The Hero and the Hacktivist

by Pippa Grant

  “Eh. They just know I’m hard to replace,” I say with a shrug.

  “Why do you do that?”

  I glance down, but I’m not involuntarily thrusting my hips or flossing, which are the two dance moves I’m most likely to break into randomly without thinking about it. “Do what? Let my ego show?”

  If he scowls any harder, he’s going to sprain a muscle in his face. “Get sarcastic about your own self-worth.”

  “Sarcasm is life.”

  His gaze meets mine, and I suddenly remember why I don’t do eye contact.

  Because it’s like sarcasm is turning him on, and the idea that he could get more sarcasm from me might as well be me standing here in a Princess Leia costume offering him a magical orgasm elixir.

  And I like turning him on. More than I should, since it’s my personality doing the heavy lifting.

  That never happens.

  I gulp, because he’s standing up and crossing the room.

  To be closer to me.

  On purpose.

  He’s stalking me like a panther stalks a smaller, weaker panther that smells like fresh antelope.

  “What the hell do I have to do to prove to you that I can help?”

  “Well, first of all, you can submit to a mental health exam, because normal people don’t want to help me.”

  “Nice try. You selling drugs? Cooperating with terrorist cells? Plotting to overthrow the government?”

  My back collides with the fridge. “Gross, too dangerous, and unfortunately a waste of time. Also there’s this weird ethical and moral code that I follow to do the least amount of harm to innocent bystanders, which would basically rule out me using my superpowers for evil.”

  “You know what all the cops in the city are doing right now?”

  “Donut runs?”

  “Managing the chaos caused by all these cell phones tattling on pervs.”

  I start to grin, remember that I’m not supposed to be proud of my little virus because no one’s supposed to know I launched it, and instead turn it into a grimacing sort of wink. “So, what you’re saying is, no cops are gonna come banging down the door if we break a few New York sex laws? How soon can you get a giraffe here?”

  He puts his hands on the fridge on either side of my shoulders. “Eloise.”

  Right, right.

  He’s saying no one’s coming to my rescue if the big bad leg warmer dudes—yeah, I definitely overlooked how big Dirk Lemonson’s operation was—come in here and try to scalp me to weave my hairs into their next design.

  That would literally be the worst way to be immortalized.

  “This is where you ask if you can hump my leg since it’s your last day on earth,” Rhett reminds me.

  “Dude. I’m asking to ride your dick, not your leg, if this is my last day on earth. I mean, I would, if I was into pity fucks for my last mortal memory.”

  His eyes flare like he’s insulted at the idea that he gives pity fucks, and maybe also at the idea that this is my last night on earth. Actually, maybe he’s more insulted at the idea that he’d let someone die.

  He does seem like he’d have a hero complex. Why else would he be flying onto balconies? And that was sarcasm on his part about the whole last day on earth thing.

  “I guess a pity fuck wouldn’t be a bad way to go, though,” I concede.

  He reaches above me to the top of the fridge, which is honestly almost as short as I am, so it’s not like he has to reach far, and I hear a crinkle, then suddenly something smooth and borderline sticky is touching my cheek.

  I sniff, and—“Oh my god, you are so fucking hot.” He’s stroking me with a Twizzler, and the combination of my favorite candy, his badassery, and the fact that he’s voluntarily leaning into my space is making me hot and itchy—in the good way—in the taco.

  “You like this?” he asks, trailing the Twizzler down my neck.

  I groan and lift my chin to give him more of a playground, my eyes sliding shut. “You could tie six of those together and use it to strangle someone, couldn’t you?”

  “Would that turn you on?”

  “Oh, fuck, yeah.”

  “Small problem.” His lips are so close to my ears that I can feel his hot breath, and it’s even better than the Twizzler foreplay.

  “Don’t tell me a big dangerous guy like you can’t tie a few Twizzlers together.” I end on a gasp, because now he has two Twizzlers dancing over my skin, heading south to my collarbones, and I’m involuntarily pumping my hips and I’d be fondling my own breasts if I weren’t hoping he was planning on stripping me naked and rubbing those candy sticks all over my nipples.

