by Mia Carter
“Yeah?” I say, encouraging him. I had no idea he’d be a talker. Especially since there’s something so primal about his body, the force of being taken by him, I just assumed it’d be all grunts and moaning.
“I like it when you touch me, I like it when you let me touch you,” he continues—and then his hands tighten on my hips, holding me, firm divots into the flesh that jiggles the most when I move. “I like holding you like this. Will you ride me?”
“Yes,” I say.
His hands stay settled on my hips as I adjust my position. His feet go flat on the bed, knees bent, and I’m perched above his cock, holding it in my hands as I ease myself down onto him.
Fuck. He fills me even deeper like this. His hands hold me tightly, rocking with me as I move. Hips slowly rolling beneath me, it’s all I can do to hold on. The pleasure is almost too much. His right hand splays down until his thumb is at my cleft, and his little steady circles bring me higher and higher. All the while, the remaining grip from his needy hands are so firm and steady, I feel like I’m going to have handprint-shaped bruises by the time this is over.
I don’t want it to be over. I fight it off, wanting him to come first, because even though it’s so great on top of him like this, it’s also so much more vulnerable than I had wanted. Because he can see everything, every jiggle and bump and roll.
But everything he can see—everything about myself that I hate and wish I could change—he praises. It’s damn near a babble, this litany of praise for my body.
“I wanna see you shake when you come,” he groans, head tilted back, fighting off his own climax in what’s now become a battle of wills. “I wanna feel you when you come for me.”
“Oh God,” I gasp, shaking as his thumb presses just there. And he follows me down, down that spiral of pleasure, climaxing inside of me as I hold him tight.
Logan sighs in frustration as the insistent buzzing of his phone pulls us both out of fantasy and back into reality.
“I have to take this, sorry,” he grumbles and rolls to the side, thumbing his way into his messages. As he scrolls through them, I get up from the bed, locating and retrieving my underwear from where he’d thrown them behind the mirror, finding my bra underneath the sofa in the living area. When I straighten back up, I can feel the heat of his gaze on my skin, and sure enough, when I look back over my shoulder, I can see him watching me.
“Have I mentioned how much I like it when you do that?” he says, casually, but with a twinkle in his eye.
“What?” I say innocently, bending over to pick up his discarded white dress shirt.
From the bed, Logan groans. I laugh and slip his shirt on, buttoning up just a few of the buttons in the front, noticing with some faint pride that two of them are actually torn off. Oh well. He can afford a new shirt, I’m sure of that. He can afford a dozen.
Logan groans again, but this time it’s not in lust. He’s scowling at his phone, pushing himself up to sitting, swinging his legs around the edge of the bed.
“Work,” he says—and he sounds less than enthused about it. “I’ve got to go to this, although believe me, I’d much rather stay here with you.”
“It’s okay,” I say. I’ve got grand designs for the bathtub after he’s gone, and I’m eager to go see more of the city. Hopefully I won’t tire my legs out too much, because the way he looks at me I’m sure he’ll want to be back between them tonight, and, honestly, no complaints there.
He leaves his phone on the bed and comes over to kiss me. It tastes like an apology, but I still shiver from the warmth of his hands through the cotton. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he says.
Then he heads into the bathroom, and I hear the shower turn on. The noise makes me grin and blush and put my face in my hands in disbelief. I still can’t believe this is real. The door slides shut, and his cell phone buzzes again on the bed.
Work must really need him. On instinct, I reach for the phone. Maybe there’s a message I need to relay. I can be useful, helpful, even. But the moment I have it in my hands, a cold, horrible feeling settles in my gut like a stone.
I know I shouldn’t look, but I do. It’s like I don’t have control over my hands anymore. I pick up the phone. And I can’t un-see what I see.
Smiling back at me in the text screen, however, is a beautiful, adorable, very brand-new baby. And it has dark eyes, and dark hair.
His eyes. His hair.
Is it? I don’t know.
