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Gursda stormed into the bar's tiny locker room, cursing fluently in Tholothian.
"What's up?" asked the only other occupant, a short human woman unbuckling the high heels they had to wear throughout their shifts.
"Kriffing Cligus," she growled. "I told him I need to leave on time. I've told him and told him, and what does he do?" She waved a master keycard in the air. " Go make sure all the rooms are cleared, Gursda." She spat. "I'm already late!"
"Doesn't he do that himself?"
"Usually, yeah, but he's got somewhere important to be." She turned back and spat again, this time at the door that led to the boss's office. "My kid is important, karkface!"
"I can do it," the other woman said.
She blinked at her. "Oh, Tanith, would you?"
"Yeah. No problem. Just have to make sure they're all empty, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. The cleaning droids will come through in the morning, so you don't have to do anything about a mess really unless there's, like, a body. But that's not something that happens often," she added quickly. "Some of the guys can be real shitheads though, especially the officers - "
Tanith shrugged. "I can handle some poncy officer."
Gursda hesitated. Tanith was new, she hadn't seen what those rooms could be like. But the thought of Lurnima waiting for her, and the extra charge that the childcare facility ladled on for every minute she was late picking him up, had her handing over the keycard.
Anyway, officers were always worse to non-humans. Everyone knew that. And Tanith wasn't just human, she had that fancy Core accent, too, the one all the ambitious Imperials tried to imitate.
Plus, mostly the rooms were all clear and all you had to do was stick your head in to make double sure. She'd be fine.
Gursda grabbed her jacket from her locker, tossing it on over the skimpy, strappy top and short skirt that the boss made them wear on the clock. "I owe you big," she yelled over her shoulder, already dashing out the door to catch the airbus. "Really! So big!"
The door slapped shut behind Gursda, and Jyn finished changing out her stupid high heels for her sturdy, solid boots. She dug in her bag for a few things she needed, stuffing them in her top. It wasn't like she had pockets anywhere else in this getup.
Still, she wasn't about to wear the fuckin' heels to sneak around the Piece of Tail.
This was a stroke of luck, getting this task and with it, plausible deniability for being here after hours. She'd been thinking she was going to have to double back some night to break into the office.
She hesitated, glancing between the office door and the one that led out to the hallway, then grunted and headed for the latter.
Might as well check the rooms first. She'd told Gursda she would. And it'd be to her benefit to make sure the premises were clear before she started breaking into locked offices.
Cligus had footage, she just knew it. That kind of skeeze always did, especially with those back rooms.
They were an extra money-maker for him, and got rented out by the hour while the bar was open, usually by sex workers or dealers. Each had a panel above the door, showing either green for empty or red for occupied, with a flashing red for when it went over time. All the doors stood open and their panels shone green -
Except the one at the far end of the hall.
She frowned up at the flashing red panel, then at the firmly closed door.
Room 6 was supposed to be out of order.
According to the panel, it was a good fifteen minutes over time. She pressed the master key to the lock at the side of the door, and it swished open.
It looked like every other room had - bed with thin, cheap sheets, a booth off to one side for people to sit. For a moment she thought the room was empty. Maybe this was why it was marked out of order, the panel was malfunctioning.
But the top sheet was straggled half-off the bed, stretching across the floor. She followed its trail and discovered a human man pressed back in the corner parallel to the door, the end of the sheet next to his hip, legs drawn up, forehead resting on his knees.
An olive-colored jacket was crumpled on the floor next to him, and his trousers were olive, too. Her lip curled. Fucking Imperial officer. Now she had to get him out.
“Hey,” she snapped. “Hey, you. Get up. Your time is up.”
He lifted his head, blinking. “Unh?”
His dark eyes were glazed over. Sweat dampened his dark hair and shone on his cheeks. Jyn groaned. Just her luck if he’d overdosed on whatever sweet smelling drug was in the air.
She took another step into the room, and the door slammed behind her. She whirled. “Hey!”
The Imp's eyes snapped wide and he lunged to his feet, then staggered and caught at the wall. “Kark it!”
Jyn slapped the master key card against the panel once, and then again. But the door stayed stubbornly closed.
“What in the fuck -?”
