Opal

Whenever I thought about it throughout the day, my skin crawled. I’d thought it had either been Daemon all of those times or a dream, but I should’ve known. Not once did I feel the warmth that our co

I should’ve known that Blake was a bigger freak than I could ever imagine.

On the way home, I swung by the post office. Daemon hopped out of the car and followed me in. Three steps from the door, he caught me around the waist from behind and lifted me up. He spun me around so fast my legs were like little windmills.

A woman and her child came out of the post office, narrowly avoiding being taken out by my legs. She laughed and I was sure it had something to do with the smile I knew Daemon was sporting.

When he placed me on my feet and let go, I swayed unsteadily through the door. He laughed. “You look a little drunk.”

“No thanks to you.”

He dropped an arm over my shoulder, apparently in a playful mood. We stopped at my mom’s PO box and dug out the packages. A few were media mail and the rest a bunch of junk mail.

Daemon snatched the yellow packages from my hands. “Oh! Books! You have books!”

I laughed as several people waiting in line looked over their shoulders. “Hand them over.”

He clutched them to his chest, making moony eyes. “My life is now complete.”

“My life would be complete if I could actually post a review on something other than the school library computers.”

I did that about twice a week since my latest laptop went to the big computer heaven in the sky. Daemon always went with me. In his words, he was there to “proof” my posts. In other words, he served as a huge distraction.

Taking the rest of the mail from me, he kissed my cheek. “Wouldn’t that be nice? But I think you’ve exhausted your mom’s allowance for laptops.”

“Neither was my fault.” I’d been hiding my recently destroyed laptop from her. She’d go postal if she found it.

“True.” He held open the door for a little old lady and then let me shimmy past. “But I bet you go to bed every night dreaming and thinking about a shiny new laptop.”

A warm breeze blew a strand of hair across my face as I stopped at my car. “Besides dreaming about you?”

“In between dreaming about me,” he corrected, placing my mail on the backseat. “What’s the first thing you’d do if you got a new laptop?”

Letting him take the keys from me, I went to the passenger side and thought about it. “I don’t know. I’d probably hug it and promise it that I’d never let anything bad happen to it.”

He laughed again, eyes twinkling. “Okay, other than that?”

“Make a vlog thanking the laptop gods for bestowing one upon me.” I sighed then, because that would be the only way I’d get one. “I need to get a job.”

“What you need to do is apply for college.”

“You haven’t,” I pointed out.

He cast me a sidelong glance. “I’ve been waiting on you.”

“Colorado,” I said, and when he nodded, my mom’s horrified expression loomed in my head. “Mom would freak.”

“I think she’d be happy with the fact that you’re going to college.”

He had a point, but the whole college thing seemed up in the air at this point. I had no idea what next week would hold for us, let alone a few months down the road. But I had good grades and I had looked into scholarships for next year’s spring enrollment.

In Colorado

and I knew Daemon had seen the pamphlet from the university. The prospect of going away to college with Daemon like normal teenagers was appealing. The problem was that getting my hopes up and not being able to do something like that would suck too much.

My house was silent and a little warm. I opened a window in the living room while Daemon helped himself to a glass of milk. When I walked into the kitchen, he was ru

I bit back a sigh. Milk did a body good.

His smile was just as wicked. Putting the glass on the counter, he moved so fast I didn’t see him until he was standing in front of me, taking my cheeks in his hands. I loved that he was able to be real around me. I used to think the freaky alien speed thing was to a

But then he kissed me, and he tasted of milk and something richer, lush and smooth. I didn’t realize he was guiding me backward and that we were at the bottom of the stairs until he lifted me up without breaking the kiss.

I thought the whole thing with Blake would ruin this afternoon, but I had underestimated the magnetism of Daemon and his kisses. I wrapped my legs around his waist, reveling in the feel of his muscles under my hands.

He didn’t stop at the top of the stairs but kept going and kissing and my heart was pounding. Turning, he gently kicked my door open and then my heart was doing the skipping thing, because we were in my bedroom and there was no one around to interrupt us. Nervous excitement enveloped me.

Daemon lifted his head. A lopsided grin appeared on his lips and I slid down, breathing fast. I watched in a daze as he moved back and sat on the edge of my bed, his fingers slowly letting go of mine, trailing across my palm. I felt the tingles all the way up my arm.

Then he looked at my desk.

My gaze followed his and I blinked, thinking a mirage had appeared in my bedroom, because I couldn’t be seeing what I was.

Resting on my desk was a MacBook Air in a cherry red sleeve.

“I

” I didn’t know what to say. My brain emptied. Were we in the right house? I took in the familiar surroundings and decided that we were.

I took a step toward the desk and stopped. “Is that for me?”

A slow, beautiful smile crept across his face, filling his eyes. “Well, it is on your desk, so

”

My heart stuttered. “But I don’t understand.”

“See, there’s this place called an Apple Store and I went there, picked one out. They didn’t have any stock.” He paused as if to make sure I was following him, and all I could do was stare. “So I ordered one. Meanwhile, I ordered a sleeve. I did take some liberties, since I prefer red.”

“But why?”

He laughed softly. “Man, I wish you could see your face.”

I clasped my hands over my cheeks. “Why?”

“You didn’t have one and I know how much blogging and that stuff means to you. Using the school computer isn’t doing it for you.” He shrugged. “And we really didn’t do the Valentine’s thing. So

here we are.”

It hit me then that he’d been pla

“This morning, after you left for school.”

I took a deep breath. I was about five seconds from full fangirl mode. “And you got this for me? A MacBook Air? Those things cost a lot of money.”

“Thank the taxpayers. Their money funds the DOD who then turns over the money to us.” He laughed at my expression. “And I save money. I have a small fortune stashed.”

“Daemon, it’s too much.”

“It’s yours.”

My gaze was drawn back to the Mac like it was my own personal mecca. How many times since I could spell laptop had I dreamt of a MacBook?

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “I can’t believe you did this.”

He shrugged again. “You deserve it.”

Something deep inside me snapped. I tackled Daemon, and he laughed, sweeping his arms around my waist. “Thank you. Thank you,” I said over and over again, in between raining quick kisses all over his face.

He tipped his head back on the comforter, laughing. “Wow. You’re pretty strong when you’re excited.”

I sat up, gri

Smugness filled his expression. “You had no idea, did you?”