I laughed too. “No, definitely not.” I paused. “Can I, uh, buy you a drink?”

  She smiled. “Yes, thank you.”

  I ordered our drinks, then returned to the table.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I smiled. “You’re welcome. So…” I already knew from her profile that she worked in demolitions, but I also needed a way to break the ice. I shifted in my chair. “So you’re a demo tech, right?”

  She nodded. “Just a technician right now, but I’m trying to get approved to advance. Have you seen the apartments demo foremen get?”

  “I’ve heard they’re almost as nice as the ones for surgeons and dentists. Though I guess that’s a tradeoff for what you have to do all day, right?”

  “Kind of, yeah.” She laughed, and then wrinkled her nose. “If it’s supposed to be a tradeoff, then it seems like simtechs should be in surgeon housing.”

  I chuckled. “Oh, it’s not that bad.”

  “Really? I mean, it doesn’t that bother you, being around people when they’re…”

  “Aroused?”

  “Well, yes.” Julianne squirmed. “And naked.”

  I shrugged. “It was strange at first. But you get used to it.”

  “Oh.” She eyed me. “Really?”

  “Sort of like how doctors and nurses get used to the less palatable parts of their jobs.” I’d described it that way many times over the years, but tonight, that explanation tasted strange. Painting something as gross when it was quite the opposite.

  Julianne wrinkled her nose again. “Ugh. I can’t even imagine. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s my job.” I barely maintained my forced smile. “With all the good parts and the ugly ones.”

  “Well, I mean, I’m glad you do it.” She relaxed slightly. “What you’re doing is certainly a necessity.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” I reached for my drink. “Someone’s gotta do it.” I took a long swallow to wet my dry mouth. “What’s your opinion on sims? If we decide to go forward with this, I mean.”

  “I can take them or leave them, to be honest.” She chewed her lip and shifted. “Will you want joint sessions?”

  An image of my very male and not quite Aiden sim partner flashed through my mind.

  I’d rather not, thank you.

  I cleared my throat. “What’s your preference?”

  “I think I’d prefer to keep them the way they are. If it’s what you want, we can try a joint session, but…” Julianne fidgeted. “Just seems like something people should do on their own, you know?”

  Some men found that insulting, when a woman said she’d prefer to continue her solo sessions over joint ones. I couldn’t begin to tell her what a relief it was.

  I smiled. “No need to change it if it works.”

  Julianne released her breath and returned the smile. “Good. Very good.”

  We continued with dinner and our conversation. Dates were a matter of business. Comparing economic and medical viability, even though the government had already screened us for both. Discussing the number of children we each desired—being allowed to have four and wanting to have four weren’t necessarily the same thing. Making sure we were compatible in matters of fertility and personality.

  Walking home afterward, I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling prickling the base of my spine. I’d been on a few dates before, but this one left me unsettled.

  This was the first date I’d had since I’d met Aiden, and it was so…cold. I’d never realized how methodical and unemotional all of this was. I’d touched a man in a way I’d never be able to touch the woman who became my wife. It would be all sims and artificial means of reproduction, even though I’d know what it was like to be physically intimate.

  I’d marry. I’d have children. I’d do all the things I was required to do.

  And all the while, I would ache for another hit of the drug I never should have tasted. Not even once. I couldn’t unfeel, untaste, unkiss Aiden. There was no erasing that memory. And there was no going back.

  I never should have gone to the wireless lounge.

  Chapter 10

  Aiden and I didn’t talk when he came in for his next few sim sessions, and the silence was heavier and more conspicuous each time. He was unreadable—no expression, no playful comments or narrow-eyed, knowing looks on his face.

  It was only after each sim that he’d finally speak: “Will I see you again tonight?”

  “You know you won’t.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  I couldn’t decide if he was taunting me, inviting me, or simply prodding me with the information to see if I’d turn him in, but he’d always let the subject drop, and then he’d leave.

