More Than a Man (6 page)

He cut her a look she couldn't decipher over
his shoulder and shrugged. Though he didn't move away, he didn't
welcome her touch, either. "I can go back and explain. You'll get
someone without the mistakes."

A spasm of pain tightened her chest. Deity,
his completely unemotional tone tore her right down to her own
insecurities. "No, they aren't mistakes."

He gave her another of those looks, turning
to face her. Her hand fell away from him, hanging uselessly at her
side. She didn't know what to do, how to make it better.

"You didn't ask for me. You asked for someone
else."

Noelle frowned. "No, actually, I didn't. They
gave me exactly what I asked for. I just didn't know I was asking
for it."

His eyes narrowed. "What does that mean?"

Chewing her lip, she tried to read his face.
It was hard because he was being deliberately blank, but she
thought she saw the hurt under his stoic veneer. She'd caused this
with her panicked reaction. Her
second
panicked reaction.
Okay, finding out your husband had unexpected tentacles would be
enough to give anyone a shock, but she still should have thought
how her reaction would seem.

"There was something of a collision when I
was waiting to put in my request."

His brows snapped together. "Were you
hurt?"

She suppressed a smile. "No. But evidently my
shopping list got mixed with my request for you. So while
everything I wanted is on the list, more was added."

The frown didn't lessen. "What kind of
more?"

Noelle shrugged, her eyes dropping from his.
Why was this so hard? She forced her gaze back to his. "Dad's
gingerbread recipe was on there, which had things like red hots and
molasses. That got translated into how you taste, and believe me, I
am not complaining. I love how you taste."

His lips quirked and his brow cleared. "And
I, you," he said knowingly.

She fought a blush that threatened to rise at
his reminder of their earlier activities. While she struggled for
composure, his eyes flashed hot, picking up the warmth she was
trying to keep from reaching her cheeks. Obviously, they both
wanted to make another meal of each other. But first, the
explanation. "My Christmas gift list was there, too. My friend
Brenda is interested in classic Japanese hentai. I was going to
give her a, er, tentacle...monster...movie."

Her voice trailed off to nothing on the last
word. She stared at Aya's "birthmarks" as the beginnings of
apprehension stirred in the back of her mind. Tentacles were one
thing, but those movies had other surprises. "Um. Your optional
appendages aren't going to sprout barbed penis heads without
warning, are they?"

"No. The barbed penis heads are always
announced with a drum roll. You'll hear them coming."

Noelle's attention flew to his face. Though
his tone was deliberately neutral, his expression betrayed an
exasperated humor. She mock-glared. "You think you're funny, don't
you?"

"Yes." Aya's eyes narrowed, losing their
almost-playful gleam. "I also think you weren't expecting me to be
anything more than exactly what you specified, but I'm not
one-dimensional. You say I don't know anything about you and you're
partially right. But you don't know much about me either. I have
memories, even if they are engineered placeholders. Goals, too,
even if they are prompted by planted motivations. And I have the
capacity to grow. Are you going to be okay with that?"

"Do you have memories of other women?"
Shit!
She clapped her hand over her mouth. Epic fail of the
brain-to-mouth filter. "Gah. I'm sorry. Please don't answer that.
You shouldn't have to, and I don't think I really want to
know."

He cocked his head, a smile quirking the
corner of his mouth. "I—”

She cut him off. "No, really. I don't want to
know."

His straight, dark brows rose. "Fine.
Regardless, I have some fine memories of...educational
materials."

Torn between amusement and interest, Noelle
huffed out a breath. How had this gotten so off-track? "I just want
you to understand. Nothing that is, well, important, is different.
The other stuff, the…um…well, it's just extra. Bonus."

"Bonus."

His toneless repetition made her flinch.
She'd stepped in it and she didn't know how. "Sure. I wasn't
expecting it, but it's a good thing."

He crossed his arms over his chest, planting
his feet apart. "Like getting an extra cookie in the package."

Noelle chewed her lip. What was wrong with
cookies? He was irritated, but she just couldn't figure out why.
"Something like that. Um. Can we talk about this again another
time? Like maybe when I'm not stupid with wanting to see you naked
again?"

