“I don’t know but she’s brave to go into this alone. Are we sure she’s not being tracked?”

“Positive. We have been hauling ass away from Garden just in case they had a signal lock on her since you identified her as human. Nothing is following us and we checked all the other bots to make certain there aren’t more humans in the group. Every male has reported in after taking them to their rooms and verified it. She’s the only one aboard.”

“What did the Cyborg Council say when you contacted our home world?” Ice dreaded asking that question, pretty sure what the answer would be.

“They are debating the matter still. They’ll signal us when a decision has been made but they want to know who she is and if they destroyed Folion just to get her on our ship since she obviously has their protected codes to program their bots. Earth Government had to have worked with the company that owns them for her to get access.”

“If they were working together, the company that runs Folion wasn’t advised of her plan beforehand.” Ice shook his head. “They wouldn’t have agreed to destroy the thing or handed over a dozen of those sex toys to us if they had been informed we were criminals. Those sex bots are worth a fortune, probably each unit worth more than what Earth Government is willing to pay for the return of a cyborg.”

“But she isn’t a sex bot, and if they know we’re cyborgs, they also know there’s more than one of us.” Onyx shot a glare at the closed door. “Maybe they think we’ll take her to Garden so they’ll have our entire population when they locate our planet.”

“Did you implement my plan?”

“Yes.” Onyx looked away from the door. “We aren’t going near Hixton to drop off those bots now. I have a bad feeling that there’ll be ships waiting to blow us apart if they can’t capture us. What is your plan to get information from her? I think you should 26 send Gene in. He’s been trained to detect human lies. He could scare the hell out of her, hold her, and get the truth from her.”

“He’s a last resort. I gripped her neck to feel her pulse and got a good read on her that way. Just make sure she’s not sending or receiving a signal. I checked her over and examined her clothing when I ordered her to use the foam cleansing unit but didn’t find anything. Of course that doesn’t mean she’s not implanted somewhere inside her body.”

“We’re monitoring closely. If a signal is sent from her, we’ll pick it up, and I’ll notify you immediately. Watch your damn throat. I think you’ve lost your sanity to keep her in your room with you. We could cage her while you sleep or lock all the bots in the cargo area so it appears as though that’s where we’re keeping them when not in use if you wish. I sure wouldn’t want to close my eyes with her near me. She might attempt to take you out if she’s an assassin.”

Anger tightened Ice’s features and his blue gaze turned chilly. “If she tries to kill me then her cover is blown and I won’t be easy on her anymore because she’s a frail woman.”

* * * * * Megan stared at Ice when he returned carrying a large food tray. The smell of it made her stomach growl with hunger. She hoped he hadn’t heard it as the door closed behind him and he glanced at her before putting the food down on the table. Her mouth watered and a horrible reality set in. With her big devious plot to get Ice into bed, she had forgotten about food. Artificial people didn’t eat. She faced four days of starvation.

Shit!

He removed the clear lid and reached for a strip of meat, touched it, and softly growled. “Damn! They didn’t warm it enough.” He shot her an annoyed glance over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back. I hate cold food so I’m going to have them fix me a new dinner. Toss this for me, will you?” He left the room.

She sat there stunned for a whole ten seconds before surging to her feet. That is luck, she thought . She touched the meat and sure enough, discovered it to be room temperature but it looked delicious. She locked her gaze on the door and started to eat fast. She barely chewed, not sure when her next meal would come, and then hid the bread in the bottom of one of his drawers for later. She headed over to the trash dump to toss out the tray and used his cleansing unit to clean her teeth really well to rid herself of the food smell so he wouldn’t detect it on her breath. Within minutes the door opened but she sat back on his bed when it did.

He moved across the room with the tray and sat on the opposite end of the bed, ignoring her completely. She watched him consume large amounts of food quickly.

When he finished he dumped what he hadn’t eaten inside the trash and shoved the tray into the recycler. He turned then, his gaze locking on her.

“Tell me what a simulated human does.”

Uh-oh. “I don’t comprehend your question.” She knew bot talk from working with them. “Please restate your question.”

His mouth twitched. “Did they load you up on Earth history for general conversational skills with clients so you’re somewhat knowledgeable?”

“No.” She’d always been lousy with school and had never paid much attention.

“Do you know what I am?”

“A male.” That was an easy enough one to answer without getting into any trouble.

She wasn’t about to tell him she had identified him as a cyborg.

“A long time ago cyborgs were created to be similar to what you are. We were just a tool for humans to use to make money and to service their needs.” His gaze turned an icy blue as he stared at her. “They didn’t give a damn if we had feelings or emotions even though we were flesh and blood for the most part with cybernetics added where they wanted us to have them. They put chips inside our brains, trying to block pathways to certain areas in an attempt to kill our ability to think for ourselves.”

She swallowed. “I did not know that but now I have learned.”

Anger tightened his features. “They attempted to mass murder us when they realized we weren’t brainless machines that would just die for them. We wanted the human rights we were entitled to but instead they locked up all cyborgs and deemed us a failure as a whole. Rather than just allow us to integrate with them, they decided we should all die. What do you think of that? If they got their hands on me or one of mine, they’d murder us on sight.”