  The third time we had that exchange, I couldn’t even work up the energy for my own sim afterward. Who was I kidding? This wasn’t cutting it. There was only one thing that would work, and that one thing had just walked out the simhouse door.

  I had three choices:

  Keep going insane in a way my suppressors couldn’t even touch.

  Wait two weeks for Aiden to come back, and hope he extended that invite—or taunt—again.

  Or go back to the lounge before I lost my damned mind.

  Which was why, a few hours later, I stood beside the mech tracks, staring up at the massive wall dividing the New City from the broad expanse of asphalt. I knew why I shouldn’t be here, and I knew why I was here. If I hadn’t talked myself out of it by now, I wasn’t going to, so to hell with it.

  I climbed the wobbly metal stairs. The nearest rumble of an active mech was distant, so I vaulted over the barrier and jogged across the track to the maze of decay and debris on the other side. This was a different crossing than I’d used before, so finding the lounge from here promised to be a challenge and a half, but I’d take my chances if it meant I might find Aiden.

  I still wasn’t completely confident in navigating through this strange place. Three times, I second-guessed myself. Where I thought I should go left, I suddenly thought it was a right. A turn should have been straight. A straightaway should have been a turn. I was going to get lost here. And I was shit out of luck if they’d moved the lounge.

  But then I came across a motorcycle chained to an old parking meter. The paint was worn and dirty, but the tires were inflated and just clean enough to indicate recent movement. A few meters away, another bike was tucked beneath what must have been a fountain. Once I’d found the first two, the others seemed to materialize from the shadows in which they’d been hidden—they were fairly inconspicuous after all, tucked into shadows and camouflaged by debris.

  I continued down that street. Up ahead, not far from where I’d started noticing bikes, a building matched the one in my memory. I walked faster. Yes, this was the one. In the fading daylight, I recognized the billboard out front; it was faded and damaged to the point it was impossible to say what it had advertised in the past, but the ruins were distinctive. A crescent of lines that may have been part of a painted human face at one time. The upper left corner sagging and flapping in the wind. Some black-and-green graffiti was unintelligible but relatively recent.

  This was the place.

  And at the foot of that building, just a few meters from the billboard, I found a familiar bike with scuffed chrome, the scratches and dents like a fingerprint differentiating this bike from all the others.

  Aiden’s.

  My heart beat faster. I jogged around to the back and into the parking garage. I hurried across the garage to the familiar stairwell. The faded oil slicks on the ground. The cracks slithering up the walls. I swore one pillar seemed to glow with the memory of an unforgettable encounter spent against it.

  Two flights of stairs took me down to the door with the corroded combination lock. The code took me three tries, but then the lock gave.

  Inside, the bouncer scanned my chip and then waved me inside.

  I paused with my hand on the last door. Taking a deep breath, I asked myself for the thousandth time if I wanted to be here, and before I could answer, I pushed it open.

  It was just as I remembered it. The room was crowded and loud, the air thick, hot, electrified. My senses could barely process it all, but I forced myself to focus on finding Aiden. I had no idea what I’d do once I found him, but I needed to find him. I needed to find his face in this sea of—

  There.

  And the instant I laid eyes on him, my heart stopped.

  His torso was bare, his suit almost completely stripped off. His body undulated not in time with the music, but with the man who stood behind him. The man who held on to Aiden’s shoulder with one hand, his hip with the other, and his lips were pulled into a grimace as he fucked Aiden from behind.

  And Aiden’s face…oh, God, his face. The pure, raw ecstasy was palpable from here: his eyes half-shut—his lips apart, his eyebrows pulled together. His cock was rock hard, and he stroked it in rapid, arrhythmic strokes, like he was more caught up in what the other man was doing than in his own pursuit of a climax.

  I was both painfully aroused and unspeakably disappointed. He’d found someone else. If I could have moved, I’d have turned around and gone back outside, partly to collect my breath and thoughts, and partly so I could get the hell back to the right side of the mech tracks. But I couldn’t move. All I could do was stare at Aiden as another man reduced him to helpless trembling.

