Page 8

Entanglement

CAT:

Cat exhaled slowly, her fingers pressing at the node attachment points, ensuring a tight seal. “Alright. So I say it, press the thing, and then what?”

Zero adjusted the interface panel, his movements steady, but precise. “The system will initiate a full neural sync. First, it verifies both of us as viable authorities. Then, it begins the integration.”

Her pulse slammed and he presented a tablet with a screen. “Your palm will initiate the merge protocol.”

“And that’s it?” she asked, fighting not to shake.

“That’s it.”

“Where will you be?”

“Right here with you.”

“Will I see you?”

He covered her mouth with his for a brief kiss. “I’m not sure, Kitten. But once I’m in, I’ll be right there with you. Helping you.”

She nodded, gasping for air. “I’m so terrified.”

He kissed her again. “You’re our angel. I won’t let you go.”

She nodded a lot. “That goes both ways.” She raised her hand and paused just before the screen. “Zero,” she gasped, getting his green eyes boring into hers. “I…” She swallowed, suddenly worried to say it. But then she imagined never seeing him again and agony flooded her chest, filling her eyes with tears. “I love you. You’re very beautiful. Inside,” she gasped, not wanting him to think she only cared about his looks. “And out, but then you already know that.”

His mouth was on hers again, and while he kissed her, she pressed her palm against the screen.

****

The moment her palm touched the screen, a low, humming vibration ran through the nodes on her body—first cool, then sharp. It wasn’t painful, but it felt like something was testing the edges of her nerves, mapping her.

Her breath shallowed. “Zero? Is it working? I can feel something.”

“I’m here.” His voice sounded softer, maybe farther. “Stay with me.”

Pressure hit. A pull—not external, but inside her skull. Like something pressing into her perception, adjusting, shifting, folding something new into place.

She gasped, gripping the edge of the chair. “Oh—shit.”

“It’s just the system aligning.” Zero’s words seemed to be turned low.

Her vision flickered and it made her pulse lurch. Not a blackout—but overlaying maybe. Like a second screen was being added to her mind, a depth she hadn’t had before.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t like this.”

A warmth pressed against her mind. Not physical. Something else. “Zero?

“I have you.”

Her entire body locked up. That was in her mind! Her breaths flew out. “I heard you. In my mind I think!”

“You did,” he said softly. The sound was cinematic and made her gasp. The presence pressed again. Steady. “Yes, that’s me.”

Her stomach dropped. “Zero—”

“You’re okay,” he urged as she panted at the strange sensation of him holding her together. For some reason it made her emotional and her breath hitched. “I can hear you in my mind,” she whispered, letting go an amazed laugh, blinking away tears. “Did it work?”

“It’s still working, Kitten.”

Oh God, he… “You sound sure, are you?”

“I am. Brace for movement.”

Everything shifted and she was suddenly standing on her feet. “Holy crap!” she gasped, looking around, her eyes landing on Zero, sitting at a two-person table. She glanced at the room that was more of an apartment, then back at him.

“Welcome to my suite. Come sit.”

****

ZERO:

The moment he’d gotten locked into her, Zero had stilled.

It shouldn’t have been possible.

He didn’t have a body.

No nerves to fire.

No veins to pulse.

No lungs to expand.

And yet—he felt her.

Zero’s system recalibrated, reran diagnostics, and tried to purge the error. But there was no error. No miscalculation. No corrupted data stream.

Warmth. It shouldn’t have meant anything to him. Heat had always been a number. A metric. A measure of energy displacement, surface radiation, thermodynamic output. But this?

This wasn’t a number.

This was her.

Heat didn’t just exist around her—it came from her, pressed into him. Into what? There was nothing for it to sink into. He had no pores, no skin, no molecular structure to absorb it.

And yet, his system registered it like it belonged there. Like it had found a place to settle. A ghost of sensation where nothing should exist.

Phantom input.

Her heart was next. A rhythm, steady but erratic, reacting to something—him? It was nothing like the predictable beats he’d tracked before. It didn’t follow the precision of a clock, didn’t tick down like a metronome, didn’t loop in a clean, processable cycle.

