After promising to help Amanda find some place to stay away from the ex who had put her in the Ward in the first place, Mason turned his sights on Enver.

"You gonna tell me what I just walked into?"

Enver glanced over at Imogen who appeared to be deep in discussion with the cyborg who had clearly set them up with the cynkers. "The girl has been working here as a nurse and seems to have a natural bent toward cybernetics. She’s got no training other than as a midwife, but she's a natural cynker. Seems the guild was trying to set me up, get proof I wasn't reporting all the cyborgs I treated to them." He shook his head. “Just bad timing and bad luck. She just wanted to help."

Mason followed Enver's gaze. "She's not hard on the eyes either, is she?"

Ever beheld the large cyborg standing next to him. Mason was more the kind of man people expected to encounter when they heard the word cyborg. Large, muscled, and intimidating. He had a few inches on Enver vertically and even more horizontally. An instinctual growl burst from Enver's chest. After the night he and Imogen had shared together, he didn't want Mason moving in.

Mason eyes widened, and he chuckled. "Now that's the closest thing to an emotional response I've ever seen come out of you, Enver. Don't worry, I'll keep my distance."

Enver tried to shrug it off but in the end simply nodded.

"I’ve got to ask though, if you care about the girl, why didn't you fight back?"

"Nothing good ever comes from fighting."

"Says the cyborg with the military background. You know as well as I do sometimes fighting is the only option."

Enver shook his head. "Not for me."

Mason shrugged and clapped Enver on the shoulder. “Well, I better get this girl out of here. Sounds to me like you’ve been taking a lot of unnecessary risks, but gotta do what you think is right, brother."

Enver winced even from the relatively gentle touch.

"You might want to have your girl take care of any injuries you got. Maybe play a game of doctor." Mason chuckled and strode away, back to business.

Enver sat and stared as Imogen gave the cyborg an earful for having set them up. She presented as so easy going and compliant, but over the last few days, he’d learned there was a ferocity to her he wasn't sure even she had expected. It stirred something in his chest— something unfamiliar but not completely unwelcome.

Imogen left the cyborg defeated and dejected. When she reached Enver, her expression was inscrutable.

"Are you okay?" they asked the same time.

Enver waved off her question and stared until she spoke.

"What is wrong with you?" She demanded. Her pale cheeks flushed, as words spilled from her lips. “Are you out of your cyber-charged mind? What were you thinking taking the blame for something I did?"

Enver shrugged and leaned against the door to his office.

Imogen placed her hands on her hips, the thin shirt she wore hiding no secrets.

He remembered the soft skin of her breasts beneath his hands and desire stirred within him.

When she stared at him, clearly refusing to take his non-answer, Enver forced himself to speak. "There's no fighting with the guild. And if you fight, there’s certainly no winning. I might have been able to take on that set, but others would come back. They know me, and for the most part, they need me. All they’re trained to do is take things apart and put them back together. Sometimes even cynkers need a real doctor. They wouldn't have hurt me much."

"That’s not the point.” Imogen glared at him, and tears rose to her eyes.

A pang of remorse shot through him as he read at the sorrow on her face. But what else could he have done? Let them take her?

"They were here for me. I could've shown him I’m good at this. I could have trained with them, and proven I hadn't done anything wrong."

Enver shook his head. "You don't understand, when Roland said he was going to take you as an intern, that wasn't some kind of nicety. If you were really lucky, he’d strip you for parts. Super lucky and he might even replace them with cybernetics, so you owed him until they were paid off. But more than likely, you wouldn’t even get that far. If you’d gone with them, you would have been dead before you got out of the badlands. Best case scenario, they’d kill you before they raped you."

Imogen recoiled, fear disgust and anger warred across her face. "What kind of people—"

"Remember all those horror stories you heard about cyborgs growing up? Some of them are true. Some of the fear you came here with is warranted. I couldn't let anything happen to you." He reached out a hand and ran it down the side of her face. She turned her head into the caress, as tears came up to her eyes.

"But why didn't you fight back?”

Enver stared at her for a moment, debating how much he wanted to reveal. Standing here in the Ward, rows of beds either housing patients or waiting to be filled wasn’t the right place to explain what happened when he fought back. "There were two of them, one of me."

