“You’ve really thought about this plan,” was all she could manage to get out. “What about when you contacted Outpost Five? Aren’t they expecting me?”

“I never told them why I wanted to know if an Earth transport was in the area. They won’t associate my request with you showing up in a pod.”

“So everything is all figured out.” It depressed her.

“If you agree to go along with our plan to tie up all the loose ends it will be in our favor.”

“Of course I will.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want anyone tracking you.”

“Thank you, Rena.” He waved to the food. “Let’s eat.”

“Sure.” She numbly moved forward and hoped he didn’t notice how dejected her mood was, her mind fixed on the fact that she had a mere ten hours left with the man- cyborg who had wiggled his way straight into her heart. “I’m starving.” She flat-out lied, her appetite completely gone.

They sat at the small table that took up one corner of his room. Steel removed his boots, socks and shirt, and sat across from her and opened up the bottle of wine. She glanced at it and realized it was the same expensive brand her husband kept in his wine cellar at their house, one she was never allowed to touch since Chuck said it would be wasted on her. It reminded her again how much better Steel treated her as his property than Chuck ever had as his wife.

Rena ate everything on her plate, barely registering that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare a really nice dinner for the two of them. She avoided Steel’s persistent gaze as they finished their meal. She was careful to not consume more than a single glass of wine, terrified if she allowed herself to get intoxicated that she’d become a fool and beg him to keep her.

“You are quiet.”

She stared into his beautiful eyes and knew they would haunt her for a really long time. “I’m going to miss you,” she admitted. It wasn’t a confession of undying love but it was something she could admit to without embarrassment or fear of him realizing just how deeply she’d fallen for him.

“I will miss you as well.” He hesitated. “I considered asking you to stay with me.”

Hope soared just to be quickly dashed as he looked away from her, reached for his wine to sip it, and then avoided looking at her as he focused on his dessert.

“You know how set I am on having a family unit with a cyborg woman. After the past few months when I lost contact with my people while we were trapped on the planet’s surface doing repairs to my ship, I realized that I would have failed my kind if I’d died. It is my duty to reproduce so we don’t die out as a race.”

He looked up, glanced at her, before he gave his attention back to the piece of chocolate cake. He took a bite, chewed it slowly and swallowed.

“The continuing existence of my race is a priority to my people and me, Rena, a common goal we all share and one we value more than our lives. We must create a future. We all must do our duty, and unfortunately, the females are few while the males are many. We have lost a lot of male lives in the past ten years, ones who had not produced offspring to replace their lives in our society. It burdens the rest to produce even more and the strain on our females is greater, making it more difficult to be productive to achieve success.” Their gazes locked. Steel let his emotionless mask slip a little as he frowned and his expression was a bit sad. “Otherwise I would ask you to stay with me.”

Nodding, she looked down. “I understand,” she said softly. Part of her did but another part of her wanted to tell him it wasn’t fair that his people had put that kind of pressure on him—forced to get married and forced to have children.

“I made inquiries about joining a family unit with you.”

Jerking her chin up, she stared at him in surprise.

He sighed, looking away from her. “I contacted Garden this morning to talk to our leading scientist about what would happen if I tried to impregnate you instead of one of our females. He told me with utmost clarity that it would be disastrous, our child would be born with many defects, most of which even our technology couldn’t fix, and that child would suffer a painfully short lifespan.”

It hurt, hearing all of her hopes dashed. There would be no last-minute declaration that he couldn’t let her go or that she could stay with him if she wanted to. He was going to have to let her go because his honor and his sense of duty wouldn’t allow him to keep her.

“Thank you for considering it at least and going to the trouble you must have gone to contacting your scientists to ask those questions.”

“Rena?”

“Yes?”

“Look at me.”

She hesitated but then lifted her gaze to his. “Yes?”

“I wish that I could keep you but it wasn’t meant to be that way.”

Oh, it hurts so much, she thought. I’ve let myself fall in love with him, damn it. It was so damn stupid to let my guard down and just asking for heartbreak to let him get so close to me. “I understand.”

“I don’t.” Frustration made his face grim. “It irritates me because I was hoping that was the easy solution to our problem. I have thought of all the variables and scenarios.

The only one that was close to being viable would be to take Fusion up on her offer since she said I could keep you if I formed a family unit with her.”

Fear and revulsion tore through Rena. “She’s a sick bitch.”

“That’s why I discarded that idea. I would be afraid that she would kill you or make you suffer at the very least. When I contract to a woman my property becomes hers as well, which would mean that you would belong to her, giving her leeway to do anything she could imagine to you.”

Rena didn’t want to ponder all the sick and twisted ways that Fusion could make her life a living hell. Fusion could make her years with Chuck a fond memory and that was saying a lot—if the woman didn’t kill her outright.

“I do appreciate you trying to figure out a way though, Steel.”

He sighed loudly. “It was just not meant to be.”

