Page 5

Sherrod-Seventeen years old

I checked the time with my CPU again and tried not to bounce on my toes. Nerves had my mouth dry and my palm damp as I waited.

We’d been looking for a chance to meet for the past year, ever since I confessed how I felt about Daisy. Whether or not it was right or foolish didn’t matter to either of us. We wanted one another, and a life that we created, not one dictated to us.

Daisy’s transport arrived three minutes ago. It would take five for her to disembark, another six to go through customs and pick up her case. Then seven to make her way here.

She wasn’t late. In fact, she had a lot of time left, but knowing my Daisy was on the same planet as me, the same city, it had me voracious to finally hold her, kiss her.

If the commander finds out…

I shook off the worry. He wouldn’t. He’d sent her on this mission as a test and he didn’t interfere with our first missions unless everything went sideways.

I wasn’t sure how she’d found out about it ahead of time, but we’d managed to create this meeting over the course of a few days before she’d left.

There was a target she needed to assassinate but that would take no time at all.

And by the time the commander knew of her success, we would be long gone.

“You really want to run away with me?” I’d asked.

“Yes,” she answered with sure firmness.

“It won’t be easy. I’ve got some credits but the commander will look for us.”

“I don’t care, I want to be with you. If you want to be with me, that is.”

She’d sounded so hesitant that I’d laughed at the ridiculousness of the question.

“I’m willing to risk the anger of one of the most dangerous men I’ve ever met just to kiss you,” I’d answered. “I want this.”

I checked the time again. She should be on her way by now and everything in me felt like I would explode with anticipation.

I was waiting just around the corner from one of the restaurants in this quarter; it wasn’t upper class but it wasn’t the gutter either.

A solid, mid-range neighborhood where people didn’t want to know business that wasn’t theirs, and wouldn’t report things.

There was a dark corridor between two restaurants that led to one set of apartments behind the restaurant, and it was here that I waited.

Earlier in the day I’d looped the security camera footage and made sure that the droids scheduled to patrol on this area were elsewhere for a while.

I had an apartment here under a false name, a little nest I’d set up for myself that no one knew about. All this week I’d cleaned it up, stocked it with her favorite foods that I’d acquired off the grid and made sure there were some clothes for her too. It had everything we’d need for…

“Slow down, you don’t know that she’s going to want anything…”

I shook out my arms, even my cyber one felt stiff, though I knew that was a trick of my mind more than the truth.

The countdown in my CPU finished, my heart leaping and thudding in my chest as I waited. It only took another minute for me to see her walking down the sidewalk, but it felt like an eternity.

Hidden in the shadows, I was able to drink her in, and everything narrowed to where she was. Being this close to her, seeing her as she was and not through the tiny screen was like a dream. I could hardly breath as the truth of this situation hit me like a freight shuttle.

Her hair was in two tight braids that met at the nape of her neck, and she was dressed in simple cream and brown shirt and pants, with boots, and a small case that was strung across her chest. There was a flush to her cheeks, like she’d been running and her mouth was pink, full.

But it was those eyes of hers that I’d never forget.

Brown with flecks of amber, so intelligent and sharp.

Those eyes scanned the area, memorizing everything as we’d both been taught.

So when I stepped out of the shadows on shaking legs, she zeroed in on me.

Even though she knew my face, I wanted to make sure she’d know it was me, so I told her that I’d be wearing dark green pants and shirt, with a hooded cloak.

But when our eyes met, I felt myself stepping over a threshold from before her and after her.

Fear and excitement hit me like a stiff drink and I couldn’t move for several seconds as the knowledge that my life had irreparably changed sank in.

Daisy’s smile spread slow over her face, like the sunrise and I found myself mirroring her.

In her eyes, I saw myself like never before.

This woman knew me better than anyone ever had.

She knew my fears, what brought me joy, what made me angry.

She knew I favored my left side in a hand to hand fight, that I’d been rejected by my family and the horrors of my life on the street.

For five years, two lonely children leaned on one another, competed with one another and became closer than family.

