by Dez Burke
I shrugged. “Smoke coming out of the engine?”
Tech grimaced. “That's never good. You want me to take a look at it?”
“I figured you for a biker, not a car guy,” I replied.
“I'm good with my hands,” he said with a silky voice.
“I bet you are.” My voice came out far more husky than I was intending. I had no idea how he was doing this to me, but I wanted to bring him home. Maybe it was just the stress of the day, the excitement of being in a biker bar, or his pure animal magnetism, but I was incredibly attracted to him. He oozed danger and sex, yet I kept getting glimpses of something sweet underneath.
“Joker!” Tech called out, his eyes never leaving me. One of the pool players raised his head.
“Yeah?”
“Would you make sure this young lady's car gets towed to Franks? She's had a rough day.”
“Yeah, no problem,” the pool player responded and then finished his pool shot.
“What are we doing? Won't the tow guy need my card?” I asked.
Tech smiled that heartwarming smile again. “I am taking you to Anna's Inn so you have a place to stay for the night. Joker will make sure your car gets to Frank's. His brother runs the tow service. I'll make sure it gets taken care of.”
“Thanks.” I took another sip off the bottle. “Why are you being so nice to me anyway?”
“He likes blondes,” Jenny cut in. Tech gave her a dirty look.
“You remind me of a friend of mine's little sister.” He got a sad, faraway look in his eyes. “If someone had done this for her...” He shrugged.
“I'm sorry,” I said quietly. He shook his head slightly as if he were freeing himself from spiderwebs of the past.
“Let's go get you checked in,” he said, changing the subject.
“Okay,” I said, standing up. My knees buckled slightly as I stood. Lunch had only been a protein bar and a diet soda, so the alcohol on an empty stomach was going straight to my head.
“Whoa there,” Tech said, catching me easily in his strong arms. Wrapped up in him, I could feel just how much muscle there was under his jacket. There was a lot. He also smelled really good.
“I should probably eat something,” I murmured.
“We'll get a hamburger on the way,” Tech said, letting me go once I had my feet. I thought about falling again just to get him to catch me again, but the look Jenny was shooting both of us told me not to.
“Sounds great.” I straightened my jacket and did my best to walk in a straight line to the door. I managed to mostly pull it off.
Outside, the rain was down to a light drizzle. It wasn't quite yet night, but with the dark rain clouds the lights outside the bar provided most of the light. Tech went to one of the motorcycles on the end and motioned me to get on the back.
I wrapped my arms around his middle, my fingers brushing his belt buckle. He was warm and solid and making my insides heat just by holding on to him. He revved the engine, adding a vibration to my thighs that only fanned the flames growing in my belly.
With a roar, the bike sped down the empty road, away from my broken down car and toward what I assumed was Anna's Inn.
***
Anna's Inn was the most pathetic excuse I had ever seen for a hotel. The pale green paint was peeling off the building and only half the sign lit up over the sagging roof. The sad little collection of buildings was on the outskirts of a small town. But, it was cheap and clean, or at least that's what Tech promised.
Tech had stopped at a little McDonalds and gotten me a hamburger and fries. I could smell the food and it was making my mouth water. He handed me the bag.
“You eat, and I'll go get you a room,” Tech said, handing me the bag. The rain had stopped and it was actually nice out, other than the mosquitoes that were starting to buzz. “I know the owner. It'll only take a minute.”
I nodded and dug into the bag. I was starving. I wolfed down the hamburger and fries and was licking my fingers by the time Tech came back.
“You were hungry,” he observed, eying the empty bag. I blushed slightly and he smiled. “You're in room 112.”
He put his hand on the small of my back and guided me forward. A thrill went through me at his touch. I was safe with him. I wanted him.
He pushed open the creaky door to reveal a very worn orange bedspread and banged up dresser. But, it at least smelled clean. I glanced around and closed the door. The room seemed suddenly very small with just the two of us in it.
“Thank you, by the way,” I said slowly. “For the hotel, and dinner, and everything back at the bar.”