It wasn’t comforting to Rena at all, hearing those words, but she knew what he said was true. She’d been raised by a father who hated cyborgs, obsessed with wanting all of them hunted down and destroyed. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She never thought she’d run into them when she’d signed on to recover the Star. She’d honestly thought that the cyborgs had probably either traveled so far out into space that they’d never be heard from again or that they had died out. It had been her belief after her mother had stopped contacting her sister on Earth that her mother had died and probably the male cyborgs she’d rescued along with her.

“May I ask you something?”

“Anything, Rena.”

“When you return to Garden can you look up what happened to my mother, if it’s possible, and maybe send me word through a third party? I don’t think she’s alive still but I was sure cyborgs weren’t around anymore either. She stopped contacting her sister so we believed she died. I just want to know how and when did she pass.”

He hesitated. “I would do that for you. What was her name?”

“Rora Marie Gates.”

Cocking his head to the side, Steel studied her. “Your name is Gates. You told me you were married on Earth and you had a husband.”

“I never took his last name. I work at the company his father owns, and while the man is aware that we’re married, they didn’t think it would be a good idea to let the other employees know about it. I believed that when we married and Chuck asked me to retain my last name instead of taking his. Of course later I realized he just didn’t think I was good enough to carry the last name of Demco.”

Anger tightened Steel’s mouth and it showed in his intense look. “If I kept you I’d have my name branded on your body, clearly stating you are mine.” He reached up to touch the tattoos that ran over the top of his shoulders, strange black lines that were damn attractive. “This is the cyborg language that we created and it is my name. I would brand you with my name so everyone who looked at you would know how much I value you.”

He was breaking her heart. “Thank you for saying that and I know you mean it.”

Steel slowly rose to his feet, dropping his napkin to the table, his gaze locked on her.

“I want to take you to my bed and enjoy the hours we have left together so I may memorize every minute we share.”

Rena stood and dropped her napkin, turning to walk to the bed as she discarded her shirt. When she reached the bed she turned to watch Steel remove his pants. Watching him strip was a sight she would also miss, one that would haunt her as well. Everything about Steel was going to stay with her long after he was a part of her past.

He closed the distance between them when he was naked, his hands going for her face instantly, cupping her head in his hands and lifting her chin. She met his kiss eagerly, opening her mouth as soon as their lips sealed together.

“You’re addictive,” he muttered, breaking the kiss. His mouth moved to nibble down the column of her throat.

“So are you,” Rena groaned, gripping his shoulders as his hands cupped her ass, lifting her off her feet then pressing her against the bed.

“Open your thighs for me.” He released her hips.

Lying back on the bed, Rena stared up at the fierce but sexy cyborg with his gorgeous eyes and that beautiful silvery mane. “I want you to know how amazingly sexy I think you are.”

Full lips curved upward into a smile. “I look at you and I’ve never wanted a woman more.”

He went to his knees, gripping her ankles to place them on the top of his shoulders as he leaned in, her knees bending and spreading her thighs open for his inspection where his gaze locked, taking in the view of her. He released her ankles and his fingers spread her labia, exposing all of her.

“So delicate and pink,” he said softly. His thumb lightly brushed along her mound, tracing downward to the delicate skin between her cl*t and her vagina, exploring every crease back up to her sensitive bud. “So soft.”

“Steel…” She breathed his name, her body responding to him in every way. Her br**sts started to feel heavy and an ache began to make its presence known as her vaginal walls fluttered.

He leaned forward, his thumb leaving her to be replaced by the tip of his hot, wet tongue. A moan broke from Rena as she realized he was kissing her sex the way he kissed her mouth, swirling his tongue in circles as his lips rubbed the tender tissue around it. Then he was applying more pressure, sucking and licking on her clit, which he had captured with that wonderful mouth of his.

The pleasure was powerful, building and spreading throughout her body. The dull ache inside turned into full-blown, painful need to feel Steel inside her. His cock, his fingers, she didn’t care as she arched her back, pressing her pu**y tighter against his face, her moans growing louder as what he was doing to her became more intense, more passionate, and then Steel groaned, vibrating against her swelling nub.

“Fuck me. Please. I need you inside me.”

His hold on her changed and two fingers pressed against her entrance, the wetness there easing his entry as both digits slid deep inside her, stretching and filling her aching pu**y. Ecstasy was instant and Rena clawed the bed, her h*ps bucking under his hungry mouth and driving fingers as he moved them inside her fast and hard, creating havoc with her senses.

She was going to come. She tensed, her muscles clenching in eagerness right before her cl**ax burst, exhilaration radiating throughout her body. Steel slowly eased his fingers out and released her with his mouth, his large body climbing up over hers. Rena opened her eyes to stare into his passion-filled gaze right as the crown of his c**k pushed against her opening, stretching her to take all of his shaft as he eased down on her and deeply into her.