Heat (The Stark Affair Book 1)

by Cross, Skylar

“Hadn’t noticed,” I say.

  “Sarcasm. You’re good at sarcasm. I like that. Your father built Stark Worldwide on... well, let’s say, some tainted money.”

  “Again, hadn’t noticed.” I smile.

  Jasper’s face turns deadly serious.

  “Colton, it’s time I begin to hand the reins over to a new emperor.”

  Did he just say emperor? I stifle a chuckle.

  “There are many aspects to Stark Worldwide that you may not be aware of... but it’s time that I take the chance and get you more involved.”

  Yep, this is it.

  Funny, I’ve waited for this moment for all of my life. I always wanted it out in the open... with my father, or with van der Voort, or with somebody.

  Now that it’s being thrown out there bald and naked, I’m almost numb. Like I’m watching this entire interaction on a movie screen as a non-involved observer.

  “Colton, there’s somebody I’d like you to meet. He’s a vital part of Stark Worldwide and he’s visiting Miami on Monday.”

  “First-class from Colombia?”

  Jasper sips his scotch and looks at me, then puffs on his cigar.

  “Colton, I know more about you than you think I do.”

  An alarm bell goes off in my head. What does that mean?

  “In fact,” he continues, “you and I are very much alike.”

  An eruption of bile comes up from my stomach. My right hand clenches into a fist.

  Steady, Colton, steady.

  I glance over at Hector, calmly staring out at the ocean. Looks like he’s preoccupied with it, but I know he sees everything. One word from Jasper and Hector would slit my throat like he’s making breakfast.

  “I figured out what my dad was doing when I was twelve,” I say.

  Jasper smiles.

  “Is that why you were so rebellious?”

  I picture my dad, heading to work while leaving me in the care of that vicious nanny without even saying good morning.

  “That and other reasons,” I say.

  “Well, all that is over now. I want you to truly become more a part of your father’s legacy.”

  “What if I say no?”

  Jasper turns to me with a look like I’m a pig heading to the slaughterhouse.

  “You won’t say no,” he says with a smirk.

  The tequila is hitting me, loosening up my words a bit. Got to be careful here.

  “Maybe I would, Jasper. Perhaps, however, you haven’t considered the possibility that maybe I want out.”

  “Out?”

  “Yes, out. No more Stark Worldwide. Free to be my own man. To start my own company. In a different field. With a different name. From scratch.”

  He takes another puff, never breaking eye contact with me.

  “With what money?”

  “I would persuade investors with my intelligence.”

  Jasper laughs. “Where are you going to find backing like you have now?”

  “I wouldn’t need nearly that much. I could turn one hundred dollars into a million in a year.”

  “One hundred... one million. That’s poor folk talk. You wouldn’t be able to afford to come here to the Gold Club. No more private jet. No more bouncy, boppy club. You’d lose your father’s mansion.”

  I chuckle and glance over at the sandy beach. A bald man with a comb-over is trying to kiss his blonde. She puts her hand under his shirt.

  “Jasper, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I hate the Gold Club with a burning passion. I don’t give a fuck about the jet. I’m sick of my club and I detest the mansion. You can keep all of it.”

  “The mansion is your father’s legacy to you.”

  “I have my own house.”

  “That one million-dollar shithole where you live? That’s just a bachelor pad for your girls.”

  “It’s all I ever need. I’ll keep the Bentley, though. I bought that with my own money.”

  “Your own money? You don’t have any money of your own.”

  He puts his cigar in his mouth and looks at me. I just smile at him, reminding myself of the computer program I wrote that steals millions from him every night while he sleeps.

  “I could never allow you to go, Colton. You’re the face of Stark Worldwide. Your father looked like Cary Grant, you look like David Gandy. You protect the company’s image.”

  I knock back my second Dos Lunas and get up.

  “Jasper, I’ve had enough of this. I’m heading over to Heat,” I say.

  “All right, fine. But Colton, come to the office this Monday at ten. I want you to meet my associate.”

  Monday at ten is when I meet with The Talon Group.