He snorted quietly. For an instant, she
worried he wasn't going to soften. What would she do if she
couldn't dispel the tension between them? Anxiety knotted her
stomach. Their first meeting wasn't supposed to go this way at all,
a mad rush of attraction, making out, and getting angry. The angry
was supposed to come later. Well, preferably never, but she wasn't
naive. Even Manporium hadn't managed to totally mindmeld two people
and bend them to one will. Despite her mother's delusions. True,
there was the outrageously expensive VioletFang implant option that
would allow mindreading but she couldn’t afford that even if she
had wanted to share a brain with her husband. Which she didn’t.

Thinking about her parents made Noelle roll
her eyes. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm
sorry. I'm really not exactly sure what I did wrong but I didn't
mean to do it. Please? Put on hold and try again later?"

Finally, he relaxed from his pissed-off
stance and uncrossed his arms. "What about the situation? Tell me
why you haven't told anybody about me."

Deity. Was it too early for a glass or three
of wine? "It's...like I said. Complicated. I'd, um, already
commissioned Manporium more than most people ever do. I didn't want
anybody trying to talk me out of one more time. I wanted another
chance."

"Are you planning on being secretive
forever?"

"No, of course not. I just wanted to get
through the beginning without any interference. I mean, if you only
knew my mother." She shuddered. "You're eventually going to wish
I'd kept you to myself forever. And my friends...let's just say
you're going to find one woman hard enough to live with, let alone
her twelve closest BFFs. I'm apologizing now for being sneaky, but
in a month you're going to be demanding my apologies for subjecting
you to everyone I've ever met. Because believe me, Veda City's a
smaller town than you think and nobody ever goes away once they
show up. Besides, my girlfriends do know. There's no way they
couldn't."

"What does that mean?" His puzzled frown drew
his brows together into a ridiculously attractive brooding
expression.

Trying to shake off the sexual tension, she
rolled her shoulders. "Um, well, I had to call Kendall for
something while I was at Manporium, so she knows I was there. She's
smart, so it wasn't exactly a far leap for her to figure out what I
was doing. And what Kendall knows, Brenda knows, and what Brenda
knows, Mora knows...well, you get the idea. I told you. Veda City
is a pretty small town. Besides, I really wanted you to myself for
a few days."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I need to go
out."

"Out?" She echoed, startled. He wanted to get
away from her already?

"Out. Let's go out."

Let’s
. Okay, he included her in the
plan. That was a good sign, right? Noelle bit her lip, taking
advantage of the opportunity to ogle him, all bare chest and the
rumpled pants that probably smelled like her. "What do you want to
do out?"

Aya shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We're going
out. And if we run into somebody you know, you'll introduce me
as..."

"My husband," she finished decisively,
ignoring a flutter of reluctance. "That's what I'll introduce you
as."

"Who," he corrected. "A person is a who. An
object is a what."

Noelle made a face. "Ugh. Grammar."

He stared at her, expression inscrutable.
"It's an important distinction."

Unwilling to add grammar to the list of
tensions, Noelle responded with an agreeing noise and half-turned
away. Cowardly, but she wasn't sure why such a small thing bothered
him unless he was rolling it into recent upset. Fiddling with a
spool of silver Christmas ribbon, she said, "Do you want the
lightbath first?"

Aya's exhale sounded like a sigh. "Yeah, I'll
only be a few minutes."

Chapter Four

Aya stood still for the seamsdroid while it
buzzed around his legs, measuring his inseam and lowering the hem
of the pants he wore. Noelle occupied a chair on the other side of
the boutique, busily thumb-typing on her 'fone, the bag with her
new pajamas at her feet. New, sexier pajamas that she’d gotten
rather than repair the tiny rip to the ones she’d worn this
morning. He watched from the corner of his eye and wondered about
her.

Physically, she was into him. He couldn't
suspect her attraction was anything but genuine.
Emotionally...well, he expected some distance. She'd built him but
they were still strangers. What he couldn't figure out was why she
hadn't asked him any questions about himself. Even through brunch
and the ride to RetroThreads, she'd confined her conversation to
surface topics and small-talk style chatter. He knew all about the
weather over the last week, her opinion of the Christmas gift
returners forming lines outside department stores, and the accident
history of a particularly busy intersection, but he knew nothing
about her that hadn't been included in his programming. He knew
nothing about her real response to him. He was going to find out,
though, even if he had to tie her up and spank her into opening up
to him.

