FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

C H A P T E R F O R T Y-F I V E

"No, no!" Athena snatched his hand that grasped the case and plucked out her own toothpick with her other, teetering the thin slice of wood between her fingers with a smirk and her nose scrunched. "Thanks."

"I have been paying attention, Athena." Crosshair's eyes locked with her dark orbs as he slowly closed the case and slipped it into his belt pocket. When his stare became too intense, she retreated her view to the wall on the left. After twisting the pick with her tongue, she sighed, "I know." She paused, contemplating if she should continue. The soldier noticed and questioned her, gaining her attention once again. When she gazed into those intense, toasted-amber eyes, she bit the corner of her bottom lip and, hesitantly, reached out and gripped his left armored forearm.

"Crosshair, what are we going to do?"

"We?" The ex-squad member of Clone Force 99 instinctively wanted to retort her assumption there was a them...when simultaneously it dawned on him that Athena Quinn was all he had left as an ally in this vast, Imperial-ruled galaxy. "We," He removed the thin piece of wood and rolled it between the fingers on his right hand, deep in thought, before flicking it away. He had lost the taste for it just as quickly as when the urge had arrived. The same hand closed over hers that gripped his arm. "are going to continue to do what needs to be done. We will survive, because we are soldiers."

"I'm a soldier now?" Athena gasped with a light sense of sarcasm. She rolled her eyes at what she thought was a dry quip the elite clone was teasing her with. "Promoting me from a ruthless bounty hunter, huh?"

"I think," Crosshair said in the most forthright tone he could muster. "you've always been a soldier. After all, just like me, you were created to be one."

Stupefied by his words, Athena's cheeks burned. Her heartrate accelerated recklessly. The longer her gaze remained locked with those intense toasted-amber eyes, the sharper the chills rippled down her spine and arms. That strange sensation she had experienced only blips of twice before in Crosshair's presence was stirring into what felt like a dormant volcano accumlating pressure and would erupt with the slightest abnormality...

"Crosshair, I..." As her words cut themselves short, the toothpick dipped down over her bottom lip, cascading and lightly saltating on the steel floor. With no warning, her body reacted all on its own. When she sprung forward already on her tips of her boots, her entire torso crashed into the Crosshair's armor; her untamed strength caused the soldier to stumble and his shoulder blades knocked into the wall behind him. Athena's open palms jumped up and forcefully cupped his stubbled jawline. Her radient eyes squeezed shut the moment her crimson-red lips clashed into his pale, thin ones. She inhaled when they connected, and Crosshair's pungent scent of mud, forest grass, and dry sweat consumed her other senses.

Crosshair froze. Yet, he did not retract nor push Athena away. When she deepened their kiss, he submitted to her hips driving forward, trapping his torso against the wall. His mind grew clouded and his own eyes sealed shut in attempt to focus on the woman's initiation. His right hand clasped above her protruding hipbone while his left reached up and pressed behind her shoulder blade. The once-off-white chemise she wore was sickly damp from her natural perspiration, river water, and muck under his bare touch, but if given more time into the moment, he would've clutched the soiled fabric to ensure the bounty hunter would not escape.

An instant later, however, Athena severed their embrace, conscientiously inching herself down until she was flat on her feet. She grew uncharacteristically timid to make any eye contact with the soldier. Her palms detached from Crosshair's face and hovered between their intimate proximity; her fingers tingled from the prickly sensation of his skin. "Uh—Um," She cleared her shaky voice. "I don't know what came over me just then." She nervously chuckled as she retucked oily strands of hair behind her ears.