Man-Droid the Orgasmatron (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

She’d never stopped to consider Jerry’s brother’s sexual orientation. In fact she wasn’t even sure she had ever seen him with anything bar his gadgets, but that look. Her long-forgotten lady parts twitched, and she shook her head to clear it of the images assaulting her right now. But that would make perfect sense. No one could look as instant-lust-inducing as the man, who was once again watching her with quiet intent, and not be gay.

She rolled her eyes and somehow got her voice to work.

“So, what happens now? And I told you already, I have no intention of actually having sex with any robot, regardless of how good he claims to be. I just need him to be realistic enough to convince anyone else that he’s my doting boyfriend for this stupid reunion.”

“Ah, yes, the reunion. Jerry mentioned that.” Brian smiled and adjusted his glasses. For a nerdy geek he was really quite cute, or maybe that was just her overactive libido. She was horny enough to just about jump anyone right now, as long as he wasn’t a machine. That was still a step too far.

“Yes, I can’t get out of it, and I’ll be damned if I give the queen bitch who organized it any more ammunition against me. Sam Barnett is a fucking bully, and I so need to get her back. Call it childish, but I just have to. I can’t turn up without a significant other again and endure her snide comments all evening.”

Beth took a long, fortifying sip of her drink and willed her heartbeat to slow down. No one had ever made her feel as inadequate as fast as picture-perfect Samantha. She’d been the queen bee at school, and she still was, with her big-bucks husband and her extravagant lifestyle, designer clothes, and size-zero figure. Beth was usually quite happy with her own average looks, mousy-brown hair, and curvaceous figure that was a little too much on the large side to be fashionable, but when confronted with Miss Plastic Fantastic, she was always transported right back to being the picked-on kid in school. Nothing had ever been good enough back then, and she hated how the mere thought of facing her old nemesis reduced her back to that stuttering girl, completely lacking in self-confidence.

Warm, large hands curled round hers and took the cup out of her hands. She hadn’t noticed how much her hands had started to shake until they were wrapped up inside Mr. Sex-On-Legs’s fingers. When had he moved so close, and why was she just staring up at him? No man should smell so good or exude so much heat that she just wanted to lean in and snuggle.
Snuggle
, for fuck’s sake. Beth did not
snuggle
, ever. Had they drugged this chocolate?

“Well, I’m sure Elliot here can help you with all of that.” Brian’s amused voice broke through the fog for brains in her head, and she blinked several times and yanked her hands out of the other man’s grasp.

“Elliot?” she asked.

“Oh yes, that’s your Orgasmatron’s name. It suits him, I think.” Brian paused and smiled. “You got all that, right, Elliot?”

Another look passed between the two men, and Beth’s stomach hollowed out. It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t, but the man sat next to her, nodded, and smiled.

“Oh yes, I sure have. One doting boyfriend coming up.”

Beth had to remind herself to shut her mouth as the truth dawned on her.

“You’re… you’re a robot?”

Elliot simply smiled and inclined his head.

“I prefer the term Man-Droid. Orgasmatron makes me sounds like the terminator, and robots service cars, not beautiful women like yourself. And I am very much looking forward to being of
service
to you, Beth.”

His deep velvet voice wrapped itself around her, and Beth stopped breathing. She was so fucked.

Her little car seemed even tinier with Elliot’s big frame squashed into it. His knees were almost up by his ears, and that was with the seat adjusted as far back as it went. To his credit he hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at her beloved mini. He’d simply hurried to open the door for her and then done his best to quietly fold himself into the pretzel version of one hunky Man-Droid.

On any other man that would have looked ridiculous—on him it looked sexy as hell. Not that he was a man. She had to stop thinking of him as that. He was just a machine, and a heavy one at that, if the way her little car now leant to one side was anything to go by.

She tore her gaze away from his classical Roman profile, and turned the key in the ignition. Her little trusty steed spluttered and died.

“Damn it, not now. Come
on
.”

Wasn’t it bad enough that she was stuck in here with her very own Orgasmatron? Now her car wouldn’t start?

“Let me.” His deep baritone right next to her ear made her jump. He was close enough for his breath to raise the fine little hairs on her neck that always escaped her ponytail. Did Man-Droids breathe? The thought barely registered in her befuddled brain before his hand closed over her fingers, and the car’s engine purred to life.

“How did you
do
that?” she asked, leaning back and away from his overwhelming presence as far as the small space would allow. Which wasn’t very far at all. He was just too
big
, and her wayward hormones were practically doing the Samba. It would be so easy to just lean in and run her tongue over the cleft in his chin and suck that plump bottom lip of his into her mouth, and…

Stop it already, girl. He is not real.

Something of her thought processes must have shown on her face, because Elliot smiled a toe-curling, sexy-as-sin smile, and then just shrugged his shoulders.

“I am a man of many talents. Car engines are easy. It just needed a slight kick to the electrics. You may want to change your leads. I can do that for you, if you like.”

“I am quite capable of doing my own car maintenance, thank you. I don’t need a man for that, especially not one pretending to be one.”

Elliot almost looked wounded for a minute, which was a ridiculous notion. He was a robot. He was incapable of feelings. She really had to stop projecting her own onto him.

“I’m sure you are, Beth. I was merely offering my assistance, should you require it.”

Beth blew her breath out in a frustrated huff. This was it? Any other man would have launched himself headfirst into an argument at her snarky comeback, and by god she was itching for a good argument. Well, either that or a good seeing-to of the horizontal type, and she was so not going there, not ever. Not with a man who had her soaking her knickers with just one look.

