I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that has some saliva on this thing. It should have her skin oils on it along with her fingerprints. Her hands have been all over it today, watching the latest video footage I took of us fucking in the garage. Safety off, I point the gun at my phone, but the trigger won’t budge.
I need another test subject. Can’t stop now.
Before Westin can protest, I’ve grabbed his keys up from the table he set them down on, wiped them off with my shirt, licked them and set them down on the stand. When I aim at them, the same thing happens.
“Shouldn’t it have shot off a round? It doesn’t have my DNA programmed in.” Westin shifts in his seat.
“I set it to recognize the prominent DNA. I wiped off some of yours and slathered it in mine. The percentage of it being mine was greater than yours, so it froze up. It works.” I stare and grin at his keys.
“Goddamn,” Brigand says, almost breathless.
“Perfect.” I grin like a fucking lunatic, because that’s what I am.
A fucking lunatic with a disabled weapon, and a woman that’s really gonna want to ride me hard tonight.
Chapter 22
Vapor
“Good Lord, how did you come up with this?” I stare at the cobra. “This is crazy genius.” I blink and my mouth drops open.
“Well, I . . . Uh, I wanted to get rid of clogs in the drain but didn’t want plumbers in my home with their cracks hanging out, sweating in my bathroom, so I, yeah . . .” she trails off and turns a shade of pink that reminds me of my favorite pair of her undies.
“So, let me get this straight. This thing went down the drain in my home and my dad’s.”
“Yes.” She blinks and smiles harder.
“And then you had it cut through the wiring for his Internet, plant a virus inside his home network and then you even did a scan of his entire home for other electronics.” I breathe hard. Can I have a bigger hard-on for this woman? I stroke her invention.
“Guilty. I know where every electronic device is in his house, who’s using it, what it does and how often it’s used. And I can shut down his Internet access at any time along with his phone line.”
I turn my head toward her. “And how do you keep it from infecting the neighbors’ lines?”
She rocks back into her seat and tucks her hands between her hair and her neck, then lifts her hair up. “The virus can take orders so it only infects whatever area I tell it to. I programmed it to be large enough to hit his main house, his garage and guest house in the back. It even covers most of his backyard. Should do what we need it to.” Her cheeks grow a brighter pink.
“Making you hot—all this talk?” I smirk.
“No. What makes me hot is you, salivating over my metal contraption here.” She fans and fluffs her hair for an air flow.
“So, how are you going to be putting Rich out of business? He doesn’t have a cobra in his possession.” I reach out and stroke it again, studying all the parts of this thing.
“He doesn’t have to. Your dad’s company gave him their weasel, which is a pale imitation of the cobra, but I was able to get one of my guys in there to change it. Rich didn’t bring it home like I’d hoped he would, but he brought it to the corporation. He put it in their stockroom there. Jason’s girlfriend, Lexi, is in there now, as a new hire. She’s tweaking it, and it should do what we want fairly soon.” She bats her lashes at me and purses her lips, but it’s innocent and hell, I’m harder now.
I stroke her thigh. “And what else are your dirty little guys doing for you?”
“Well, don’t be mad, ‘kay? But I wanted to help you, too, so I filed for a patent for your invention White Flag.”
“My what?” I chuckle and give her a look like she’s overdone it on the happy pills today.
She opens up her laptop she had set off to the side and logs onto some website I’ve never seen before. “This is how we really take Rich down.”
I wrap an arm around her waist and she types in a code with a few numbers.
Ten people are logged on.
Chafe: We’re ready. Just say the word.
Totesmway: We’ve recruited more. It’s good to go, Ides.
I turn to her with my mouth hanging open. “Sweetheart, what did you do?” My eyes go big.
“You were aiming for military, waving the white flag so everyone would surrender. I wanted you to think about starting smaller, testing it out, then growing it outward. So right now we’ve got people set up to monitor big companies like your father’s. They look for glitches in the system, get inside and red flag any illegal activity they pick up on. It’s a monitoring system. We use the slimboy to break into their codes.”