He slumped against the wall and slid back down to sit on the floor again. “Don’t bother," he panted. "It’s locked.”
“This is a master key,” she said, trying again. “Fuck!”
He blinked at her, slow and dozy. "You - work here," he said slowly, staring at the nametag still fastened to her top. Or maybe he was staring at her tits. Stars knew there wasn't much fabric to get in the way.
“Waitress,” she snapped. "That's it. Nothing else."
He shut his eyes and shook his head. “I mean, I mean - izzere any - anyone else? Here? Come looking?”
She eyed him. "Yeah. The bouncer. His name is Bull and he's built like a Star Destroyer and he's very fond of me."
He gave a snort and rested his head back against the wall. "There's no bouncer," he mumbled. "Bouncer'd - bouncer'd be doing this job. Not waitress."
He had some kind of accent she didn't recognize. Certainly not one she'd ever heard from an Imperial before.
He didn't look like he was going to attack her. He didn't look like he could get up off the floor again.
Staying well out of his reach, she sank to a squat and snapped her fingers to get his attention. "Hey. Guy. Look at me. Look."
His lids lifted again. His pupils were blown out. He was higher than the moon.
"What did you take?" If this guy died on her and she had to sit around with a dead body all night, she was going to be so annoyed.
"Dunno," he muttered. He licked his lips, leaving them gleaming in the crisply groomed beard and mustache that framed his mouth. "Don't know what, don't know how."
"Great. Helpful."
"S'posed to meet someone,” he said. “But door. Th'door locked b'hind me. And there's something - dosed me with something. They must have.” He scowled. "Don't know how."
"When was that?”
“Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Don'know.” He wiped sweat off his forehead.
Just before the time was up on this room. Weird.
"You get a key card?" she asked.
He blinked, twice. Then fumbled in his pocket, producing the flat plastic card. It was one of the ones the bar issued for these rooms. So someone had gotten in this room the usual way, even though it had supposedly been out of order all night.
This whole thing was fishier than a Mon Cala buffet.
"Right." She pointed at him. "I'm going to work on getting us out of here. Unless you can sober up in the next twenty seconds, you stay out of my way."
He stared at her for a moment, those blown pupils and wet mouth - why was she looking at his mouth? - then nodded.
She dug around in her top for her favorite lock-cracker. Even if the two cards didn't work, it would give her program a leg up on the code it needed. She swiped them one after the other, then paused to check the code from the master key.
Which - was not a master key. It was just a regular one. And it was one digit off the keycard the officer had given her. The way the codes worked, the panel would flip a single digit on the code when time was up, so people could get out but not back in. This was the card that they would have given the next person to rent this room, after this officer. Or whoever had asked to meet him here.
She took that in. Cligus had meant to trap her - or rather, Gursda - in a room with a drugged-up man. For what purpose?
Her lips tightened. Time enough to figure it out later. For the moment, she needed to spoof a code that would get her out of here, and the officer too, if he could get his stoned arse up off the floor.
Fuck, it was hot in here. The air was blowing out the vent, she could hear it whooshing, but it didn't seem to be doing a damn thing. She licked sweat off her top lip and shifted her weight.
A strange sound caught her attention, and she looked over to see her fellow prisoner, still seated on the floor, his trousers unzipped and pushed partway down. Was - was he -
"Are you jerking off?" she demanded.
"I'm sorry," he grunted, spitting into his hand and applying it to his cock again. "Only thing - that helps."
She should be absolutely repelled. The last time a stranger had pulled out his cock and started yanking it in front of her, licking his lips, she'd broken his knee and left him screaming on the subway platform.
But this time -
The Imperial had his eyes shut, not staring at her, not taking in the effect of his exhibitionism. His shoulder curved in, as if he was awkwardly trying to turn his back.
She should do the same, she knew. She should spin around and stare fixedly in the other direction, not goggle at his hand, pumping frantically at his red and swollen cock, the bitten off gasps and raw panting -
She was wet. Fuck, was she wet. And heat simmered under her skin and her breath was coming fast - she wanted to walk over there and add her mouth to his hands, or yank up her skirt and slide down on that thick cock -
The hell?