She crunched the gears in her haste to pull off, and Elliot winced and stroked the dashboard in much the same way as she usually did when she hurt her little car. Beth groaned under her breath and did her best to try and ignore the man…thing sitting next to her. He was so broad that their shoulders almost touched every time she took a corner, and she floored it. The sooner she got home and away from his intoxicating closeness in the car, the better.

The drive home was completed in record time, thanks to an extraordinary run of green traffic lights in her favor, and Beth couldn’t shake the suspicion that Elliot was somehow responsible for it. He was after all a walking, talking computer, who, according to Brian, could use any interface to access the national database. It was too much to contemplate, and Beth wasn’t at all sure she was not party to an almighty prank.

Surely a man as good-looking and real as him could not be an Android. He certainly didn’t look anything like the other Orgasmatron Brian had demonstrated his set of safe words on. Whilst it had been reassuring to see, that she had a set of words to stop Elliot in his tracks, should the need ever arise, she had to wonder why Brian hadn’t demonstrated them on Elliot.

It couldn’t take that long to reset him, as Brian had claimed. No, much more likely that Jerry and Brian had decided to have some fun at her expense and had set her up with someone, they knew she would find hard to resist.

She swore under her breath when she couldn’t get the blasted front door key to work. His soft chuckle did strange things to her insides, and she put up no resistance when he took the key off her and unlocked the door with ease. She sprinted past him and put the safety of the long breakfast bar between them. It separated the kitchen galley from her living room. Seeing him here in her space only emphasized the lunacy of this whole situation.

“Relax, my sweet Beth. I’m not going to jump you, unless you want me to.” His amused voice washed over her, and she opted for just glaring at him.

“I’m not
your
Beth, sweet or otherwise, and you can drop the pretense now. We both know you’re no android. How much have they paid you for this little adventure?”

“Paid me?” Elliot looked puzzled and then burst out laughing. A deep belly laugh that made all her righteous anger deflate.

“So, you find it hard to believe that I am a Man-Droid, yet you have no problems assuming that I am some kind of a gigolo?” He pinned her in place with the intense gaze he threw in her direction, and he shook his head, suddenly deadly serious.

“Do you think so little of your friends, and yourself for that matter, that you would believe Brian and Jerry would do that to you? I was given the impression you were a better judge of character, at least in your choice of friends. Your choice of men definitively leaves a lot to be desired. Most weren’t fit to lick your boots. Roger was a particularly nasty piece of work.”

The mention of the last man she’d let into her life, albeit briefly, had bile rise in her throat, and Beth swallowed hastily and turned away so that he wouldn’t see her pathetic reaction.

“What do you know about Roger?”

She jumped when he appeared next to her and nudged her chin up with his knuckles. This close up, he was even more handsome, and she leant into his reassuring presence.

“I know everything there is to know about you.” His voice had dropped slightly, and Beth stood spellbound as he stepped closer still. So close that their thighs touched. He leant forward and rested his hands on the breakfast bar either side of her, so that she was caged in with nowhere to go. He studied her, a slight smile on those full lips. Lips that Beth was suddenly desperate to feel on her, but he pulled away. She managed to draw a shuddering breath into her lungs, and her eyes widened when he twisted the fingers of his right hand into his left forearm and pulled.

A panel popped up out of his skin, exposing a complicated-looking set of electrical circuitry. Nestled in the middle was the tiniest computer chip Beth had ever seen.

“Holy fuck, you really are a ro—I mean Man-Droid.”

Elliot chuckled and tapped the chip nestled deep in his electrical veins.

“That I am, sweet Beth, and this chip is the reason why. Everything I am, every memory and every piece of information I have ever accumulated is stored in this chip. All I know about you is right in here. And what I don’t know yet, I will learn. Brian has programmed me to be self-improving. I can fix myself, and I am constantly evolving. I breathe, I have a heartbeat.” He took her hand and rested it on his chest. His heat branded her, and sure enough she could feel the reassuring thump of his heart beating under her fingertips.

“You’re always cold, so my core temperature runs higher than normal to keep you warm. Your favorite food is lasagne, and you hate having your feet tickled. Your neck is the most erogenous zone in your body, and you like your men to take charge. When you were five, you fell off the swing in your back garden and broke your nose.” He smiled at her sharp intake of breath and ran one long finger over the slight bump left behind.

“You have a tattoo on your left bum cheek that spells your first boyfriend’s name in Chinese, and you can’t quite bring yourself to have it removed, since he died in a car crash. You like to—”

“Okay, okay, stop.” Beth put her hand over his mouth to stop him from talking and immediately wished he hadn’t. He licked her palm, and she hastily pulled her hand away.

“Can I touch it?” she asked, pointing to his arm.

“Of course you can.”

Gingerly she ran her fingers over the curiously cool area, all too aware of his quiet gaze on her.

“Isn’t it dangerous, having it that easily accessible? Surely anyone could get at it there?” She bit her lip and shifted nervously from foot to foot, as he closed the flap with one fluid, smooth move.

“Try and see what happens.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. Trust me, just try.”

She threw him a worried glance and dutifully ran her hand over his arm. His skin was silky smooth and so soft she couldn’t help but linger. This close to him, touching him, she was too aware of his latent masculinity, his scent, and the way he towered over her.

Her throat constricted and she licked her dry lips, trying to concentrate on her breathing and at finding that blasted flap. But try as she might, she couldn’t.

His breath skittered over her neck right at the spot that turned her to mush, and she closed her eyes and fought her body’s reaction.

“It’s DNA activated, my love.” The endearment skimmed across her sensitized nerve endings, and Beth closed her eyes and squeezed her thighs together. Was it possible to come from listening to a man’s voice alone? No, not a man. He wasn’t a man. She had to remember that.