Wire (Pierce Securities Book 2)

by Anne Conley

  A slow smile crept across his face as his gaze swept over her, and Paige felt heat rise to her face, then chastised herself for it. Now was not the time for sexual chemistry.

  “Gentlemen,” she briskly addressed the assembled men, “I’d like to get started, if I may. I know you all have other things to get to today.”

  Her eyes were glued to Evan as he slowly went to a chair and lowered his lean body into it. She couldn’t help it. The way he moved was just sinful. The way his fingertips tugged his pants legs up before he sat, and then rested on the table in front of him, had her captivated. His movements were graceful, and he looked like he belonged here every bit as much as he belonged buried in his laptop.

  She cleared her throat and adapted her board meeting voice. She’d never been really great at speaking in front of crowds, but had learned in a professional development class in college that speaking is just acting. So this was her playing the part of commanding CEO. “This meeting was called to revisit the idea of taking Realm of Worlds offline completely for a month or so. Mr. Rocco has been hired to help me catch who’s behind The Crimson Lady, and while I brought this up four months ago, he’s here to tell you why it’s absolutely necessary to do this today.”

  She looked away from his darkening eyes, his lip curling, and his long, tapered finger resting near his mouth. Evan was looking at her like she was his dinner.

  A few of the younger members of the board were nodding their heads.

  Clearing her throat, she continued, “As you know from my weekly emails updating you, we’ve been attempting to remove her from the mainframe with the game still operational, to no avail. The AI software used to program her is more sophisticated than that. She’s imbedded into the actual internet, and the only way to get her off completely is to take the game off. It will mean lost revenue, of course, but we can make up some of that by pushing forward on next year’s releases.” She paused as one of the older gentlemen on the board cleared his throat to speak.

  “Exactly how much lost revenue are we talking about?” When she’d brought up the possibility of taking the game offline months ago, all of the members had balked. She’d backed off, vowing to find another way, needing to keep the peace in a tumultuous time for her company.

  “Well, I’ve got some projections.” She turned to the PowerPoint presentation her PA had put together, explaining the figures to several heads that continued nodding. “We can also offer an incentive package to the players, more life points, extra mods and avatars, things that don’t really cost too much capital when the update is completed.”

  The other woman on the board raised her hand. “How will it affect our media presence?”

  “Well, it will be a show of good intentions to the public, as a serious attempt to put a stop to The Crimson Lady. We can work the media to make it a good faith endeavor on our part.”

  “Why is it necessary to shut down the game completely?” another member asked.

  Evan stood, straightening his immaculate jacket as he did. Paige was riveted as his smooth voice filled the room. “Ms. Lawson is correct in the necessity of this. Of course, gamers can play offline as much as they want.” Spreading his hands, he stepped away from his chair and began smoothly walking around the table, making eye contact with each board member.

  “If you imagine The Crimson Lady as a virus, which most of you are familiar with, she’s virally attacked the internet through this game. The only way we’ve been able to figure out how to remove her, is by removing the game. Whoever planted her there didn’t think we’d ever remove our number one selling game to get her out. But we will. And we will get her. Once the game’s gone, we’re hoping her online presence will be weakened enough to get her out of the rest.”

  He paused to breathe, and the same board member interrupted with another question. “What do you mean, ‘the rest?’”

  “I have programs running to detect her actual persona in other venues, not just random graphics people have hijacked. The Crimson Lady is working outside the game to interact with the kids committing the crimes. She’s only targeting them initially in the game. Once we find how she’s targeting and giving specific instructions, we’ll be able to stop her. Unfortunately, the game itself is making too much online noise to find the other avenues she’s working.”

  His use of the pronoun ‘we’ was not lost on Paige. As he spoke, his fluid voice calmed her and roiled her insides simultaneously. She was excited in a way she couldn’t describe. He was backing her up, like they were a team, and she hadn’t had a partner since Dale. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine Evan Rocco would be her partner. It was a massive turn on.

  “Have you figured out who’s behind her?”

  “Yes, I have. But at this point, I don’t have anything concrete on him. That’s working through another program I have running, like a meta-crawler, if you will, looking for connections. With the way this guy’s working, it will be hard, but I’m likely going to find something obscure that will connect him to this. Something he hasn’t thought to cover up. It’s a bit of a needle in a haystack search, but it will work.”

  “I say do it. If Paige and Evan can’t take her off without taking the game offline, then it probably can’t be done.” One of the younger members of the board spoke up, and several others nodded in affirmation. Paige breathed a quiet sigh of relief, glad they understood the ramifications and had faith in her and Evan.

  “You must understand the secrecy in which we need to work. Our transparency today is so you can see the necessity of our actions, but we can’t let any of this leave this room at this point. I’ll have a press conference this afternoon to release the pertinent details, but anything else needs to stay behind these doors.”