Just as his head pressed back into the wall, and he let out a strangled groan, and cum spattered over his uniform shirt and his hands and his thighs -
She knew what was going on.
“It’s Fucked Up,” she told him when he opened his eyes again.
“Yes, it is,” he agreed, ducking his head and grabbing for the sheet that lay by himself. Wiping himself clean, he stuffed his still half-hard cock back into his pants. He already sounded more alert. “But I don’t know what - "
“No, the drug. It’s called Fucked Up. Makes you high and horny. Sound familiar?“
His eyes lost the last of their glaze and focused as he clambered to his feet. “What else is it called?"
"No idea. Never heard it called anything else. It's mostly brothels that use it, for obvious reasons." She eyed him. His voice, with its unfamiliar accent, had suddenly zoomed all the way to the Core, consonants crisp and bitten off.
"New in this sector?”
She couldn't say for sure. She hadn't been here that long herself. But it had been talked about as the newest thing when she arrived. “A little more than a month,” she said. "It looks like incense, sticks or cones - "
He was shaking his head. "I didn't see anything in here. Maybe they let it fill the room before I arrived?"
"It would have dissipated by now," she said. "Especially with that - air vent - "
Their eyes met. Then they both looked at the vent set in the wall, energetically blowing out sweet-scented air.
He picked up the sheet and tugged until he ripped a long strip off. Tying it over his mouth and nose, he went to the vent and tried to reach up, but it was just a little too high.
The bed was set into the wall, and the booth as well as its bench seats were likewise fastened. Nothing he could pull over to stand on.
He must have come to the same conclusion, because he stepped back, looking at the height of the vent, and then over at her. "Get up on my shoulders."
"You've got to be joking."
He was already tearing a new strip off the sheet. "You have a better idea? Because I think the other way around wouldn't work."
"I'm tougher than I look," she muttered.
"I don't doubt that," he said, handing her the improvised air mask. "And if you're worried about your skirt hiking up, I won't be able to see anything in that position."
That wasn't exactly it. She was more thinking of his soft-looking hair tickling her naked thighs, her underwear the only separation between him and her heated pussy.
But as it happened, she didn't have any better ideas.
"Fine," she snapped, wrapping the strip around her nose and mouth and tying it behind her head. "Let's get this over with."
He crouched, and she managed to climb up on his shoulders. She was very aware of her skirt hiking up around her hips, and the way her crotch was pressed into the back of his neck. The pressure wasn't doing her state of arousal any favors.
Fuck in a handbasket, she hoped he couldn't feel how wet she was.
"Steady?" he said.
"As I'll ever be," she said dourly.
Hands clamped on her shins to anchor her, he straightened up.
This high, she could see straight into the vent. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, there's some kind of incense cone, there behind the grate. Not burnt down much. They must have just lit it before you got here."
"Any way to close the vent?"
"The lever's broken off." She squinted into the darkness and frowned thoughtfully, then lifted her foot, reaching down.
He recoiled, nearly throwing her off balance, and she grabbed his head. "Hey! I'm trying to get something out of my shoe!"
"Oh," he said. "I thought - never mind. Which one?"
She didn't dare try again. "Left. Inside."
His left hand closed around her calf and the fingers of his right hand dipped into her shoe, tracing the bump of her ankle. She gritted her teeth and struggled not to squirm. She'd never known her ankle to be an erogenous zone, but apparently this was a night for new sensations.
He pulled out the little roll, hummed in surprise, and passed it up to her. "Smart," he said.
"Gotten me out of a few fixes, anyway." She extracted one of her lock picks from the roll, tucked the rest into her top, and got to work levering the pick into the vent, trying to catch the broken-off end that she could see.
His thumb moved over her calf, soft sweeps that sent shimmers of sensation up her legs.
"Would you stop," she hissed, trying to angle her pick up under the stub of the broken-off lever.
His thumb paused. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't realize."
The cone was still burning, sending out curls of sweet, cloying smoke. Even through the improvised air mask, she could smell it, and she tried to hold her breath. She'd seen its effect on - whoever he was. This close up, its effects would be more powerful.
"Hey," she said as she worked. "What's your name?"
"What?"
"Your name. I've seen you come, I think I should know your name."