  “I don’t know who the bad guys are, so I don’t know who I’m supposed to strangle with a Twizzler rope.”

  He punctuates the statement by sliding his knee against the outside of my leg, nowhere near the promised land. I grip his shirt, my knuckles hit a solid wall of muscle under the hot fabric, and I whimper, because I want his knee between my legs.

  “A name, Eloise,” he murmurs. “Or a location.”

  “P-parker would k-kill me if you g-got hurt,” I stutter out, which isn’t good, because the only time I stutter is when I’m in Times Square and an actor dressed like my favorite pirate shows up, which doesn’t happen very often since he’s like the fourth string of hot pirates for most people, if he makes their list at all, which means nobody wants to dress like him in Times Square.

  So maybe I stutter when I’m way turned on by guys I know I probably shouldn’t be attracted to.

  “Parker will kill me if I let anything happen to you.” He’s teasing my clothes just above my breasts now with the Twizzlers, and I can smell all that sweet Twizzler goodness and now all I can think about is him tickling my pink panther with that rope of candy perfection and then licking it off me, and whoa, where did my knees go?

  Rhett catches me before they give all the way out, and I get a whiff of steak and leather, like maybe he was out taking care of a cow while he was checking on my apartments, and I could not be more susceptible to wanting to bang him senseless.

  His knee goes between my thighs, the tree limbs doubling as his arms hook around my back, and I refuse to apologize for sniffing his chest.

  And rubbing my nose all over the warm fabric of his Henley.

  And for thrusting my hips shamelessly over his thigh, which is solid as a lamp post.

  No, you don’t want to ask if I’ve ever humped a lamp post. Or why.

  “How many bad guys are after you, Eloise?” Rhett asks in that voice that promises if I answer him, he’ll strip me naked and rub me with Twizzlers everywhere until I’m writhing on the pleasure ship in the great orgasm ocean.

  “Is this interrogation by seduction? When do the goats and the Times Square characters with the handcuffs get here?”

  He pulls back and studies me. “Would you talk if there were Times Square characters handcuffing you?”

  “No.”

  “Have other people tried to seduce-interrogate you with Times Square characters handcuffing you?”

  I consider lying, because I really don’t know how much longer he’ll keep taking me seriously if I don’t. “Only once, and it was a social experiment. Can you rub me with candy again? I liked that, and I’m starting to lose the mood.”

  He sucks a Twizzler into his mouth, pulls it out, then licks it. The sight of his tongue is making my knees do that weak thing again, and I groan and close my eyes, because I’m turned on like a row of servers for a porn site.

  Something cold, wet and sticky invades my ear.

  I yelp, and my eyes fly open. “Did you just wet willy me with a Twizzler?”

  “I’ll do it again if you don’t talk,” he growls.

  “So you’re gonna torture me?” That wasn’t supposed to come out breathy and needy, but I’m a shameless hussy and I won’t apologize for it because I kinda dig the idea of torture by Twizzler.

  He blinks at me once. “Fuck,” he mutters, and suddenly his mouth is crash
ing against mine, and while I don’t do kissing, so long as I call this something different, I can definitely do whatever this is.

  Lip wrestling. Tongue teasing. Mouth fighting.

  Take your pick.

  He’s gripping me by the back of the neck, his leg wedged hard between my thighs, but his tongue curls oh-so-carefully around my stud, and it’s crystal clear he’s in complete control and fully aware of what I need.

  I decide my clothes should just take themselves off, because I’m prepared to offer him the full Eloise buffet, dessert included, and naked is necessary. But because my clothes can’t take themselves off, I contort my body to pull my arms through my sleeves while he’s kissing me.

  And while I’m still riding his leg like it’s one of those mechanical horses at the grocery store.

  What? I never hit the height limit, and they’re fun.

  He groans in my mouth and pulls back. “I shouldn’t want to fuck you.”

