“What can we do then? Keep flying around space forever and evading the law?” Janet’s eyes widened, already trying to come up with a plan.
“We’re going—”
“We need to hide. Change our identification numbers and our appearances. There’s no way we can remain in commercial space without getting caught. They can trace our network signals, our DNA. Oh my God, you’re built with priceless materials! If they’re willing to destroy you, then Lily and I are nothing to them.” Janet squeezed his hand this time, biting her nails into his skin. “Is it possible to disappear?”
Zeph’s lips curled back into a smile, which spread into a grin, making her even more anxious.
“Why the hell are you smiling?” she asked.
“Because you’re sweet as fucking candy when you’re overwhelmed. I already have a plan.”
She yanked her hand from his and glowered. “Language! When you next find yourself in a situation like this, you try and remain calm.”
“Not my forte, sweetheart, as you already know. I’m impulsive asfuck.”
His mouth crashed down on hers, silencing her, and demanding submission. She arched back, but his hands cupped the back of her head and kept her in place, fingers bunching her hair. Teeth and tongue scraped and pressed against her lips until she parted them to let him enter. She breathed in his heat and pushed against his chest, moving her mouth under his, fighting every thrust of his tongue. He hummed and his vibrations filled her, thrumming every fiber of her body.
Her insides heated and melted, leaving her nothing more than a hungering mass of nerves.
Zeph released her abruptly and she gasped, tearing out of his hold.
Janet sought her sister and found Lily’s back was to them. Bin-one held her high up on its shoulders.
“You can’t do that,” she whispered after a breathless moment. “It’s not fair.”
He leaned on the counter and cocked a brow. “Whoever cared about fairness?”
“Stop. Just stop.” She ran her hands over her face and scrubbed. It really was too hard to look at him sometimes. An idea popped into her head, and she dropped her arms. “We need to lose the ship.”
A smile returned to his lips. “My thoughts exactly.”
“If we lose the ship, and find another, we can hide much more effectively. Everything else is just details, right? They’re looking for this one now, and they found it if that Gunner guy works for your old boss.” The idea held merit but… “Where can we get another ship? And why did he let you go?”
“Well, to answer the last question, Gunner’s perpetually bored. I have a feeling that in letting me go, he’s getting some excitement out of it. As for another ship, I already have that covered.”
“Really?”
She couldn’t imagine where someone would get a ship that Zeph would deem sufficient without waiting months for it to be built. They weren’t like any other tech out there; if they weren’t being used, they were being scrapped for parts.
“There’s a man on Elyria, he owns a series of clubs throughout the metropolis. His name’s Raphael, after the fucking painter, and he may be willing to make a deal. And, Janet, you’re right. Everything else isjustdetails. If you wanted a new identification and look, I can give you that right here, right now. As for tracking us through our signal, I’ve had every string cut to the network but my own since leaving Kepler’s airspace. Everything but that fucking tracker.”
“Can we use the new ship to go back home?”
The smile fell off his face and his eyes went cold. She bit down on her tongue and eyed his hair and skin. Nothing changed. His hands clenched into fists, and the tendons leading from below his neckline to his jaw went taut.
A faint black ripple clouded his green irises.
“Yes. We can use it to go back home,” he said in a low voice.
Janet stilled, wishing she hadn’t brought the subject back up. She wanted his charming, wicked smile to return, and the mischievous spark in his eyes. At some point, and she didn’t know when, that facade of his had become a safety net.
‘I’m not Zeph.’
Why do I keep forgetting that?
Because the tension, the strain, had returned between them. Moments before, he’d been the Cyborg she’d known since the first day he arrived at her family’s settlement. But now…
He is Zeph.
