Chapter Three

“I have set up an arrangement that I believe will allow you to bathe in relative comfort when you wish to bathe,” Kameron announced on the third day after they had rescued her.

Amanda felt a thrill run through her. If he was trying to win her over, he’d just made a giant leap in that direction.

But there was the broken leg issue.

“What about this?” she asked, gesturing toward the splint they’d made for her.

He nodded. “You will not want to get that wet. I can wrap it in some sheeting that will keep it mostly dry or you can prop it outside the shower and close the curtain against the spray.”

Amanda gaped at him. “Water?”

He studied her for a long moment. “There is nothing else available out here,” he said neutrally.

Actual water! Amanda was so thrilled she was shaking with it. “No! That’s fine! In fact … wonderful!” She stopped and thought that over. “Is it … temperature controlled?”

He shrugged. “To the best of our abilities—with what is available.”

“Oh! If it isn’t freezing, I’d be happy. Could I … take a shower now?”

He nodded and then frowned. “I will wrap the leg. Then you will not have to be as concerned about getting it wet and can be more comfortable.”

Surprise flickered through her when he left. He was gone for a few minutes before he returned with a piece of what appeared to be plasti-metal sheeting. To her amazement, when he crouched down and lifted her heel to his leg, she saw that it was a perfect fit—precise enough to have been laser cut.

She watched his hands as he worked.

He had nice hands and his touch was gentle, efficient not rushed.

Just looking at them was enough to make her belly flutter and her mind fill with images of those hands caressing her all over.

It was hard to look at him, she thought wryly, and not think ‘man’, and harder to divorce herself from his touch—from him—and view the task as impersonal even though he did nothing that she could see to provoke a more personal response.

His body heat and scent wafted to her with each breath he took—so faint she felt lightheaded from trying to drag it into her lungs.

Her gaze flickered from his hands to scan over him as he finished up and finally alit on his face as she took in his expression of frowning intent on the task.

She could see no flaws in him to shatter her impression of ‘god-like’. He was so stunningly appealing, in fact, that she felt jittery with awareness just from that careful, impersonal touch, and that didn’t just disconcert her. It embarrassed her.

He met her gaze, snagged it for long enough her temperature rose a few more notches.

“You are ready?”

She swallowed with an effort and nodded.

He scooped her up against his chest, turned, and left the cabin through the door he had come in just a short time before.

Her belly went weightless—from being held by him first and then the view from the door.

“We’re … in a tree?” No damned wonder she felt like she was swaying all the time! Especially when one of them walked across the cabin.

“There are things on this world that make sleeping on the ground … difficult. A sturdy shelter is not a guarantee of a safe and restful night’s sleep,” he said wryly.

Amanda whipped a sharp look at his profile. “Animals?”

“Yes. Pirates and smugglers, as well. Many of the humans that inhabit this world.”

That painted a disturbing picture—made a liar out of the bastards that had touted Beauterre as ‘Eden’.

Was she surprised?

No.

Disappointed?

Yes.

Pissed off?

Absolutely.

“The beasts here have not known mankind long enough to fear humans and avoid them, and they are more of a threat because one cannot go for very long at all without encountering them. Humans, even the ones bent on illegal trade, are much fewer in numbers.”

He distracted her by leaping off the side of the deck they’d been standing on.

Before she could have a heart attack, he landed on a lower deck.

It jolted her, but he had tightened his hold on her before he landed and it wasn’t nearly as painful as she’d expected.

He carried her to a bench similar to the ‘toilet’ and sat her on it. “We have built a catchment system for water. It rains at least one day each week—sometimes all week—and refills the barrels. However, you will not want to allow the water to run or you may not have enough to rinse off. This knob will produce warm to hot water. If it is too warm for comfort, you can turn this and it will open the valve to allow cold water to mix. There is soap and a cloth for washing there and a cloth for drying hanging there. If you will toss the clothes out when you have removed them, I will clean them.”

Amanda looked the ‘shower’ over and realized the privacy curtain had just been added—specifically for her, she thought. It surrounded the end of the shower area/bench nearest the shower head and left the opposite end of the bench protected from most of the water. Or, at least it seemed it would. The drying cloth was hanging on an established hook so it must if they’d bathed before without a curtain.

Eager to try it, she waited with what patience she could muster for him to finish explaining how everything worked and then step away and pull the curtain around and fasten it.

She still felt exposed—because the wind flapped the curtain and she was outside. Just being outside was enough, really, when she’d never bathed outside.

Ignoring it, she began to struggle out of her clothes. She was breathless with effort by the time she’d managed it and weak and vaguely nauseated, but she gathered her clothes up, pushed back the edge of the curtain and put her soiled clothing on the dry end of the bench.