Melissa is all the contact says. I drop the phone like it’s an ember, like it’s going to burn my hands. I’ve been so stupid.
Logan has a…a girlfriend, maybe even a wife. A child, and I’ve just been…
No, think for a minute. There’s got to be a reason. Maybe he has a cousin, a friend… A relative. But my gut tells me I’m fishing for excuses. He doesn’t have a sister. I crouch there on the bed, sheets pulled around me, and listen to the sound of him showering. Anxiety grips me. I feel cold, my gut twisting, my pulse racing.
He has a kid.
Unless it’s not his, but why else would a woman be sending him photos of a newborn? My mind doesn’t want to be rational. It wants to run in fear, hide in shame. I’ve been deluding myself, pretending like this was more than it is. But I don’t know him. And I certainly don’t know him well enough to straight up ask him, hey, are you married? Is this a fling? What are we doing? Where do we go from here? What am I to you?
I’m nothing. I can’t believe I thought this was some fairytale. It’s not.
What have I done?
Chapter Sixteen
Logan
The rasp of the razor on my jaw grounds my focus, but work worries still race through my mind. To my utter shock, when I’d conveyed the utterly ridiculous offer that Burke had made to the rest of my C-level employees, not all of them had found it so insane.
If Burke knew about the mole, then we had to seriously consider it, seemed to be the consensus. I hated that their logic was sound. It was a source of pride for me not to even consider such a thing. Tantamount to surrender on the battlefield, I supposed.
And what none of them dared say over company email was what I now was fretting over as I stared at myself and my soap-lathered jaw in the mirror. If Burke planted the mole, if he had been the one responsible for whoever it was in the first place, then we truly were better off cutting our losses. Burke may approach things with the casual air of a lazy lion, but he knew how to go in for the kill when it mattered. Perhaps it was better to take the offer and step away with our reputations still intact.
Damn it.
A faltering of my hand causes the blade of the razor to nick the very edge of my chin. Hastily, I press a clean, damp towel to my face, swiping at the swell of red blood that immediately blossoms there against the foamy white. The sting of the hot water and, seconds later the soap, makes me wince and curse. But neither of those things sting as much as the unavoidable reality.
I have to at least consider it. As backward and as stupid as it feels. My team was right.
But if I take his offer, isn’t that the same as letting him win?
Yes and no.
I’m going in circles. I need to focus.
I scowl at myself in the mirror, patting away the remnants of the blood and the shaving cream, turning the debate over in my mind.
Yes, he’d win, because he’d own something I’d poured so much of myself into. Everything I’d thought I’d wanted, he’d own. But not exactly. He wouldn’t own me. Or any of my employees.
I hate this in-between, though. I hate the thought of heading into the conference for one more day when I could stay here at the hotel with Chloe instead.
Turning on the tap once more, I wring out the washcloth and wipe my skin down again. The cut’s stopped bleeding, but it still stings. I rub my hand across my jaw and feel for any missed spots. I’m not really a man prone to preening in the mirror, but I wonder, distractedly, whether Chloe prefers me clean-shaven.
Something thumps outsid
e the half-closed bathroom door. Chloe, I think, and I smile.
“You okay out there?”
“Yeah,” she quickly replies. “Just, um, hit my shin on the…the bed.”
I laugh faintly at this and shake my head. “You can just stay in bed all day, you know. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” Chloe says. Her voice sounds a little muffled. Maybe she’s pulling on a sweater. “Um, I thought I might go walk around town today for a while.”
“That sounds better than where I’m heading,” I say, running the tap and cleaning off my razor. “Wish I could join you.”
Chloe doesn’t reply. I tap my razor on the edge of the sink and set it out to dry.
“I’ll try to get everything wrapped up as quickly as possible,” I say.
“Okay,” Chloe says.
More shuffling. A muffled curse.
I smile even broader at this, tucking the plush hotel towel around my waist and turning to peer out the door. “What are you doing out there?”
