From her mischievous expression, I could tell she was satisfied by my reaction to what she was doing to me. I leaned heavily against the back of the door, openmouthed and panting. Her mouth was so exquisitely hot and soft, I knew I’d be overcome if I let her continue.
I pulled her away with my last iota of restraint, before joining her on the ground and turning her around. She obligingly pulled down her lace panties, and I stroked between her thighs with my eager fingers, testing her readiness and reactions. In response, she eagerly worked her legs apart wider and went down to her forearms to bare herself to me fully.
When I pressed into her, Jenna moaned softly and rocked her hips back toward mine. She needed this as much as I did, I realized. As conscious thought retreated and something much more primitive took its place in my brain, I committed myself to giving it to her.
I thrust into her aggressively, burying one hand in her hair and grasping her waist with the other to pull her back onto me. Jenna ground back into me with an identical intensity, making small, musical noises as she moved.
Together, we banished all the fear and worry that filled our day and traded it for mindless, primal feeling. Our bodies worked against one another like they were made for nothing but pleasure. The heat and release of my climax was only seconds away, but I knew Jenna needed more from me.
Slowing my movements behind her, I pulled her by the shoulders to a more upright position and sent my hands seeking over her warm, perfectly soft pale skin. I pinched her nipples into hard, little peaks and then rubbed the soft, wet heat between her thighs, all while continuing to penetrate her from behind. Her head lolled back against my shoulder in pleasure.
“Harder,” she begged breathily, and I complied, pressing more forcefully with my thumb. “Harder.”
I kept my hand stroking between her legs and pushed her toward the ground again to drive into her as hard as I possibly could. She took it all eagerly. She whimpered into her climax just a few thrusts later, and I followed almost immediately with a gasp.
When she collapsed a moment later onto the floor, I scooped her up and deposited her in her bed. I crawled in behind her and she eased her backside up against me in a spooning position. We breathed together for an indeterminate amount of time, wordlessly basking in the afterglow.
“You’re perfect,” I mumbled into her soft, sweet-smelling hair after a while, “I think you might have been made for me. I’m in love with you.”
She didn’t answer. Fear filled me at her silence, but when I pulled back to look at her face I realized she’d already fallen fast asleep.
25
Jenna
The next day I woke up pleasantly sore and with a very naked, very warm Nicholas wrapped around me. I could have stayed there forever. But I had some corporate espionage to accomplish that day and could not be late. I eased out of the bed quietly to avoid waking him, but he felt me go and tried to pull me back to snuggle with him no fewer than three times.
By the time I finally got dressed and ready, I opened my bedroom door to find Harley staring grumpily at me. She must have spent the night right outside the door. I fed her and took her for a morning walk because I’m an extremely nice person, but it made no difference. She was clearly very displeased to have been banished to the living room. At least she didn’t get the cake. My drive to the office was punctuated with bites of chocolate deliciousness.
“Good morning, Jenna,” Theresa said to me as I walked in. She was wearing another one of her malicious, shit-eating grins. Ordinarily I would be wary and skeptical, but I got laid last night and ate chocolate cake for breakfast. Despite the craziness, I was feeling pretty damn good.
“Good morning, Theresa,” I greeted her pleasantly, “how are you today?”
“I’m doing fine, thank you,” Theresa said, drifting forward into the middle of my office and pulling a scared looking young man in a suit with her by the sleeve. “This is Terrence. HR sent him over from the file room to temp for you until you hire a new fulltime assistant.”
Poor Terrence was an unfortunate looking kid. He had to be about nineteen years old and had that scarecrow-like slender height that some adolescent boys have before growing into their frames. He also sported a scruffy looking haircut and a pair of super-thick plastic glasses. His too-large clothes hung awkwardly from his body.
“Fantastic!” I exclaimed with forced enthusiasm, “Thanks so very much Theresa. I’ll take it from here.”
Theresa walked away smirking. I hadn’t asked Theresa to send me up a temp. I didn’t want a temp. Dealing with a temp was not something I had time for today.
“Terrence,” I said, reaching out to shake his large, bony hand, “it’s so great to meet you. Welcome aboard.”
It was like shaking hands with a skeleton.
“T-thank you Mrs. Masters,” he replied fearfully. I decided not to correct him.
“So, Terrence,” I asked, “you were sent up from the filing room?”
He nodded and then looked at me as if I was about to chastise him for it. In the Durant Industries hierarchy of workers, filing clerks were at the absolute bottom. I sent Terrence out for coffee while I started my day’s activities. He returned with a drink that had dairy milk in it, despite my very clear instructions for almond milk. I had no idea what to do with him. He was not the right personality type for an assistant at all— they needed to be bubbly and assertive, not shy and awkward. Terrence just stared at his toes when I wasn’t actively talking to him. The first three calls I asked him to make for scheduling purposes resulted in emails from the recipients complaining that my new assistant mumbled, and they couldn’t understand a word that he said. I sent him to make copies and he returned saying that he broke the machine. Where did Theresa find this guy?
“What’s your background in?” I asked him in confusion, “Are you a university intern?”
