Cyborg Nation Kaitlyn O'Connor (books to get back into reading TXT) 📖

She looked at him questioningly, feeling her heart swell in her chest until she could scarcely breathe. “Why would I say it and not mean it?” she asked gently.

His frown deepened. “I do not know. Because you thought it was what we needed to hear?”

“Did you … need to?”

His face twisted with anguish. “I know you believe we do not have the capacity to feel as you do … even as the others of our kind do. But all that I could think of at first when they took you from us was that I was … lost, that I should be taking care of you and I did not know how I would exist if I did not have you to take care of. I could not get it out of my mind … because all Gabriel and Jerico would do was say what I was thinking myself. I do not want you to believe that I am only repeating what I have heard others say, heard you say. I feel love for you, Bronte. I know what it is. And I am afraid that you do not feel it for me because I am … what I am.”

“I love you because you are what are, Gideon—the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me in my life.

He dipped his head to align his nose with hers, staring at her eye to eye. “This is truth?”

“From the bottom of my heart!” Bronte said, smiling. “Can we fuck now?”

His head rocked backwards in surprise. She waggled her brows at him and he chuckled. Leaning away from her, he skated a hand down her body lightly until he’d cupped her mounded belly. “This will not hurt you? Or our babes?” he asked doubtfully.

She studied his face lovingly. “This is one of the many reasons I love you, and why I don’t doubt that you love me, too. No, Gideon, it won’t hurt either me or the babies … but I’ve almost forgotten what it was like and need you to remind me.”

He reminded her with a kiss first, hot, sweet and then urgent and demanding and all the while he caressed her body with magic fingers and palms that brought her to the brink of madness and held her enthralled. And when he’d removed his uniform, and settled against her again, he caressed every inch of exposed skin until she was burning and breathless and then tormented her by slowly peeling her clothes from her and lavishing her with the feel of his mouth and tongue on her breasts and mound. She gasped, moaned, writhed beneath him with exquisite pleasure, fighting the growing excitement that threatened to spill over.

“Now, Gideon! Please!” she begged, pulling at him.

He slipped his arms beneath her shoulders, propping himself on his elbows to watch her face as he probed her body with his cock, found her opening at last, and entered her. “I told you once that I could make you beg for me,” he murmured hoarsely as he delved her body, pressing slowly into her until he filled her. “I did not know then that you could make my body beg for yours also, that I would begin to crave the feel of you so much that I would feel sick with wanting you.”

Her body thrilled at his words, quickened with urgency, tightened around his flesh convulsively. She groaned, arching her head back against the bed as she began to quake in climax. Uttering an echoing moan of ecstasy, he began thrusting faster as her climax triggered his.

They were still drifting on a blissful cloud of release when the door opened. Bronte cracked an eye and then lifted her head when she saw Jerico and Gabriel in the doorway, rigid with anger, both wearing expressions of misuse.

“Is the feast prepared already?” Gideon asked groggily.

“Oh, Gideon! You really shouldn’t provoke them!”

* * * *

The smell of raw timbers mingled with the lingering scents of their picnic luncheon as they lazed around the blanket they’d spread beneath the shade of a large, spreading tree that would shade the front of their home once they’d completed it. Full and completely relaxed, more than half asleep, Bronte lay with her head in Gideon’s lap, watching him stroke his hand over the mound that jutted from her abdomen. It had certainly blossomed, she thought with quiet pride.

It was the abrupt tension in Gideon that first alerted her.

Struggling to lift her head as both Gabriel and Jerico stiffened and slowly came to their feet, she saw that Caleb was striding boldly toward them along the narrow drive that led up the construction site. It was just as well she did, because Gideon surged abruptly to his feet, as well.

Grunting, feeling like a turtle turned on its back, she rolled onto her side and pushed herself to a sitting position, watching the men worriedly.

Caleb halted while he was still several yards distant from them, his gaze flickering to her briefly before settling on Gideon.

“You have a reason for being here?” Gideon growled challengingly.

Caleb’s face hardened. “Yes. To challenge you to a test of fighting skills.”

Surprise flickered in Gideon’s eyes.

Bronte’s heart leapt into her throat and tried to choke her.

“There is a purpose to this contest?” Gideon asked coldly, the challenging growl of his voice suggesting he knew the answer already.

Caleb’s gaze moved to Bronte. “If I best you, then you will allow me to court Bronte.”

“She is our companion,” Jerico said, his voice as cold and bristling with threat as Gideon’s.

Caleb faced him unflinchingly. “There are only three of you. She can accept a fourth.”

“There are plenty of others who could also accept a fourth!” Gabriel snapped. “And more who have no more than two!”

Caleb’s hard jaw clenched, bringing a muscle there taut. “I want Bronte.”

Bronte felt her face heat as his gaze met hers for a long moment and then flickered over her, lingering almost as long on her belly. Indignation filled her. “Well! If you’re