Chloe is standing over by the other side of the bed, wearing a floral-print shirt and a cheery yellow hooded sweatshirt and jeans. Her face looks serious, like I’ve caught her doing something illicit.
“You look very pretty today,” I say, unable to keep the low purr of admiration out of my voice.
Her lashes sweep down, her gaze lowering as a faint blush dusts across her cheeks. “Thanks. I’m just… I want to go and take advantage of the light.”
“Plenty of that this far north,” I say, turning back to the bathroom to comb at my damp hair. It’s getting a little long. I should schedule a haircut.
“Yeah, it’s nice here,” she replies. Cagey, I think. Scared.
Scared of what, though?
I step out of the bathroom, still clad in only the towel, and don’t see her in the room at first. Then I spot her, sitting down on the couch, leaning over to tie her shoes. When she sees me, she looks up, gaze scanning my body at first, pupils widening, before a smile settles on her face. One that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” she says. “I just realized I hadn’t gotten anything for my sisters while I’ve been here. I thought I’d look for that. And, um, maybe some art, for my apartment.”
“Okay,” I say.
If I knew her better, I’d be able to tell if she was being completely honest with me right now. But we’ve only had a handful of precious days, and this thing between us, it’s so new and fresh. I relax. I must just be pent up because of work. Seeing things, fears, that aren’t there.
She watches me for a moment longer, then bends down to tie her other shoe’s laces.
I toss the towel onto the bed, and when Chloe looks up, she clears her throat, the blush on her cheeks deepening. “You probably have to get to the conference.”
“Yeah,” I say, distracted by her as I pull my travel bag up and set it on the bed beside my towel. I smile and try for reassuring. “Eventually. Although I can think of a much better use of our time.”
Chloe clears her throat again. She smiles back at me. “If it’s okay, I think I just need some time today to explore. The city’s just so beautiful.”
“It is.” I take a step closer to her, and her gaze travels up. She’s not short, but I’m taller than her, like I am for most women, most people in general. I’m used to it. But now, like this, it makes me worry. Am I the thing that’s making her tremble? Am I scaring her? Or is it something else, something she doesn’t quite know me well enough to talk about?
I wish she would.
“Hey,” I say softly, a finger under her chin as she lets me tilt her head up. “It’s all right, yeah? I know this is, well, it’s new, and kind of crazy, but you can talk to me.”
She nods, but her hazel eyes dart away from mine. My thumb brushes tenderly across the line of her jaw, and then she smiles.
“I just don’t want to distract you from your meeting,” Chloe finally confesses.
I arch my eyebrow at her, a smile widening on my own face. “Maybe I like your brand of distraction.”
Chloe laughs quietly and shakes her head. “I bet you do.”
But that easy smile falters, and she looks up at me once more before pulling away and turning toward the door. There’s something in me, a warmth, an affection, that I’ve never really felt before for a woman. It makes me want to comfort her, to tell her that whatever it is that’s scaring her is going to be all right. I don’t entirely believe her, but I have no idea what else could be on her mind. And I’m not going to push. Was she overwhelmed by what had happened in the light this morning? Was she embarrassed by how she’d acted? She really didn’t need to be. It was fucking sexy, amazing, unbelievable.
I don’t want to push. Maybe she just needs some space. That’s not unreasonable.
“Good luck today,” Chloe says, placing her hand on the doorknob. “I hope you show that asshole up. He deserves it.”
I look up at her. “He really does. And thank you. As soon as I’m out of my last meeting, can we maybe have dinner again?”
Chloe hesitates, and nods. “Sure.”
Then she turns and she’s out the door.
For all of the intimate knowledge I have of Chloe’s body, the way she moves, the way she tastes, the way she sounds, I have no way of guessing what it is that’s truly bothering her. If she had stayed, then we could’ve done all sorts of things, which may or may not have included getting to know each other better.
But my last meeting isn’t until four this afternoon. And I’m still nowhere closer to finding the identity of the mole.