“You're welcome, Claire.” His voice was low and powerful, and the way he said my name sent heat straight to my core.
“What was going on there anyway? I get the feeling I picked a horrible time to break down,” I said. Tech pulled out the whiskey bottle and took a sip before offering me some.
“You have no idea. Twenty minutes either direction and you wouldn't have had a problem,” he said, his eyes focusing on me.
“I get the feeling I shouldn't ask more. That it's Prairie Devil business,” I said slowly, my eyes meeting his. He nodded.
“You don't want to get into this world, Claire. It's not safe.”
“Are you safe?” I whispered. I wasn't sure what I wanted the answer to be.
“No.” He said it simply. Looking in his eyes, I believed it. He was dangerous.
I took another swig of whiskey and took a step closer to him. The liquor was making me bold. He was tall and dangerous, but I wanted him. I wanted to feel his hands on me, I wanted to have that danger touch me and take me. Without stopping to think of the consequences, I leaned forward and kissed him.
His lips were soft compared to the burn of stubble on his cheek. He opened his mouth, kissing me back and taking charge. His hands went to my hair and his tongue entered my mouth. I moaned slightly at the invasion. He tasted like whiskey and desire.
“Tech,” I whispered. “I want you.”
He pulled back on my hair, making me suck in a gasp as he pulled me back. His eyes went to mine and he searched them.
“Gregory,” he said. “Call me Gregory King.”
And then he made me his.
Worthy of the Billionaire Biker's Trust
I woke with a start, the room dark and unfamiliar. A warm presence to my right mumbled and hugged me in closer, and I slowly relaxed back into his soft embrace. The clock in Gregory King’s ornate bedroom read a little after 3am. I still had at least two more hours left to sleep before my day would begin. I knew I was going to want to stay in bed, the idea of playing hooky with Mr. King made me smile, but I knew he would never go for it.
Running his business was practically an obsession with him. I was very much his employee, not his lover, at work, so these quiet moments were precious and few. I snuggled back into Mr. King’s warm arms, letting his gentle breathing lull me back to sleep. My wrists ached from the cuffs he had me in earlier that evening, but the bruises were worth it. Every night spent with him was worth it. I let my thoughts wander as I closed my eyes to shut out the numbers on the clock.
My brain immediately tried to tick off the various meetings on the schedule that day; three development meetings, a payroll issue, lunch, a board meeting in which I was presenting the financial stability projections for the quarter, and the myriads of small issues I knew were going to pop up throughout the day. I let them all wash over me, letting each one have a second of my time before going on to the next. It was strangely relaxing to plan out my day in the safety of the dark morning. I loved my job.
I had been working directly with Mr. King for almost three months now, and I had found my rhythm. It had taken a few weeks to acclimate, but I was excelling and finding solutions to problems before they even registered as problems. It was also wonderful to be with Gregory King again. I felt him twitch in a dream, holding me tighter as he mumbled into my hair.
He was two separate people, and I found myself wanting to
please both of them. The amusing, caring man that had rescued me at a biker bar only came out when we were alone. Tech was the man that I had fallen in love with years ago, and he filled my nights. The powerful businessman version, demanding and controlling Mr. King, filled my days. He made sure to keep the two identities separate, and I had learned quickly that despite our evening rendezvous, I could expect no quarter from him if I failed any of his business demands.
I could feel sleep slowly creeping up on me. My brain slowly let the sweet darkness envelope me and I drifted off, safe and warm in Tech's arms.
***
Something felt off. The office had its normal hum, the secretaries busily clicking at computers, the phones ringing, and sporadic chatter filling the office, but I felt a tension in the air. It felt like a thunderstorm was coming, the office mood heavy and jumpy. The interns seemed to be hiding more than usual, and the secretary’s voices seemed to squeak too brightly. Just as forest animals know when a storm is coming, the office knew something big was going to happen. I gathered my usual morning information, and went to find Edward Thayer, head of the antiviral department, to get the production updates I needed to brief Mr. King with that morning. Thayer was in panic mode when I found him.