The brief visual of Noelle bent over his
knees, her ass reddening under his palm as she gasped out responses
to the archaic Earth game "Twenty Questions," swelled his cock and
sent the seamsdroid into a high-pitched pattern of beeps. Aya
glanced down at the construct. "Annoyed?"

The seamsdroid's ocular lenses flashed a
rapid pattern. Its mechanically modulated voice said, "These are
flat-fronted trousers. You are ruining the line."

"What's wrong?" Noelle looked up from her
'fone, a frown creasing her brow.

Aya hesitated but they were alone in the
small shop and the seamsdroid had already ascertained his
condition. He shrugged. "Evidently my imagination is
inconvenient."

The construct coasted backward. "Fix it.
Remove the garment first."

Noelle's gaze skimmed down his chest and
landed at his groin. Her cheeks flushed bright red. She stood
awkwardly. Aya tilted his head, fascinated by the color, by the
signals she put off. Her nipples strained visibly at the fabric of
her top but her shoulders were stiff and square as if she were
angry. She crossed the sales floor, avoiding the seamsdroid's
ocular lenses as if she were embarrassed. Interesting.

"Aya," she whispered, casting a covert glance
toward the construct. "What are you doing?"

Oh. She didn't like this situation at all.
Even more fascinating, a discomfited Noelle pushed him from
half-erect to painfully-hard. Casually, he unfastened the trousers.
Noelle's eyes widened before her lashes swept down, obscuring her
eyes and redirecting her attention to his hands. A deep breath
lifted her breasts.

"Deity," she whispered. Louder,
"We're...you..."

Aya lowered the zipper.

Noelle swallowed. She waved to indicate the
shop. "
Public.
"

"I need clothes," he reasoned. "Manporium
only provides one set. Do you want me to leave without anything?
We'd have to start over again another day and we've already been
here half the afternoon."

She cast a glance at the street outside the
boutique display window. A pair of policemen buzzed past, slow on
their hovercycles because of the foot traffic congestion. Noelle
moistened her lips. "Public indecency is a criminal offense."

He hooked his thumbs in the waist. Noelle
looked from the window to his groin and worried her bottom lip, her
eyes so expressively indecisive. Aya didn't need VioletFang tech to
read her mind, to know she was remembering and weighing
possibilities. She'd writhed beneath him, begged for immediacy, and
he'd bet his Free-Walk License that right then, she was deciding
she could have his cock without a fight—his cock in her mouth, in
her slick pussy. Calculating, planning, cause-and-effect
evaluating.

While she watched, Aya stroked himself
through the trousers, tracing the ridge of his erection with his
middle finger. Even though he didn't need the VioletFang, he
suddenly wished he had it. Did she conclude he wouldn't make her
squirm and beg, wouldn't play the power games she loved/hated? Did
she think he'd have to be quick?

Deciding not to disabuse her of the notion
too soon, he reached for her and tugged at her wrist. "Come with
me."

Noelle shuddered. Beneath his fingertips, her
pulse skipped and sped. Aya ducked his head and spoke in her ear.
"Yeah. Come with me."

"Deity," she breathed. "This is dangerous.
You could be recycled—”

Aya aborted her paranoid protests by licking
into her mouth. She moaned, softened, and allowed him to pull her
from the sales floor and into a tight, small square of a room. He
backed her up against the mirrored wall and fumbled to lock the
door without breaking contact with her lips. Noelle kissed like a
starving creature, greedy and taking. She'd suck him with the same
hunger, but not yet. He wanted answers and he wouldn't get them if
he silenced her with his cock.

Pinning her with his mouth, he quickly
divested himself of his shirt and shucked the trousers carelessly,
pricking himself with pins in the process. One of the pins caught
Noelle's palm as she reached greedily for his ass. She jumped and
jerked her head back, a soft thump against the mirror, gasping,
"Ow!"