as Sam fingered her with uncharacteristic gentleness.
The man bit his bottom lip when he realized she was staring at him, his hips bucking toward her as though in offering.
“Do you like that?” Sam murmured, his voice echoing throughout the hall. “Knowing they’re all touching themselves to you?”
Hesitantly, she nodded, meeting his gaze.
There was no universe where she would have ever envisioned subjecting herself to this, much less enjoying it, but…
Sam made her feel like there was something worth envying about her. After so long spent ducking her head and trying to become invisible, there was something irresistibly heady about having so many people looking at her, knowing they either wanted her or wanted to be her.
“You’re going to show them how good you are at taking this cock, aren’t you?”
With a whimper, she nodded again.
Someone hissed a low curse.
“Of course you are,” Sam cooed, slipping another finger inside her and pressing his thumb over her clit. “You’re my good girl.”
The crowd murmured as his thumb began to vibrate.
Her back arched off the bed as the intensity of the vibration and the penetration raced through her.
She bit down on her knuckles as her orgasm swelled, towering over her like a tidal wave.
When it crashed over her, she couldn’t quite muffle the animalistic sound that escaped her.
Amplified, it bounced off the walls and returned to her, mocking her faintly.
She heard a few others come just after her, as though her release was the permission they’d needed to find their own. That strange, heady sense of power thrummed through her again.
“More,” Sam murmured. “You need more.”
His head dipped between her thighs, and then his mouth was on her, licking and sucking at her clit as he wedged a third finger inside her.
He sat up a bit to watch her as she mewled and squirmed beneath him, showing off the unnatural length of his tongue.
It curled teasingly around her clit, more like some dexterous tentacle.
She groaned at the strangeness of it, unsettled by the way that every odd thing about him only made fucking him so much better.
When he ducked his head and sucked at her clit again, his tongue vibrated against her; the sensation, sound, and strangeness coalesced inside her, pushing her off the cliff again.
Her thighs squeezed around his head as she came again, helplessly trying to push his head away and stop the overwhelming sensation.
He didn’t relent until she began to beg, squirming beneath him in an earnest attempt to escape.
He shushed her as he finally relented, sitting back on his heels between her legs. His dark eyes were molten with lust, his mouth curving in a small smile of approval that dimpled his freckled cheeks.
She whimpered in anticipation, squeezing her knees as far as his hips would allow.
“Please,” she whispered, not knowing what she was asking for.
For him to hurry up, so it would all be over? For him to keep touching her, to take his time, to wring every ounce of bizarre pleasure from the situation?
He grabbed her ankle and threw her leg up over his head, seizing her hips and flipping her onto her stomach. When he pulled her ass up into the air and kneed her legs apart, she buried her face in the sheets in embarrassment.
His hands came down hard on her ass, stinging her flesh and then kneading it.
Then his tongue was on her again, licking her from front to back in an impossibly long stroke.
Her fingers knotted in the sheets as she keened, flinching when the tip of his tongue returned to focus on the unexplored territory that was her ass.
She tensed at the strangeness of it and he stopped, meeting her gaze steadily as she looked back over her shoulder. He was seeking permission. After a moment of hesitation, she softened beneath him.
And then his tongue was on her again, tracing her rim.
She bit her lip to keep from whining his name.
Movement in her periphery drew her attention, and she couldn’t help but look up at the projected image of him licking her where she’d been too shy to let anyone touch her before.
He was kneeling behind her, but his tongue was still stretched too long for a human man.
It stiffened and pressed past her barrier, delving into her with an alien sensation she didn’t know what to make of.
When she stiffened in uncertainty, his fingers found her clit, coaxing her to relax under his touch. With a shudder, she forced herself to ease up, allowing him to press his synthetic muscle deeper.
He hummed in approval, palming her ass with his free hand as the other began to vibrate gently.
Her core clenched around nothing, and pleasure drowned out her discomfort.
The strange flex of his tongue inside her was mesmerizing.
She closed her eyes, spreading her knees to open her hips, deepening the arch in her back.
His tongue retreated, and she mewled an objection. He gave a husky laugh in response, smoothing a hand down her spine. It fisted deep in the roots of her hair, and he craned her head to the side, pressing her cheek against the silk.