  “Ooh, you know, Monday morning doesn’t work for me. How’s the afternoon? Say two?”

  Jasper glares at me.

  “Monday morning at ten,” he says.

  I lean down, emboldened by tequila. Maybe a little too close. I smell bad cologne mixed with cigar smoke.

  “Jasper, I said no. I’m busy. Make it two.”

  We hold a mini-staring contest. I win when he smiles.

  “You are your father’s son, that’s for sure. Fine, Colton. Two it is. And think about what I’m saying to you.”

  I walk back through the Gold Club and out the door. I feel Hector’s eyes burning a hole through the back of my shirt.

  * * *

  As I drive down to SoBe, I consider Jasper’s words.

  Does he know I’ve been stealing from him for years? Has he figured it out?

  Or has he figured out that I’m using the money to fund The Talon Group?

  No, there’s no way. I’ve covered my tracks too well. The algorithmic program that steals the money is foolproof. And I’ve made damned sure none of it can be traced to The Talon Group.

  I feel a sharp sudden pain in my stomach.

  Unless some new whiz kid from somewhere has cracked it.

  Whatever.

  I already made the decision earlier. First I’m going to finalize plans with The Talon Group, making sure they have enough money for their mission. Then I’ll plug in the “Self-Detonation” USB drive and disappear before the Feds arrive at Jasper’s mansion.

  Hope he enjoys prison.

  I turn into the alley behind Heat and into my reserved parking spot, hidden from view of the street.

  Gotta hand it to Viktor, my promoter. The club is alive tonight. The girls are even hotter than usual.

  My VIP table is waiting upstairs. Should be, seeing as I own the place.

  I grab another Dos Lunas from Enrique at the bar before heading up the glittery stairs, admiring tonight’s selection along the way. They all smile at me with please fuck me eyes.

  The upper deck is jammed tonight too. Plenty of champagne flowing. I recognize a famous New York fashion designer with an entourage of beauties. He’s wearing a maroon suit with sequins. Odd. Didn’t think he liked girls. Whatever.

  “Colton!” says a well-known rapper as he grabs me from the side and slaps my back. He’s decked out in a bowler hat, sunglasses, a black shirt with gold chains over his naked chest and white shiny pants with white shoes.

  His entourage is the best I’ve seen tonight. Three black girls and three Latina girls. All stunning.

  “Ladies, this is the famous Colton Stark. Colton Stark, these are the ladies.”

  “Hello, ladies,” I say, catching the eye of one of the Latinas in a glittery yellow dress that wraps her curves tightly. I’m suddenly jealous of it.

  She flashes her big eyes at me with a smile and tilts her head, twirling her hair. I feel a jolt spring from the back of my balls into my cock.

  The rapper and I shoot the shit for a few minutes. I put back two more Dos Lunas, temporarily forgetting about Jasper and self-detonation.

  Soon I’m next to the stunning Latina. Her back is to the wall. I turn so I’m facing her, about three inches away. I can smell her apple-tini on her breath.

  “¿Como se llama usted?” I say.

  “Veronica,
” she says with a giggle.

  “Mmm... mi nombre favorito.” I turn to my rapper friend as I take her hand and lead her. “Come, sit at my table.”

  The entire group follows me over to my personal kingdom, a vast lounge area built directly into the ceiling of the club. From here, I can see everything.

  I sit in the corner of the sofa looking down at the dance floor, pulling Veronica down with me. She snuggles into me. I like a girl who doesn’t waste time.

  Javier comes by to take drink orders. He knows not to charge anybody who sits in my private area.

  I turn to Veronica. God, she is truly stunning. Flawless, high cheekbones. Big, brown eyes. She tilts her head again and smiles while twirling her hair.

  “¿De donde eres?” I say.

  “Puerto Rico,” she says.

  “Perfecto.” I move in to kiss her. She doesn’t resist.

  That was easy.

  It usually is.

  * * *

  I pull my cock out of Veronica’s ass. Then I ram it in again.