"Willix," he said. "Lieutenant Castor Willix."
Right. He was an Imperial. She'd do well to remember that. "Tanith," she said. "Ha!" The stub had moved, just a bit. She gritted her teeth and pushed hard.
The vent screeched shut, and in the same moment, the strip of sheet around her face came undone, fluttering down off her face and tumbling to the floor. Caught off guard, she sucked in her breath with shock, getting a huge lungful of smoke.
She doubled over, coughing, and felt herself start to fall to one side.
He did something quick and smooth, catching her just enough so she hit the floor on her ass and not her neck. She folded up, coughing even more.
"You all right?" his voice said.
She wheezed and rested her head against the wall. He smelled so good. Way better than the drug, and his hand was rubbing high up on her back where the top stopped and it was her bare skin and she wanted to fucking attack him -
"Got a faceful," she muttered. "Give me a minute. And for fuck's sake stop touching me."
His hand went still, then retreated very fast.
She breathed in through her nose, trying to think unsexy thoughts. But her brain was fogging over, hot and sweet-scented like the smoke, and her heart was thudding hard between her legs.
"Ah, fuck - " She squeezed her thighs together hard and pressed down into her hips, trying to find relief from the arousal that screamed in her blood. No wonder he'd been so spacey. Getting off was all she could think about. "Look, I've really got to - "
"Wait," he said. "Wait!"
"Oh, please," she snarled, one hand already between her legs. "You've still got spunk wet on your shirt. Don't get all prim just because - "
"There's a camera."
She froze, her thoughts forcing themselves through the thick, syrupy haze in her head. "I knew it," she muttered. "Where?"
"Above the door, I think."
Which explained why he'd kept to that corner. She scrambled over, hoping he wouldn't try to help or something. "Turn around," she said over her shoulder, and he already had.
It was about the least sexy experience she'd ever had, locked into a rent-by-the-hour room with a stranger, trying to avoid a camera, and with Fucked Up muddling her head. She pressed her fingers into her damp underwear and rubbed hard, trying to get herself off as fast as possible. She shifted, pulling the crotch aside to press her clit directly. But as keyed up as she was, the final threshold eluded her.
She cast about for well-worn fantasies, the ones she delved into in the loneliness of a space bunk or a set of shitty little rooms. None of them worked, because something else kept intruding.
With a groan of defeat, she let herself think of Castor's hand pumping his cock, the cords of his throat straining as he came. She let herself imagine his hands on her breasts, his mouth against her skin, how he would feel inside her.
She came almost unpleasantly hard.
She sagged against the wall, face hot. She really hoped he was right about where the camera was.
"Better?"
She peered under her arm. He was turned away from her, more polite than she had been.
She found a patch of sheet that wasn't torn or stained and wiped her sticky hand, wishing she could wash it. Maybe change her underwear, too. "Sort of. Not sure."
He gave a nod. "Coming helped, but not totally. I went from a ten to a five, say."
She assessed her own state. "Yeah. Five's about right." Five she could handle.
She got to her feet, righting herself with a hard look in his direction. Not that he saw. He was still turned away. "I'm good now," she said.
He turned and held out her lockpick. He'd picked it up off the floor at some point. She tugged the roll out of her top, biting back a gasp as the cloth pulled over her still-tight nipples, and replaced it in her shoe.
"So, are we clear then?" he asked, pointing at the vent. "Now that we're not getting the full effect?"
"It's not totally sealed," she said. "It'll still leak out a bit. So we should get out while we can." She cast around for her lock cracking device and picked it up. It had a list of codes to try. She crouched down by the door, holding it tight to the panel as it worked.
He was looking at the device with interest. "What is that?"
She bared her teeth at him. "Mine."
His gaze lingered on her mouth. He cleared his throat and looked away. “What are the effects of the drug?"
"Obvious, isn't it?"
“I meant like hallucinations," he said. "Respiratory issues. Things like that."
"The fuck am I, a doctor?” she snapped. “All I know is what gets passed around. You get a whiff, and then you fuck like rumsprings."
Her pussy clenched at just the words, and at the thought of this Imperial - an Imperial, she was definitely still high - fucking her deep and good. Stop, she told herself. She'd already gotten off once. She couldn't be ready again.
