With that breathtaking declaration, Max powered his system down. Inrit put all thoughts of sensual promises out of her mind. Or she tried to. It took several moments and several deeper breaths to bring her reaction under control.

Then she got to work.

The governor was exactly where she expected it to be. With Max’s systems powered down, he was unconscious and deathly still. His chest barely rose and fell under the weight of all the currently useless machinery within. Inrit worked quickly, extracting the thin metal cylinder that had been causing him so many problems and slipping it into a secure metal vial. She would have thrown it away, but she wasn’t getting rid of any of his parts until she was sure that he was safe.

With the governor gone, she reattached the wires where they belonged and sealed the chest plate behind the metal guard. His skin was designed to reattach and seal itself, using a blend of his real skin and synthetic polymers. It sealed as if by magic before her eyes. While it looked impressive, Inrit knew that this only worked for the small portion of flesh covering his control panel. The rest of him healed faster than normal, but not miraculously so.

She put her tools aside and said a prayer to whatever gods were listening before beginning the power up sequence for Max’s mechanics.

As his mechanics began to come online, she felt the edge of hope creep up on her. It wanted to wrap her in a big soft blanket of reassurance until she knew that everything was going to be okay. Inrit erected a spiky wall of caution and stopped it in its tracks. Hope had no place here, not until Max was awake and well and moving.

And hers.

I think I’m falling in love with you. As she’d thrust herself into research into his condition, she’d been aware of the emotion stalking her like some giant jungle cat. It watched and learned and waited to pounce until she was in just the right place to be felled. Inrit didn’t let her guard down, didn’t let the beast take her.

Max was a dangerous man, soon to be even more dangerous. He’d done nothing to push her away, and everything to accept her. She’d bared the harshest, dirtiest secret in her soul and he accepted it like she deserved forgiveness. The biggest danger he posed was to her. He wouldn’t use his soon to be ungoverned strength to hurt anyone.

But one ungentle shove and he’d destroy what was left of her soul.

If Inrit was smart, she would take the sex he offered and leave once it was done. She could change her name, find a new planet, a new galaxy if she needed, and never hear another word from her cyborg lover. He would be nothing but a painfully bright memory tattooed across her heart.

Too bad all her survival instincts had jumped out the airlock where he was concerned. There was no way to protect her heart from him since he already lived within it. No way to escape the pull when she knew it went both ways. While the bond between them hadn’t been sealed, it still drove them together until she wasn’t sure where her existence ended and his began.

Inrit stored her tools in a small cubby hole. Breath rasped into Max’s lungs and she lunged back to her seat, suddenly unsure of what to do with her hands. The tips of her claws peeked out from her knuckles, her mind wired to fight when she felt this on edge. But no enemy lurked here, at least not one that she could defeat.

Cyborg mechanics screwed up pain responses in humans. For that reason, a sophisticated pain suppression system was standard with all cybernetic upgrades. Unfortunately, the system wasn’t considered critical and would be one of the last ones to power on, leaving Max in pain for hours while his body slowly returned to its normal enhanced state.

His eyes snapped open and a guttural cry tore from deep in his throat. He shot up, arms flailing, looking all over to fight. Inrit shoved her compassion into a heavy box and locked it shut, then with all her strength, she pushed Max down and placed a knee on his ribs, right at the point that would keep him down.

“Take a deep breath, big boy,” she said in the same tone she used on dying crew back in her darker days. “Look at me and breathe deep. I know it hurts, but you’re going to get past this.”

Max hissed and sucked in a breath and then did it again, chest heaving. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down in exhausting rivulets. Inrit wiped them with the sheet, keeping her knee in place. Very slowly, Max’s breathing started to even out, though the sweat still poured off in waves.

The next several minutes were emotional torture for her and literal torture for Max. He breathed in and out, but couldn’t manage anything but pained gasps and sobs. Inrit winced right along with him, but couldn’t begin to imagine just what he could be feeling. If she could reach inside him and take his pain away, she’d do it in a heartbeat.

After nearly half an hour, something changed inside Max and some of his muscles loosened. It was too soon for his pain suppressors to be working, but either he’d started to block the pain, or other parts of his system were waking up and helping him.

“How long?” he asked, barely louder than a whisper.

“Just a bit more,” she promised, lying. But he didn’t need to count down the minutes. Hope, at this point, would help him more than timed suffering. She laid a hand against his naked chest and he winced.

When she tried to pull back, he moved more swiftly than she imagined he could. “No, more touching. Feels… better.”

Inrit nodded, chest tight. She reached her other hand over and flattened her palm right over the control panel. Then, because she wasn’t sure what sensation he had there, she trailed her fingers down until she traced over the pronounced muscles of his abdomen. With each breath, her fingers rose and fell with him. She drew lines and circles, giving him something other than pain to focus on.

“Tell me something,” she commanded. “Anything at all.”

“It hurts,” he groaned, trying to roll over onto his side.

“Anything but that,” Inrit corrected. If she had anything that would ease his pain, she’d give it to him between one heartbeat and the next, but drugs were too heavily guarded on the ship to be purloined without raising questions.

Max grimaced and Inrit lifted her knee to stop the bruising pressure. As long as he didn’t thrash, she’d try to make him as comfortable as possible. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, voice breaking on the verge of delirious.

“They all say that when I hold their life in my hands,” she quipped. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had called her beautiful. She didn’t know if she’d ever been called beautiful before. How strange.

“‘S true,” he insisted. “Couldn’t be happier that you’re mine. Every day I want you. Never liked anyone as much.” He rambled like he was drunk, but the only thing affecting his emotions was pain.

“You like me, too?” he asked, and the vulnerability pierced her to the core. “Stop pushing me away.”

Is that how he saw it? She was trying to protect him, trying so desperately to give him a choice that she fought against every instinct within clamoring to claim him. “I’m not pushing you away.” She’d neglected her duties to find a cure, every thought came back to him, and she could barely sleep for the want that kept her yearning.

“You’re running,” he accused. “Afraid.”

Fear was the icy cold blanket that covered you when you didn’t know when your next meal was coming or if the next blow would keep you down. Fear starved and poked. Its want was ugly and desperate, and nothing like what she felt now. But when her first instinct was to leap back from him, to ward off his accusation, she realized that he might have the slightest inkling of a point.

“Catch me,” she challenged.

“I will. You’re mine.”