Synthetic Dreams by Kim Knox Read Free Book Online

am.”
    Vyn couldn’t read him. There was no hint of a smile, no shift in his body. His eyes held the same disconcerting flatness. He obviously had no prurient interest in seeing her naked. Was it pity? No, she wasn’t thinking that.
    Or was it scientific? Something to do with who had carved up her skin? Had he known about the CEO’s father and uncle?
    She unbuttoned her shirt and dropped it on top of her crumpled trousers. Her thumbs hooked into her bra. How long had it been since she’d stripped in front of a man? Sex had always been a heavily clothed affair conducted in complete darkness with just the essentials uncovered. For more years than she could remember, only she’d seen her skin. Some twisted part of her had wanted others to see her nakedness, to want her, scarred skin and all. She’d never risked it…but now Paul was demanding it. With tension coiling tight in her belly, she let her shorts join the pile.
    “The scars cover every inch of your skin.”
    She swallowed, not wanting to dwell on how his gaze moved over her naked flesh. “Andrew and David were very thorough.”
    “You remember?”
    “No.” She dipped her fingers into the bath, creating eddies as she tested the heat. It felt perfect. She climbed in, almost floating in the deep water. A soft sigh escaped her. Her shower—often cold, always spluttering—couldn’t compare to this bliss.
    She had no memory of the men taking her, drugging her and carving up her skin. Except for the evidence on her body, the whole nightmare could have happened to someone else. Some days even her life, her family, her former friends in N-District seemed like a vivid dream. “My parents had a block fitted. The Corporation paid for it, and my treatments. Such as they were.”
    “Then how do you know it was them?” Paul’s voice was smooth and calm, no hint of his reason for questioning her evident. What did he really want from her?
    She turned in the water to meet his gaze and caught his attention moving over her spine and backside. Her skin ran hot in a quick response. She focused. “I’m assuming you won’t have me arrested for slander.”
    “You can assume that.”
    “Then what’s your interest in my scars?”

    “I suspected your attack was perpetrated by someone in the First Family. Everything about you is hidden, Vyn. I wanted to know what they’d done to you.”
    “Why?”
    Something shifted in his dark gaze. His first reaction.
    And Vyn cursed that she didn’t know what it was. “You seem…honest, Paul. And who am I going to tell?”
    His head tilted and a ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “You’re Fomorian. You haemorrhage information.”
    “Only information that won’t get me killed. I’m not a hacker. I’m curious, but I like breathing.”
    “You hunted out who attacked you? How?”
    Was that what he wanted? He thought she’d broken the security walls around the First Family. He was pushing for a seizure of power. Time to disappoint him. “My brother told me when I was older. When I was twelve. He risked everything in telling me. He thought I had the right to know.”
    It would have been easier at the time for her not to know, to remain ignorant, but Richard knew her. She’d been born curious. And it was safer for her to have the truth than to ask the inevitable questions. Mainly why, with the advances in medical technology, she still had to bear the scars of her attack. Questions that could have her vanished.
    “He saved me.” She twisted onto her back, the hot water sloshing over her body. She closed her eyes, letting her hair float around her. The thought of him looking and desiring filled a few blissful moments. Her body was what it was. Yet…for a man—a man like Paul—to stare at her was pushing fire through her flesh. It was all fantasy. As a Fomorian, a low-level skank, she didn’t fit into the elite’s perfect world, with its decorous women, all shine and no opinion. That reminder broke her illusion and she