  After a near unanimous vote, the board members gathered their things and left, leaving Paige alone in the room with Evan, who hadn’t stopped staring at her since the meeting had been adjourned. His dark gaze on hers was intense and did strange things to her insides—things she had a hard time naming. Except lust. There was definitely some lust there, but something deeper as well. Something that made her feel protected, safe, calm—home.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he stalked toward her, his eyes gleaming. Paige’s heart pounded, and the air thickened with sexual tension. He brushed past her and locked the door to the conference room before turning back toward her.

  “Love the suit.” The timbre of his voice sent a shiver of awareness through her, the sensations concentrating into a tight bundle of need low in her belly.

  “What are you doing?” He had rejected her a week ago, had been sending her mixed signals ever since, and she was lost. But only if she thought about it. If she just stared at his mocha eyes, she felt a serenity, a tether to something special.

  “I thought you might be in on all this.” His voice was gritty, not at all the smooth confident voice he’d used with the board. “But after that meeting, I know that’s not true.”

  “What happened?” Her own voice was a breathless shadow of the one she’d adopted for the board.

  “You.” He gestured around the room. “This.” He took a step closer. “If you were behind this, you wouldn’t be falling asleep at your desk trying to get rid of her.” Another step. Each step closer he came, Paige’s heart slammed inside her chest, threatening to break loose. “You wouldn’t have commanded this board meeting, like the sexy pro you are, to get her off the server.”

  “Since our discussion about Koen, I realized things with you were too personal, that I couldn’t do my job. And Simon said if I slept with you again, I’d be fired.” He took the last step toward her until their chests were touching. “But after watching you today, none of that matters. I’ll just have to work that much harder to do this right.” She could feel her breasts, heavy and tingly, as they brushed against his chest with each gasp she dragged in. “I’m up for that challenge.” He pushed his pelvis into her, and she felt a massive erection, illustrating his point. She gasped involunta
rily, both at the tangible evidence and his double entendre. But mostly at the fact that he wanted her. “I’ve been imagining you spread out across that conference table the entire meeting. It was a bit distracting.” Paige found herself instinctively stepping backward until her backside was against the conference table.

  “What’s changed?” she asked breathlessly. There wasn’t enough air in the room, at all. All of her breaths were gasps as she gulped like a fish out of water.

  Evan’s eyes focused on her lips, and stayed there as he licked his own. Paige was fascinated by the trail of moisture there, leaving the puffy pink line a glistening beacon. “Nothing. I’ve just had all I can take of this platonic shit. I want you so badly I can’t stand it anymore. And I will have you. Now.”

  Before she could react, his mouth was on hers, prying it apart as his tongue swooped in to tangle in an erotic dance. Paige slid her hands under his jacket, feeling his shoulders through his expensive shirt. He explored the recesses of her mouth, expending a guttural noise from the back of his throat that rumbled through his body. Paige whimpered, helpless to the torrent of emotions warring within her.

  His hands grabbed her waist, yanking her against his hard body as he lifted her onto the table and slipped her skirt up her thighs. He spread them and situated himself between them, rocking his erection against her hot core.

  “We’re in the board room,” she breathed against his kisses.

  “I don’t care. I need you,” he rumbled back.

  “People can see us.”

  “Blinds are shut. Besides, nobody’s here anymore. They’re all getting the press conference ready,” he muttered breathlessly while he continued kissing her.

  She gave up to him. His hands on her, his mouth on her. Memories of their night together taunted her sense of propriety, and she gave up her will to resist. And then she joined forces with him.

  She needed to touch him, see if Evan was like she remembered, or if the hazy, lust-fogged memories were exaggerations in her mind. As her hands fumbled with his belt, Evan dropped his mouth to her ear, licking the shell with his hot tongue and pulling her lobe into his mouth. The sensations coursing through her body almost made her forget what her hands were doing as she arched against his erection, the sharp ache suddenly almost too much.

  “Shit, Paige…” he muttered into her ear, the hot air rushing into her blood stream, overheating her skin. She moaned softly as she remembered her purpose at his belt and re-doubled her efforts while Evan’s hands yanked off her suit jacket. Torturously slow, he unbuttoned her shirt, his dark brown eyes stripping her bare long before his hands could. Undoing her buttons, one by one, he patiently exposed her skin to the air-conditioned room, as well has his heated stare.

  Then his mouth was on her breast, and her hands longing to work his button were forgotten. He enveloped her nipple through the lace of her bra and rubbed his tongue across it. Paige arched into him, unable to think clearly as sensations shot straight to her core, making her light-headed. Evan’s hands went around to the back and unhooked it deftly, freeing her breasts, yanking off her bra, shirt, and jacket in one swift move.

  Paige reminded herself why her hands longed for his zipper, and when she finally got the wherewithal, she opened his pants and let him spring into her waiting hand. As soon as she wrapped her hand around him, feeling his velvety warmth, he hissed around the nipple he’d been sampling and bit into it softly.

  “Easy there, Paige…” he muttered before stilling her hand with his own. Then he dropped to his knees and slipped off her panties, kissing her thighs right above her lacy-topped stockings. “Shit… I promised you I’d taste this.” He planted hot, wet kisses around her, muttering, “Haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Want you all over my fucking tongue.”

