What Happens at Con

by Cathy Yardley

  He grinned. “Huh. You study Ebola and shit, right?”

  “Infectious diseases. Although right now I’m studying HIV and AIDS,” she said, then huffed. “And it’s not important, because we’re not talking. We’re not having a conversation. We’re not going to get to know each other. This is strictly sex, got it? Tab A, slot B.”

  “Any other slots?” he said with a grin.

  “Mouth, but otherwise, not tonight, bucko,” she muttered. What was it with guys and anal, anyway?

  “Duly noted. Okay, no personal chitchat,” he said. “But Ani…”

  She tilted her head, sighing. “Yeah?”

  He moved closer, and she could feel the heat of him, hypnotizing her. He scooped her up like she was a feather, burying his face in her neck, nibbling at her collarbone. She took in a shuddering breath, feeling herself getting drawn under his spell, again.

  “You said that we’d be done because you’d be too busy,” he murmured against her skin, laying her down on the bed and then covering her with his body. “And you don’t want to tell anybody because you think we don’t get along. But do you really think that you’ll be able to give all this up after one long night?”

  She bit his lip, causing him to jerk, then laugh. “What happens at con stays at con,” she muttered. “Now shut up and fuck me.”

  Chapter 4

  “Fess up. Who got laid on Friday?” Dennis asked, rubbing his hands together.

  Abraham glanced around for Tessa. She was off talking to a designer, not hanging out in the pit with the other guys. “The bet was just dressing up and going to the con, right? Not who would get laid first? I thought we nixed that.”

  Dennis booed, but Fezza nodded. “Yeah. That just felt too frat boy creepy to me.”

  “Wimp,” Dennis said, looking at Abraham for approval. Abraham frowned, and Dennis backed down a bit. “Well, I hooked up. And dayum, that girl was a freak.”

  Before he could launch into a full play-by-play, Jose spoke up. “I didn’t.”

  “Really?” Fezza said. “Chun Li didn’t really go for it, huh?”

  “Her name is Kelly,” Jose said sharply, and Abraham immediately noticed a difference. “And I’m dating her.”

  Abraham stared at him. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the guy was in love. Which made little to no sense. Jose dated women once or twice, and then either dumped them or got dumped. The disastrous combination of his horndog ways, unrealistic standards, and short attention span were legendary. Jose was a walking cautionary tale for online dating.

  But now he looked… calmer, in a way. Which, considering Jose’s usual hyperactivity, was saying something.

  “We went out Friday after the convention, then we spent Saturday together,” he said. “And I’m taking her out to dinner tomorrow night.”

  Dennis started chuckling. “Third date, huh?”

  Jose sighed. “This isn’t about getting laid. She’s different.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be about getting laid?” Dennis asked, sounding baffled.

  “You haven’t known her that long. How is she different?” Fezza added.

  Tessa chose that moment to walk in. “Don’t do that. Don’t say a woman is different than other girls.”

  “Why not?” Abraham said, latching onto the topic change. Besides, he was curious. Ani was unlike any woman he’d ever met, and he couldn’t put his finger on why.

  “It puts her in a competition she never asked for,” she said. “You guys ready to keep working on the engine?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of different,” Jose said. “I was just saying I’m dating a girl.”

  Tessa smiled at him indulgently. “You’re always dating a girl,” she started, then blinked. “Oh. But this time it’s different? Because she’s different?”

  Jose nodded, smiling proudly.

  “Well, congrats!” She gave him a hug. His goofy smile broadened.

  “Pussy-whipped already, am I right?” Dennis said in a low voice to Abraham, shaking his head.

  Abraham sighed. He probably would think that Jose was acting whipped, if he weren’t so damned antsy to see Ani again. If that got out — God, the guys would have a field day.

  He could see why Ani thought they were so different. He’d been offended when she said she was ashamed that they were together, but now he could see how he was embarrassed about his own feelings.

