Playing With Fire: Dragons Of The Darkblood Secret Society

by Meg Ripley

  ****

  By the end of the night, she’d managed to create some leads, and Cassie woke up at the crack of dawn to find her cellphone tinkling shrilly in the darkness of her bedroom. She reached for it blindly, upending an empty water jug as her finger unlocked the screen. The time read 5:42, and she realized her blurry eyes were staring at a text message from Eric.

  Barbara’s Café? 1 hr?? E.R.

  She didn’t remember giving him her number— but she didn’t remember giving him her address either, and after she showered, dressed, and printed all of her work so far, she opened the door to find a package wrapped in an overnight envelope.

  What the hell? Cassie looked around the hall, but no one else was moving down the too-bright corridor. She ripped open the envelope slowly, shaking it upside down until a heavy black rectangle fell out into her palm. It was a brand new cell phone, already charged and loaded with her contacts. Anxiety crowded in her chest; the return label showed that it was from Riverston Enterprises. Eric had sent her a phone that was already connected to her personal account—but how had he gotten her login information?

  He’s a tech genius, she reminded herself. Assume he knows everything. Assume he’s seen those lingerie pics you posted once and then deleted out of shame.

  She didn’t feel any less put off by the time she’d driven to Barbara’s Café, but she wasn’t anxious, either. Eric was clearly trying to be nice, and she would just need to lay down some ground rules.

  Cassie pushed into the little café and saw that Eric was already seated at the table they occupied the day before. He turned when she entered, and when he smiled, the leap her heart made in her chest did nothing to comfort her nerves. He was wearing a light blue sweater and khakis, an outfit oddly similar to her blue polo and khaki skirt.

  “Cassie, thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”

  “No problem,” she said graciously, plunking the phone onto the table. “Thanks for the…what is this? A bonus? A bribe?”

  Eric look startled. “What? It’s a phone.”

  Cassie let her skepticism show on her face. “Come on, Mr. Riverston. You didn’t give me a cutting-edge phone I just happened to tweet about a few weeks ago as a way to try to speed things up maybe? Can’t wait in line like everyone else?”

  Eric’s green eyes were angry at first, but he struggled to reign himself in. “I thought you said you didn’t have bad habits like everyone else. I think you’re a little paranoid, Miss Vine.”

  Cassie frowned. “I told you to call me Cassie.”

  “And I told you to call me Eric. I also told you that I was impressed by you and was looking forward to seeing your work. I wouldn’t ever try to rush your job. Just like I’m sure you’d never try to dictate mine.”

  Cassie fumed silently, but she realized he was right; she’d come in defensive and expecting the worst. She sighed and tightened her caramel ponytail, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re a big client, and I’m letting that get in the way of how I think.”

  Eric’s expression softened. “It’s okay. I only got it for you because I’m afraid someone at my company could be watching me. I can’t chance them finding out about the investigation before I’m ready.” He paused, and his cheeks flamed scarlet. “Wow, now I sound paranoid.”

  Cassie shot him a smile. “You’re being smart. This is a good idea. I assume this is a secure line?”

  “Yes. Everything you send and receive on that phone will be completely secure.”

  Cassie turned the phone over in her hands. “Does this run on a version of your security software?”

  “Yes. A simplified version that only I have access to.” His eyes flickered to the folder she’d brought along. “Do you have something for me?”

  Cassie opened the folder and explained what she’d found. “Just as you thought, it’s coming from inside your company. It looks like they went through some trouble creating a sort of data signature that shifts, so that it varies between its real source and a host of others, making it harder for them to get caught. I’ve narrowed it down to twelve possibilities…and one is your brother.”

  Cassie was ready for the rage Eric responded with. “Excuse me? My brother? My brother would never do something like this to me. Ever. You’re mistaken.”

  Cassie kept her face as neutral as possible. “Eric, I understand that you and your brother are close. But if we want to get your software secure, we need to take this seriously. James is a real possibility. I’m sorry, but it’s true. He has a motive.”