I blink and breathe so loud there’s a whistling sound in my throat. “You did this? You took my box of shadows and did this?” It’s definitely illegal, the shit she’s talking about, but I’m not sure if I care at this point. This is so hot.
“Sorry, hon. I just wanted to help you and show you it had other potentials. I was so impressed, but what you were going after was a little scary. I want us to be able to hide what we’re doing, and this was so bold, we would’ve always been running. You said you want kids—well, let’s take your dad’s company’s apart, get rid of Rich, maintain a smaller operation for now, and then we can see where it goes.” She fans her face with her hand for a moment. “I’m really sorry if I overstepped my bounds here. I did it because I love you. And my Lord—this invention of yours made me so hot, I had to change my undies twice.”
I grip her upper arms and make sure we both have eye contact. My heart swells just having this open moment with her. “Just answer me this—it’s all I need to know—did you think it would work?”
She blinks and nods.
“I’m not talking about what you’ve done with it. I’m talking about what I did solo before you tweaked it. Did you think it would work?” I peer into her bright blue eyes, searching—pleading for the truth and praying she really does believe in me.
“It does work, Nick. It’s ingenuous. I could never think this global and big.” She beams at me. “It. Blew. My. Mind.”
“Really?” I check for any facial expression that would suggest she’s exaggerating so she won’t hurt my feelings.
“Really, honey. You put your blood, sweat and tears into this one, and I could see your personality, your ultimate goal that is always there in everything you do, but never to this magnitude.”
“And what is my goal?” My head wobbles. It feels big and overinflated from the things she’s saying.
“Your overwhelming need to be accepted for you and seeing that justice occurs. Isn’t that why you’re truly drawn to me? Because I love you for who you are, unlike your father who tries to fit you into a mold. You see the way he wields his power in a negative way, and you can’t stand it.” She exhales, and her cheeks color with passion. Her stance shifts until she’s tall and proud. “I watched you in court. Remember I told you I was turned-on?”
“Yeah.” I lick my lips and my head drops forward a little, but I keep my eyes on her.
“What I saw was this man, fighting to break out, break free from his father’s unjust ideals. Shit, I . . .” Her eyes water, and she gets choked up. “What I’m trying to say is I saw this brilliant man, keeping his emotions in check because he had to, but beneath was a deep well of passion, pain, love and a sense of wanting things to be fair. You were subtle about it, but you commanded that room without hurting anyone. It was amazing. Your father thought he got what he wanted. I got what I wanted, and Riot, well, he didn’t realize it, but he got what he wanted, too.”
I can’t stand it. “C’mere. I need you in my arms.” I take a seat on the couch and pull her down into my lap. “I have no idea where you come up with all this stuff, but I love your take on things. It puts me in a very flattering light—one I’m afraid I don’t deserve.” I nuzzle my nose into her hair and take deep breaths.
“What don’t you get, that you think you don’t
deserve it?”
“How in the hell did Riot get what he wanted?” I stroke down her back. “I’m glad you think that, since I know he’s your friend and you don’t want to hurt him, but I was anything but helpful to him.” Another deep whiff, and my head buzzes with the scent of her.
“Do you know what he said to me after we left the court room?”
“No. I wanted to follow you, monitor you somehow, but I was dealing with my jerkoff of a father,” I answer.
“Riot said you did that all for me as a show.” She curls around my body, hangs onto my shoulders. “I slapped his face, and I left. It was after that, he got bolder, started fighting for me, and it forced us both to face the ugly truth. I didn’t want him, and I had to not only tell him more emphatically, but I had to show him. He watched me helping you in my home as I went after this project. He watched me sneaking out just to see you from afar. You’re not the only one that was following the other.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she covers my mouth with her finger.
“Do you know how often I leave my house?”
I nod and smile under her finger.