  “Because I’m a freak?” I yank off my shirt and attack his Henley.

  “Because you’re my sister’s friend.” His gaze dips to my chest, and you’re damn right I shove it up. I even grab my boobs and push them together, and then I rub my nipples, because his eyes are getting darker and darker, his lids lower and lower, his breath faster and faster, and maybe he’s a shape-shifting caveman, because I think he’s about to drool.

  Over me.

  “Wanna eat some Twizzlers out of my cleavage?” I don’t have to force the husky in my voice, because it’s always there, but it’s raspier, which I’m not forcing either.

  I’m also not forcing the rain shower between my thighs.

  That’s all courtesy of his hard leg against my clit and that I want to fuck you until the next generation of smartphones comes out expression on his face.

  He growls again, squats low, and licks the line between my breasts.

  I try hard not to moan like his tongue on my skin alone isn’t enough to set off a string of mini-orgasms, but his tongue alone actually could, and a single lick already has me halfway there.

  While I tease my own nipples into hard peaks that strain against the cotton of my bra and he makes tongue art in my cleavage, he also hooks his thumbs into my pants and tugs them. Cool air swirls around my hips, but not lower, because I’m still straddling his lamppost of a leg.

  “You are so fucking hot,” he tells my breasts.

  “You’re so fucking hot,” I tell him. “Like melted Velveeta.”

  He doesn’t tell me to shut up, which is also pretty fucking hot, because I’ve never known a guy who didn’t object to being compared to processed cheese, and his taking it in stride is like seventy-five more points in his favor.

  Also hot?

  The way he bites the swell of my breast over my bra. “Like apples.”

  He pulls my arms to hook around his shoulders and kisses me again like he’s branding my mouth. Claiming it. Like it’s his.

  And I don’t want to like the idea of being claimed, except he’s also tugging my pants down again, and his leg’s no longer between mine but his thumbs brush the apex of my thighs, teasing and hinting that he’ll get to my honeypot, and I would tattoo his name on my ass if he’d give me another orgasm.

  Or four.

  Definitely four orgasms for his name forever on my ass. I’m not that cheap.

  “I’m going to eat you,” he informs me, “and then you’re going to tell me everything I want to know.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to promise you’ll eat me if I tell you everything you want to know?”

  “Yes. But I can’t fucking think straight until I’ve had your pussy.”

  Even I don’t have a snappy comeback for that.

  Some premature coming, yes. Snappy comebacking, no.

  He drops to his knees, spreads my legs, and dives in like a trained diver, which he must be if he’s a SEAL, though I don’t think the military officially sanctioned this training.

  And that’s the last coherent thought I have, because his tongue glides firmly along my seam, ending at my clit, which he teases and sucks just enough to take me to the brink of orgasm before moving his scruffy face and his hot tongue to worship every last bit of my love muffin.

  I’m gasping and writhing with my back to the fridge, knocking off magnets with my shoulders and gripping his ears so hard he’ll have nail marks for a week.

  And when he sucks my clit into his mouth again, this time sticking two fingers deep up inside me, I come completely and totally unglued in the best and worst way.

  My orgasm goes off with a bang, ripping through me with pleasure so intense I can’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe, I can’t think, and I can’t even hold myself upright.

  I just want to let go and fall until I land in fluffy cotton candy clouds where big badass military heroes worship my body with Twizzlers all day long, and with my core pulsing and throbbing and setting off orgasm fireworks, I’m pretty sure I’m already there.

  Rhett helps me to the floor, where I collapse with my legs spread wide, my chest heaving, my bra wet with sweat. I wipe my face, my eyes crossing, because I’m still rambling in aftershock land and I wonder if that’s a permanent spasm he’s started in my vajayjay.

  “Good?” He’s smirking like he knows it was.

  And he’s not reaching for his belt like he’s going to wag his willy in my face and demand reciprocation. If I could focus for more than a second at a time, I’d take a good long look and see if he’s at all turned on, or if he can just go down on demand for anybody.

