sex bots 04 - one night steined by Daisy Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m not the only one who’s been making a few changes.”
    * * * * *
     
    True to his word, Frank didn’t so much as let her change her clothes. So as they coasted down the hill and through downtown, Kuri hand-combed her hair and wove it into a makeshift braid. The long strands kept catching in her glasses and falling in her eyes. “You should have at least let my do my hair.”
    It wasn’t a big deal—there were showers at the office under Pike Place Market, towels and toiletries of all kinds. Kuri even kept a few changes of clothes in her cube normally. Of course, they were packed in the moving boxes. “Do you have any mousse I could borrow?”
    Frank’s lip curled up in a smile. “How do you think I stay looking so suave?” He looked different than she’d ever seen him before. Cocky, maybe? Or perhaps a little arrogant.
    Her body tightened, like it knew something she didn’t. It was as if her thighs and belly had some kind of sense-memory, and being close to Frank with his rough voice and rugged smell set her nerves on alert. Kuri could only assume that whatever happened the previous night, her body had enjoyed it. “I’m not going to ask, you know,” she said.
    “About the mousse?” Frank steered around a curve under a building. He gently patted the steering wheel as if he were humming a nameless tune in his head.
    “No. About the sex.”
    Frank didn’t react, but she could tell he wanted to. His big hands held the steering wheel a fraction tighter, so the muscles of his forearms bunched where he’d rolled up his cuffs. “What about it?”
    Kuri sighed. She’d brought it up only to say that she wasn’t going to bring it up, and now she was screwed. “I’m not going to ask how it was.”
    He glanced at her just long enough to cock an eyebrow. Kuri had never seen him do that before and she wondered if he’d tinkered with his programming to enable that tiny muscle twitch. The guy was such a freak.
    “Do you want to know how it was?” he asked softly. His voice was gentle, as if maybe he understood.
    Kuri couldn’t remember a single time she’d had sex, though she’d never told that to Frank. She may as well still have been a virgin. “No thanks.” She laced the words with as much disdain as she could. “It’s probably best I don’t know.”
    “Whatever you say.” Frank patted her leg, but pulled away right when she might have complained. He let the issue drop, keeping a tantalizing thread of curiosity suspended in the air between them.
    “So, not much left to do at the office?” Kuri leaned back and crossed her legs, letting their connection snap. She set her mind working on checklists of tasks. Moving was a big chore, and if she focused on her role in the company, maybe she could stop her imagination from wandering back to Frank’s mouth, and his hands. Her center pulsed, and Kuri shook her head in frustration. She felt sore, worked. It vexed her to no end not to know why.
    “I sent Bane to pick up the moving truck this morning. We’ve got most of the team on hand to load it up.”
    “Why not Shani?” Kuri wasn’t ready to let their argument from the previous day drop. Fighting with Frank, she felt on solid ground. Plus, it was true that Frank favored Kuri and Bane for jobs that required interaction with humans. With Barbie and Q-ter, Kuri understood why—Barbie was just too spacey. It wasn’t that she couldn’t pass as human. But the girl couldn’t accomplish the types of tasks Kuri and Bane could manage. Barbie worked best at the coffee shop where she pulled espresso.
    “Would you want to wake up Shani for a job at six a.m.?” Frank pulled into the parking lot and set the car to idle. In the early morning, the waterfront was cold and damp. Light shone across the lake—the only glimpse of clear sky Seattle would get before the sun disappeared into the ever-present blanket of cloud cover.
    Kuri shrugged. “Okay, maybe not for an early-morning job, but you should give her