“It’ll be over in a minute,” he said and gently squeezed my fingers.

“Oh right, how much do I owe you?”

“A kiss.” He smiled, cheekily.

“Wow, no wonder this café is popular!” I quipped, but my pink cheeks gave away how surprised and nervous I felt. “Now, what kind of kiss?” I stalled for time, it seemed ridiculous that I felt so worried about a little lip-to-lip action when he’d seen me fingering myself to orgasm. Somehow though, a kiss seemed far more intimate.

“A slow, sweet, gentle kiss,” he whispered against my ear.

“Oh, well, yes, that seems reasonable.” I turned to look at him and found his face turned to me. His soft lips were less than an inch from mine. I took a deep calming breath then pushed my head forward just as much as it took to press my smile against his.

His lips gave sensually, and sparks of passion flew around my body. My lips heated to the point that, like fingers grabbing something hot, I had to move them, to give myself relief.

I palpitated my lips against his and his moved in rhythm with them. His hand tightened around mine and his tongue touched the back of my bottom lip, making me open wider to accept more.

A loud but polite cough pulled us apart. I bit my lip and looked down as Tim moved his hand from mine to take hold of the plates and teacups.

“Enjoy your breakfast.” The middle aged lady smiled warmly and I muttered a “thank you.” I did not look up from the plate in front of me.

“You have the most wonderful lips,” Tim whispered then took a sip from his mug, “Two sets of wonderful lips, in fact. I can’t wait to kiss the others.”

I looked up at him, my eyes wide with shock. I couldn’t believe he was talking like that in this place, in public. “Er, um, thanks.” I managed to stutter then I sunk my teeth into the toasted sandwich in front of me. “Nice bacon.” I nodded my head then took another bite.

I’m not a person who can handle silences, and as Tim shovelled up forkfuls of his full English breakfast, I found myself more and more desperate for conversation.

“So, do you enjoy bus driving, then?” I asked. It wasn’t a great question, but it was all I could think of. “It’s all right for now,” he replied then fixed his dark gaze on me once more. “It’s paying my way through college anyway.”

“You’re at college?” He looked relatively young, but he didn’t look to be around eighteen like me.

“I’m one of those mature students,” he smiled, “at the grand age of twenty-three.”

“Oh, right. What are you studying?”

“Law,” he replied. “I wanted to do it after my a-levels but, well, circumstances meant I couldn’t.” His eyes grew dull and a frown slipped down onto his lips. I wondered what had saddened him.

“Wow, you must be busy, then.”

“Yeah, it’s all work and very little play right now, but it’ll be worth it in the end. You’re at uni too, right?”

“Yeah. Is it that obvious?”

“Well kinda, and I’ve seen you around campus before.”

“Really?” Now there was a revelation. I was pretty sure I’d never seen him there.

“Yeah, once or twice. You’re doing English, right?”

“That’s right.” I nodded.

“I have to walk past the English halls to get to class. I’ve seen you through the lecture room window—you always sit at the front near the door.”

“I do.” I chuckled. “I’m a bit claustrophobic. I like to be close to the door.”

“And that works well for me,” he replied.

I blushed and continued, “but why haven’t I ever seen you?”

“Probably because I’m always late for lectures. I’m a full time student and a full time driver. It can get more than a little hectic at times.”

“So, you recognised me when I got on your bus?”

“Yes, it was a dream come true for me. I’d been lusting over you for weeks.”

I really just couldn’t get my mouth to work properly. My jaw just kinda hung loose and then incomprehensible sounds dropped from it.

“Oh, boy,” was the only sensible part sentence amongst the dross. It was hard to grasp the idea that this guy liked me, fancied me even. I could just about find it easy to believe that my intellect, charm and wit could win some guy over but just glancing into a room and seeing me? I’ve never seen myself as that kind of strikingly pretty girl.