  “You never said if you hooked up, boss,” Dennis said.

  He glanced at Tessa, remembering Ani’s demand. Do not let Tessa know. That was turning out to be good advice, too. Tessa would probably be pissed as hell, and protective. Not that it was her business, but women’s best friends were nothing to mess with.

  “What do you think?” he answered Dennis evasively.

  “Good one,” Dennis said with a dark chuckle. “What was she like? A real freak? Like, public-sex nasty? Because some of those chicks…”

  “What is this, lunch break? Jesus. Get to work, Sullivan,” Abraham said, pointing to Dennis’s cubicle. Dennis was still snickering, then went back to his station.

  What was she like?

  He sighed. Since Saturday morning, when he’d awoken to find that Ani had already left, he’d been crawling out of his skin. He’d admit it — to himself, at least — that the night with Ani had been the best sex of his entire life. He’d heard before that you could get addicted to heroin after one hit. He’d never believed you could get addicted to women, or one woman… but damn if he could get her out of his mind for more than a minute. He hadn’t even been this crazy over Becky, and that was when he’d been a sex-crazed, hormone-driven teenager.

  He should’ve been working, and he was lucky they weren’t under a crunch deadline, because he could barely keep his shit together.

  He found himself wandering over to Tessa’s cubicle. Tessa had been one of their audio coders, a menial job that didn’t take any hardcore programming skills. Being frank, he hadn’t thought she was capable of much more than that when she’d started working at MPG. She had been a hermit, and he’d never seen her in action until the previous December. She’d made friends with the Frost sisters in Snoqualmie and volunteered to build a game to help publicize their store. She’d reached out and asked the rest of his team for help, and then, in working with her, he’d discovered she was way more talented than she’d let on.

  When he got to her cubicle, she was looking a little frazzled. He’d told her she could do the update for one of their properties using her new engine, and she was thrilled. It was a big step forward in her career. Even Fezza and Jose were taking point and helping her on development.

  “How does it feel to be leading a crew and working on your own game?” he asked her, and was rewarded with a beaming smile.

  “It’s great. Crazy,” she admitted. “And there’s still a lot to do and we’re not even in the deadline crunch yet.”

  “You’ll make it,” he said, without a trace of doubt in his voice. Then he grinned at her. “Or else I’ll kick your ass.”

  She chuckled, as he’d hoped, shaking her head. She’d never been intimidated by him. She’d been way too shy and introverted, but she’d never been cowed. He liked that about her.

  Ani’s not intimidated by you, either, he thought. She had confidence. Hell — she was downright regal.

  Was it any wonder she was ashamed of being associated with him?

  He frowned, surprised by his thoughts, so he barely heard Tessa say, “I do need to leave early today, though.”

  He shook his head, clearing out his mental cobwebs. “What was that?”

  She thought he was irritated, so she sighed. “I can come back later and make up the time. I was planning on staying late, so it isn’t a big deal.”

  That surprised him. “How late were you planning on staying, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. There’s so much to do, and I really just want to make more progress…” She had a stubborn tilt to her chin, he noticed.

  He sighed. “Where do
you have to go?”

  The tilt inched up farther. “Does it matter?”

  He felt his eyebrow go up at that one. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No!” she huffed. “Not that it’s your business, but I’m taking some food to my friend, okay? Ani.” Tessa blushed. “Um… you ran into her the other weekend, at our house. And I’ve talked about her a lot.”

  He felt his chest clench. “Is she sick?” God, let her be all right…

  “Dude, nobody’s sick,” Tess said, rolling her eyes. “Well, except her original thesis adviser. Her new adviser is having her do an all-night experiment, where she has to check on something every hour or something. She’s afraid of missing a check-in.”

  “Sounds important,” he said, feeling stupid.

  “Sounds like the guy is trying to set her up to fail to me,” Tessa said, and Abraham felt a burst of anger blast through him. “Anyway, I was going to grab some takeout and run it over to the college, in Maple Valley. Shouldn’t take me too long.”