  Eric was silent, and Cassie could see the anger in his eyes being replaced by the realization that she was right. “I think I knew that,” he admitted. “He’s never stopped making weird jokes about Dad leaving me the stocks that got me where I am today. Even though he’s doing well on his own,” Eric finished defensively.

  “But he’s not a tech savior,” Cassie said softy. “He’s not a billionaire. He’s not you.”

  He dropped his eyes and stared at his mugful of coffee. “I wish being himself was enough.”

  Her heart hurt for him; she could see that their relationship had been more affected than he’d wanted to admit. “I’ll give you daily updates,” she promised. “As soon as I can say for sure who it is—or who it’s not—I’ll let you know. I’m sure I’ll figure out something useful enough to justify billing you for breakfast each morning.”

  Eric laughed, and the clouds that had darkened his gaze rolled away. He reached across the table and grabbed her hand again, and Cassie felt her smile widen automatically.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Cassie. Are you going to be okay meeting me early like this? Will this work out okay?”

  She shrugged, still grinning broadly. “Guess we won’t know until we try. Let’s call it a test.”

  And she kept her promise. Every morning they met at Barbara’s and discussed her findings over bacon, eggs, and the strongest coffee Cassie had ever ingested. He’d always text on her new phone, and she’d always zip over to find him already there.

  One morning, she surprised him by being there before they opened, and she sat with him in his Mercedes with warm air pouring from its vents. The woman who normally served them didn’t show up for so long that she worried she’d been in an accident.

  “Don’t say that,” Eric said, his voice thick with worry. “Oh, great. Now I can’t concentrate.”

  Cassie laughed at him. “We can just go someplace else to drown our sorrows in caffeine.”

  Eric paused and turned toward her, his green eyes sparkling. “Or how about mimosas?”

  Cassie gaped at him. “Champagne at 5:30? Where are we going to find that?”

  And that was how Cassie ended up Eric’s apartment for the first time.

  ****

  This is so wrong, she kept telling herself as she sipped from her champagne flute at Eric’s kitchen nook. He was sitting right next to her, and their thighs were touching all throughout breakfast. This is wrong. Go home. Go home.

  But she was feeling too daring to go home. Eric’s eyes were darting to the window of cleavage afforded by her blood red scoop-neck t-shirt, and she’d brushed her hair out so it fell in shining waves past her shoulders. Her eyes were drawn to the muscles of his biceps, and the way his tongue kept darting out to moisten his lips. He was saying something about a board meeting when a question that had been on her mind for three weeks straight slipped past her lips.

  “Hey, Eric?”

  He turned to her, his green eyes hazy from the alcohol. “Yes, Cas?”

  Her heart did a happy tumble at the sound of her nickname. “You’re so intense. But I’ve seen you interact with other people, and though you’re intense, you’re not…the same way with me.”

  She could swear that his breathing stopped. “What do you mean?”

  She set down her glass and turned her gaze on him. “Why do you look at me the way you do? No one else looks at me that way. Like…like you’re analyzing me. Like you’re figuring me
out.”

  Eric smiled lazily. “And you’re not used to that.”

  Cassie shook her head, feeling tipsier than she’d anticipated. “So you are? Trying to figure me out, I mean?”

  Eric put a hand on her lower back, and her heartbeat accelerated. “Is that okay to you?”

  Cassie’s mouth was dry, and she had to try twice before she could successfully speak. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to be figured out.” She placed both of her hands on his shoulders and let him see the desire burning in her eyes. “But I don’t want to stop you from trying.”

  Eric pulled her toward him and pressed his lips to hers hungrily, and her body cried out in joy. She wrapped her arms around the breadth of his shoulders as he massaged her lips with his, his hands slipping under her shirt to caress the silky warmth of her bare skin. He stood and pressed her body tighter to his, his arousal pressing against the front of her skirt, hard and heavy through his pants.

  Cassie pulled back from the kiss breathlessly. “Wait, Eric, are you sure you want to do this? I work for you.”

