Glitch

by Olivia Linden

  “How’s that for focus?” Glitch whispered against her clit before nipping it and sinking her fingers deep inside of her. She screamed as he pumped within her, curling his fingers upward and hitting a spot at the top of her pussy that had her shaking. She couldn’t catch a breath. She gripped his hair to steady herself, riding his fingers helplessly.

  Each pass of his tongue had her panting, each pump of his fingers had her screaming. She was falling, sliding off the counter and trying to keep her balance. She struggled to keep her perch, to hold on to the now slippery counter, but the combination of the sloshing water and her own wetness made her seat hard to maintain.

  “Stay still,” Glitch urged and before her next breath he was lifting her up and moving away from the counter. In a couple of steps, he had her at his dining room table. He lay her down on the top and then sat down in a chair. With a sexy smile, he gripped her thighs and pushed them up and out.

  “Now I can eat,” he said and sucked her flesh back into his mouth. She didn't know how long he stayed like that, eating her and playing with her body. She lost count of how many times she came and screamed. By the time she was fighting to get away from him her flesh was raw and she’d lost her voice. She didn’t know if she could handle being the focus of his attention again. Glitch had stamina that was unreal. And not once had he allowed her to take care of him. He had to be hurting, and yet he acted as if he couldn’t get enough of her. He stood slowly, face shining with her juices, and leaned over her. She held him in her arms as he panted into her neck and clutched her to him.

  “I could be the reason we all fall,” he whispered so low she thought she’d been hearing things before she heard him speak again.

  “I have to destroy him, Hex. Have to find a way to save everyone.”

  “You don’t have to do it alone, Liam. I’ll help. Whatever you need, whatever we can do. We are going to save us all, and we’re going to find a way to get that bastard for good.”

  Chapter 10

  There had to be wings waiting for him in heaven. That’s what Glitch thought after he let Araceli out of his arms and watched her walk away from him and into the guest bathroom. It had taken all the restraint he possessed not to bury himself balls deep while she moaned wildly beneath him on the dining room table. Only the voice of reason, both hers and his, had stopped him. She was right, well mostly. He wasn’t completely focused on her until she mentioned it, and while he did manage to pay her the attention she deserved, part of his mind was still thinking about the darkness that loomed above them.

  It’s just how his mind works, had always worked. Growing up the only child to parents who chose the second half of their marriage to have an ‘oops’ baby, he had plenty of time to himself. By himself. No other siblings, no cousins, no doting mom who filled up his days. He was too advanced in school and was dubbed a nerd early on, so he had few friends. Then even the other nerds couldn’t keep up with him, eventually he was dubbed a geek. Getting his very own computer on his tenth birthday was the best thing that ever happened to him. The rest was hacker history.

  Now, he stared at himself in the mirror and felt like he was seeing himself for the first time and not a stranger. Not just some handsome guy that was too smart for his own good, one that women could give their bodies to, but never understand. Everything around him seemed to be spiraling out of control, but for some reason it all felt right. He couldn’t understand it and wouldn’t even try to explain it to anyone else, but for the first time, things just seemed to fit.

  He slid open his frosted glass shower door and turned on the cold water to full blast. His body still burned for Araceli no matter what his mind said, but he needed to get back to work. He had less than forty-eight hours to complete his job for Eagle, and the clock had been ticking for some time. His only relief was that he couldn’t pick a better partner to have his back.

  Glitch emerged from the shower feeling renewed and ready to submerge himself into the world of firewalls and code. Araceli was ready and tinkering with his workstation. He frowned, not able to ignore the territorial streak he had when it came to his equipment. She glanced up and smiled sheepishly as he advanced on her. Being a hacker, she had to know how he felt.

  “Sorry,” she said not really sounding so.

  “You have been asking for your own gear. I’m going to make that happen right now. Give me your house keys.” He outstretched his hand and held it there even as she hesitated to move.

  “Are we going to my house?”

  “We are not, but Scratch and Jack will,” he stated simply.

  “What? No! Let me go, or you take me. Don’t send them,” she cried.

  “You, can not go back to your old life. Right now you’re going to type up your resignation letter stating how you have a personal matter to attend to, blah blah blah. I gave you an out and you chose this life. I need you to be all in. Do you understand? Can you do that?”

  Glitch understood every flit of emotion that danced across her gorgeous features. Nervousness, fear, apprehension. It struck him that he knew nothing of what her life was. Did she have lots of friends? Did she have a boyfriend? Shit. He was pissing himself off with the thought.

  “All I have is my stuff,” she said sadly.

  “So no friends or family to report you missing? No boyfriend?”

  “Don’t insult me, Liam. For one, you know a hacker’s life can be a lonely one. And two, if I had a boyfriend I would not have let you have me for dessert,” she sassed.

  “I’ve heard I can be hard to resist,” he teased.