  “Ahbagada,” I manage to say between gasps.

  “Good,” he says. “Now talk.”

  18

  Eloise

  I blink at him.

  He doesn’t blink back.

  No, he does one worse. “Someone wanted to kill you tonight.”

  Orgasm high all gone. I barely stop the chill threatening to rattle my spine. “But they didn’t.”

  “And they’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Okay, the chill wins. It actually is a little terrifying to admit I might’ve underestimated my opponent this time around. And I’ve been around the internet long enough to know that I probably didn’t make any friends among the leg warmer set for exposing their best friend.

  Two things people hate: being duped, and having their “friends” exposed.

  I hit that group with a double-whammy, and I won’t be getting any thank-yous.

  I’d still do it all over again. But maybe with a few more layers of masking and shielding and redirecting and doing the hula for good luck.

  Rhett gives me an expectant look.

  And I stare back blankly, because this isn’t his fight. It’s mine. And the more he knows, the more he’ll be obligated to tell the cops, so the less he knows, the more I’m protecting him.

  Him, and Parker and Sia and Willow too.

  I’m going to miss them all.

  “Talk,” he repeats.

  I know I owe him for frosting my cupcake, but I can’t.

  I can’t suck him further into this.

  Realization that I’m not going to talk registers. He scrubs a hand over his face, and for a moment, he looks like an exhausted god. Like a guy just trying to lend a helping hand and getting shit on for it. He stands, and I realize he also looks like a baby alligator crawled into his pants and went to sleep.

  The man does erections like normal people do…

  No, honestly, normal people do nothing like Rhett Elliott does erections.

  “I’m going to bed,” he informs me. “You can have the floor. Wake me up whenever you’re ready to talk.”

  I don’t ask if he wants a blow job to help him fall asleep, because I’m having a hard enough time dealing with the disgust and disappointment now rolling off him under the concern.

  There are exactly four people in this world whose opinions I care about, and he’s not one of them.

  But he could be.

  Because he’s sticking his neck ou
t for me.

  Can’t tell you the last time that happened. And the fact that he’s a military guy is even more disconcerting.

  He should’ve already called the cops.

  Hell, for all I know, Pigpen is the cops.

  Rhett strips out of his shirt, and holy mother of binary, I just ovulated so hard I think an egg fell out my nose.

  I tell myself muscles aren’t really my thing, but I’m apparently lying, and I can’t convince myself otherwise. I don’t even bother with the total bullshit that his tattoos aren’t sexy as fuck, because they are.

  He’s inked from his wrists to his shoulders and around to his left shoulder blade, with that wicked hot mermaid on one arm and a simple intertwined thorn design on his other sleeve. I can’t make out the words scrawled along the ridge of his right ribs, but that’s okay, because I have a front row seat to the broad planes of his chest and the solid six-pack under a dusting of light brown hair narrowing to a point that disappears beneath his waistband, which shouldn’t be staying up on his hips at all, given how cut and tight they are too.

  Confession: I’ve never even been to a strip club.

  This is literally the closest I’ve ever come.

  And I am so close to coming again just because he took his shirt off. My nipples are on full alert for another incoming O-party, my clam is jamming with a hot throb that I can feel all the way up to my ovaries, and I want to suck on him like he’s a Twizzler.

  This memory of Rhett stripping is going to fuel my masturbation sessions for the next fifty years.

  And that’s before he drops his pants.

  Fuck me, he’s still commando.

  I make an inarticulate noise, his hammer lifts, thickens, and sprouts like a redwood, and he grunts out a single word. “No.”

  He turns his back to me, and were there ever two more perfect butt cheeks created in this universe?

  Hard and round, over hamstrings that I want to bite, and I’ve never wanted to bite any of the guys I’ve slept with before.

  He hits a switch, and the room plunges into as much darkness as there ever is in the city.

  Sheets rustle.

  I wonder if he’s planning on jerking his gherkin, because I would probably explode on the spot if I thought he was whacking off six feet from me.