She tried hard to think of an appropriate response that would sound like bot artificial intelligence. She was very familiar with their basic programming. “Murder is wrong and killing is illegal.”

He stood and paced the small room. Megan watched him cautiously, wondering what had gotten him so worked up. The mini history lesson he’d given her told her how wronged his people had been by Earth Government. It made her understand why they were so careful to avoid humans by visiting Folion. He paused, his focus fixed on her.

“Stand up.”

She moved, feeling a little fear, but faced him on her feet. She hoped he misread her tenseness as normal for an artificial being. He tilted his head, watching her closely, and then reached for his tank top. He tore it over his head and then gripped the waist of his sweats. She watched him totally strip down to naked, beautiful skin. His particular shade of gray reminded her of something soft and smooth but his body was actually hard with muscle, his c**k rock hard, jutting straight out and a little up. Her attention lifted back to his face when he stood totally na**d just feet from her.

“Go to your knees,” he ordered softly.

She knew the color drained from her face because she could feel it. She moved, hesitantly lowering herself, knowing what he wanted and could just pray he didn’t use her the way men did a bot in this regard. Bots were designed for o**l s*x, didn’t have a gag reflex or breathe air. She looked up his body after she’d lowered to her knees.

The anger still showed on his features as he took a step closer, his c**k nearly brushing her nose, that close to her, it was big, thick, and impressive as hell. At that moment it looked a little frightening too.

“Open your mouth wide.”

Megan swallowed hard, tempted to tell him the truth about being human but then rejected that idea. No one on Earth had been kind to cyborgs so she didn’t want to test him to see if he had compassion for a human. She took a breath, placing her hands on her thighs to hide how they trembled and then opened her mouth a little. Ice hesitated and then his hand came up to cup under her jaw. Her gaze flew up again to look at his face as he stared back down at her.

Ice’s thumb gently slid along her jaw, up, and he brushed it over her lips. “I said open your mouth wide.”

Shit! She opened her mouth more. His thumb slid along the inside of her lip, lightly, and then he turned his h*ps just slightly, inching closer to her. His c**k brushed her cheek. He stopped there, touching her in that way, and then he withdrew his thumb from her lips. He kept hold of her jaw in his palm.

“Do you do this, Megan? Were you programmed to take a male deep into your throat? It’s not as though you breathe, correct?”

Does he know? Is he playing with me? Her thoughts were bouncing around inside her mind. Megan studied his face but besides anger, she couldn’t detect any other emotion.

“Do hybrids breathe?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He released her face. “Perform o**l s*x. If I have you in my room and you’re willing to do anything for me then I’m not going to waste the opportunity.”

Her attention focused on his c**k as she turned her head, rubbing against it since it touched her already. He was so incredibly hard that he barely moved when she did it.

Megan hesitated and then slid her tongue out to trace the rimmed edge of the crown of his cock. She heard him inhale loudly and then she shifted, facing his sex straight on, opened her mouth a little wider and took his c**k between her lips.

He tasted good, a tiny bit of pr**cum beading the head of his cock. It had a sweet flavor, surprising her a little, but definitely something she liked. She slowly fed more of his length into her mouth, exploring how much of him she could take as he held very still. She pulled back, nearly totally removing his c**k but then moved closer again, taking it deeper inside her mouth. She tilted her head and started to suck on him.

Ice softly groaned. “You have such a sweet mouth, Megan. Timid but so hot and soft. Faster,” he ordered. “Suck harder.”

She did what he wanted, moving quicker and tugging on him more firmly, using her mouth to do it. Ice’s breathing increased as his soft moans sent chills skittering over 29 her skin. It turned Megan on, hearing the passionate sounds he made, as did the taste of him, and she suddenly wished he were buried inside her pu**y. Her vaginal walls tightened as her stomach fluttered with need.

An ache built between her thighs and suddenly Ice shocked her by grabbing her head with both hands. She tried not to tense, expecting him to use her the way most men used bots on the station. Men would grip them and use them mercilessly right before they came. He tore her away from his c**k instead of shoving it deeper.

“Slow now,” he urged, then released her.

She looked up at him but only saw his head tilted back, his hands fisted at his sides while he stood waiting for her to comply with his order. She swallowed and then licked her lips, taking his c**k back into her mouth. He didn’t last long at all before he groaned loudly.

“I’m going to come,” he warned in a shaky voice a few seconds before he did.

Megan swallowed every burst of his release, the flavor sugary and unlike anything she’d ever tasted. They may have made him humanoid but he was different from humans in more ways than his genetically altered gray skin tone.

Ice pulled back, forcing her to release his c**k from between her lips. He stumbled, righted himself, and then bent to gently curl his fingers around her arm. “Stand up.”

She rose to her unsteady feet and had to fight back a gasp when he gripped her arm and spun her around to face the bed. He kept hold of her as he forced her a few feet toward it and then spun her again. He shoved as he released her so she hit the bed on her back. She could only stare up at him in surprise as she studied his expression.