  “I don’t care,” he said deliriously, his hands running lower on her body until the lifted her skirt and grabbed her buttocks roughly. “I want you, Cassie.” Cassie moaned and ground her hips against his reaction, desire echoing through her body like a shockwave. A rush of moisture drenched the crotch of her panties, and the next moment, Eric was kneeling and pulling them away from her body, planting hot kisses on the soft skin of her thighs.

  Cassie lifted her shirt, letting her high, round breasts spring free as she leaned back against the breakfast nook and parted her thighs. Eric gripped her hips firmly and gazed up at her, his green eyes burning with need. He kept her gaze as he slipped his tongue between her slick folds, and Cassie threw her head back and shouted her pleasure to the heavens as Eric dragged his tongue around her clit in long, slow licks.

  “Eric!” Cassie shouted, throwing one leg over his broad shoulder and grinding herself more firmly against the force of his tongue. She couldn’t believe how perfect his mouth felt on her body, and couldn’t imagine the kind of pleasure his member would send through her.

  Eric pulled away from her suddenly as though he could read her mind. He placed his hands on her hips and lifted her until she sat on the counter, kissing her roughly as her hands fumbled at the clasp of his khakis. She could taste her own sweet essence on his tongue, and her hand moved eagerly over the hot thickness of his shaft as she pulled his cock free.

  He didn’t waste any time. Eric held one hand behind her head as he pushed his round head inside Cassie’s warm velvety walls, and she cried out in ecstasy as his length stretched and filled her for the first time. It was like they were two interlocking puzzle pieces; every slow stroke felt perfectly tailored to her body, expertly crafted to push her toward her most delicious edge.

  “Cassie,” Eric moaned, his thumb passing over her erect nipple as he slowly pumped between her thighs. “Oh god, you’re the most incredible woman.”

  His strokes grew faster and harder, and Cassie could only whimper and tighten her arms around him as his body collided with hers. Pleasure was streaking through her muscles and enveloping her brain, carrying away all thought except the joyous sensation of his hips pounding into hers. Eric’s hand fisted in her hair, and Cassie cried out as her ecstasy reached its peak at the precise moment that her lover reached his.

  “Cassie!” he moaned, throwing his body against hers with abandon. “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

  Cassie arched her back and screamed wordlessly as the slick walls of her pussy tightened and pulsed around Eric’s thick, rigid shaft, his cries reaching a fever pitch as he exploded inside her. His mouth covered her breasts in wet kisses as they both twitched and moaned together, hips bucking together weakly to pull all the pleasure from each other’s bodies.

  She didn’t have time to catch her breath before she was being carried to his bedroom and laid across the bed. He wrapped his arms around her naked body and gazed down at her, stroking her soft hair as she gazed at him wearily.

  “Eric,” she said softly, her eyelids growing heavier by the moment.

  He smiled. “Yes?”

  Cassie took a breath. “I love you.”

  His face went blank, and for a moment, Cassie feared he wouldn’t respond. “I love you, too,” he said finally.

  Something in his tone made her open her eyes. He was starting to turn away, but she put a hand on his arm to top him. Eric was startled, but Cassie fixed him with a stare.

  “Hey. What’s wrong?”

  The look in his eye was of pure terror. “I didn’t think it would get this far,” he said.

  Cassie frowned and sat up on the bed. “You mean…love?”

  Eric covered his eyes with his hands, and Cassie’s heart started to sink in her chest.

  “Oh, no,” she said quietly. “Do you have a girlfriend that I don’t know about?”

  He looked up, his anguish interrupted by surprise. “What? No.”

  Cassie shook her head. “Then what is it?” she demanded. Eric didn’t answer, so she took hold of his chin and reputed her question. “Eric. Something tells me you think I’m going to find out anyway, so tell me what it is. You just fucked my brains out; I think I’m in a good enough mood. Come on, did you find the person sabotaging your project already, and then hide it from me so you could get in my pants?” she grinned at him to show him that she was joking, but when the panic in his haze sharpened, her smile faded. “Oh, no. Oh, god…Eric. Have you been paying me so you could woo me?”

  His silence gave her the answer.

  “Eric, what the fuck?!” Anger coursed through her, and she felt her heart start to gallop in her chest. “How long have you known?”