“Oh God, Claire! I don't know how something like this could have happened! What the hell are we going to do? What am I going to do? I can't face him alone with this...”
I could almost see the life draining from him as he spoke. His skin was pale, except for flushed cheeks, and his hair looked like he had run his hands through it all morning. He was fluttering about his office like a frightened butterfly, never landing anywhere, but almost touching everything. He tried to pick up a folder, but it slid through his hands and fell to the floor. He stood for a moment and stared at the papers, his face crumpled like he might cry. I quickly bent and picked up the scattered papers and put them back in his shaking hands.
“Ed, you know I have your back in any meeting you might have with Mr. King. Now, what on earth is the matter?” I asked gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. His whole body seemed to be trembling.
“You haven’t seen it yet then? Oh Claire- it is bad. So bad... Mr. King isn’t going to just fire all of us- he is going to personally kill all of us. At least twice.” his voice drifted into a mumble as fear shook through him.
I knew that, since Thayer had gotten this job he sometimes had a crisis of confidence. I understood, since he had overnight jumped three pay grades and been put in charge of over a hundred people. Usually when he got like this, I could defuse him with humor. “Let me see. It can’t be that bad- at worst he will just kill you and make you zombie slaves. Saves on payroll,” I tried gently, but my humor went right past him. His hands shook as he opened his laptop and handed it to me. Up on the screen was a email file addressed to the head of the antiviral company.
Dear Mr. King,
I have hacked your system. You destroyed me and now I am going to destroy you. Attached you will find a portion of the antiviral source code to prove that I have it. I have the entirety of it and will be selling it to anyone interested in purchasing the information. I also have used to it to develop a virus that is implanted in every computer in the King Corp. building.
If you wish to stop the virus, I want 5 million US dollars wired to an account in the Grand Caymans. If this is done by Wednesday at 5pm EST, I will disable the virus. For an additional 5 million I will not alert the media to the breach in your antiviral system. The last bit, the source code, will cost you 10 million for me to destroy all copies of.
You should never have fired me.
If you involve the authorities in any way, I will activate the virus and I will release this information to the public.
Sincerely,
Cirrus
I had to read it twice.
“I don’t understand. I know that the virus would be bad because our anti-virus software would have no way of finding or stopping it, and I know that the public finding out about this would be bad, but why would releasing the source code destroy the company?” I asked confused. In my mind the worst would be that people would use the information to get free anti-virus, and while bad, not the end of the world.
“If he releases the source code, we have no way to stop other people from building mal-ware that can hide from our system. Every one of our customers would be vulnerable to attacks. If it got out that this had happened, no one would buy our software. Lawsuits would occur. Did you know we supply the government with this? National security would be compromised. If the source code is released, the company would never recover. We would all lose everything,” Mr. Thayer explained.
I tried to wrap my brain around the concept and instead my thoughts flipped to when Mr. Cirrus had quit.
Mr. King snickered. “Your one sentence blurbs are no longer going to cut it around here.” He paused. “Mr. Cirrus, Mr. Thayer, you’re both aware of how important it is we meet this deadline, correct?” Both men answered with an affirmative. “Then you’ll understand that I can’t afford a shakeup in your department right now. Mr. Cirrus, at the conclusion of this project, your role will turn into more of an advisory one. You will be teaching Mr. Thayer the ins and outs of your current job, and once he’s ready, I’ll be transferring you to a position in R&D.”
Mr. Cirrus sat there, with his mouth agape. “R&D? A demotion? Are you serious? After my department has hit all of its goals?”
Mr. King shot a glare back at him. “Yes, Mr. Cirrus, a demotion. You’ve disappointed me, even failed me, but you’re too valuable to fire. A few months in R&D will remind me why I hired you, and remind you of...”