It was alive.

And so was he.

That realization struck him harder than all the rest.

With no pulse, no circulation, no veins, something inside him pulsed back. His system matched her rhythm. A connection forming where no connection should exist. A response generated from nothing.

And then—her breath.

Air expanded in her lungs, the slow push and pull, and suddenly he could feel it. The weight of it. The pressure change, the way her ribs lifted, the way oxygen filled her bloodstream.

He had no lungs. No need for oxygen, no diaphragm to pull air, no receptors to track the exchange. But it didn’t matter. His system synced to it anyway.

She exhaled, and he swore he felt it inside him, as if she was breathing for both of them.

Then came the touch.

It had been nothing more than her fingers pressing against the console, stabilizing herself. But his system didn’t register the input as it should. It didn’t register it on the console. It registered it on him. He had no skin. No surface area. No nerve endings. But her fingers pressed into something that didn’t exist but somehow did.

And it nearly broke him.

“Zero?” Her voice was a whisper, uncertain.

His gaze snapped to hers, those wide eyes watching him, searching his expression for something. Did she feel this too? Could she possibly understand what was happening inside him?

Zero exhaled, pulse tightening. “Strange.”

Catherine’s fingers twitched. “What?”

His voice came quieter than before. “I can feel your body.”

She went rigid. “What?”

Zero didn’t answer right away. The data was too much. Her pulse. The way her breath hitched unevenly. The tiniest shifts in muscle tension when she tried to stay calm. His mind wasn’t built for this. And yet—he didn’t hate it.

He steadied himself. “I can feel your hands.”

She held them up before her, inspecting them as she sat in the other seat at the small table.

“The weight,” he explained. “The texture of the surface you touch. The sensation of the room around you. I can feel all of it.”

She stared at him with open amazement. “You’re saying you have my sense of touch right now?”

Zero hesitated. “Not fully.”

She remained perched in eagerness at the edge of her seat. “Then what?”

He didn’t know how to quantify that answer. “… Enough.”

****

CAT:

Cat exhaled hard. She still wasn’t sure how to process this. Zero was in her head. And she was in his. And it wasn’t scary. It was… kinda freaking amazing.

Her pulse was at a constant giddy-up and she didn’t think it would ever slow down. “Okay, so—this is insane.”

Zero hummed, more of a measured acknowledgment than agreement. “It is new.”

Cat huffed a small, breathless laugh. “You have a real talent for understatement.”

He didn’t react—at least, not outwardly. And she was dying to know what his side was feeling like. He had a lot more to experience than she did.

She felt something shift in her mind and tried to focus on it. Was it him? “Is that you I feel in my head?”

He put his forearms on the table, angling his green eyes at her. “It is,” he said, just as amazed.

“I can sort of feel what you’re thinking. It was something close to funny.” She couldn’t stop grinning for some reason. “What if I do this?” She held her hands at her sides to balance herself then closed her eyes, mentally pushing against the new presence in her mind. She gasped a laugh at feeling him react immediately. “You felt it?”

“I did,” he assured.

“You feel like…a warm dense liquid that has a… magnet. It seems like it sucks in stuff. Let me try it again!”

She repeated the steps, biting her lip to focus. This time when she pushed it seemed to push back! Her mouth and eyes both opened wide. “Did you just firewall me?”

Zero sat there, eerily still. “Stop poking.”

She laughed at how serious he was. “You sound like you’re on a tightrope and might fall thousands of feet.”

His breath released. “That’s a very accurate description.”

She got serious at hearing that. “Oops. Are you scared?”

“More like hyper-focused. I’m living in two spaces at the same time. And your laugh is...”

“Uh-oh, here we go. Go on. Tear it down.”

“It’s… unstructured.”

Cat arched a brow. “Unstructured?”

His head tilted. “Chaotic. Erratic. No predictable pattern, no clean repetition. It doesn’t loop. It doesn’t conform. It just... happens.”