I always used to pride myself on my instincts, but as I sit at the hotel’s desk, staring out into the window, all I can feel is static in my brain. My instincts are screaming at me right now, but I can’t hear what they’re saying.
What am I missing?
I have to be calculating about this, as thoughtful as I haven’t been these last few days. Do I accept the offer? Do I take a payout and try to explain what I’ve done to my staff? There has to be a better solution. I know Burke can’t just rip off Spectrum without facing down our legal team. We were so safe and so careful, and the legal team, at least, hadn’t been as careless as I had been. If that drive had fallen into the wrong hands, the results…
My thoughts trail off, and suddenly, an idea begins to form in my mind. Clarity, like static suddenly tuning into perfect stillness.
The wrong hands…
That’s it.
I’d been so worried about catching the mole from the inside. But what if I caught them from the outside instead? It would be so simple. Do I have time to make this work? Absent any better options, I begin to put my crazy plan into motion.
There are twenty-two total programmers who have had their hands on Spectrum, five team leads, myself, my CTO Alan Fulton, and the remainder who have only had access to parts of it, under the direction of the team leads. What I need to do is follow the leak itself. Not just the main leak, but the right leak.
Let’s say you want to find out who’s sharing your secrets. Let’s say you give each of the people you suspect a slightly different secret, and see which one gets out. I have, in fact, watched the first season of Game of Thrones. It’s an idea so stupidly simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
Except in this case, it’s a bit more technically complex than just telling different people different things. My hands fly over the keys, my thoughts clarifying down to a laser-sharp focus. First step, lock the code repository, close it off completely to everyone. Then, I branch it, splitting the project into five distinct branches. In each one, I shift a feature in the code. Spectrum is poised to work across all of these levels of security, so I take away one, a different one, in each branch.
It’s just before eight a.m. Helsinki time, which means it’s late at home, nearly ten p.m. Most of my team might be in bed, but programmers are a notorious bunch of night owls, and we’ve got an ale
rt system for when they’re on-call, so I know they’ll all be paged. With the new branches in place, I send out an alert to the five team leads, letting them know that the repo has been locked, that they’ll be working on local copies and sending me pull requests, and I’ll be handling merges from here on out. It’s not at all best practice, just the kind of despotic code control that I resolutely try to avoid, but for this, it’s necessary.
Then I wait.
Like little soldiers with their marching orders in place, I watch as one by one each of the five team leads pulls down their unique version. I say nothing about the changes. If there’s any grousing in our company Slack, I ignore the little red messages and snooze my notifications. The people who trust me will trust this, even if they might not understand it. If my company gets forcibly bought out due to corporate espionage, then it won’t really matter what they think of me. I’ll pay them all nice bonuses and help them relocate, if my entire staff decides to quit.
But Burke won’t own WhiteLight, I think to myself. I’ll make sure of that.
Looking down at the list of my team leads, I consider them, one by one.
Marcy Thomas. Fallon Eastwick. Jeff Nishigawa. Kai Ross. And the fifth, who has yet to pull down his new code, but who still is marked online on our Slack channel, one of my newest hires, Chris Gerrard.
Which one of you is my leak?
And will you scamper to your master with this new code in hand? Will he compensate you nicely, promise you whatever promotion you’ve been eyeing? Will you tell him I’ve locked down the code and changed it at the last minute? I’m sure Burke will want to know that right away.
I can’t stay here and wait, though. I change out of my dress shirt and trousers and pull on running shorts and a T-shirt. I need to do something with this restless energy, and since I can’t get it out the way I’d prefer without Chloe here, I’m going to go for a run.
After the draining run on the hotel’s treadmill upstairs, I take a second shower and get redressed for the day. Boxers, shirt, pants, tie, jacket.
As soon as I’m out of this meeting, I’m going to call Chloe. Maybe when we meet for dinner, she’ll finally open up to me about whatever it is that’s on her mind. With the thought of her smile, and the promise of more kisses from that luscious, talented mouth, I slip on my dress shoes and ready myself for battle.