  “Ay! Sí, sí, sí!” she says as she holds her butt cheeks wide for me. Sounds like a fucking porn star.

  “Okay, chill babe,” I say. “I think you’re overdoing it a bit.”

  “¿Como?”

  “Nada.”

  Whatever.

  I keep pummeling her ass. She keeps doing the X-rated thing.

  I swear she’s practicing for her audition. A ton of porn companies now shoot in Florida due to all the new regulations in California.

  “Fuck me heart!” she says.

  I chuckle.

  “In English, it’s fuck me hard,” I say.

  “Fuck... me... heart... “

  “No, not heart. Hard. Say it. Hard.”

  “Hart!”

  “Harddddd!”

  “Hard!”

  I look down at what would usually be the most perfect sight in the world... my nine inches moving in and out of her ass.

  So why am I so bored?

  My mind wanders to Adriana, the only girl I ever actually fell for. When we had sex, it was real. I almost forget what that was like.

  This... whatever this is... is gratifying, sure. But I’m not even sure if I’m really here.

  I feel myself losing steam.

  Shit.

  As if she senses it, Veronica pulls her ass off my cock and turns around. She whips the condom off and starts the suction.

  Gotta admit, she’s good. Hell yeah.

  That gets me back.

  Oh God yes!

  I launch in her mouth.

  Goddamn.

  She seems to enjoy every moment of my ejaculation, keeping every last drop in her mouth and down her throat without so much as a whimper.

  Then she smiles up at me with a curved tongue, a pool of white in its center around her tongue stud.

  Hot. Very hot.

  She smiles and swallows. Then she moves up and kisses me.

  We fall back on my bed in the master suite. We’re in my private house on DiLido Island, not my father’s overdone Stark Mansion that I maintain for galas and events but never visit.

  Don’t get me wrong. My little house is spectacular. All glass and sharp angles. Yacht docked outside.

  Elegant but understated.

  I like it that way.

  But as I lie here, I suddenly feel horribly alone. I look over at Veronica. Her big brown eyes are hypnotizing. She is a perfect specimen of the female of the human species.

  I used to enjoy this sex-studded, playboy lifestyle, but when I turned thirty last year it began to lose its luster. That’s when I founded The Talon Group and began my little army’s march to ‘world domination.’ My legacy to the world. Ha.

  God, I can’t wait for the next meeting. It’s the only thing that I look forward to anymore.

  Veronica snuggles into me. Whatever. I hold her tight and go to sleep.

  * * *

  What is that ringing?

  I open one eye.

  Ow! That hurts.

  Shit, I need to cool it with the Dos Lunas.

  The October morning sunshine beams through my second-floor bedroom window at a slightly different angle than in mid-summer. Funny, I didn’t notice that last year.

  My phone is ringing. I manage to find it from the nightstand and hit the big green icon without looking at the number.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “It’s Beacon,” says the voice.

  I sit up.

  Shit.

  I hate this. Beacon is Jasper’s informant. Not sure who this person really is because he or she uses a voice-encryption device that makes him or her sound like a robot from a 1970s sci-fi movie.

  “Yep,” I say.

  “Be on the lookout. Metro is putting someone on you.”

  I look out the window at the Miami skyline, an orange reflection of the sun glittering in a tall building at me.

  “On me?” I say. “Why me?”

  “Good question.”

  “Who am I looking for?”

  “Don’t know. That’s all I have. Just be aware and watch for it, that’s all.”

  The line goes dead.

  I put the phone down.

  In the harsh light of day, I realize how much I hate my life.

  I look down at my yacht, pondering my strange existence. I could hop in my car and grab the USB flash drive this morning from its hiding spot in Key Largo. Then be in Cuba by dinnertime.

  No, Colton, not yet. Finish your work with The Talon Group.

  But what was all that with Jasper last night? Has he figured out that I’ve been funneling money from him for years?

  I look over at Veronica. Out cold, but breathing.

  I fire up my secure laptop, the one nobody knows I have. Programmed it myself.

  It’s gone through various incarnations over the past ten years. Started out as a modified Dell in my dorm room at MIT.