  Taking food to Ani? Taking care of Ani?

  He felt an idea hit him.

  “If you leave now, you’re gonna break your flow,” he said, fighting to sound casual. “And there’s a lot of time wasted when you gear back up after switching tasks. You don’t want to be here too late, especially this early in a project. That’s how burnout happens, and this is your first big project.”

  “You want me to just let my best friend starve?” Tessa began, but he held up a hand, stopping her.

  “Just tell me what to grab and where to take it,” he said, then watched her eyes widen. “What?” he finally asked after a few moments of startled staring.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s in it for you?”

  He barked out a laugh, but it sounded forced to his own ears. “Cynical. Good. But in this case, I’m just trying to keep you on track.”

  She still looked skeptical. Time to break out some acting skills, he thought.

  “I greenlit you, even though you’ve only been coding on the team for six months or so,” he said dryly. “Keeping you focused is my job. And I’m not that busy right now.”

  That worked. He felt a little bad when she had a guilty expression, but the part of him that was still hungry for Ani didn’t care.

  I’m going to get to see her. He didn’t know what that meant, but he was going to make the most of it.

  “Just put in the order,” he said, forcing down his impatience and eagerness, “and think of me as your delivery boy.”

  She laughed. “Okay. You win. I’ll get you some money…”

  “Don’t insult me,” he growled, and then saw her look of surprise. He fucked up, he realized. Don’t let Tessa know! “I can afford some frickin’ takeout, Tess.”

  She frowned, then crossed her arms. “Promise me you’re not going to tease her or rile her up, okay?”

  He blinked. Had Ani told her? “Why would I do that?”

  “Don’t act innocent,” she said, and he felt well and truly busted… until her next words. “Adam and I heard you two the other morning, when you were both hungover. The two of you were sniping at each other. You and Ani get along like gas and fire.”

  Truer words were never spoken, he thought. God knows he wanted to burn with her again.

  Now the trick was getting her to let him.

  It wasn’t even six o’clock in the evening, and Ani already felt exhaustion setting in. Dr. Peterson had come into the lab, his big presence — big ego, she thought with a scowl — seeming to take up all the space in the windowless beige room.

  “I need you to work on this experiment,” he said, handing her a sheaf of paperwork. “And you’re going to need to take notes — detailed notes — every hour.”

  She’d gone through the pages, then blinked. “This goes over twelve hours.”

  His eyebrow had gone up with disdain. “So?”

  So here she was, taking notes on a frickin’ petri dish of evil every hour, on the hour.

  Of course, he didn’t want her to be bored in that time, so he’d given her a number of other little projects to work on in the meantime. Menial stuff. She’d already washed the glassware and cleaned the autoclave, a particularly unpleasant little project. Now, she finally had a minute to herself, at least until the next experiment check-in. She had a timer set. She knew what she needed to do. She was going through her notes, getting her presentation ready.

  Her stomach yowled, and she patted it like it was a dog. “Soon,” she said. At this point, she was a bit nervous going to the bathroom in case Dr. Peterson came in and saw that she wasn’t being diligent or rigorous or whatever other damned thing he wanted her to be.

  Fortunately, Tessa was the best friend in the entire world. Tessa was bringing her malai kofta and palak paneer and a bunch of sides, which was the definition of delicious. It was a little thing to look forward to in what promised to be a sucktacular night.

  The door opened, and she glanced up, hoping it was Tessa and not another one of her research team — or worse, Dr. Peterson.

  But it was neither. She was shocked to see Abraham, his copper hair blazing, his gray eyes looking over her like he was starving and she was the first meal he’d seen in weeks.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He held up plastic bags. She’d been so shocked, and admittedly so focused on his face, that she had completely ignored the fact that he was carrying takeout containers. She sniffed. It was definitely the delicious scent of Indian food from her favorite restaurant, that was for sure.