She slid her gaze sideways for a moment. A thick bulge showed clear in his crotch.
Well.
Impressive recovery time.
Was that the drug or him?
She fixed her gaze on her screen again. "Think about shockball stats or something, would you?"
"Not a fan," he said in a somewhat strained voice. "And you're on your knees in front of me. I'm doing my best here. When can we expect it to wear off?"
"Sorry," she said. "From everything I hear, it stays in your bloodstream for a good hour or two."
He cursed impressively.
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip to stop herself from saying the hell with it and undoing his zipper right there. "How about you tell me why your accent keeps bouncing all over the galaxy?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, his vowels and consonants so precisely Core that they could have cut glass.
She tipped her head back and smirked at him.
A mistake, because his eyes were filled with heat and they were lingering on her mouth again and -
She jerked her head down.
His next words carried the first accent, soft and rough and flicking at some of the consonants in a way that made her squirm. "I came to the Academy from an Outer Rim planet. The brass made it clear my voice wasn't acceptable." He paused, and then his words were Core-crisp again. "So I do my best to sound like you. And what are you doing here so late?"
"I work here," she said, scowling at the screen and tapping in another sequence to try. This was a tougher lock than it had any right to be.
"A waitress with a set of lock picks and a handheld cracker?"
She smirked. "Never know when they'll come in handy." She tapped in another sequence and sat back a little. “You knew about the camera.”
"… yes,” he said cautiously.
“What else do you know? Who's behind this?"
"It's a hazing, I think," he said finally. "From the other officers. I'm new on the base. Just got here last week. I've been expecting this."
"Hazing," she said with vicious scorn. "They drug two people and lock them in to fuck themselves raw for some kind of idiotic prank?" Because if they hadn't been able to close that vent, they both would have been getting stronger and stronger doses, the more the incense burned down.
"That's about the size of it. Although, from what I hear, they've never trapped a human woman in here before."
"Well, that makes sense," she said bitterly. Why stop at taking video of your victim mindlessly fucking a human when a non-human was so much worse, to their mind? There was a reason Cligus had given that key to Gursda and not her.
She braced herself for her next question. "Was - was there ever a Ferroan?"
A long pause. The lock cracker beeped a few times.
"Yes," he said. "I happened to see some footage of another officer. It was a Ferroan woman, trapped with him."
"Black hair?" Jyn asked, willing her voice not to shake. "About a head taller than me? Vine tattoos around both her wrists?"
"Yes."
She listened to the silence after that single word.
"She's dead, isn't she."
"I'm sorry. The officer was - he was known to be particularly - xenophobic."
She got to her feet, staring up at him. "What's his name?"
"He's gone," Castor said. "He got rushed off-planet to another base, everything hushed up."
She hadn't needed him to tell her that. Not the way Cligus's story about Kelndira had changed three times at least, and he'd finally snarled at her to quit asking. "Which planet? What base?"
"I don't know."
"His name then."
He studied her with a lot less anger than she would have expected, from an Imperial being pressured to give up the name of a brother officer, even one who'd murdered someone in cold blood. His expression was much more calculating. She would have given a lot to know what his calculations were producing.
"Hwalltun," he said finally. "Lieutenant Tarbish Hwalltun."
She nodded. That was a start. She could do a lot with a name. And when she found him, she could do a lot more. "And the person behind all this? The one sniggering to himself as he watches the footage? Who's that?"
"I don't know yet. But I've got more information now, so I will soon."
"And what happens when you find him? Boys will be boys? Slap on the wrist?"
His eyes burned at her. "He'll regret the day his grandparents met."
To her own surprise, she found that she believed him. "He'd better."
"He will."
The lock cracker, which had been beeping steadily, suddenly chirped and the door hissed open.
Jyn blinked, but Castor was quicker off the mark. Grabbing his jacket, he caught her hand and hauled her out the open door. She was just quick enough to snatch her lock cracker off the panel.
The door slammed behind them. They weren't getting back in. Not that she wanted to.
"All closed up?" he asked, looking at the hallway.
"I was the last," she confirmed. "We can get out the staff entrance.”