Mr. Cirrus cut him off. “You don’t have to worry about giving me a job to cool my heels while I’m pushed into early retirement. I quit!” he yelled as he stood up and knocked his chair over. He gave a piercing glare at me, as if this was all my fault, before storming out of the room.
I remembered him leaving the building, escorted by security. He had yelled out that Mr. King would be sorry, that he would ruin him. Everyone had taken it as the ramblings of an unhappy, disgruntled employee. The implications of this email slowly began to hit me. This would be disastrous. Destroy the company and everyone who worked here’s life disastrous.
Mr. Thayer sat at his desk, his eyes vacant and afraid. I had to salvage this. I had to get Thayer's confidence to the point where he would begin to work on this. If anyone could fix this situation it would be him. The man was a genius with computers. Since becoming the head of the department, the output and creativity of the whole company had skyrocketed. I stood up and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him gently.
“Look at me, Ed. We can fix this. Let’s go tell Mr. King- we have to. This isn’t your fault. He may be angry, but it will be at the situation, not you. He needs you to fix this. I know you can fix this. We will come up with a solution.” My little speech sounded like a bad sports movie, but it seemed to perk him up. His eyes lost the glazed expression and he stood, teetering slightly. He grabbed his laptop and headed towards the door.
I heard him mumble something about whiskey and I thought I could use a bottle too.
***
To his credit, Mr. Thayer’s voice never shook as he presented Mr. King the problem. His hands only trembled slightly as he handed over the laptop with the message displayed. He managed to only look vaguely like he might throw up as Mr. King read it. I wondered what kind of whiskey he would like after this.
Mr. King sat at his desk staring at the computer, his face incredulous. With extreme self control he stood slowly and walked around to where Mr. Thayer stood.
“The public cannot find out about this. We have to get this situation under control now.” The cold fury in his voice frightened me. I had never seen him this angry, this cold. His hazel eyes burned with the fires of hell. If Cirrus had walked into that room, he would have frozen and died four horrible times in that sentence alone.
“Mr. Thayer, you have every resource at your disposal;
Ms Vanders will be your point of contact. I want hourly updates.” He handed the computer back to Thayer, his body stiff with fury. Mr. Thayer nearly dropped it, but managed to save it and scurry out of the office. Mr. King turned to me.
“You are with me until we figure this out. Pull up all the financials. Figure out where we can pull the twenty mil where the shareholders won't notice it missing. Look into Cirrus’s financials. Look into anyone affiliated with him. I want information now.” He growled with frustration. I nodded a quick yes and started setting up my computer in the corner of his office that I considered “mine”.
I kicked off my heels, getting comfortable with my computer as I started to dredge through the reports and look for a solution. Page after page of reports flashed across the screen as I searched for the answer. Mr. Thayer called out to his secretary to cancel all appointments for the day. Mr. Thayer’s assistant started bringing up reports, emails flew between the three of us. Lunch came and went, and I only stopped for a moment to snarf a sandwich Mr. King’s secretary brought up for dinner.
I suddenly looked up and realized that I hadn’t moved in two hours, but that I was nowhere close to finding what I was looking for. The room had turned dark and gloomy as night set in. I realized everyone else in the building had probably gone home for the evening.
It felt hopeless. I looked through the reports again, hoping that one of them would magically change, that I had somehow overlooked the simple solution and that it would just pop out and asked to be fixed. Mr. King must have read the defeat written across my face, as he closed his laptop and slid it into a drawer of his massive desk.
“I think we need something to clear our minds,” he announced as he stood up and stretched his arms above his head. I leaned back in my chair, and stretched out my arms as well, surprised at the stiffness in my neck and shoulders. He looked at me with disapproval as I rolled my shoulders and worked out the tautness.
“Your posture is better, but you were still slouching. Are you wearing the duct tape now?” His voice betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. I rubbed my shoulder, thinking he was going to be displeased. I had been sitting properly, and I only ached because I had been sitting there for hours without moving. A small flare of indignation flared up, mad that he might be angry with me for something I didn’t have control over.