  His dirty talk sent her reeling. Paige writhed under him, needing more. She was awash in sensations, completely overwhelmed. She’d touched him, but not nearly enough, and now he was out of reach. The disappointment that made her feel was dampened by the need he invoked in her with his mouth down there, kissing every place except where she needed him to.

  When he finally licked her, one long lap from the bottom of her wet heat to the tiny nub at the top, she nearly came off the table. Fire heated her insides, and as Evan grumbled something about how sweet she tasted, she could only grip his hair and beg for more.

  “Please, Evan…”

  He grasped her knees in his strong hands and placed them over his broad shoulders, settling himself in between her legs.

  “Gonna take my time down here, Paige. Just get yourself comfortable, Baby.”

  The endearment was lost on her as he fastened his mouth to her pussy and sucked. With his tongue and lips turning her inside out, she was lost to the sensations, and comfort wasn’t one of them.

  As his tongue swirled around her bud, she climbed a peak she didn’t know existed. He’d impale her on his tongue and moan, his warm breath adding another dimension to the sensations, then flex it, turning it this way and that, seeking her pleasure with every swipe it made.

  Paige could only hold on tight to his hair. She knew she was probably pulling it, maybe even painfully, but she was helpless to stop, grinding her hips against his face while Evan gripped her ass and moaned his own pleasure.

  When Evan finally settled on her clit and sank two fingers into her sex, Paige was a quivering, moaning mass of flesh, splayed out on the conference room table, wearing nothing but her shoes, thigh highs, and her skirt pulled up to her waist. The entire board could have walked in at that moment and she wouldn’t have cared. The feeling of flying was too intense. She was sweating, pulsating, and fire coursed through her veins.

  “Open your eyes, Baby. Let me see this.” He spoke to her through his machinations, and when she lifted her head to look at him, his focused gaze pierced her over her mound where he worked so diligently.

  Evan pumped his fingers in and out of her, stroking her G-spot with each thrust, and each thrust was taking her higher and higher until she dropped from the cloud she floated on and let go.

  Blood roared through her ears while Evan continued lapping her up and down, circling her clit, prolonging her pleasure. His fingers stilled as she clenched around him in a vise-like grip. When she finally went limp, gasping for breath, he looked at her with a smirk, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Fucking perfect.”

  He rose from his spot on the floor and grasped her hands in his, pulling her up off the table. As his hands went around her backside, he unzipped her skirt and it finally fell to the floor. After the mouth-fucking he’d just done, Paige was eager to return the favor, although her confidence in her own oral skills weren’t where Evan’s were. She managed to push him back into a nearby chair, and he sank into the leather with a groan, his hands still on her hips.

  When she tried to sink to her knees, he stopped her. “No. I want this to be different, Paige.”

  Cocking her head to the side, she asked, “What do you mean? I want to return the favor.”

  “It wasn’t a favor. It was a fucking fantasy. And now I need to be inside you.” He pushed his pants down, exposing strong thighs framing his perfect cock, eager for action.

  She climbed onto the chair and straddled him. Evan grasped his cock in one hand. Stroking it, he watched her through lids raised to half-mast. She nestled her sex up against his and rubbed the smooth warmth with her own wetness.

  Evan groaned and his head fell back while Paige continued rubbing him up and down. Her fingers worked to undo his vest and shirt, eager to feast her eyes on his chest, to rub her skin against his. When she had him open to her, she rose up and sank herself down onto his length with a loud moan. Paige stretched as he filled her, and then she stilled, feeling his length pulse and twitch inside her. Evan’s eyes were on hers, filled with something she couldn’t name. It was an intense need, a longing, and Paige felt it, too. Right here, right now, with Evan filling her insides, she felt perfect.

>   He leaned forward and pulled a breast inside his mouth at the same time she rose and fell. As he pushed inside her, he suckled her nipple, sending a shock of pleasure straight to her core. She clenched herself around him, and he let out a hiss of cool air around her nipple before biting it. His hands reached around and grabbed her ass as he guided her along his length.

  The heat was back. Paige’s insides were an inferno, and judging by the sheen of sweat across Evan’s skin, his were, too. She leaned forward and took his earlobe in her mouth while she rose and fell on him, rubbing her clit against his pelvic bone. His hands clutched her ass so hard, she was sure he would leave bruises, but she didn’t care. It was a pleasurable pain, one that would leave marks she’d be proud to see. They would remind her of this.

  When one hand left her ass and came back down with a resounding smack, the fiery jolt that hit her pussy was unmistakable. She moaned in his ear.

  “Again…” She had no idea she’d like it like this. Paige rose and fell on his lap, crashing herself down, his cock deeply imbedded in her with each drop. He rubbed where he’d slapped her ass, then another smack, this one brought her to the edge. “Fuck, Evan.”

  He grabbed her hips and held her still, pounding into her, dousing the inferno inside her with gasoline. When he reached between them and pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger, Paige exploded with a scream. She felt him harden and twitch, and when she convulsed around him, Evan pulled her against his chest and groaned something feral in her ear when he came.