Imogen glared. "You still could have fought back. I know how strong you are. You think you hide it, but even without the cybernetics, you're stronger than anyone else I've seen here. I've seen Chance, and I saw the fights the other night. I know that if you fought you could win, but you'd rather just give up."

Her compassion turned to fury, and before he knew it, she pulled away. Her hands bunched into the tiny little fists that made Enver want to laugh and pull her against his chest. He had a feeling that making her angrier wasn't going to solve anything.

He took a step forward, and as he did, he stumbled slightly, barely catching himself on the edge of the closest cot before falling.

Imogen frowned and took his elbow.

"See, you’re hurt. This is ridiculous. Come with me." She took his metal arm in her firm grip and dragged him through the Ward.

Everyone's eyes were on him, but he ignored them for the moment, enjoying the warmth of her touch even if the fire came from her anger.

Enver allowed himself to be dragged out of the Ward, passed the row of staring eyes. He could only imagine how ridiculous he appeared to the patients who had come to see him as very much the one in charge. Instead, now an angry petite blonde with hair sticking out in every direction dragged him forcibly out of the room. It would've been funny if he weren’t so sick with the words swirling in his stomach.

Upstairs, Imogen sat him on his bed and pointed a finger in his face with a scowl, telling him to stay put before leaving him alone in his room.

The temptation to laugh at her bossiness grew with each passing moment, but getting her angrier would only make this entire situation worse for him. Imogen was a force to be reckoned with when she was happy. He wasn't particularly excited about being in the position of having her displeasure focused in his direction.

When she returned, she had a damp washcloth in her hand and a determined expression on her face. Without a word, she stripped his shirt up over his head, sending a shiver across his flesh. She wiped away the blood that had dried on his cheek and then inspected his chest and stomach for injuries.

Her hands glancing across his skin was almost more than he could bear. He wanted to grab her and roll her beneath him on the bed that still smelled like passion from the night they'd spent together, but one look at her face stopped him.

When Imogen was satisfied with her inspection, she sighed and sat next to him on the bed, the washcloth still clutched between her hands. "You seem to have survived mostly intact," she said staring at the wall in front of them.

"I survived completely intact. You need to stop worrying." He reached for her, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and tried to pull her against his side but she resisted, her body refusing to yield. "I'm fine." He insisted.

"That's not the point," she whispered turning to him.

She blinked away the tears that rose in her eyes, and Enver's chest crushed inwardly threatening to implode and reduce his hearts to the size of pebble.

"That's not the point. Why do you have to be so difficult?" She said in a rush.

"Me? Difficult? I'm fine. You checked me yourself. I'm not that injured. A day or two and I won't even have a bruise. I can take a worse beating then Roland can dish out, trust me."

She gazed up at him, her light eyelashes sparkling with tears. "I do, I do trust you. That's the problem. Do you have any idea what it would do to me to lose you? How could you let them hurt you? how could you not fight back when you know how much I need you?"

Enver sucked in a breath. She needed him. Not she worried about him, not she didn't like the idea of anyone getting hurt, but she needed him. And in that moment, he knew exactly how unworthy he was of those words. He pulled away slightly, willing his heart to shutter against her words. But before he could get far, she lunged forward, wrapping both arms around his middle, a sob breaking from her chest.

"I have seen horrible things. I have suffered horrible things. And it wasn't until I came here that I realized those things didn't matter. The person I thought I was never existed, and I could have never become the real me without meeting you.” She squeezed tighter, and Enver held in a groan as she crushed his middle where Roland 's thugs had delivered their blows. “I don't know why you can't see it,” she whispered against his skin.

Enver brought a hand up to her hair and smoothed it back from her for head, running his fingers against her scalp. Soon, she was breathing calm.

"I see it. I see it, and it scares the fuck out of me. If you knew me better, you would never say these things."

"I know you. I see you. Maybe not the you that you think you are, but I see the real you."

Enver shook his head. "You don't know anything about me."

“I know everything I need to. I know you're kind. I know you put yourself in danger just to keep other people from being hurt. I know you care more about what's right than what’s easy. And I know that for some reason you won't let yourself find even the tiniest amount of joy in your life. You're punishing yourself or something. I don't know what it is you think means you don’t deserve to be happy, but I don't care. It doesn't matter, because no single thing can change what I do know."