  Aiden turned his head, and those heavy-lidded eyes met mine. He grinned. With his free hand, he beckoned to me.

  My legs hadn’t been willing to move for me, but they moved now, as if Aiden could control them and the rest of my body in ways I couldn’t begin to. I crossed the semicrowded floor, my heart pounding harder and harder as I neared Aiden, as more details came into focus: the tightness of his partner’s sculpted forearm muscles as he held on and slammed into Aiden. Beads of sweat glittering on the man’s dark arms and at the edges of Aiden’s hairline. The crescent-shaped hint of a bite mark on his shoulder.

  As soon as I was within reach, Aiden’s hand shot out and grabbed the back of my neck. He hauled me to him and kissed me. My God, his kiss had never been so frantic, so hungry, and his fingers dug into my flesh, begging me not to pull away.

  I did pull away, though, but only so I could tug off my glove and shove it into my belt. Then I kissed him and reached between us to stroke him. He gasped as I closed my fingers around his cock. Holding on to my sides, he kissed me harder, deeper, his breath alternately warming and cooling my face as we kissed and he was fucked and I stroked him and he thrust into my hand and back against his other partner.

  His fingers twitched on my waist. His cock stiffened in my hand. The helpless moan that thrummed between our lips reminded me of the sounds I’d made the first night, and I realized how close this encounter was to that one. We were mirroring that moment when he’d kissed me against the pillar, only this time it was Aiden who was pinned and helpless, backed up against a gorgeous, ripped man who fucked him mercilessly while I kissed and stroked Aiden. And it occurred to me I never had found out what it was like to be in Aiden’s position that night in the parking garage—on my knees and tasting him—and now was my chance.

  I broke the kiss and sank to the floor in front of him. I thought he whispered “Oh, fuck,” or something close to it, but it was impossible to say with all the noise around us and the blood pounding in my ears. I took off my other glove, rested my hand on his bare thigh, and took his cock in my mouth.

  I ran my tongue from the base of his cock to the head. It wasn’t the first time I’d tasted the salt of his skin, but it was even more intoxicating now. His whole body jerked slightly in time with the man thrusting behind him, forcing Aiden’s cock a little deeper into my mouth. I wasn’t even the one being fucked or sucked, but after entirely too long without contact, my only stimulation coming from electrodes and artificial pheromones, I was overwhelmed. Hot, salty skin against my tongue. Aiden’s thick erection between my lips. His hand on my scalp. Sweat in the air. The pulsing music and the undercurrent of moans and sighs.

  My jaw ached. If he were even a little bigger than this, I wouldn’t have been able to accommodate him, but he was perfect, and I slid my lips and tongue down the shaft, taking him farther into my mouth.

  “Don’t stop, Keith,” he slurred, his voice little more than a subtle vibration alongside the music. “Oh, fuck.”

  More voices hummed above me. Words being exchanged. A question, a half-moaned answer. I looked up to see Aiden’s other partner murmuring in his ear, and Aiden closed his eyes and bit his lip.

  I stroked him faster and teased him with my tongue. His whole body trembled, and he gave a low groan I felt more than heard. The jerky movements of his hips were stronger now, faster, like his partner was trying to shove Aiden’s cock deep into my throat, and I took him willingly, letting him fuck my mouth.

  “That’s it.” He whimpered softly, and his back arched off his other partner’s chest. “Oh my God, Keith…” His fingers twitched in my hair. His body stiffened, he breathed faster, harder, and a second later, a jet of hot liquid hit my tongue. Then another. It was salty-sweet, and I swallowed it quickly, just barely keeping myself from choking.

  He nudged my head away, so I sat back on my heels. As I got up, Aiden and his other partner kissed briefly. They exchanged grins, and then the other fixed his suit before disappearing into the crowd.

  As he pulled on his suit with shaking hands, Aiden turned to me. “I hope you weren’t planning on leaving soon.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Come with me.” He took me by the hand and led me into the back.