There was a railing, freshly installed, she thought, around two sides of the shower enclosure—across the back and along the side opposite the bench.

She wasn’t sure she was up to attempting to stand on one leg, though, and finally decided it would be better to be safe than regret the impulse to act like she hadn’t been injured. She scooted closer to the knobs and showerhead along the bench.

Realizing only afterwards that she’d left the soap and cloth, she leaned back for them, positioned them and grasped the knob he’d said was hot.

It was hot! Thankfully not hot enough to scald!

She turned it back to a trickle and turned the other knob—discovering it was a lot harder to ‘manually’ adjust the temperature than she would’ve thought. Then again, she’d always had mechanical help—automatically adjusting valves.

It was so tempting to just sit under the spray when she got it just right but, mindful of his caution about the limits, she turned it off after about a minute and then bathed everything she could reach and lathered up her hair. Then she turned both knobs at once and got a fairly comfortable mix, rinsed most of the soap off and turned the water off to lather her hair a second time. That time she made sure she got all of the soap off and out of her hair before she turned the water off.

She was shivering by that time from the air drafts around the curtain, but she still felt worlds better.

Not terribly happy about the dirt and debris she’d shed in the course of the shower. She was mildly embarrassed about it—about being that dirty, but also about the thoughts she’d had regarding the guys.

Sure, she’d guessed she looked like hell, but they’d made her ‘forget’ she must.

She had to scoot back toward the other end of the bench to grab the towel.

A jolt went through her when she discovered Kameron had returned and was standing just outside—waiting.

He took the cloth down when he saw she couldn’t pull it down from where she sat and then opened it and draped it around her shoulders.

She shifted it and wrapped it around herself beneath her armpits.

And discovered her bare ass was hanging out when he picked her up.

It was ridiculous to be so uncomfortable about her nudity, she thought irritably. She wasn’t self-conscious ordinarily. She had done too many jobs that required close proximity to a crew that was mixed to be terribly modest by this time even if she’d been self-conscious when she was younger. And she didn’t recall having a particularly hard time with it then.

It was her hyperawareness of Kameron.

She covered herself the best she could, though, because she was self-conscious, but also because she wasn’t looking to give him the impression that she was being deliberately provocative.

That totally vacated her mind when he returned to the point where he’d jumped down to the deck they were standing on.

There was a ladder, she saw, but she doubted he could negotiate it carrying her.

Apparently, he was of the same opinion.

He simply bent his knees slightly and leapt to the next level.

That time Amanda gripped him more tightly—because she saw it coming—and she was slow to ease her grip even after he landed and started inside.

He lowered her carefully to the pallet and waited for her to release her grip on his neck.

They were still almost nose to nose when she began to withdraw her arms and she froze, staring into his eyes and trying to fight the sudden urge that came over her to kiss him.

Bad idea, Amanda! Bad, bad idea.

She forgot why.

Tilting her head, she leaned closer instead of away and brushed her lips lightly across his and then sucked the top lip and then the bottom. The heat that went through her leached every ounce of strength from her.

He let his breath out in a rush when she broke contact—as if he’d been holding it, swallowed audibly. His gaze dropped to her lips and then returned to match hers.

The sound of the door opening broke the spell—for Amanda. She released him.

He shot to his feet, presenting her with a bird’s eye view of his crotch and the erection that was straining against his pants.

Without a word, he turned and strode briskly to the door and went out.

More than a little disconcerted at his reaction, Amanda flicked a glance at the two who’d come in. Trinity and Caleb were staring at her as if someone had turned them off, their expressions slack and distant.

She adjusted her towel.

That seemed to jolt them out of their trances.

Well, to a degree.

They turned and went out the door again, as if they’d forgotten what had brought them in.

Trying to decide how she felt about it, Amanda dragged her duffle bag closer and rifled around in it until she managed to find a complete change of clothing.

She had three more sets of under-things and one jumpsuit and one trouser and tunic outfit.

She didn’t suppose she was going to need to change every day when she wasn’t doing anything—couldn’t—but lay around, but it wasn’t much to hold her regardless.

She hoped Kameron hadn’t forgotten he said he would clean her clothes—although that made her uncomfortable when she realized they had virtually none of the modern conveniences and that meant by hand.

Hopefully, she thought, she’d be getting around a little bit before much longer and she’d be able to manage her laundry, her bathing, and her other needs with little or no help.

Not that she wasn’t grateful to have it.

Which put her in mind of why that kiss had been a really bad idea.

Kameron had been very blunt about his interest—their interest—in having her for his woman.

She’d, basically, given her consent to their pursuit—or at least Kameron’s—by kissing him. She’d invited intimacy when she wasn’t certain, consciously at least, that she was open to it.

Apparently, on an unconscious level she was an idiot, driven and slave to, her instincts—which were not good.

