men not to touch you but they haven’t had a woman in a while. I wouldn’t trust any of them with you so don’t leave. You’re safe in here.” He paused. “Out there you aren’t safe without me. They would hurt you when they stripped you naked.”

She was speechless. There went the idea of a warm-and-fuzzy after-sex talk she’d thought they might have when she’d seen that tender look in his eyes. Disappointment hit her. She’d wanted him to untie her so they could cuddle in the after-great-sex glow. She finally sighed, accepting that wanting and getting were two different things.

“I didn’t think that you were like that. I know you’re much more than just a machine. I just didn’t know if you had sex or not. They didn’t exactly advertise those facts in the history records. I won’t leave your room and I know there’s nowhere to escape on a ship.”

A grin split his face. Dark blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “We have sex.”

She bit her lip and couldn’t help but grin at how damn cute he looked when he was in a teasing mood. “I know that now.”

His grin faded as he reached up, brushing his fingers along her cheek while he studied her eyes. “I didn’t hurt you at all?”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she told him softly. What she didn’t say was that inside she was a mess of emotional confusion. “And…call me Mira.”

Chapter Four

Mira finished her meal and studied the silent Flint. He’d left her in his room for a few hours after showing her the foam cleaning unit so she could bathe. He’d also left her a large, soft shirt to wear. She’d cleaned up and donned his shirt. He’d returned with two covered plates of food. Cyborgs liked meat judging from the abundance of it and the few vegetables on her plate. They ate in silence.

“You are watching me.” He glanced at her.

“I didn’t mean to stare or anything. I just have so many questions.”

He frowned. “Do you wish to know how much of my body is artificial and how much of me is real flesh?”

“No. I don’t care about that.”

He didn’t look as though he believed her. A suspicious glint was in his eyes. “Ask your questions then.”

“You don’t look about my age but cyborgs weren’t made after the laws were passed to destroy your kind. That was about twenty years before I was born so that was over fifty years ago.”

“You are correct. Earth stopped creating my kind when we were deemed failures.”

“So you’re older than you look?”

He nodded. “I am.”

“How old are you?”

He chuckled. “I wasn’t created on Earth. I’m forty-three of your years.”

“If you weren’t created in the lab then…”

“Where was I created?” He smiled at her. “I was born on a space vessel.”

Shock tore through her. “You were?”

He nodded. “Another so-called failure was that we were able to correct their birth control measures so cyborgs can breed. We aren’t born with our implants. Those are added after birth.”

She was dumbfounded. “But why would they add implants to you if you were born human?”

“I never said we were born human. We are born flawed and we need cybernetics to fix that. Cyborgs from Earth were not born. They were grown in artificial wombs with a lot of cloning technology so our blueprints and donor DNA are human. We’re part human but not completely, which creates flaws that we fix with cybernetics.”

“Wow. My mind is reeling with questions.” She paled suddenly. “I’m not on a birth control implant. I wasn’t in a relationship so when my old one expired I wasn’t implanted again. Can you get me pregnant?”

He shook his head. “No.” He studied her face closely. “Do you feel relief?”

“I really haven’t thought about having kids yet, so yes. I’m too young to have children. I decided I’d consider them when I hit forty.”

He nodded.

“Do you have any children at home?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t found a female I want to be a unit with.”

“A unit?”

“You’d call it marriage or a life contract.”

“So there are female cyborgs who survived?”

“Yes. We protected the women and got them to safety when the law was first passed. They were our priority. They are smaller and weaker than we are so it was logical to remove them from danger first.”

“So cyborgs left Earth to settle on another planet?”

“Not at first. We stole the Genesis Space Lab.”

Shock hit her again. “But it crashed into the moon due to a thruster problem that caused it