  “Not that damn hard,” she shot back with a severe eye roll. Glitch ate it up.

  “I guess I have to work on that next time,” he said in a seductive tone he didn’t know he had.

  And it seemed to work because she didn’t hit him with a comeback, but she blushed furiously under his gaze.

  “Seriously. Are you ok with all of this?” He wanted to believe that she was, but he couldn’t help giving her every opportunity to get out while she could. Before it was too late for her like it was for him.

  “I told you. I have spent the last four years looking for you. You know I had no friends and a horrible foster family before. Not much has changed, except my level of skill. That’s why I’m not afraid to do this. I know that together, we can beat all of this,” she explained.

  “And what about us? I feel like I know you and don’t know you all at the same time, but now that I know what you taste like, I only want more of you.” Glitch couldn’t believe that words that were flying from his mouth.

  “I’m not afraid of that either. Hello? How many times do I have to tell you I’ve been looking for you? It wasn’t just so I could stare at your face through a computer screen again,” she mused.

  Glitch’s shoulders sagged with relief, tension that he didn’t even know he was holding seeped out of him.

  “And for that, I want to make sure I can give you what you deserve,” he stated.

  “I never figured you for old fashioned,” she teased.

  “Neither did I,” he agreed. “But now that you’re here, back in my life, I want to do all the things that I never got a chance to before.”

  “Liam, be honest. If you never left, it would have taken us forever to meet in person. You know that,” she chided. He couldn’t help but to laugh.

  “I think you have a point,” he said, still laughing. It felt too good to be able to laugh with her.

  “I know I do.”

  Done with the banter he walked over to her, pulling her into his arms.

  “I still don’t know why you’re here, or why I deserve it, but thank you,” he spoke gently against her ear. It seemed the more she gave him, the more he wanted to hold her and care for her. The fact that she always smelled so damned good helped too.

  “Keys,” he said again. This time she didn’t argue just turned away, reached into her purse and handed him what he asked for.

  “I’ll have Scratch call you so that you can tell him
what you need while he’s there,” Glitch said as he walked out the door. He didn’t see her swooning after him as he did.

  *

  He jogged down to the floor below, not even considering that his friend might be busy until he was at his door. Pausing to listen for voices or the sound of company, he relaxed when he heard Jack’s deep voice, then he walked in unannounced like they did to him countless times.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Scratch jeered emphasizing the word cat and snickering like a teenager.

  “What?” Glitch meant it as a warning, but Scratch seemed to miss the memo.

  “Scratch,” Jack warned with a hint of amusement.

  “What? You heard her up there carrying on like a friggin’ tiger. I bet...” His words were cut off when Glitch gripped him by his shirt and pinned him up against the wall.

  “She’s not one of the chicks, broads or whores you deal with. You don’t get to talk about her like that. Do you understand?”

  Scratch could be a jerk, but even he knew that he had somehow pushed his friend past the limit. A place he’d never seen him go before. So instead of punching him in the gut and putting him in a headlock until he passed out, he simply nodded his head that he understood.

  “Got it,” he conceded, but being Scratch he couldn’t just leave it at that. “But you have three seconds to get the fuck off of me.”

  The two men glared at each other, each waiting to read the understanding in the other’s eyes until Glitch pushed away.

  “If you two are finished making out, Glitch can tell us what he came for,” Jack said, this time utterly amused.

  “Stugats!” Scratch cursed loudly as he straightened his shirt. Glitch, composure already regained, shrugged him off.

  “Yeah, I got big balls. I’ll show you later, but I need you to do something first,” he said coolly.

  “Can you believe this guy?” Scratch turned to Jack who wasn’t even trying to conceal his enjoyment. “He comes in here and assaults me, and now he wants a favor.”

  “It’s not a favor,” Glitch corrected.

  “Just spit it out,” Jack said dryly. “I’m already getting bored of your little cat fight.”

  “I need you guys to get Araceli’s things and bring them back.”

  Silence ensued as both of his partners just stared at him. Surprisingly, Jack spoke first.

  “Glitch. You have to be sure about her,” he said calmly.

  “Sure? You have to be more than sure, bro. Do you understand what this means? To us, the job, and her as a woman? Are you ready for all of that? I mean, who is this woman?” Scratch, despite his usual crude behavior, was serious as he questioned his friend.

  “I can’t explain what I have with Araceli. We had a connection before, and I never stopped thinking about her. No, I never talked about her, but how could I? All I know is that she’s here, she’s prepared to help us, and I’m prepared to take care of her. End of story,” Glitch said firmly.

  “Dude,” Scratch said, shaking his head. “I get all that, I do. But do you have the first clue what to do with a woman when it comes to a relationship? How to deal with her moods, and her needs and wants? She’s not a computer bro, there’s no manual to learn.”