Well, she didn’t know, actually, whether she could trust her instincts to guide her or not. They seemed hormonally driven and she had a bad feeling her hormones might be steering her wrong.

Actually, she was convinced they were.

Kameron had been very frank about being a cyborg—the most dangerous of all—cyborg soldier. Her instincts should be steering her away from him, not toward an insane impulse to see if he could be aroused.

And yet it had taken no more than that one little taste to build a hunger in her that not only didn’t die away with logic, it got worse every time she thought about it—which was at least once an hour at first.

He’d been as aroused as she was, she thought, if the erection was anything to go by, and she thought that would be a safe guess.

But otherwise his reaction confused her.

He’d grown so tense he was virtually vibrating with the iron will he had exerted upon himself.

He’d said he had no programming, though.

Had he not known what to do in response?

Or had the restraint been because she was hurt and he was unnerved at the prospect because of that?

He—they—had all been so very careful of her she couldn’t doubt that their awareness of her injuries had restrained their every move.

She needed to keep it that way, she realized, for her safety.

The kiss had excited her—a lot. There was no point in trying to lie about it or pretend she wasn’t way more turned on than she recalled being before—ever.

It helped her feelings, a little, when she remembered that that same model had been used to make sexdroids—just different programming.

Which she reminded herself was absent from the CS models because they had been programmed to kill and maim—not make love.

They seemed harmless—now—even gentle. But that didn’t mean a damned thing. They could turn on a dime and slaughter everything in sight.

She had to remember that even if she had to constantly remind herself that they were just too dangerous to ‘play’ with.

Because she was in dire need of a psyche eval and wanted to in the worst kind of way.

Already.

She had a bad feeling familiarity wasn’t going to breed contempt.

She might be able to get used to them and begin to think of them as furniture.

But she didn’t really believe that.

She was just going to have to keep herself in line—try to forget how good it had felt.

That resolve held right up until Trinity offered to help her to the shower.

Apparently he’d seen way more than she’d thought possible.

Or the three of them had discussed Kameron’s experience in a cooperative to share information.

Either way, it seemed the interpretation they’d put on the lip-lock was that it was some form of ‘thank you’.

Because when Trinity had helped her get to her bath and back, instead of simply settling her on her pallet, he’d hooked a hand behind her head and dragged her close enough to plant his mouth over hers.

As nice as that felt it was seriously disconcerting since he went no further than pressing his mouth to hers. He backed off slightly after a few moments and rubbed his lips back forth across hers.

And then looked so disappointed when he withdrew that Amanda was instantly suckered into ‘teaching’ him the right way to do it.

Reaching for him, she framed his face with her palms and brushed her lips lightly along his and then sucked the upper lip and then the lower before tracing the seam of his lips with her tongue.

He caught on really fast.

He grabbed her and pulled her tightly against his chest and tongue fucked her mouth until her eyes were rolling around in her head.

A roar of fury broke up the fun.

Trinity let go of her and Amanda jumped back.

And Kameron clobbered Trinity hard enough to send him flying sideways. He skidded to the wall and cracked it. Then bounded to his feet.

Amanda sucked in a shocked breath and tried to drag herself out of harm’s way.

Fortunately, it was enough to distract both of them from trying to tear one another limb from limb over her corpse.

They stopped, whipped a sharp look at her and then glared at one another.

“We need to talk … outside,” Kameron said through bared teeth that she supposed was meant to be a facsimile of a smile.

Trinity’s lips tightened, but he merely nodded and stalked toward the door.

Kameron followed on his heels and clobbered him again before he could leap to the lower deck. Amanda heard the impact, felt the entire tree house shake, and then Trinity apparently went off the second deck and landed on the ground below when Kameron jumped from the upper deck to the lower one. That impact also shook the tree house.

Caleb entered the cabin where she cowered like someone had thrown him in. Crossing the room briskly, he dropped to his knees, caught her behind the head and laid one on her that made her completely forget about the possibility that a battle was in progress below.

Well the certainty of it because she could feel the tree house shake every time one of them made impact with the trunk of the tree.

It was the only thing that dragged her mind back from the gutter once Caleb got the idea and began stroking his tongue along hers, sucking at her lips and tongue as if he was starving and she was the food he loved best.

She managed to peel him loose just as Kameron returned.

Uttering a snarl of rage, Kameron stalked over to him, grabbed him and pitched him out, bodily.

She thought she heard him take the railing out.

Amanda looked at Kameron uneasily once he had slammed the door.

Her expression seemed to penetrate his fury, almost seemed to deflate him. He studied her uncomfortably for a moment and then left abruptly.

As relieved as Amanda was, it penetrated her shock, disarmed her—left her feeling less threatened by them and their behavior, probably, than it ought to have.