Cyborg Nation Read Online Free PDF Page A

he had before, far more imposing, possibly because he seemed to take up the entire bunk? Suppressing the quiver that went through her without examining it too closely, she settled the bag of instruments beside the bunk and took his injured arm, struggling to lift it. He lifted it for her. Perching her buttocks on the edge of the mattress, she caught his arm and settled it across her lap. It was less of a strain on her shoulders and back to work seated, but she found she was almost more conscious of the man than she had been when she’d knelt in front of Gabriel.
    Even thinking the name sent an unwelcome tingle of warmth through her. Added to her keen awareness of the man on the bunk, the warmth of his hip seeping through her clothing and into her buttocks, the warmth and weight of his arm across her lap, she discovered she had to force herself to concentrate on her task. When she’d cleaned the angry red flesh that surrounded his wound and coated it liberally with a topical anesthetic, she glanced at his face to discover he was studying her. “I suppose it would be too much to ask why you took me?” she asked hesitantly.
    His dark brows drew together thoughtfully. “We were not ordered not to do so.”
    Bronte waited. When he didn’t seem inclined to say more, she lifted her brows questioningly. “Well, why?”
    “That should be obvious.”
    Bronte’s lips flattened with a touch of irritation. “To you, maybe,” she responded tartly. “It isn’t at all obvious to me. You didn’t even want me to attend your wounds!”
    “We did not ask.”
    Bronte stared at him with more than a little irritation. He didn’t appear to be deliberately baiting her, but he was nonetheless. Getting answers out of him was like pulling teeth. It occurred to her after a moment, though, that what he’d left unsaid seemed to imply that they had wanted her to. They just hadn’t asked. “You wanted to, but you were afra … didn’t want to ask?”
    His dark brows rose. “It did not occur to us to ask because it did not occur to us that you would be willing … and you are not trained as a surgeon, in any case.”
    Bronte pursed her lips as she glanced down at his arm. “I am trained as a surgeon,” she disputed, “minor surgery, anyway. You were looking at my father’s records, if you recall, not mine. At least … you suggested as much.”
    “I say … or do not.”
    Confused, Bronte’s brows knitted as she focused on closing the wound. She looked up at him questioningly when she had finished. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”
    “I have not the facility for tact or subtlety or diplomacy. I was sold as a soldier and had no need for that. I do not suggest. I say, or do not.”
    It still took Bronte several moments to understand because, she realized wryly, she was too distracted by his nearness to think straight. “So … you were not … uh … you didn’t....” She broke off abruptly, horrified that she’d felt the impulse to know if he had been programmed for sex as Gabriel had. She cleared her throat as she bent his arm and settled it across his chest. “You didn’t tell me your name,” she said to change the subject as she shifted down the bunk to examine the wound on his thigh.
    “You did not ask.”
    Bronte let out an irritated huff of breath, deciding she didn’t care what his damned name was. She didn’t think for a moment that he was so literal minded that he could not grasp the subtle meanings of any conversation. He was being deliberately provoking. She just didn’t know why.
    It was a good deal more awkward, she discovered, to attend his thigh from a sitting position. She had to twist sideways to cleanse the area with the antiseptic. Before she could rise, however, he lifted the leg as he had his arm, dropping his thigh across her lap. Blood instantly flooded her cheeks as she found herself between his splayed thighs. Even as she opened her mouth to object, however, he hooked his leg around her,