She led the way to the locker room, pausing only long enough to yank open her locker and scoop everything out. Not that she had much, but the only way she was coming back here was with several grenades.
For a moment she worried that the back door was going to lock them in, but it popped open easily, letting them out into the alley behind the Piece of Tail. A single anemic light shone down from above the doorway over them. It was all shockingly normal.
Her pussy ached with lust. It was going to be a long couple of hours.
"Okay," she said, looking up at Castor as he double-checked the door. "Well. It's been interesting, I'll say - "
"Shh." He held up a hand, listening. After a moment, she heard it too, the familiar tramp-tramp-tramp of stormtrooper boots, and then the pause at the front door. "Open up! Open up in there!"
He grabbed her and pulled her back into the shadows. She struggled for a moment, and he shushed her again.
His arm was looped around her waist, not so tightly that she couldn't get free. And he was still hard, the hot ridge of his cock pressing into her ass. She squeezed her thighs together so she wouldn't grind back into his erection.
He bent his mouth to her ear, so low that she didn't hear the words so much as they hummed over her nerve endings. "Do you really want to finish up your night talking to the local garrison?"
It was his voice, his real voice. Either he didn't want to bother putting on his fake one or the Fucked Up was messing with his head again.
He was warm and solid behind her, and his thumb stroked lightly over her ribs through her stupid shirt, making her nipples tighter and tighter with each pass. If either of them moved wrong, she was going to come, and she wasn't sure she could be quiet about it.
She breathed in through her nose and tried to clear her head. Stormtroopers, stormtroopers. They'd break in and check the bar, then when they found it empty, they'd break back out through the staff entrance and find them. And there would be troopers posted at the front of the alley, and if they had any brains at all, at the other end.
But she wasn't the Lion's Cub for nothing, and she'd known all her escape routes since the day she got to this rotten fucking planet.
She arched back to get her mouth as close to his ear as possible, and tried not to reflect that it was the same position as if he were fucking her from behind and she twisted back to kiss him. "Another exit to the alley. That way."
His eyes glinted in the low light, and his arm loosened.
She took his hand and edged along the wall until she found the fake portion. One brick pushed until it clicked, and then they were both ducking into the dark passageway.
"Isn't that your lot?" she asked when they were a safe two streets away. "Why didn't you pop out and yell, 'hello, lads, you'll never believe what happened to me!'?"
"If I'm right about who's behind the hazing," he said, "the squadron is either part of the joke or he's been watching the video footage. Either way, I don't think it would end well for me."
"Hmmm," she said. "High connections to haul up a squad whenever he likes, but still fucking dumb enough to pull shit like this. Commander's son? Grandson? Close personal friend's kid?"
He didn't answer. The look he gave her said he was going to handle it.
Well, fine. She had a name to follow, and taking the hollowed-out skull of their daughter's killer back to Kelndira's clan would do Jyn a lot more good than going after the commander's idiot connection.
"This way," she said, taking a hard right turn onto a set of rickety metal steps that shook and shivered under them. At the top, she let them into a poorly lit hallway with a row of identical doors and guided him to the second-last door on the right.
He looked around the tiny room behind the door. A 'fresher with a sonic shower behind a screen, a patch of counter with a hot plate and a sink, a half-size chiller box, and a narrow bed under the one grimy window. "Where are we?"
"My place," she said.
She'd come in first, leaving him closer to the door when it shut. It wasn't locked, or at least, it wasn't locked from this side. He could leave anytime he wanted.
He didn't move. "How long did you say it lasted?"
"An hour," she said, setting her lock cracker on the kitchen counter, prying her feet out of her boots and kicking them aside to rest under the chiller box. "Maybe two."
"Mmm," he said, which could have been acknowledgement or it could have been a reaction to her walking up to him and stopping a bare centimeter away from plastering herself to his body.
He smelled delicious. She wanted to lick his neck, tasting salt and making him moan.
"Heard something else about Fucked Up," she murmured. "Not sure how true it is."
His hands drifted up and settled against her ribs, thumbs swiping the undersides of her breasts. "What's that?"
She leaned into him, pressing her breasts to his chest. Grasping his strong shoulders, she arched up and scraped her teeth along his earlobe, and he moaned. His hands dropped to her hips and pulled her closer. The thick ridge of his erection pressed into her belly.