  Eric met her eyes briefly. “A long time.”

  Cassie scoffed. “So, who is it?”

  Eric covered his hands with his eyes again, a small sound of despair escaping his lips.

  Cassie went numb with shock. “Eric…no. It can’t be. It couldn’t be…”

  He raised his green eyes to hers, and they were brimming with tears. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

  A bitter laugh burst from her mouth. “You sabotaged your own project for some ass, Eric? Are you fucking kidding me? You led me along just so you could fuck me?”

  “No!” Eric said desperately.

  “Then why?”

  “Because I wanted to get to know you, Cassie,” he said, his voice pleading. “I wanted you to get to know me.”

  “Good idea, except the part where you lied to me about everything!” she shouted, scooting away from him on the bed as he tried to reach for her. “I can’t be with someone like that, Eric—I can’t be with a liar.”

  Eric was following her as she raced through the apartment and pulled on her clothes. “I was so impressed by you, Cassie, I just wanted to work with you. And then I fell in love with you. I didn’t mean to.”

  Cassie laughed in his face as she pulled on her shirt. “Well, that makes it better. Have a nice life, Eric. Don’t call me. I’ll bill you.”

  “Cassie!”

  But she sprinted to the road and was flagging down a taxi by the time he caught up with her. Cassie sobbed in the back of the cab, unable to stop herself from watching Eric’s place growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

  ****

  Cassie wasn’t sure how long it took her to stop crying. Hours maybe, or perhaps it was minutes. It was nightfall when she left her house again, and that was only to check the mail. She saw Eric’s silver Mercedes on the street and dashed back up before he could even leave his car.

  She wasn’t sure what had hurt her more—that she’d been lied to, or that she’d fallen in love before she figured out. She kept going over the last few weeks in her mind, trying to find a warning or red flag that should have tipped her off. Cassie kept going back to their first serious conversation about who was sabotaging his company; once the truth comes
out in a case like this, bonds can be broken and never repaired. How right she’d been.

  By the end of the first week holed up in her apartment, Eric stopped calling, and his Mercedes couldn’t be found outside on the street any longer. Her relief was enormous—but she was surprised to find that she was more than a little disappointed, too. Had his love for her dried up so quickly?

  Don’t be stupid, said a nasty voice in her head. He never loved you—he just wanted to get in your pants. Now that it’s over, he has no reason to try again.

  She burned with rage at the thought of him simply losing interest in her and the body he’d ravaged so insatiably. Was she really so disposable to him? Cassie took another week off work and spent it wandering the streets aimlessly, bumping into walls and citizens at random as she tried to sort her jumbled thoughts and feelings. Cassie hated to admit it, but Eric had given her a purpose beyond professional—she’d felt important to someone for the first time in years. Maybe that was why she’d been so upset with him; not because she felt disposable now, but because she’d felt so invaluable before. Could it be possible that she liked feeling so desperately needed—so desired that a man would concoct a wild scheme just to get close to her?

  Am I that crazy? She thought—and then: Do you have to be crazy to miss being madly in love? Maybe. Probably. Cassie pushed open a door without reading a sign, and her heart stopped when she realized where her legs had carried her: the bookstore where she’d first met Eric.

  Definitely crazy.

  Cassie’s heart felt strangely heavy as she strolled through the aisles, the cashier and bored shelf stockers ignoring her like they had the first time. There was The Joy of Sex, precisely where she’d picked it up last time. The arrangement of spines looked just as dusty as they had before, and when she turned toward the front of the store, she could swear Eric was standing right where she first laid eyes on him. Then she did a double take, and her heart stopped.

  “Cassie.”

  Eric hurried toward her, and Cassie stood, rooted to the spot by the panic and heartache mingling in her chest. “Cassie, please, just let me say this.” He took her hands in his, aquamarine eyes shining with sincerity. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I should never, ever have lied to you. But you’re right—I have blind spots. Huge ones, put there by money and the privilege it brings. One of those blind spots kept me from realizing that all I had to do was be real with you—and let you come to me yourself.”