“Yes, I suppose you do. It was a really big deal for me to do that, and he knew it. He saw how much I wanted you, so he got more desperate.”
She runs her finger over my bottom lip, and I lick it.
She keeps explaining to me what happened. “I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to make the tough choice to take him out of my life if you hadn’t done that in court. There wasn’t a place in my life for two lawyers, two computer geniuses, and two men that love me. It wasn’t even a choice anymore. It’s in my bones—you are in my every breath.”
I relax into her. “Okay,” I mumble through her hand.
She lets go. “Excuse me? Did my asshole just turn all lovable on me?”
“Yeah, he fucking did. Get used to it.” Warmth spreads through my body and radiates outward in the look I give as I smile at her. “I love you, and I can’t believe you see all this in me. I still can’t believe all of that is here, but if you say so, then I guess I’ll have to think about it.”
She kisses the tip of my nose. “It’s there. Get used to it.”
A rumbling chuckle settles deep in my chest. “So damn cute.”
“So, we’ll continue on with what I’ve done with it? We don’t have to.” She bites her lip and looks apprehensive, her brows closing in on each other, her eyes slanting inward.
“No. Get rid of it. We don’t need this. We don’t need to worry about my dad. He’s already on the run and you have the capability to track him. His company’s going to fall apart on its own, and if they ask me to run it, then I’ll say yes and take it apart piece by piece on my own. I don’t want you involved in all of this.”
She gasps and covers her mouth. “Oh, God! I ruined this for you. I’m so sorry.”
“No, noooo,” I say, my voice soft and low. I caress her cheeks with the pads of my thumbs. “You recognized it for what it was—a weapon. You don’t create weapons. I want peace like you do.” I peel her out of her shirt slowly as I keep talking. A kiss is placed above her left breast, then I drift my fingers over the spot to wipe it away.
“I’ve created weapons. The slimboy. The pet tracker. Why are you saying this? It breaks my heart to realize I’ve sabotaged you without meaning to.” Her eyes well up even more. “Don’t do this.” Her eyes drift down away from my face.
“Dena, you didn’t do anything. I just realized”—I kiss the corner of her mouth—“all I wanted was your stamp of approval. I wanted to prove I could do this, but I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to ever follow through with it. I had this big idea to have thousands of people keyed in with me, all ready to shut down the military if a war seemed imminent. They’d have owned various codes to get in there and cripple the system. It was the ultimate rocket, only I didn’t need a chimney to do it. I only needed my dad’s connections, and that’s what I was tracking down. I recently found it, but I was hesitating. I knew you wouldn’t like it, so I couldn’t do it.”
She takes in a small gasp and looks at me like she’s unsure about what I’m saying.
“I can’t have kids in good conscience, knowing someday I’ll have to tell them I was involved with heavy shit like that.” I frown.
“Can I ask who your connection was?”
“Jason and Lexi. She has parents high up in the military, and he’s got connections as well. With their abilities they were able to hack into her parents’ computers and get me what I needed. It’s cocky as hell, so arrogant I couldn’t stand myself when I thought about how I was playing God. I disliked how they thought it was their right to pick on others, but who am I to say they’re wrong? I don’t want that power.” Tears drift down her cheeks, but she’s smiling. I whisper them away with my delicate kisses. “It’s okay. I don’t need this. I still wasn’t even sure if we could trust Jason anyway. You didn’t ever figure out if he turned on us in San Diego and told my dad what was going on. We don’t need the cobras either. Get them back from everyone who has one. We’ll keep the information, keep tabs on them, but we don’t need to hurt anyone.”
“I need you,” she whispers and wraps her body completely around mine.
She undresses me with care and tenderness—kisses me until I can’t breathe. My heart pounds as she says the sweetest things I’ve ever heard, and we make love with a gentleness I didn’t know either of us possessed.
* * *
I shoot her a quick text. Thinking of you, cutie. You looked gorgeous this morning when I got out of bed. Made it hard to leave. Love you.