"I heard," she breathed in his ear, "that if you fuck someone else, it clears out more quickly. Especially someone else who got dosed. Something about fluids being exchanged."
His knee pressed between her thighs, and she rolled her hips into his leg. The pressure, and the weight of his hands, and the smell of him, brought her to the edge.
"That - " His rough voice sputtered out completely, and he had to clear his throat. "That sounds about right."
She tipped her head back and grabbed his collar, tightening her fingers until he opened his eyes and looked at her. His pupils were completely blown, brown almost swallowed up in black.
"Here's the thing," she growled. "I don't like Imperials."
"Neither do I," he said.
She didn't pause to consider the strangeness of that statement, coming from an Imperial officer. "But if you take off that uniform, I'll fuck you until our systems are both clear of this shit."
His jacket hit the floor.
His mouth slammed into hers, and she kissed him back hard enough to draw blood, bright and metallic on her tongue. His hands pushed up under her shirt and found her breasts. The roughness of his palms dragging over her nipples sent zings of sensation straight between her legs.
She knotted her hand in his hair, and it was as soft between her fingers as it had been between her thighs. She wondered for a moment if she could feel it there again and dismissed the thought, because right this second, she was aching for his cock.
She fumbled with his belt, squeezing the thickness of his hard-on behind his zipper. He made a strangled sound and shoved her hands aside so he could undo it himself. Biting her lip, anticipation bubbling in her blood, she reached up under her skirt and pulled her underwear down her legs, kicking it off.
He grabbed her skirt, shoved it up her waist, and hoisted her up against the wall, thrusting deep inside her.
She arched with a strangled yelp. He took her mouth in an open-mouthed, heated kiss, and she kissed him back, grinding on his cock.
"Okay?" he muttered.
"Please," she moaned, locking her legs around his hips, and he thrust again.
Her fingers dug into his shirt as he fucked her like she'd imagined it, back in that sleazy little room. Deep and brutal, his mouth rough on her neck, whispering filth in her ear - so good, so hot, so slick, fuck, I'm going to come in you so hard -
His hands holding her up, his cock thick inside her, the drug sizzling in all her nerve ends -
She might have screamed as she came.
She came to herself panting, his breath hot on her throat. Aftershocks shuddered up her internal walls and she squeezed him again. He moaned.
"Did you - " she said, unsure. She'd been a little distracted.
"Yeah," he grunted. "You want down?"
"Uh-huh."
He pulled out of her, and she shuddered again.
"You okay?" he murmured, rubbing his thumb over what felt like a patch of beard-burn on her throat.
She twisted her head away, using her shoulder to shove off his hand. He dropped it to his side.
He still had his shirt on. They both did. And his trousers puddled around his ankles. She pointed at them. "Thought I told you to get those off."
He shrugged, his eyes still too keen. "Distracted."
He kicked off his shiny Imperial shoes, stepped out of his wrinkled Imperial trousers, and peeled off his fine Imperial shirt, leaving him unselfconsciously naked. His body was as excellent as it had seemed under the clothes.
She took her shirt off, getting briefly tangled in all the dumb little straps. She yanked hard, snapping them, and dropped it on top of her underwear. Then she shoved her stupid skirt down, stepping out of it.
His eyes lingered on her body, although he'd already had it. "You mind if I get a drink?" he asked.
"Cups in the cupboard," she said absently, kicking the whole pile of her shitty uniform into the corner. Then something occurred to her and she whipped around. "Wait!"
He paused in the act of filling one of the cheap plastic cups from her cupboard, brows raised.
The water in this part of town wasn't drinkable. Or it was, but you'd regret it. So everyone, including Jyn, invested in double-filtered water pitchers that were kept in the chiller box.
Imperials didn't have to do that. The water in their quarters, on the Imperial base, came already filtered and ionized, pure as vapor.
He hadn't twisted the taps. He'd opened the chiller box for the pitcher.
"Just - " she said. "Get me some too."
He reached up and brought out another cup, filling it and handing it over.
She drank slowly, watching him over the rim. The cold water felt almost better than the sex. Almost.