  In one of those tiny alcoves, separated by the rest of the world by flimsy partitions, Aiden lay back on the cushions. I sank down on top of him. He slid his hand around the back of my neck and kissed me deeply. Whatever reservations I’d had about coming here melted away, and I let myself get completely lost in him. His kiss, his arms, just feeling his body against mine and his breath on my skin. How had I gone so long without touching him?

  He tugged my zipper down until the front of my suit was open enough for him to slide a hand in and touch my chest. I exhaled hard. The hot, soft contact was… I couldn’t… My God…

  I grabbed his wrist and just held it there, letting my heart beat against my ribs and his palm. “Fuck.”

  “I want to touch you all over, Keith. All over.”

  My grip melted away. I didn’t consciously let go; my fingers simply relaxed, and my hand slipped off his wrist, and he pushed my suit off my shoulder. Cool air and warm skin alike met my flesh, and a shiver pressed me against his body. His suited body. He’d had so much skin bared earlier, and now it was all covered.

  I reached for the zipper with shaking hands. We sank into another kiss, and dragged zippers down and pushed suits off, and my heart beat faster and faster as I met more skin than suit. Finally, they were off. Wherever our bodies touched, they really touched.

  “I’ve needed this for so goddamned long,” I murmured between kisses.

  “You’re not the only one.”

  “Oh yeah?” I raised my head and eyed him playfully. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself when I walked in.”

  He grinned. “I was enjoying myself even more once you joined us.”

  “So, who was he? Someone you—”

  “Keith.” He touched my face, and the grin turned into a smile. “Don’t read so much into that. He and I are friends, and we’ve fucked before. We’re just friends.”

  “I didn’t mean… I mean, we aren’t—”

  Aiden cut me off with a gentle kiss. “You’re adorable when you’re jealous, by the way.”

  “Jealous?” I kissed him again. “I’m not—” Another kiss. “I’m not jealous.”

  “Mm-hmm. Keep telling yourself that.”

  I drew back and met his eyes, and we both laughed.

  “Okay, okay. I was a little jealous. Kind of thought I’d missed my chance, I guess.”

  “Oh, no. You didn’t.” He caressed my face. “I’ve been hoping you’d come back ever since the last time.”

  “Yeah, but how long would you have waited?”

  “As long as it took.”

  I held his gaze. “You were that sure I was coming back.”

  “I was hoping you were.”

  My heart fluttered. “Well, here I am.”

  He grinned. “Here you are.” He pulled me to him and kissed me again. Just being wrapped up in him like this, I was turned on beyond words, hoping for more and yet, at the same time, I was content with this warm, sensuous contact. It was enough, too much, nowhere near enough—hell, I had no idea. I wanted more. I was perfectly satisfied just holding him. I couldn’t handle even a little bit more.

  So much for not going insane.

  He broke the kiss and stroked my face. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Just seemed like you were, I don’t know, distracted.”

  I shook my head. “No. Trying to process all of…” I gestured at the sliver of space between us. “This.”

  “It’s a lot, I know.” He smiled. “Not too much, I hope?”

  Too much. Not enough. Perfect.

  “No, it’s not.” I put my hand over his, pressing it against my face and also just savoring his skin beneath my palm. “What’s it like? Being…being fucked?”

  Aiden slowly ran the tip of his tongue across his lips, and I knew the answer before he whispered, “Only one way to find out.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I swallowed. “Does it hurt?”

  “Only if you want it to.” In a low growl, he added, “Or I want it to.”

  I shivered.

  “We don’t have to do that tonight. If you—”

  “I want to.”

  Aiden looked me in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He grinned. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to mine again. As we kissed, he gently pushed me onto my back. He tapped my inner thigh, and I spread my legs.

  Oh God. We’re really doing this.

  Aiden looked me straight in the eye as he sucked his fingers into his mouth. Then he leaned toward me as he reached between my legs. “We can stop anytime you want.”