“Are you ready, Mr. Reid?” the woman in the pants suit asks me.
Her severe bun in her hair looks painful. She’s so opposite from my woman it’s almost hard to look at her.
“Yes, ma’am, I am.” I follow after her as she takes off.
Her heels click down the hallway, and I’m led into a room with the largest private vaults available.
The briefcase in my arms is heavy, but more so because I know what kind of dangerous objects I’m carrying around.
She has her key, and I have mine. The codes have been set. We open the safe deposit box simultaneously, and she pulls the empty box onto the table for me.
A grand bow from her and she leaves the room, giving me privacy.
I take a deep breath. After going through all the security biometrics here, I’ve come up with a few more ideas for Dena’s invention for gun safety to improve the design even more.
I empty my briefcase of the cobra, the weasel, fatboy, slim boy, and even the thumb drives with both of our more dangerous invention ideas on it. No one will see this except us because we’ve encrypted all the files with a very temperamental virus that will infect everything if someone other than her or me opens it.
I set the box back in place, make sure it’s locked up and head back out to the front.
When I hand over the key and turn around—there he is.
“Dad,” I say, holding my breath the second he approaches me.
“The company,” he starts, drifting off.
“Fuck the company,” I reply under my breath as I meet him step for step. “I don’t want it.”
“You don’t have a choice. You caused this. When you make a mess, you clean up after yourself. It’s what adults do.” He gives me that gaze that says he’ll rip my chest open if I go against him.
“Like you did, huh, Dad?” I rock back on my heels, then side to side as I get comfortable. “You went after Dena’s father, after her repeatedly, like a snake, hiding what you truly were. You no doubt stole the same woman he did, Libby, and always have to win. Did you kill her?”
“How dare you!” His nose almost touches mine as he snarls in my face. “I loved that woman more than anything.”
“Then what the hell happened to her?” My gut twists as possible responses from him flit through my mind.
“She left, and it wasn’t for the reasons you think.” He looks around to
make sure no one’s listening.
“Did she figure out you’re the devil in a suit?”
“No, Son, she figured out she wanted more. She left us both for Rich Hillcourt. You wonder why he’s after you and your girl? Because he knows I’m trying to free her. He’s the monster, not me. He’s turned her life into a living hell. He beats her. He’s destroyed her. And I made sure Gregory Winters, Dena’s dad, was put away because instead of trying to break her free, he broke into their home, shot several men, and he tried to shoot her as well. I managed to pin that motherfucker down, haul his ass out of there and make sure the Feds went after his ass so he couldn’t hurt her again. I’m protecting her.”
My eyes widen, and I back up a step. “You’re joking.”
“Afraid not.” His eyes mist, and I’ve never seen his face contort in pain ever, but right now he’s nothing but a skeleton covered in agonizing pain. “That man was a jealous, maniac with a violent streak. He told me when I forced him to leave he planned to gun her down along with Rich and myself. He wanted all of us dead. He was going to take over everything I had worked so hard for. I worked my ass off to destroy his business—take away his power. I did it for her. I thought maybe I could buy her freedom, and now there’s no way I can do that with what your girlfriend’s done.” He pauses, hugs me with a surprising lurch, turns and says, “I love you, Nicholas. If you love Dena, hold onto her tight, and don’t let anyone destroy what you have. I told her the rest, so she knows. I only ever wanted to keep you from ruining your life for a woman like I did, but it seems I was wrong about her. Protect her and keep her safe whatever you do. I wish you both the best.”
He leaves in the next beat, and I’m left standing there gaping.
I find a seat and sit, replaying each psychotic word he shared.
This can’t be right.
When the pressure has built up to the highest it can go, I get up and leave, racing home to my girl on my bike.
What will she say when I tell her all this? How the hell can I come up with the words to explain this nightmare to her? And what did Dad mean he’d told her the rest? Was he talking about Dena?
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