Terrence nodded. Ok, so he couldn’t be that dumb. Maybe I was approaching this all wrong.
“What’s your major?” I asked.
“Computer science and accounting double major,” he replied nervously.
A thought started to percolate in the chocolate and caffeine-fueled depths of my brain. Maybe Terrence would be useful after all.
“Are you any good at Excel?” I pushed hopefully.
He brightened.
“I’m amazing at Excel,” he told me, his fear turning to excitement in an instant, “I love formulae.”
He even said formulae instead of formulas. This kid might be the real deal.
“If you’re searching for information in a large spreadsheet, based on column array and a row number, how would you configure the VLOOKUP?” I tested.
Terrence rolled his eyes.
“That’s a trick question. You wouldn’t use VLOOKUP at all. You’d use a mixture of INDEX and MATCH.”
Theresa may have given me lemons, but I was going to make myself some sweet, sweet lemonade out of Terrence.
“Which function combines the contents of several cells into one?”
“Concatenate.”
“Can you do Goal Seek functions?”
“I can do anything with data,” Terrence said confidently, and then added, “and if I can’t, I can Google until I figure it out.”
“Great!” I told him. “I’ve got a really important project that you can start with. I have budget spreadsheets for the past five years that I’m going to email you. You’re going to find all of the errors and display them on a single spreadsheet.”
“Really?” Terrence asked as if I’d just told him I want him to take the rest of the day off, “You want me to do that?”
“Yep,” I told him, pointing to the little conference table I had in the corner of my office. “You can work there. I’ll email the sheets over now. I know that revenue was misallocated in the spreadsheets, I just don’t know where. I want you to clearly find all the hidden revenue and tease it out over the course of those five years.”
Terrence looked like he just won th
e lottery. I’m glad he was so happy about it because I had been dreading the project.
“Yes ma’am.”
By the middle of the day, I had a spreadsheet that showed exactly where the revenue had been hidden. It was a thing of beauty. Now all I needed was proof that the project I’d found hidden was devoted to chemical weapon production.
At lunch, I called Fiona to see how she was doing. To my surprise, she’d already found another job at an investment bank across town. She’d landed on her feet just like I knew she would, but I couldn’t quell the feeling that I should have done more to protect her. Women should always champion other women, especially in environments like Durant Industries. I called her new boss anyway and told her how lucky she was to have Fiona.
I arrived back at my office to find Richard there, making the world’s most awkward small talk about basketball with Terrence.
“Hello Jenna!” Richard said, clearly relieved at my appearance. Poor Terrence looked like he might faint.
“Hi Richard,” I replied carefully, “What can I do for you today?”
Richard’s smile faded from his face.
“I was wondering if you’ve seen Oliver today?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, I haven’t seen him since Monday,” I replied, “what’s up?”
“I’m not sure,” Richard replied. He was frowning deeply now, “he was supposed to get back from his trip from Atlanta last night. He didn’t come to work this morning and he’s not answering any of my calls.”
I bit my lip. Had Oliver gotten into trouble when he began looking into Winterspring?
“Maybe he’s got food poisoning?” I suggested. Richard shook his head. He looked genuinely worried about Oliver.
“He had food poisoning in 1993,” Richard replied. “He called me from his bathroom in between vomiting. This isn’t like him.”
Richard was right. Oliver wasn’t the type not to call in; he was absurdly committed to his work.
“Have you called his landlord?” I asked. Richard looked confused. “The landlord could go check on him,” I explained.
Richard nodded.
“That’s a good idea,” he said, “I’ll have Theresa look into it. Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt your day Jenna. I’m just concerned about Ollie. You’ll let me know if you hear from him, won’t you?”
“Of course,” I replied. “If I hear anything from Oliver, you’ll be the first to know.”
Once Richard departed, I sat down at my desk in shock. Oliver was missing? I fired off a few texts to him, and a few more to Nicholas, warning him that Richard was sniffing around.
I sat through several boring conference calls, fired off a few pieces of work that absolutely had to get done today, and had just begun my computer search into CN.100.203, aka the contract-extension-that-might-be-chemical-weapons when Richard returned to my office.
“You were right to suggest calling Ollie’s landlord,” Richard said seriously, “Theresa had him knock on the door and then go in. The door wasn’t locked though. Inside it looked like there’d been a struggle or something inside. There were things strewn all around. He did find his luggage from his trip though, so we know Oliver made it home.”
“What?!” I gasped. “Do you mean someone attacked Oliver? Why?”
Richard shook his head. He might be an asshole, but Richard looked genuinely concerned. If it was an act, it was a damn good one.
“I have no idea,” he replied, “The landlord called the police. I’ll let you know if we learn anything. I just thought you’d want to know.”
I nodded distractedly.
“Thank you, Richard,” I told him, “I appreciate you letting me know.”
After Richard left, I shared everything I’d learned with Nicholas via text. Nicholas hadn’t heard from Oliver either. I worried that he’d tipped off Skylark somehow and gotten himself into trouble.