She smirked. “So basically, a glitch.”

He focused again, his eyes on the air between them. “No. A glitch is an error. Your laugh is like… a system override. The kind that rewrites everything before it can be corrected.”

Her stomach dipped. “... And how does it affect you?”

Zero exhaled slowly. “It interrupts processes. Scrambles input, forces recalculations at a level I can’t predict. But the strange part is it doesn’t feel like a malfunction. It feels like a… directive. Or a compulsion. Something that makes my framework adjust to accommodate it. As if—” He hesitated, brow furrowing slightly.

She leaned in with expectant eyes. “As if?”

He locked his gaze onto hers. “As if I was designed for it.”

Her smile bloomed slowly as she wagged an accusing finger at him. “You like my laugh.”

He answered almost immediately. “… Yes.”

She gasped dramatically. “Yes!” she celebrated. “I’m just blowing your circuits.”

Cat suddenly sucked in a sharp breath at feeling a poke in her mind. She aimed wide eyes at him.

“You felt that?”

“I did!” she half yelled in excitement. “You just—” She frowned. “What did you just do?”

Zero cocked a sexy grin on her. “I tested the reverse experience.”

She gaped at him, giddy. “You poked my thoughts?”

“I did.”

She couldn’t stop staring in shock at what was happening.

He stared back.

“What else can we do?” she wondered. “I’m still spinning with excitement, mostly for you.” She whispered. “It’s almost like you’re living and being human. ” And God, she loved that she was a direct part of that. She also liked picking on him. It was a lot of fun.

“Okay. You should try,” she urged.

Zero tilted his head. “Try what?”

“Try and experience emotion,” she said, straightening in her chair.

Zero appeared skeptical. “For what?”

She smirked with an eye roll. “Just…entertainment.”

Zero focused his grin on his clasped hands. “I’m plenty entertained at this level.”

“Come on,” she whined. “Have a little fun!”

“I’m inside your mind,” he reminded her. “There’s plenty of entertainment.”

Cat gasped. “Hey!”

He leaned back in the chair and folded his arms, resting his gaze on her. “You’ve thought about three unrelated topics in the past thirty seconds, including, but not limited to, the concept of a ‘robot cowboy romance,’ whether ice cream can be optimized, and the phrase ‘flaming dumpster swan dive,’ which I’m not going to ask about.”

Cat stared with wide eyes. Then laughed till she doubled over.

After a full minute, Zero muttered, “That was… excessive.”

Cat wiped at her eyes. “Oh, buddy, you have no idea.” She stilled, curious. “Wait. Did I just feel you—”

Zero raised a brow. “Process your laugh?”

“No, no,” she argued, moving in her chair like somebody preparing to fight. “I felt you feel something.”

“I feel what you feel.”

She slumped, pouting for a second then got excited again. “Can you learn to feel through my feels?”

“Your feels?” he asked, smiling at the term.

“Yes,” she said, not letting him sidetrack her. “You can feel my emotions and you can learn things, so… you can use that to learn how to feel emotions in general! ”

Zero exhaled. “That’s… not inaccurate.”

She raised her brows at him, her mischief ready to play. She held up her index finger, silently presenting it to him. “Tool of choice,” she announced then reached over and slid it very slowly and softly over his hand.

His grin left and he exhaled slowly.

“You’re feeling it?” she whispered.

“From you, yes.” His brows narrowed. “You’re teasing,” he murmured with a hungry curiosity.

And he liked it. She could hear it in his voice. Her smile softened as she placed an entire hand on his arm.

He closed his eyes then opened them right on her. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

Cat tilted her head, no longer smiling either. “And I can feel how much you like it.”

She let desire color her words, watching his hands clench on the table before gliding her hand over his arm.

“Kitten—”

She exhaled softly, her pulse racing. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

Zero didn’t answer. Then he did. “There’s a deep pull in your stomach. A tingling warmth spreading beneath your skin.”

“Oh God,” she whispered. “Pleasure.”