I had never been in love before, but I imagined it felt like the other person was a star, dragging one closer and closer.

Warming them, giving them life and light, making them feel like the center of the universe.

That’s how Daisy had always made me feel, and now here, staring at her, I found myself walking slowly toward her until we were close enough to touch. I wanted to, my hands twitched with the desire to reach out, but I waited.

“Jacen,” she said my name like she was savoring it.

“Daisy,” I croaked.

“Hi.”

I grinned down at her, realizing for the first time how small she was next to me.

“Hi.”

We stood there like idiots, just looking at one another and I wondered if she liked my physical attributes as much as she seemed to like my emotional and intellectual ones.

“Am I repugnant?” I blurted out.

She laughed, deep and throaty and shook her head.

“I’m happy to report that I think you’re handsome.”

“Handsome? Not sexy or devastating?”

“Well, I’ve only seen your face, haven’t I?”

Daisy was always flirtatious and saucy with me over the coms. But being near to her and hearing her say something like that had my dick swelling in my pants. I was suddenly very self-conscious and guided her with me to the darker corridor.

“How much time do we have before your assignment?” I asked.

“About half an hour,” she replied, setting the case down.

I nodded with a sharp jerk and ran my hand through my hair.

“Nervous?” she asked.

I nodded again.

“Me too. I was worried that you’d change your mind.”

“No, have you?”

“No.”

I forced my mind to stop running away with me and focused on Daisy. I knew her facial expressions expertly by now and that wrinkle at the top of her nose indicated that she was worried or thinking deeply about something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I just…you seem really nervous.”

I burst out with a laugh and shrugged.

“Yeah, this whole thing is crazy. And I was worried that maybe the commander would find out and—”

Her cyber hand shot out and gripped my flesh and blood one. The connection sent a jolt up my arm and everything centered on where our bodies touched.

“I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I saw you,” she whispered.

“What?” my voice low, rough.

“To make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I’ve wanted to see you,” slowly her other hand came up and brushed my hair back from my forehead, “touch you for a long time.”

Emboldened by her, I raised my other hand and dared to graze her cheek. She closed her eyes and nuzzled into my palm with a tiny exhale. For years after this, when something good would happen, I would measure its perfection against this moment when Daisy closed her eyes in complete trust of me.

I took a step closer and tilted her head up.

“Can I kiss you?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

I’d kissed people before, been taught what pleasure the body can experience by experts in the field.

But nothing had prepared me for brushing my lips against hers.

The kiss was light, hesitant even and so very sweet.

She gave the softest sigh of surprise and happiness.

I pressed a little more and she answered me with a hand tangled in the front of my shirt.

What started so pure, became hard and demanding rather quick and I was tempted to back off when her tongue darted out, tasting the seam of my lips.

I groaned, an embarrassing sound that left nothing to the imagination.

Before I could stop myself, I had her against the wall, my thigh between her legs as she gasped into my mouth.

“Tell me…to stop if you don’t want this,” I breathed.

“I do want it…so much.”

Her fingers clutched at my shoulders as I devoured her jaw and throat.

“Daisy…my Daisy,” I moaned against her skin.

The little noises that came out of her mouth as she ground against my leg, the shivers that shook us both and the taste of her was making everything foggy, a drug that I never wanted to come down from.

If this was what it was like to simply touch and kiss her, what would it be like to sink into her?

To feel her come around me and see her body under mine?

“We need to stop…before I…fuck you right here,” I said against her mouth.

“Yeah…but just… a little more…” Her pelvis gave a little jerk and her mouth popped off mine. “Jacen!”

It was a whisper in my ear, but it shot through me like a shout.

That name was more my real identity than any I’d ever had.

It was untouched by the dark deeds I’d done for the commander; the name belonged to a different man, a cleaner soul.

When I was Jacen, I was the man Daisy deserved, the one who would protect her, give her a good life.

I braced my hands on the wall behind her and put a little space between us. Her hands were still on my shoulders, her mouth kiss bruised and there were red lines faintly on her beautiful brown skin from my scruff.