  It all sprang from one question I asked myself... “Can I steal money from my dad without his finding out about it?”

  So I wrote a simple program. It was a computer-cleaning program which everybody was all hyped about at the time. On Christmas break, I installed it on my dad’s computer at his office.

  Back at school, I booted up my Dell and laughed the biggest laugh any eighteen-year old ever laughed. I could control my dad’s money from a dorm room fifteen hundred miles away in Cambridge.

  From there, it was easy. I wrote an algorithmic program that moved small amounts of money around. Every time my dad’s IT guys would look into it, I changed the parameters.

  Then I wrote a program that detected the pattern of my dad’s IT guys. The system became self-correcting.

  Thirteen years later, the newest version of my “Steal Money From Dad” program is still active. Never shut down. Millions over the years.

  And nobody noticed because I designed it so well.

  That’s how I fund The Talon Group.

  The sheer beauty of it makes me laugh. Knowing I’m screwing Jasper. For years. Silently.

  And yet he and the Board control my life.

  I slam the laptop shut and turn to Veronica.

  “Up!” I say. She doesn’t move. “Yo! Up!” I slap her ass.

  She makes a noise like a donkey climbing a hill.

  Time for some tough love.

  I lean over, pull the sheet together into a whip and smack her back with it.

  She leaps up onto one elbow. “¡Ay! ¡Dejeme en paz!”

  She’s a mess with hair everywhere.

  And yet oddly still perfect. Perky breasts. Shiny caramel skin.

  If it were two years ago, I’d be hard again and we’d go another round.

  But all I can think of is getting going on my final preparations.

  “Come back to bed,” says Veronica in Spanish with playful eyes.

  “No, I have to go.”

  I take $1,000 and hand it over to her.

  “What’s this?” she says.

  “Cab fa
re. I’ll call.”

  She sticks a finger in her mouth and twirls it while curling one leg up over the other. At the same time she takes the money with her other hand.

  “Please come back to bed,” she says as the wad of bills disappears into her fist.

  Shit, I’ve already become a version of the Gold Clubbers, haven’t I?

  My stomach rolls again.

  “Just go,” I say.

  Chapter 5

  Sofia

  “Oh honey, that’s just... no... just no,” says Jorge as I pose.

  We’re in one of those trendy South Beach shops with a prissy name that makes me want to wretch. LaTashia said she would reimburse me for one outfit. She even approved Ocean Drive. Must be nice to have a Lieutenant’s expense account.

  “What’s wrong with this one?” I say, adjusting the black dress I picked out.

  “It would be perfect if you were going to a briefing at the Pentagon. Not what we’re going for here. Off with it. And for God’s sake, relax your facial expression. I’m getting flashbacks to you in high school. Scary.”

  Jorge is immaculate in a tight blue shirt with curlicue stitching all around the buttons. Brown hair with blond highlights slicked back. White pants. Leather flip-flops. Ray-Bans dangling from the shirt pocket.

  He sits cross-legged on the leather sofa outside the dressing area, sipping a big, pink, sloshy drink with a big straw that we picked up at some big, pink, sloshy drink place he likes.

  “This is ridiculous!” I say. “I’m no good at this.”

  “Relax, Sofe. Breathe. You’re in the hands of a fashion god. I can make anyone look hot. Yes, even you. Now go put on the one I picked out.”

  “I’m not wearing that. I’ll feel naked.”

  “That’s the point, Sofe. That’s the point.”

  I sneer at him and return to the dressing room.

  The dress he picked out for me barely exists. I’m not even sure how in the fuck hell to put it on.

  “Everything okay in there?” Jorge says after a few minutes of my losing battle with the flimsy piece of shiny turquoise fabric. “You didn’t fall into a sinkhole or anything, did you?”

  “Be right out,” I say.

  I slam the curtain aside and put my hands on my hips. Jorge’s face lights up.

  “Oh baby, that is It with a capital I. Game, set, and if I dare say so... match.” He takes a big loud sip from his straw.