MeltingIron Read online

  “Exactly.”

  Dawn shoved her hands out and pushed on his hard chest, surprising him enough that he stumbled back a step. She spun on her heel and walked a few feet away to put space between them before she faced him again.

  “Fine. You want to play it this way? That was the last damn time you fuck me, pal. Until you change your mind and treat me with some respect and like something more than a piece of ass, you aren’t touching me.”

  Iron crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve agreed to be my slave.”

  “Slave, yes. Hooker? No. People live with their pets, let them sleep with them, spend time with them, and talk to them. I should rate higher than pet status.” She ran to the door, blocking his exit. She reached out and gripped the sides of the doorframe. “You’re not leaving until we work this out. I refuse to sit in here fuming until tomorrow morning.”

  “You don’t issue demands. You’re the slave.”

  “Then be a better slave owner,” she shot back. “And then I wouldn’t have to issue demands for basic humane living conditions. You even turned off the coms in here. What if I get sick or needed help? I have no way to reach you, damn it.”

  That drew a frown from him. “I will activate the com system for you so you may only contact me. That is a fair demand.”

  “So is asking you to live in here with me so I’m not alone all the damn time.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  That made some of her anger die down a little. “I won’t really kill you like I threatened. I’m not stupid. If you die, I imagine that some other cyborg will take ownership of me.” She paused. “That’s not on my wish list, okay? Besides, you made a deal with me over Cathy, and as long as you’re alive our deal remains intact, so I know she’s being taken care of by that black-haired jerk.”

  “Vollus is not a jerk.”

  “He better not be. Cathy is young and vulnerable. I’d like to talk to her soon to make sure she’s really all right.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  She stared at him. “You don’t trust me either.”

  Iron gave a small nod of his head. “Agreed. I will let you talk to the human tomorrow. I will connect the com lines but then deactivate the link afterward. I don’t want the two of you plotting an escape so your communications will be monitored.”

  “That’s acceptable.” She sighed. “Sleep with me. I’m so lonely and bored.” She hesitated, hating to ask anything of him but damn, she had gone stir-crazy the night before and all day. She was even happy to see her captor, it had been so bad.

  “It is not a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated, watching her with hooded eyes. “I told you, I don’t trust you.”

  “We just went over this! Did you turn off your ability to hear me or what? I will not attempt to kill you since I’m motivated to keep you alive and healthy. That’s just simple logic, Iron. I don’t want to be alone and I’m so desperate I’m asking you to stay. Don’t leave me in here alone again unless you have to work. It’s too damn quiet on this ship. I can’t even hear the engines hum.”

  Something softened in his look. “I’ll stay for a little while but then I will return to my quarters to sleep.”

  Irritation welled inside her. “Talk to me then.”

  He walked to the bed and sat. He sighed. “What do you wish to talk about?”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I command the Star or the Rally, depending on where I am needed. I’m a pilot, as I stated.”

  “What happened to the men you stole the Rally from?”

  He frowned. “Why do you wish to know?”

  She hesitated and then walked to his built-in dresser, opened drawers and removed one of his soft shirts to put on. The room had warmed since he’d adjusted the temperature so she was not freezing but since he was dressed she wanted to be as well. She faced him when she was covered to her mid thighs in his baggy shirt.

  “I met them four years ago after they showed up at Vonder station in need of repairs. I welded the cargo blast door area to patch them up enough to make it back to Earth but they never got there.”

  He hesitated. “We didn’t kill them if that is what you believe. We captured them and took them to the Folion.”

  She frowned. “Isn’t that one of those hooker ships from the Monker solar system that uses…?” She stopped talking to just stare at Iron. She flushed, remembering how she’d taunted him about having a robot for a girlfriend. If he was familiar with the Folion then she’d hit a nerve with him. She saw his features tense and then bit her lip to not laugh. “Shit.”

  Iron was on his feet in a heartbeat. “I’m going to my other quarters.”

  Dawn moved, diving into his path. “How the hell was I to know you liked to do girl robots?”

  His jaw jerked as he clenched his teeth. “They are better than sex droids.”

  Confirmed! She couldn’t help but grin at him. “So, how are they?”

  “I’m going to my quarters.” He tried to step around her.

  Dawn backed up until she hit the door, bumping into it. She spread her arms out across the width. “No. Come on, you were giving me shit about sex droids but I’ve never used one. They are too damn expensive and if you could see the bunk I’m assigned to, you’d know I couldn’t fit one of those big things in there with me. Of course every woman on the station would be stealing it and that’s just gross since I don’t share my sex toys.” Her grin returned. “So, how is an actual artificial intelligence robot in the sack? I heard they are pretty state-of-the-art.”

  Thick arms crossed over his chest, a telling sign that she noted he did when he was irritated. “They aren’t as good as the real thing. I refuse to discuss this with you. In my defense I am not in a family unit with a female and I get assigned a lot of long missions on the Star.”

  “There aren’t girl cyborgs onboard? You said you knew they were white instead of pink below the belt.”

  “There are female cyborgs but they aren’t assigned on this ship. We are all single males aboard the Star and the Rally. Our missions are more dangerous than the other ships we have and females are rare so we won’t risk their lives.”

  That killed some of her amusement. “What kind of things do you do? How dangerous is it to be on this ship?”

  “We acquire things for our people.”

  “Like women?”

  He hesitated. “No. You were taken for my personal use. We board vessels and salvage what we can use from them to take back to our home world, Garden. After we left Earth we found a habitable planet to settle on. We’ve built a city but resources there are limited except for food and water. All of our building materials and electronics have to be taken off world.”

  “So you’re cyborg pirates?”

  “We do not take people to ransom them back to Earth Government or their families and we do not sell them to the sex trade.”

  “You just take women to be personal sex slaves.”

  That drew a frown from him. “Until recently that was never the case. The lead commander, Flint, took a human first and offered me and some of the other high-ranking males the opportunity to own human women.”

  It took her seconds but then anger burned in Dawn as if a sudden flash fire had been ignited. “You bastard. You had no intention of cutting Cathy or me up, did you? You kidnapped my crew to make them sex slaves for your cyborg buddies, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “You wanted to believe we were ghouls and it worked in my best interest to allow you to assume you were correct. You agreed to be my sex slave. The deal is final.”

  “But your jerk friend who has Cathy said I was going to be taken to the doctor for a procedure. What was that about then, if not to cut me up?”

  “I’m planning on taking you to see him so there will be no question as to whom you belong. But work has prevented me from finding the time to make those arrangements with him.”

  “You’re going to chip my ass?