by KB Winters
I nodded, hardly allowing myself to breathe for fear of falling completely apart.
His face was lowering to mine and I struggled to keep my eyes open. It was startling how much I wanted to let myself melt into one of his hot kisses. His fingers slid down my chin and traced a path down my neck, sending sparks exploding all over my skin, wherever his fingers touched. His lips pressed to mine and my legs nearly went out from underneath me. There was a little voice screaming in the back of my mind, reminding me about the actress, telling me that he wasn’t to be trusted, but the voice was drowned out completely as Cooper’s tongue entered my mouth and swirled around the tip of mine.
He wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck and held me possessively. I let him pull me closer until our bodies were pressed against each other. My breasts ached as I leaned into him, desperately wanting to feel his skin on mine. Scenes of our previous lovemaking flashed behind my eyelids and I was breathless, panting between each crash of his lips on mine.
Just as suddenly as it had started, Cooper stopped and backed away. He released me and my eyes popped open.
“I don’t want you around Parker,” he said, shattering the sexual tension between us.
His words sunk in, and my anger shot back to the surface again. Before I could rail against him, he pushed up his sleeve and checked his watch.
“I have to go. I’ll check in with your progress later,” he said. He swept past me and went to the door of his office.
I squared my shoulders, and strutted past him and through the door as he opened it.
I marched past Kimberly’s desk, not bothering to look back at her—or Cooper.
Chapter Four
I spent the afternoon in my office, alternating between crunching numbers on my personal budget, and fantasizing about Cooper. I was trying to figure out how many months of salary I would need to save up in order to live off of for a year, while I figured out what the hell to do with the rest of my life. However, it was proving to be trickier than I’d imagined, with images of Cooper flashing in and out of my mind in such lifelike daydreams that my panties were getting wet just playing it all out in my mind.
By the time four o’clock rolled around, I figured I wasn’t going to be able to focus on numbers right that moment. I’d been late getting to work and didn’t want to be the first to leave, so I decided to start hacking and get the information Cooper was counting on.
I rationalized that maybe once he had the information he needed, he would leave me alone and give me some cushy filing job that required no involvement with him. Then, maybe I wouldn’t have to budget at all, and could keep my obscene monthly salary coming in indefinitely.
The nagging voice in my head told me that would never happen, but I pushed it aside, much preferring to live in my fantasy land. At least for a little while longer.
I started typing and spent the first fifteen minutes cloaking everything, so that on the off chance someone at the competition’s headquarters realized they’d been hacked, they couldn’t trace it back to Brighton Enterprises. I wasn’t going to be tampering with anything, just researching, so I doubted anyone would ever notice, but it was best to play it safe.
Once I’d double, and then triple-checked that my digital fingerprints were nowhere to be found, I started looking for ways to get into their database.
It was easy to zero in my focus and forget all about Cooper. As I worked, the adrenaline of the hunt kicked in, and I was dead to the world around me.
“That’s weird…” I whispered, leaning closer to stare at the screen and make sure I was seeing things correctly. It looked like there was some kind of digital siphon, sending information from the Brighton Enterprises database and sending it to another address.
My heart raced as I clicked around, trying to figure out what was going on. I’d been hacking for several years, on and off, but I’d never seen anything like this. I kept an eye on the information going out, numbers running along the screen, changing into other numbers rapidly. I tried to open the database, to see if I could find the origin, but then it changed and two tables were affected. Either the hacker on the other end of things was in the database at the same time, or what I’d just done had made it spread.
It was a virus.
“Oh, my God.” I pulled up another window on my second monitor and started searching frantically. I had some cyber friends who were deep in the hacking underbelly. I logged into a forum, using my alias, and without giving specifics, typed out what was happening.
A reply came back that sent a chill over my entire body.
It’s a wormhole.
“Oh, shit!” I scrambled to type a reply back, begging for help. Once my SOS was posted, I grabbed the phone and dialed Cooper’s cell phone. I didn’t want to go through his assistant, and this was too important to wait another second.
“Hello?”
“Cooper, it’s Allie. I need you to get down to my office, now!”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“There’s been an attack,” I said. A reply to my forum post popped up and cradled the tiny phone against my shoulder, craning my neck so I could use both hands. “Just come down here!”
The phone slipped and hit the desk. I could hear Cooper’s voice coming from the speaker, but couldn’t make out anything he was saying. I clicked off the call and hoped he would take me seriously enough to get down here. Not that he could help with the techy stuff…but this was his company…his network…and although I didn’t know that much about wormholes, I knew that if this hack continued, he could lose everything.
I was typing frantically, setting trackers and taking screen shots, to capture everything that was happening while waiting for further advice to come in from my friends on the forum.
“Allie, what the fuck?” Cooper appeared in my doorway. He looked breathless and scared out of his mind. “An attack?” He looked around as if expecting to see chunks of the walls missing.