I startled at the feel his fingers on my knee. I looked up and he smiled at me, inclining an eyebrow in a wickedly cheeky way. I returned the smile and giggled nervously then reached down for the last half of my crisp bacon sandwich. As I took a delicate bite, my teeth slipping through the soft white bread and piercing the crackly bacon in between, the fingers on my knee burrowed beneath the edge of my skirt. I paused mid-bite then continued to munch as the fingers crawled up my thigh. I put the butty back on the plate and chewed slowly. My stomach was tied up in knots and my throat was tight. I didn’t know how I’d swallow and digest with all this nervous arousal streaming up my thigh, into my wet pussy and throughout the rest of me. The hand cupped my upper thigh. The fingertips just brushed gently against the small strip of damp material between my slightly parted legs.

“Open wide,” he whispered in my ear then kissed my cheek. Miraculously, I found myself obeying. His hard fingertips stroked up and down the material between my thighs, contacted my plump lips and tingled over my sensitive clit. I bit my lip just before I let out a moan of pleasure. It was not exactly busy in the café, but still, I needed to keep quiet.

“You’re so wet, oh yeah,” he groaned quietly and pushed a fingertip between my folds, pushing the soft cotton of my knickers a little way inside of me. “Don’t you think that sex in public is a turn on?” he whispered conspiratorially in my ear. “It gets me extra hot to think we might get caught or someone might get off from watching us.”

“I don’t know, Tim,” I gasped as his finger pressed deeper, “I don’t know if we should be doing this here.”

“Tell me you don’t like it,” he said as he pulled his finger back, leaving the material wedged inside of me. “You can’t can you? I can feel how turned on you are.”

Jerico didn’t want to go to Sanctum. He didn’t want to become no more than an unpaid overworked laborer, a servant of the state, toiling for the betterment of the poor and downtrodden, the huddled unwashed masses. But the alternative undoubtedly involved serving time in one of the federally mandated prisons. No one wanted that. Conditions had become so harsh, at least from the stories which had been gleaned from former inmates, that the mere threat of penal incarceration had become an actual deterrent to crime. There were whispers of punishments carried out within the high prison walls that went far beyond any treatment ever mandated by civilized nations, of tortures not seen since the days of the Inquisition. But no proof existed, and the stories were denied as being the tales of criminals. It was better to play safe than sorry. Money did still have its privileges.

“Dru.” He changed tactics, switching to his wheedling voice, the one which usually got him anything he desired from any woman he desired it from, even his sister. When Jerico was little, he couldn’t quite manage to say Jerusha, and his childish lips had run all the syllables into one—Dru he’d called her, and Dru she stayed, especially in moments such as this. “Dru, can’t Micah do something about it? Isn’t that why I pay him all that money, to handle these things?”

“Father pays him all that money, you mean,” she replied without batting an eye or giving an inch, “and he’s doing what he can.” Micah Caulfield was Jerusha’s handsome older husband. A close associate of their father, he was one of the best attorneys working for the government of what was now known as the Alliance of States. Or more precisely for its President, Alistair Boothe. Micah was also the one that pulled Jerico out of the trouble he invariably got himself into. His lifeline, as it were. But this time, Jerico had embroiled himself too far for even Micah to extract him. They threaded their way through the roiling masses of humanity, too focused on their own destinations to pay attention to the brother and sister in their midst. Wherever they were heading, Jerico was pretty sure it wasn’t where he was going. Not very likely, anyway.

It would be so easy to just skip out. To get on another bus, go to another place, and once there to lose himself in the crowds of that new city, become someone else and forget all this bullshit. But there were reasons why that couldn’t be. One was that he’d never supported himself in his entire life, and would be somewhat at a loss to do so. The second reason was that although he was walking side by side with Jerusha, he was more than aware that he had an escort just a few paces behind them. Someone whose sole purpose in being there was to make sure that Jerico James boarded the bus to Sanctum. The third reason was the chip which had been implanted in his left wrist by the court. If he were to go somewhere outside of the help center, he would set off alarms whenever he passed by any of the government sensors. And since no one knew exactly where those were located, just that there were an unknown number of them, the chances of being caught were pretty good.

All in all, Jerico had to admit he was pretty well screwed and without any choice in the matter—apparently he was going to Sanctum.