To top it all off, I was unable to find any records linked to CN.100.203. It was as if the project existed only on paper. After six hours spent looking through more files, I left the office in defeat around seven p.m. If this was a black hole that was meant to distract someone from finding the real chemical weapons program and waste their time, I’d just fallen right into it.
All Nicholas and I had to back up our story were some attractively packaged partial accounting records and a hunch. And now we didn’t even have Oliver.
26
Nicholas
I spent my day resurrecting Nicholas Durant from the dead. There were a number of things I couldn’t do without attracting attention from Skylark or my father, but there were plenty of small tasks that I could work on. I had to keep myself busy, because the thought of Jenna walking into the lion’s den each morning made me feel nauseated. I needed a distraction.
First, I bought myself some decent clothes and shoes. In Alaska, my wardrobe had consisted entirely of jeans and flannel shirts. My one pair of shoes were worn, snow-proof boots. Remedying the whole sartorial situation was fairly simple and took less than fifteen minutes. I’m not a picky shopper.
My second task was trickier. I contacted a lawyer, a pleasant fellow named Albert, and explained that I’d needed to take an extended vacation from my life. I had to explain it twice before he got it, although I excluded any relevant details about how and why I absconded with a hundred thousand dollars in cash five years ago. Then we discussed what I would need to do in order to regain access to my accounts and property. Thankfully, I’d never been declared legally dead, or even missing. Unfortunately, it was still going to be somewhat complicated.
Finally, I took Harley to the vet. After receiving her initial vaccinations, Harley had never visited a veterinarian in her life of almost five years, and she was very skeptical of the process. In rural Alaska, animal care is usually accomplished by visiting veterinarians who may only come to town once every few years. I bought her vaccinations myself and learned how to inject her. Harley submitted to the more formal examination process very reluctantly. After poor Harley was poked, prodded, and tested, the veterinarian returned to the exam room.
“Harley’s very healthy dog,” Dr. Margulies told me, patting her affectionately on the head. “She’s a bit on the heavy side, but not too bad. I don’t think she’s a malamute though.”
“What is she?” I asked curiously. Even Harley seemed interested in the answer, or maybe just the dog treat that Dr. Margulies had in her pocket.
“I’d say she’s probably a Northern Inuit dog,” she replied. “They’re basically just larger, heavier Malamutes. They were originally Malamutes that were bred with German Shepherds and huskies in Canada. The goal was to make them look more wolf like without being actual wolves.”
“A Northern Inuit dog, huh?” I said to Harley, “Why didn’t you say something? Is it because you’re embarrassed that you’re Canadian?”
She cocked her head to the side and whined.
“You need to have her fixed now that you’re living in the city,” the Doctor said, “unless you want a bunch of little Harleys running around and eating your furniture.”
I could only imagine how well that would go over with Jenna. I hadn’t shown her the couch cushion that Harley had chewed yet, or the pair of her pumps that had been gnawed down to almost nothing. Replacing both was on my to-do list after dealing with Harley’s vet appointment.
“Ok,’ I told her. There was only one responsible thing to do. “We should get that scheduled. Better just to get it over with. Can you do it now?”
We arranged to get Harley fixed the next morning and I left the clinic without her after many reassurances that everything would be ok, reassuring her that I’d be back to pick her up tomorrow afternoon. The look on her face when I walked out the door without her made me feel like a monster. It felt very strange to be without Harley. She’d been my furry shadow and constant companion for so long that I felt like part of my own body was missing. Every time I looked down, I expected to see her looking back at me with her big, beauti
ful, dumb eyes. I felt instantly lonely.
When I returned to Jenna’s apartment at around five p.m., I found a handwritten note slipped under the door. I recognized the handwriting instantly. It was Oliver.
Nicholas and Jenna- I’ve gone underground. Looking for the records now. Skylark is looking for me. I barely got away. I think they’re onto Jenna. I’ll contact you when I can. Don’t try to contact me. Burn this note. -Oliver
I texted Jenna to let her know that Oliver was alive, and that he thought Skylark was onto her. She drove home immediately. The wait for her to return home seemed to take hours.
“Where do you think he is?” Jenna asked me when she got back to the apartment and found me staring despondently at the note. She sat down and grabbed my hand in hers, and then gasped in surprise when I reached out and pulled her into my lap. After a second of surprise, Jenna melted into me with a contented sigh.
After finally getting her close enough that I felt like I could breathe again, I shook my head unhappily to answer her question.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “He says he’s gone underground. He could be anywhere.”
Oliver was a smart, resourceful guy, but he wasn’t exactly James Bond. He probably looked a lot more like current septegenarian Sean Connery than his chiseled double-oh-seven physique. I was worried about him. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him anything.
“What do we do now?” Jenna asked. “I didn’t get the records to prove there are any chemical weapons. I couldn’t find anything. All I got were some partial accounting records.”
“I don’t know,” I answered her. “Do you think it’s safe for you to go back tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, “I don’t think Richard’s onto me. I don’t think he knows you’re back—at least not yet. But if Skylark’s onto me, they’re probably watching this apartment.”
Down and Dirty (Scions of Sin Book 3) Page 13