“A viral attack,” I said, turning my attention back to the computer screen in front of me. “A wormhole, to be more specific. If we can’t get it stopped, the entire system could go down.”
“What?” He rushed around and stared over my shoulder. His cologne engulfed me and it took all my concentration to not turn and look at him. His face was inches from mine and I could hear his breath as it returned to an even pace. “What is all this?”
“I just found it,” I said. I was a little embarrassed that it had taken me so long. From what I could tell, the data mining had been going on for some time. It was hard not to be mad at myself for not catching it sooner. If I hadn’t spent so much time procrastinating and working on that stupid spreadsheet, things might be different now.
Not that I was going to tell Cooper that part…
“Whoever set this up has been taking information from the Brighton Enterprises database and is sending it to another database.”
“What kind of information?”
“Emails, sales data, personnel information,” I listed.
“Holy shit.”
I nodded. “Yes, holy shit.”
“Can you stop it?” I felt his gaze on me and turned my head, our faces inches apart. My mind drifted back to his office and the feel of his kiss. He was like a magnetic force, and I felt myself getting sucked in.
“Allie? Can you stop it?” he repeated.
I jolted back to focus on the screen. “I’ll try, but, I’ve never seen this before. Is there anyone else you can call to help?”
I hated admitting that it might be above my head, but this danger was too real to let something like my ego stop me from asking for help.
“Everyone’s gone home. I’ll call and see who can get back here.”
I nodded.
“But Allison, please, do what you can,” he said.
“I will.”
He left the office, already on his phone before he rounded the corner out of my line of sight.
While he was gone, I continued working, tryi
ng to figure out what—and more importantly—who was taking the information.
“Anything?” Cooper asked, striding back into the office twenty minutes later.
“It looks like whoever is taking information is gathering the most data from Plush. So, that must be what they’re after.”
Cooper pulled a chair around the desk and sat next to me, staring at the computer screens, but I could tell he was completely out of his league as his eyes frantically watched the activity on my two screens.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“Is anyone else coming?” I prayed the answer was yes. Even with the help of my forum friends, this was way more complex than anything I’d ever done before. The ironic thing was that I’d just been planning to do the same thing to the competition. Granted, I wouldn’t have been stealing, simply observing. Which raised a very important question…why were they stealing the information? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply copy the data? Whoever was behind this was not just looking for the data, they wanted to destroy it.
Cooper nodded. “Yeah, Chad Franklin will be here soon. He’s not one of my guys, but he comes recommended for stuff like…this,” he said, gesturing at the screens.
“Good.”
“Don’t we have backups for this kind of thing?” he asked.
“Yes, but if this virus takes out the whole system, there is a chance it will destroy the backup, and whoever this is locked the backup so I can’t get information out or shut it down. I already tried.”
“Fuck. This is just what I need,” Cooper growled.
My heart twisted at his anguish. I wished I could say something to comfort him, but at the moment, it seemed as though I had no hope to offer to him.
I remembered back to what Parker had said at the restaurant. I hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but as it came back to me, it fit like a puzzle piece. He’d said that Brighton Enterprises was a little too fragile. I wondered now what he’d meant.
“It will be okay, remember?” I said, repeating his words from hours before, up in his office.
If he recognized my attempt to comfort him, he didn’t let it show.
“I have to get up. I have to do something. I can’t sit back and watch someone steal my company,” he announced. He stood and started pacing. “I’ll get us some dinner. Chinese?”
“Vegan for me,” I said.
“Right.” He stopped pacing. “I know just the thing. I’ll be back in a minute.”
With that, he was gone again.
I studied the screen, begging to find some clue, anything that would help. It was all such a tangled web of data and numbers and coding. It was hard to know where to begin.
All of a sudden, I had a Beautiful Mind moment, and it hit me.
I hovered over the keyboard and typed away like a mad woman.
Cooper came back in and set a cup of coffee next to my keyboard, out of the line of fire but close enough I knew it was there.
“Thanks,” I said, not breaking away. My fingers were still going a mile a minute. Cooper sat next to me and I could feel his body heat radiating to me.
“There!” I said, cheering for myself before flopping back in my chair.
“What? You got it? It’s stopped?” Cooper peppered me with questions.
I took a celebratory swig of the scalding coffee and realized it was from the same coffee shop that I’d been at when I ran into Parker the day before. It struck me as an odd coincidence, but I let it go.
“Not exactly. But, I managed to secure the backup, so at least the data will be safe.”
“Excellent.” He offered his cup like a toast, and I bumped my paper cup to his.
“God, it’s hot in here,” I said, shrugging out of my blazer. Normally, I wore long sleeves to hide my tattoos that went all down my arms. But, since it was just the two of us and Cooper had already seen every inch of my tattoos…and the rest of me…I figured it was safe.
Cooper’s eyes traveled down my exposed skin and my body temperature felt like it rose ten degrees as I watched him take me in.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his voice a thick whisper. “A masterpiece.”
