Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) by Nalini Singh

Then she leaned down and pressed a kiss to an exposed section of his shoulder. He groaned as the taste of salt and him entered her mouth. “That is doing nothing for my concentration, 3K.”

3K.

What had once been a dehumanizing label now felt like a kiss. “You look like you’ve worked hard enough.”

A glance up. “I need to do ten more minutes. Stay?”

Payal ran her hand through his hair, feeling a sense of ownership that was as primal as how he looked right now. Then she moved to take a seat on an exercise machine across from the one he was using. It had weights; Canto probably used it for his upper body. Which she admired openly while he finished up his routine.

“Baby,” he said five minutes later, “you can’t keep looking at me like that.” A harsh order, but there was nothing angry about it. “My damn erection is like a steel pole right now.”

Baby.

A term of affection when used as he used it with her. For Payal Rao, the robot. “Can I touch it after you’re done?”

He dropped his legs so fast the machine screamed an alarm. He slammed it off with his palm. “Yeah,” he rasped. “You can touch anything on me you want. Full, no-holds-barred skin privileges.”

She’d heard that term from one of the Delhi tigers at some point during negotiations, when they’d spoken about handshakes. This, however, was nothing so mundane. “You had five minutes to go.” Her skin was hot, her pulse a rocket. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

His eyes glittered. “I’ll do another session later. Come ’ere.”

CANTO’S mind blanked as Payal walked to him. As he watched, she kicked off her heels, her feet soundless on the special matting of the gym.

He went to tell her to wait while he removed the robotic brace, so she could sit on his lap, but she hitched up her fitted dress to straddle one side of the bench seat on which he sat. “Hell.” Those legs, the creamy brown of her upper thighs …

He wanted to goddamn bite into her.

But Payal had other priorities, her eyes on the jut of his erection.

His chest heaved.

And she wrapped her fingers around his rigid length, over the top of the thin fabric of his shorts. He bit back a shout, the tendons on his neck feeling like they’d burst out of his skin.

“It’s so hot and hard.”

Canto’s brain blazed a dangerous red. Shifting his hand to her wrist, he squeezed. “I think we should stop.”

She released him at once but didn’t tug her wrist free. “You didn’t like it?”

“Hell yes, I liked it.” So much that it hurt. “But I don’t want to lose control.”

Terrible darkness eclipsed the stars in her eyes.





Chapter 34



The child displays significant ongoing trauma.

—Therapeutic notes on Canto Mercant (age 14)

REALIZING WHAT HE’D said, Canto let go of Payal’s hand before he squeezed it too hard. “Shit. Shit.” Leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, he shoved his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m screwing this up.”

He’d spent all this time trying to teach her that she could trust him with everything, and here he was, stumbling at the first step. “It’s not about trust, Payal. I—”

A gentle hand on his shoulder, stroking slowly down his back. “I understand.” Soft words that held no anger or confusion. “It’s why I have such rigid shields. Control.” Leaning in, she pressed a kiss to the side of his neck. “We had it stolen from us, and now we can’t let go.”

Had anyone else said they understood, he would’ve ignored them. But this was Payal. His 3K. Dropping his hands to his thighs, he looked at her … and spoke about a part of his life that he spoke of to no one else. “I was all but immobile in a hospital bed for months.”

He released a shuddering exhale. “My grandmother did everything in her power to give me freedom—she took me on long flights through the PsyNet, had a family teleporter move my hospital bed to different locations to give me variety. Once, my uncle teleported me out to this lonely stretch of beach and it was incredible.”

“But it wasn’t the same as controlling your own body,” Payal said, sliding her hand down to tangle it with his.

“Yeah.” He coughed, swallowed. “Grandmother made me attend a ton of psych sessions to help me make sense of the world—and to prepare me for a possible future where I might always be only my mind—but the experience left a scar.” His jaw worked. “I keep telling myself I’m so fucking lucky. Not many children have someone like Ena come for them, rescue them, but—” He shook his head. “I can’t forget all that went before.”

Payal touched her hand to part of his robotic brace. “Let’s look at this logically.”

It was a response he hadn’t expected—and it was so very Payal. “Yeah?” He wove his fingers through hers, squeezed.

“You’re no longer a child without agency. Neither are you injured as you were when your grandmother first found you. You could walk using a brace if you wished. It would be irritating, but you certainly wouldn’t be confined to bed.” Another kiss, this one to his jaw. “You also have me. I would take you anywhere you wanted to go.”