STORY EXCERPT

It took Steven a moment to notice they were driving right past the large building and down to the docks. What the hell was going on? Why would a starship mechanic be found down here?

When they came to a stop outside a small shack, Chris’s Boat Repair painted in green on a wooden sign hanging above the door, Steven felt his temper flare. Was this some kind of sick joke? A boat mechanic? Had Sidney lost his ever-loving mind?

With a sigh, Steven climbed out of the vehicle only to duck down when a shot rang out above his head. He pulled his pistol from the holster at his hip, spun around, and took aim in the direction the shot came from in one fluid motion. His breath froze in his lungs and his heart went silent as he waited for another sign of hostility.

“Easy!” Craig shouted, raising his hands. Tony was standing beside him, his own weapon drawn. The navigator looked deadly as he scanned their surroundings. “Chris, we just came to talk!”

“I thought I told you and your brother to forget I exist.” The rough voice that preceded the man who walked out onto the small front porch had Steven frowning. The man sounded as if he’d spent his life shouting, his voice hoarse from years of overuse.

“Yeah, well, we have a problem with the Galaxia’s engines.” Craig sighed.

“Then it’s a problem for your mechanic,” Chris said, lowering the rifle. Now that the threat had been diminished, Steven stood from his crouched position behind the vehicle and took the man in. He was sturdily built, obviously a man used to hard, physical labor. His dark, full beard had two streaks of gray starting at the corners of his mouth. His black hair was thick, but again there was gray coming in at his temples. His steel eyes were narrowed, small wrinkles giving him even more signs of his age.

“That would be me,” Steven said, stepping forward and placing his pistol back in the holster. “I’m Steven Smith, and we need to talk.”

Chris held up his right hand, and Steven had to remind himself not to stare. Flipping him off was a cybernetic hand. The mechanics extended up to his arm and stopped at his shoulder. Instantly Steven looked down and noticed, beneath his swim trunks, his right leg was also a cybernetic prosthetic.

“Oh, come on,” Craig beseeched. “Just hear him out.”

“Fuck off,” Chris said with a snarl as he turned and headed back into his shop.

Steven growled and chased after the man. There was no way in fucking hell he was going to be turned down now that he’d come here. Screw this guy. He was going to help them even if Steven had to force him.

“Hey, you.” Steven grabbed the man’s shoulder, spun him around, and slammed him against the wall. He might not look it, but Steven was a mechanic and was quite strong. “I don’t care what issues you have with Sidney and Craig, but I’m here to find a way to fix the Galaxia’s engines. So you’ll swallow your fucking attitude and listen to me.”

The man laughed, throwing Steven for a loop. He loosened his grip on the man, and that proved to be a mistake. Chris flipped their positions, his mechanical hand digging into Steven’s throat. “I built those engines. Why the fuck should I have to fix them now?”

“What?” Steven gasped. This man built the Galaxia’s engines? But that couldn’t be right. Struggling, Steven met Chris’s hard steel eyes and froze. Something stirred inside him as he looked at that cold gaze and felt that prosthetic hand squeeze around his throat. Something primal that he shouldn’t be feeling.

“Hey, that’s enough,” Tony said with a growl, a gun appearing at Chris’s temple. “We don’t need you so bad that I’ll stand by and let you kill one of our crew.”

* * * *

Chris looked down to the small man holding a gun to his head without so much as a sign of hesitation in Tony’s mercury eyes. Looking back to the man, Steven, he had pinned to the wall, he was also amazed to see no signs of fear in his sage-green eyes. Who had eyes like that? As if they were waiting for the end without so much as a passing worry to what it meant.

Chris let go and stepped back, then leaned against one of the pillars holding the roof over his porch. “I’m retired.” He knew when not to get into a losing fight, and there was no way he could take all three of these men at the same time.

“Just look at what I have for you and then we’ll leave,” Steven said, holding up a hologram disk.

Sighing, Chris rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want to get involved with this shit again. After everything he’d gone through to get away from those machines, Chris did not want to get pulled back in just because some cutie with pretty eyes asked him. Damn Sidney, he knew Chris’s type too fucking well. Steven had everything Chris liked in a bed partner—dark brown hair just long enough to grab, a delicately handsome face, and a trim body. Chris liked it all, except those lifeless eyes.

“Get lost, kids,” Chris finally said. “I have no interest in going near that ship again.”

“You don’t have to!” Steven said with a snarl. Maybe it was something Chris had said? The guy suddenly seemed downright hostile. “Like I’d let you get near my baby with that attitude. Come on, Craig, Tony. This guy is useless.”