“Cooper,” I started to protest, but before I could say anything else, his lips were on mine.
He pulled me from my chair and I straddled him, my skirt riding up my thighs as they spread so I could sink down onto Cooper’s lap. I could feel his cock straining under the fabric of his pants and wondered how long he’d been hard. Knowing he was ready made me even more excited and I knew I was already soaking through my panties.
Cooper was kissing down my neck, nipping at the sensitive skin, when a loud blaring ringtone burst through the air. We jumped apart at the sound and jolt of the phone vibrating in his pocket.
My skin felt like it was on fire as I watched Cooper take the cell phone out of his pocket and answer the call.
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
He ended the call and looked at me, his eyes still dark and hungry, like he would devour me on the spot if he could.
“That was Chad, the tech guy. I have to go downstairs and let him in,” Cooper explained.
My heart fell and it hit me just how much I’d wanted to get completely lost in Cooper and let him take me. My head was still full of questions, but my body seemed ready to let him back in. I just wasn’t sure my heart could take any more.
Chapter Five
A few tense hours passed as Chad got to work. I sat next to him, assisting as he needed. Cooper stalked the room. He was good, and didn’t interrupt us—but his mere presence was distracting enough for me. I desperately wanted to pick up where we had left off—my whole body ached for him, slowly burning from the fire he’d started.
I did my best to focus and follow Chad’s instructions as he worked. He had me work on one computer, typing in coding as he dictated it to me, and scribbling down frantic notes. Eventually, we got the virus handled, and shut down, before it could wipe out the whole system.
When it was done, I lay back in my chair, my chest heaving as if I had just run a marathon. The sheer amount of stress had worn me out, physically and mentally.
“That should take care of it. Unfortunately, you did lose some data. But it sounds like Allie, here, got most of the backup salvaged before the hacker could take that out completely. I’ve put in some safe guards to help stave off this kind of attack in the future, but I would recommend investing in some secondary backup that is manual, not automatic, in case this were to happen again,” Chad explained. He slid his jacket back on and prepared to leave.
Cooper thanked him and slipped him what I assumed to be a fat check to thank him for his help.
“Whew.” Cooper exhaled slowly as he sank into the chair next to me. It was nearly midnight and we were both wiped out. “That was insane.”
“Tell me about it!” I looked over at him and smiled.
“You were amazing,” he said, his voice suddenly very serious.
I tried to brush off his compliment.
“Allison, I’m serious. Without you…” His voice trailed off. “Well, let’s just say this company can’t take one more fire to fight. Thank you.”
I nodded and tried to breathe normally. The room crackled with intensity and I found myself, once again, being pulled to Cooper.
“Come on,” he said, standing and offering me his hand. “Let’s relax a little. Or does Sam need you home?” He smiled at me and I couldn’t help but laugh at his reference to my cat.
“I think he’ll be okay,” I answered before slipping my hand into his.
“Glad to hear it.” Cooper’s eyes darkened as I let him lead me to the leather couch on the opposite side of my office. He sank down and pulled me next to him. “Are you hungry? You never got a chance to eat. I put your food in the fridge. I can go heat it up, though.”
I stared at him, baffled by his sweet gesture. He was the most complicated man I’d ever met. He brought out every emotion within me, sometimes all at once.
He could make me so angry and fierce that I wanted to punch him, and then rebound two seconds later and have me eating out of the palm of his hand.
It was insane.
And intoxicating.
I had to admit that regardless of how much I wanted to be angry and stomp my feet and throw a fit, the reality was that I was developing real feelings for him and I wasn’t sure what to do with them just yet.
“I’m all right. Let’s just sit. My brain is fried.”
Cooper laughed. “I bet.” His hand was still holding mine and he gave a little tug and I fell against him. His rock-solid chest provided a nice place to land and I didn’t give in to the urge to resist. I let myself lay against him and heard the comforting beat of his heart under my ear.
“This is nice,” he whispered against my hair.
I nodded, but the quiet of the room and his voice was starting to unsettle me.
“Do you prefer Allie, or Allison?” he asked.
It struck me as an odd question. We had known each other for well over a month at this point. He’d always called me Allison.
“Most people call me Allison, but friends and family call me Allie,” I answered, wondering where he was going with his question.
“Well, what am I?” he asked. He tilted his head to look down at me.
Good freaking question, I thought.
If only I knew…
“You can call me Allie.”
“Okay, Allie. Have you ever been in love?” he asked.
This time, I popped off his chest and stared at him. “What kind of a question is that?”
It was like he’d touched a raw nerve and I recoiled at the sensation.
“Whoa, easy,” he said. He reached over and placed my head back on his chest and stroked my hair gently. “It was just a question. We’ll start with something easier. Tell me about your tattoos,” he said, his hand sliding from the ends of my hair and over my arm, tracing the colored lines of my tattoo sleeve.