An Outer Rim boy might know about bad water and filters and taking care with what came out of the corroded pipes. Maybe.
He met her eyes and took another sip from his own cup. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said.
Her heart twisted. "Not a friend," she said brusquely. "Just a business contact."
He didn't ask why she was so ragingly furious about the murder of a mere business contact. "Still. I'm sorry."
She chugged her water, slapped the emptied cup on her counter - it fell over with a clatter - and stretched up to kiss him hard, all teeth and tongue.
She'd had enough talking.
After a split second of surprise, he returned the kiss, pulling her up against himself, skin to skin. "Cranking up again?" he muttered into her neck, stroking his hands down her spine.
"Uh-huh." Which was mostly not a lie.
He picked her up, which normally would have earned him a broken finger at least, but she was invested in kissing him and also in ending the conversation.
It was only a couple of steps before he could settle her on her narrow bed and its rumpled blankets. "I'm not going to be ready to fuck you for a few minutes here," he said, his rough, warm hand running up her front to cup her breast. "But I can get you off anyway."
"Fine by me," she gasped, as his mouth closed over her nipple, and his other hand slid between her legs.
Some twelve hours later, Jyn leaned against the building opposite the Piece of Tail and watched it burn to the ground.
"Well, shit," Gursda said at her side. "Not that it didn't deserve it, but now I have to find another fucking job." She nudged Jyn. "You wanna go around with me this afternoon, Tanith? Maybe somewhere's got two spots."
"I'm headed off planet tonight," Jyn said. "Another job came up. But thanks."
"Wish I could leave," Gursda sighed. "Oh, there's Breikil." She pushed off the wall and headed down the sidewalk, weaving around the lookyloos. "Brei! You see this shit?"
As her erstwhile coworkers exclaimed over the shocking and unforeseen disaster, Jyn felt more than heard someone arrive at her left shoulder.
"Come here often?" he said.
She glanced down the road, catching him out of the corner of her eye. He was just far enough away to be another spectator, gawking at the blaze. Especially with the plain brown shirt and pants he wore.
The last time she'd seen him, he'd been between her legs, eating her out to two orgasms. She'd been keeping a running total at one point, but then she'd fallen asleep, fucked to exhaustion. When she'd woken up to sunlight fighting its way through the window, he'd been gone.
It was really annoying that the best sex of her life had been at the hands, so to speak, of a fucking Imperial. But she'd been drugged, she reminded herself. And so had he.
"I didn't know you lot even owned civilian clothing," she said.
"I find it useful. Makes it easier to keep my ear to the ground."
"You seem to hear a lot that way."
He shrugged.
"You're not ISB, are you?" Please let her not have gotten fucked through her mattress by a filthy ISB agent.
He gave a soft snort. "No. I'm not ISB."
"See, that's just what ISB would say."
"It's more . . . profitable to keep information to myself until I need it."
A blackmailer. Well. That she could understand. "A man after my own wallet."
He frowned as he looked at the blaze.
"Were you hoping to get some information in there today?" she asked.
"It crossed my mind."
She fished in her pocket and pulled out a data card, holding it loosely cupped in her hand.
"What's that?" he asked.
"A copy of Cligus's files," she said. "Including a lot of video. Fresh from his office system." She glanced at the blackened and twisted staff entrance in the alley. "He won't be needing them anymore."
"What's your price?" he said.
"What are you offering?"
He held up a folded piece of flimsi. "The not-so-good lieutenant Hwalltun's new posting. System, planet, and base. Plus a general schedule."
"Well," she said. "That's a fair trade."
They performed it, fingers brushing, and she tried not to think of those fingers playing with her nipples, working her clit, thrusting up inside her. Must still be traces of the drug in her system.
"So you're leaving?" he asked.
"Heard that, did you?"
"We've established I hear a lot of things."
"Yeah, I'm leaving. You got that commander's cousin's nephew's neighbor pinned down yet?"
He smiled a little. "Almost." He put his hand, and the data card, in his pocket. "This will help."
She nodded and tucked the flimsi into her jacket. "Pleasure doing business with you."
As she turned and walked away, she almost regretted that she'd never see him again. Almost.
FINIS