She leaned up and took his face in her hands for a moment before pressing her lips against his.

Enver remained still. He shouldn’t encourage this. He shouldn’t let himself indulge in weakness again, but her soft touch melted his resolve. He opened his mouth and took her lip between his, sucking on it and reveling in the taste of her.

He gripped the back of her head and pulled her tighter against him. When Imogen straddled his waist, settling her weight on his lap so his hardening length pushed up against her core, Enver moaned.

Soon her hands roamed over his body, running across the muscles of his chest and exploring the planes of his back. His muscles bunched, tightening with the electricity that passed through her touch. His body hummed with passion, and their kiss heated until he lifted her by the hips, rolling her over and pushing her back on his bed, so he could position himself between her legs.

Imogen’s skirts rose. Enver ran his hand up her leg, under the fabric, so he could grip her soft thighs.

She lifted up against him, pressing her need against his aching cock. “Yes,” she hissed, undulating beneath him.

He dipped down to her neck, kissing and chewing on the sensitive area just above her collar bone. Her skin tasted salty and warm. He pushed the hem of her shirt up, so he could reach her breast with his hand. Supple and soft, he gripped her hard, pulling a moan from her lips, as she threw her head back and arced up into his touch.

Enver’s patience cracked, and he shoved up her shirt, whisking it off over her head before lowering his lips to her hard pink nipples. He sucked deep, pulling them into his mouth so he could taste as much of her as possible. He trembled, his body between her legs with nothing but his pants and her hiked up skirt between them.

He moved to the other breast, flicking his tongue across her nipple until it was hard as rock before pulling it between his lips and giving it a gentle nip.

Imogen gripped his hair, pulling his face closer, and lifted her hips up against him, grinding her core against his chest.

He kneeled, admiring the deliciously wanton woman beneath him. He couldn’t imagine her living in a place like the compound, where her desires and fire were squashed. He only thanked the stars that they hadn’t been able to stamp it out completely. After pulling her skirt down her legs, leaving a trail of kisses along her thighs as he went, he kissed first the bottom of one foot, and then the other.

“Stop it,” Imogen squealed, jerking her feet away.

She laughed, and the smile shining from her eyes was so bright and clear it took Enver’s breath away. The ache in his chest he carried around vanished. She offered him something he’d never had before. Happiness.

He flicked open the button on his pants and shoved them down and off his feet.

The bed shifted as he crawled onto it, slowly lowering his nose to the back of Imogen’s knee and inhaling deeply.

She shivered and made to move away, but Enver placed a strong metal hand on her hip, holding her in place with a tight grip. He moved his way up, smelling every delectable inch of her inner thigh. When he reached her core, he found her wet, her legs shaking.

One kiss against her lower lips sent convulsions up her body until she placed the heels of her hands against her eyes with a loud exhale.

He peppered kisses up her stomach, under her breasts, over her nipples, along the center of her chest until he was positioned above her. With his knees, he opened her legs and she wrapped them around his hips, lifting her need up to meet his aching cock.

He rocked forward, sinking himself into her in one strong thrust. Her heat encompassed him, sending tremors up his spine. Fuck she felt good. The warmth of her pussy held him tight, pulling him deeper and deeper until he pushed up against her deepest point, making them both cry out at the perfection of the union.

He pulled back, trying to take it slow, to show her with his body how precious she was, but the fire blazing under his skin would not be calmed. He ached with want, so when her nails dragged along his back, she looked at him with mirrored fire, and begged please, he couldn’t hold back. His hips thrust into her so deep her bones pressed against him, and she reached up to hold herself secure against the wall.

Again and again he slammed forward to meet her rising hips.

She clawed at him, gasping for breath between desperate cries for more. He kissed her, stifling her moans and pinning her to the bed as he drove them both to new highs. His body buzzed, and his skin threatened to burst open as he rushed toward their mutual release.

With a scream, Imogen clenched down on his cock with strong pulsing muscles that stole the last of his restraint. He moved inside her slowly, as the last aftershocks of his orgasm flashed through him.