  “Tessa’s hard at work on her game,” he said, his tone a calm that belied the hunger in his expression. “I volunteered to play delivery boy and make sure you got fed.”

  She glared at him. “Surrrrrrre you did.”

  “I’d hate for you to be hungry,” he said, and there it was, the hunger bleeding over into his words.

  She took in a deep breath. It didn’t help that he was wearing a T-shirt that stretched across a chest that women (and men) would probably write odes to. He looked like a posterchild for a men’s exercise magazine. And the way he looked at her — like she was the only woman on earth, the only thing he’d ever wanted.

  It was intoxicating.

  It was dangerous.

  She shook her head, both at him and at herself. “I made it clear,” she said. “Just at con. Once we were done there, we were done. Period.”

  He studied her. “I just wanted to check: would you say that you don’t want me?”

  She started to say, “I don’t want you” but she knew that her body would reject the lie.

  “I don’t want the complication,” she said instead.

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “You should have been a lawyer,” she said.

  He scowled. “Bloodsuckers. That’s not a real profession — that’s a blight on humanity.”

  She laughed. “But no, tell me how you really feel.”

  He handed her the food, and she put it on a cleared countertop. “Well, you’ve done your good deed for the day,” she said. “You don’t have to stay.”

  “I got myself some food, too,” he said. “The tandoori.”

  She glanced at him. “I wouldn’t take you for the type to eat Indian food.”

  His copper eyebrow went up. “Because I’m such a redneck?”

  She shrugged, feeling embarrassed. Had that been the assumption? “You just seem like the type to eat raw meat with your bare hands,” she shot back, and he laughed.

  “I make a mean steak,” he said. “Maybe I could make it for you sometime.”

  He was romancing her, or trying to. Trying to wangle for a date. She ought to shut him down, but the problem was, she didn’t want to. Had he been the type of guy she absolutely didn’t want, she’d have shut him down and then some. But there was just something compelling about this guy, and it was preventing her from being as harsh as she needed to be. He was giving her space, too. Most guys who were pursuing her would be too heavy
-handed, coming at her from all sides.

  Was he doing the same thing? Was she just cutting him slack because he’d given her six fantastic orgasms in twelve hours?

  There was something to be said for a guy who could do that, she thought.

  “You’re thinking too hard,” he said, and she scowled at him.

  “I’ve got food to eat and work to do,” she said. “You can leave at any time. Just take your food with you.”

  He nodded. Then he leaned forward. “I’ll be honest: I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said. “And I wanted to see if you’re still thinking of me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You’ve got a big opinion of yourself.”

  He shrugged. “If I’m wrong, tell me.”

  She rubbed her temple. “If I said yes, you’re wrong, would you leave?”

  “Depends. Would you be lying?”

  “Is that something you’d decide?” she said, feeling anger bubble.

  He shook his head. “No. If you say that you want me to go, I’ll go. Even if you are lying,” he said.

  Suddenly, something popped into her head. “Does Tessa know? Dammit!”

  “No,” he said, his low voice irritated. “I didn’t let Tessa know about us. Your shameful secret is safe.”

  She felt bad suddenly. If a man treated her this way, she’d feel like shit — right before she brained him with something and walked out the door forever. “You were an asshole,” she said.

  He blinked. “When, specifically?”

  “When you wouldn’t hire her. Tessa. When she was an audio whatever.”

  Now he looked shocked. “I didn’t even know she was looking to get promoted. She was so introverted she was practically catatonic.”

  “She told me about the code-off and all that,” she said. “You were dismissive. You hurt her feelings. She’s my best friend, so I’m protective — and yeah, I hold a grudge.” She swallowed hard. “That’s why I’m ashamed. She’s my girl. It feels like I’m dishonoring her by bouncing with you.”

  He tilted his head, his expression thoughtful. “I didn’t think of that,” he said. “Tessa doesn’t still hold a grudge, does she?”