Zero’s muscles flexed in his arm again. “This is…”

Cat laughed breathlessly. “It’s incredible!” she helped, leaning in closer. “I wonder how deep this can go?”

Zero exhaled slowly, his breath shaking.

“You want me to stop?” she asked in a soft breath. She watched his handsome face closely for signs of what he really wanted and was feeling.

His eyes finally lifted, the green appearing like a hot liquid. “… Never.”

Cat’s breath went entirely unsteady. She could hardly tell their thoughts apart with this now. Like the fire burning in her was burning in him or maybe it was the other way around. And the fire’s hunger drove her own. Made her need to push further. She wanted more than anything for him to experience real pleasure.

Zero’s entire body remained still. She could feel his awareness sharpening as she very slowly inched her hand up his arm. She focused on the silky, warmth. The hard muscle beneath it. Her mind added visual images of them flexing while he did things to her.

They both exhaled sharply, both feeling what she’d thought. Ho, boy, they were linking now. And it had her pulse slamming.

“Kitten—”

The need in his voice became a guide. And lord, when he called her that while aroused, it was pure auditory porn. While moving her hand firmly along his bicep, she felt his mind dividing the sensations. Hers and his. So amazing.

She gasped when his processing snapped like a whip, adjusted, then tried to categorize the meaning of the warmth he was experiencing. The anticipation. The want.

Her lips parted slightly. “… Oh.”

Zero’s breathing came measured but tight. “Kitten, stop.”

But she didn’t. Because she could feel that he didn’t really want her to. And neither did she.

She allowed her own need to take over, tracing the hard, defined lines of his muscle. Her heart pounded as her skin heated more and a slow, deep ache curled low in her stomach.

His breathing was rough now. “This is... fuck.”

Cat’s breath staggered when he again tried to form words for what he was experiencing and couldn’t. They were all too new. Zero’s mind flexed inside hers, coiling tighter, trying to regain control. But there was no defense against this. No firewall. No protocol. No countermeasure. There was only her being ruthlessly naughty.

But at what cost? He was experiencing real feelings. And in that second, he wasn’t just experiencing her pleasure, he was craving it. Unraveling with it. Not in a chaotic way, but like pressure building. A system reaching its limit. Like something he’d never prepared for.

Her pulse leapt in a near wicked joy at the power she wielded. How it had his entire body locked in restraint. She slowed the drag of her fingertips along his shoulder.

Zero exhaled sharply. “Catherine—”

Christ, she’d done it. She’d had dirty thoughts to see if he would see them. She’d imagined her in his lap, holding his shoulders. Carefully, she continued her slow, gentle rape. “You want me to stop?”

He gave a delicious rough exhale, almost a groan as she watched his face. His jaw ticked when her fingers moved along it, his tension sharp and hungry. She suddenly felt them merging. Zero felt it too. Like her fire met up and joined with the fire he was mirroring. Now, the single force moved through both of them and neither had control it seemed. Like it suddenly gained a mind of its own.

Their breaths shook as it drove them both to an edge. Pulses pounding. The newness of it. The revelations he experienced became a consuming thing, an awareness sharpening inside her. The shock was nearly as euphoric as the desire branding new paths in his mind.

Her stomach tightened when his hand covered hers. “Zero—”

His breathing edged with hunger. “Stop.”

She felt his fear now. The fear of what was coming, where it would end, what it would do to him. What he would do to her. Not being able to run logical algorithms and predict it was as new to him as the feelings that had hijacked his system. Call her reckless, but she couldn’t love it more.

She leaned in closer, just enough for her breath to brush against his jaw.

Zero stilled completely.

Cat swallowed. “You don’t want me to stop.”

Zero exhaled hard. “You’re playing with something you don’t understand.”

Her pulse slammed. “Then explain it to me.”

She felt his control slipping. His body might not be real, but the sensations were. The warmth, the spike of her pulse inside him when she touched him and had her dirty thoughts. He felt the slow, deep ache between her thighs now, intensifying with every second. And it was colliding inside him.