Part of Chris wanted to reach out and pull the young man back and demand he swallow those words, but he resisted the urge. He wasn’t the same man he was all those years ago. He no longer had the same passion for engines that could go faster than any before, without being detected on any radar. The Stealth-class ship was the peak of his designs, a work of true perfection. It was a shame to know it was in need of repair, enough so that Sidney would seek him out.

“Steven.” The smaller man, Tony, raced after the tall man. “We can’t fix this without him.”

“I don’t care!” Steven lashed out. “I’ll figure something out.”

ADULT EXCERPT

“You sure this is what you want?” Chris asked, reaching behind Steven and grasping his ass.

Biting back a moan, Steven pressed his cock against Chris’s. He was pleased to know the other man was just as turned on as he was. “I’m sure.”

He’d thought about it quite a bit, actually, after dropping Chris off at the infirmary. Steven wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t in the habit of lying to himself, so the only possible outcome was that Steven was sexually frustrated and needed release. Chris, being the target of his frustration, just seemed to be the perfect one to release it with.

Once this was done, he could go back to his usual way of doing things: not getting turned on by glancing touches and smoldering kisses. After he let Chris fuck him and they’d both gotten their rocks off, they could work side by side with no awkwardness between them.

“Well then.” Chris moved quickly for an old man, tipping Steven down and laying him flat on the unmade bunk. The feel of the bare, hard mattress wasn’t exactly welcome, but Steven didn’t have time to think about it as Chris slid a hand beneath him and tapped at his entrance. “We’re going to need something to make this easier.”

“Oh, right.” Steven turned onto his side and grabbed his coveralls. As he rifled through his pockets, trying to find the condom and lube he’d stashed in one of them, Chris repositioned himself behind Steven. “Oh my stars,” Steven said, moaning when Chris parted his cheeks and licked at his ass.

After tossing the lube onto the bed, Steven got onto his knees—Chris following his movement easily—and buried his head into the mattress as he was eaten from behind. He’d never had a guy do this for him. It was amazing.

Chris reached around him, grabbed the lube, and set it under Steven before doing the same with the condom. After he had the items placed where he wanted them, Chris used his mechanical hand to stroke Steven’s cock. The sensation of the metal sliding along his sensitized shaft had Steven crying out for more, thrusting his hips shallowly into Chris’s hand.

“You like that?” Chris asked, pulling away from his hole and biting at Steven’s cheeks. “I wonder how this will feel then?”

Steven nearly sobbed when all stimulation left him, until he heard the pop of the cap on the lube, and then he started to shake in anticipation. Everything up to this point indicated that Chris was a skilled and giving partner. Steven could only imagine what it was going to be like to have the man inside him. Then again, it wasn’t as if he was going to have to wait all that long to find out.

The press of a cool metallic finger at his quivering hole had Steven tensing for a second before he breathed deeply and let Chris in. He felt every fraction of an inch of that single digit as it pressed farther and farther inside of him. When Chris’s hand finally made contact with his rear, Steven thought he was going to come on the spot. Why the hell was he so turned on?

“You really like my prosthetics, don’t you?” Chris husked into his ear, blanketing Steven’s body at the same time. “Are you so much of a machine lover that you even like the feel of metal violating you?”

Steven went to deny that, but Chris pulled out just to the tip and then thrust his finger hard back into Steven’s channel, pegging his prostate and making Steven scream before he could say anything. Chris set a fast pace, keeping Steven on edge with each thrust of his finger. When he added a second, Steven thought his head was going to explode.

“Yeah, you definitely like the feel of metal taking you.” Chris bit the tip of Steven’s ear as he continued to finger-fuck him from behind. “Tell me, have you ever used one of your tools to pleasure yourself?”

“No!” Steven shouted, finally finding his voice.

“Pity.” Chris sounded amused. “Guess I’ll count myself lucky though, as that means I’m the first to give you this kind of pleasure.”

“Pervert.” Steven moaned as Chris added the third finger, stretching him to the point of pain.

“Says the man getting off by having a mechanical hand fuck him,” Chris said with a laugh. “But I think you’re ready for me now. If you like my hand, you should love my cock.”

What did that mean? Steven looked over his shoulder and nearly swallowed his tongue. The same metal rivets that were running along Chris’s ribs were on his cock. What the hell? And why was he feeling a tremble of pleasure at the thought of having that inside him?

“Now, should I go bareback so you can feel me?” Chris asked, pressing his naked cockhead against Steven’s hole. “Well?”

Is that what he wanted? To have this man take him, bare? Steven had never let a man fuck him without a condom on before, so he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a bit interested in how it would feel. Plus, there was the fact Chris wasn’t completely human. How would his altered cock feel in Steven without the thin layer of protection?

Steven reached for the condom and tossed it onto the floor.

Chris smiled. “Yeah, I thought as much.”