  “Guys, I’m not getting married. This isn’t about forever. This is about the job, and getting us free. I’ll deal with the rest once we get everything else straight. Besides, I’m not like you guys. I don’t have an aversion to women, but if there was ever one that I think I could handle, it would be the tiger upstairs.” With that he tossed the keys at Scratch and headed back to his place.

  Chapter 11

  It didn’t take long for Scratch and Jack to come back with Araceli’s gear. She was going through it within seconds of getting her hands on it. While they’d been gone, Glitch couldn’t quite get what happened with the job at Amsterix out of his mind. They needed more proof that Eagle had planned a set up there. A new system uploaded to their server just days before his first move was telling, and Glitch wanted to see that program with his own eyes.

  “I need your laptop,” he said.

  “Not that I’m going to say no, but any particular reason why? You’ve got a pretty sweet system separate from the gear you use with Hawk.” Glitch took a moment to choose his words. That laptop he had was running one program and one program only. No way in hell was he going to run the risk of destroying his program or getting it linked to anything when it was running the program that syphoned money away from Hawk Global by minute amounts twenty-four-seven so they could clear out when the time came.

  “Remember how you said you could take every penny Hawk had and with me make it seamless?”

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “How serious were you?”

  “Very. What’s going on?”

  “That laptop, Araceli, has a program that’s already started that process. I don’t want to move it or touch it, until it’s done what I need it to.”

  “It’s you freedom,” Araceli said, her eyes softening. “You were already working toward it.”

  “I need your gear to go back to Amsterix and find this other program, and who’s running it. My gear stays here, where it’s safe. Look over the program and see how you might transition it to do what you said. But make no changes until we are both here to implement them.”

  “Got it. I’ll notate my findings while you’re gone,” Araceli said as she got up and grabbed her gear. “My laptop is encrypted, but I’ll give you the code. Without my direct sequence, you can’t get into the files, but if you are just remote accessing the server and then piecing it together, you won’t need the access to the files.”

  “Not looking to piece it together. Looking to download the mother file for the code and then dissect it. It would take too long to do on-site, and I need to find the signature of the hacker to know much about the code.”

  “Then you’re golden,” Araceli said, writing on a piece of paper. She handed it to Glitch, waiting with her hand open while he scanned the sequence of numbers. She wouldn’t expect him to leave the house with that code any more than he would. Memorizing it, he handed it back to her.

  “Got a lighter?” she asked.

  “In the drawer in the kitchen. I’ll be back after this is done. In the event something happens, type ‘feu’ on the keypad. That’s all. The system will take over. You will then have about a minute and thirty seconds to get the hell out of here before it goes boom. Do you understand?”

  “Got it. Be safe,” Araceli said as he left. He liked that she didn’t ask about his failsafe, that, as a hacker, she understood he couldn’t let his gear get into anyone’s hands. Any hacker had a system to destroy his safe house in the event they had to disappear or got hurt. For now, though, he’d focus on the job at hand.

  “We need to go back to Amsterix,” he said as he entered Scratch’s house.

  “Hello to you too and you’re welcome for going to get your girl’s stuff,” Scratch tossed.

  “Why?” Jack asked.

  “Araceli said that Amsterix had a program uploaded to the system before I went in right?” Glitch asked.

  “Then you need that code,” Jack said.

  “I’m in,” Scratch added. “We can get into there quickly enough. The plan we used to get Araceli out of there gave us all we needed. This time we don’t have to go through the front door.”

  “Let’s move then. I don’t know how long the program will be live for me to get the job done on time for Eagle.”

  *

  “I need about ten minutes in the server room, guys. Keep me covered,” Glitch ordered as he placed his SIG down next to the laptop and input the sequence to get by Araceli’s encryption. He wondered, for a moment, when did he get so comfortable carrying around a gun, and being prepared to use it if necessary. Working for Hawk Global had definitely expanded his ease with the criminal element. So much so that he didn’t know how normal any of them would be, even after they got out. But he was ready as hell to find out. />
  “I’ve got the exit to the right,” Scratch said.

  “I’m on your left. Just get a move on,” Jack added.

  “On it.”

  Now in Araceli’s system he hooked to the server directly, coding by the normal interface to scroll through the updates. He requested the system to give him the updates to the server from the week before he initially went in. Several updates were large, he ignored them. A hacker program, in theory, would be light and small, if they could get it. They wouldn’t want anything to signal a change. When he got to one done in the middle of the day and was less than a few megabytes he went into it.

  “Got it. Five minutes to total download,” he updated Jack and Scratch.

  “Then I guess I need to get you out of here before then! Who are you?” The voice made Glitch pause for a moment. Slowly, he shifted his hand toward his gun.

  “Ah ah ah, I wouldn’t do that. I asked you a question. Who are you?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Scratch asked, coming to Glitch’s side, gun drawn. He placed his body between the viewpoint of the speaker and Glitch’s hand. Glitch was grateful as he gripped his gun and turned with it lifted.

  He saw nothing.