by Ivy Layne
Su. 3:30 Son. Lab
Reading it again, triumph surged in my chest. This was Josephine's. It had to be. I knew it wasn't mine, and no one else had been in the apartment since the cleaners except Tate. Just in case, I handed the note to him. He read it and shook his head.
"Not mine. You think Su is Sunday?"
"No idea." It looked like a note reminding her of a meeting. Probably on campus, given the word 'lab' in the description. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I opened the browser and typed in: GA Tech son lab
The first result was Georgia Tech Sonification Lab: an interdisciplinary research group based in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Fuck yeah. If Su meant today, I knew where I could find my girl.
Fate could be a bitch, but if I were lucky, she loved me today.
Chapter Five
Josephine
I rushed down the concrete and brick sidewalk on Cherry Street, my eyes on my feet, ignoring everything around me. I was hung over. A shower and breakfast had brought me from miserable to moderately human, but I still felt like crap, and I'd had a knot in my stomach ever since I'd left Holden's place that morning. I'd run out of there like a thief, and I hadn't done anything wrong. I'd gone home, hoping Emily would tell me I'd done the right thing, but she'd shaken her head and said I should have stayed.
"Jo-Jo," she'd said, "when was that last time either of us met a decent guy? Holden sounds like a fairy tale. You should have at least gone back for one more roll in the sheets before running off like the ho you are."
I'd thrown a pillow at her and escaped into the shower. Her teasing had struck a nerve. I should have stayed. I was trying to shake it off—nothing I could do about it now. I didn't even know his last name. You know where he lives, I reminded myself. True. I did know where he lived. But the vision of hanging around in the coffee house in his building, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, was too pathetic for me to consider. At least, not yet.
Annoyed with myself, I pushed thoughts of Holden from my mind and walked faster. I was never late to lab, but between my hangover and throwing pillows at my roommate, I'd have to run to get there by three. Since there was no way I was running anywhere with my post-hangover headache, I picked up my pace and prepared to be a few minutes late.
"Jo!" I turned my head to the familiar voice calling my name and slowed my pace to let my teammate, Darren, catch up. "Damn you're walking fast," he said. "It won't kill you to be a few minutes late."
I shrugged. "I know. It's a habit."
"I think Angie wishes you'd rub off on the rest of us."
I laughed. Angie was the leader of our project, and she made me look like a slacker. She probably did wish my habitual punctuality would rub off on the rest of the group. All of us were smart—you didn't get into our program or this research project without being very smart—but we all had a habit of getting caught up in our work and forgetting meetings and deadlines. I had a thing about programming alarms into my phone each morning to force me to stay on schedule. Without that, I'd be perpetually late like Darren.
"So what's your vote?" Darren asked as we walked. "Hardware or software?"
In between my awful date and my erotic dream of a night with Holden, I'd been mulling over this exact question. "I'm voting for both."
"Oh, she goes for the hard shot," Darren said in exaggerated dismay. I laughed and nudged him with my shoulder.
"I think we need to re-check the placement of the device on the glasses, but I also think I messed up the code in the interface."
"Not possible," Darren said, laughing.
"Very possible."
We were working on a project to help the vision impaired—a pair of glasses that could perform spatial mapping and communicate obstacles via Bluetooth to the user's phone. If we could get it to work, it could replace canes for the blind.
If we can get it to work.
The bridge between theory and execution was the most complicated part of developing new tech. I hadn't been surprised when we'd fired up the glasses the day before and gotten a dead screen, but I'd still been disappointed.
We rounded the corner to the door of the building, and I came to a dead stop. Lounging on a bench beside the main entry to the Psychology building was Holden.
He got to his feet in a fluid, predatory surge that sent a hot tingle straight between my legs. He paced toward me, his hair gleaming in the sun, his tall frame athletic and graceful, the muscles in his broad shoulders apparent beneath his worn t-shirt. Yum.
I was crazy. I had to be crazy, because instead of waking the man and doing deliciously naughty things to his body all morning, I'd run away like a coward. How had he found me? I opened my mouth to ask, but the hot look in his dark eyes stopped my words.
I was suddenly aware I was not the girl he'd met the night before. Gone were the spike heels, designer dress, and artfully arranged curls. Standing before the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, I was wearing worn jeans, a t-shirt that said Reaver's Barbecue from my favorite sci-fi TV show, and the ubiquitous hoodie, this one in navy blue. My hair was in a messy bun held up by takeout chopsticks, and I didn't have on an ounce of makeup. Not even lip balm. I was shocked that Holden recognized me.
"Excuse me?" Darren said, startling me out of my shock. Holden had come to a stop directly in front of us, and I was staring up at him, jaw dropped, eyes wide. "Who are you?" Darren demanded, moving as if to shield me from Holden. Holden blocked him easily, sliding between us and curling his arm around me.
"Is this guy bothering you, Jo?" Darren asked, sounding like he was ready to start something with Holden.
I shook off my daze and said, "No, I'm good. I'll meet you inside." Darren made as if to lay a hand on Holden, and I said, "Really, Darren, I'm good. I'll see you in the lab in a minute."
Darren scowled at Holden for a moment, then left. At a loss for anything meaningful to say, I asked, "How did you find me?"
Holden reached into his back pocket and produced a familiar wrinkled note. I remembered my purse, open and on its side beneath the bench. I took the note from his fingers and glanced at it. "Good detective work," I said. Holden plucked the note from my fingers and put it back in his pocket.
"Why did you leave this morning?" he asked.
"I thought you'd want me to," I said.
"Really?" he asked, his eyes studying mine, demanding honesty.
"I was afraid you'd want me to leave," I admitted. Holden lifted his hands to cup my face, tilting my chin up to him.
"I didn't. I wanted you to stay."
"Oh," I whispered.
"Did you want to stay?" Holden asked quietly.
"Yes," I whispered again.
"Good." His lips brushed mine in a feather-light kiss that sent electric tingles straight to my nipples. Another brush, and I thought he had a direct line to my clit. When he slanted his mouth down on mine, claiming me in our second, very public kiss, I fell into him, kissing him back with everything I had. I'd been a fool to walk out on him, but now that I had a second chance, I wasn't going to blow it.
I have no idea how long we kissed. When we finally broke apart, Holden slid his thumb over my lower lip and ordered, "Have dinner with me tonight."
"Okay," I said.
"Seven? I'll pick you up."
"Okay." I gave him my address and my number, my head still spinning from that kiss. I turned to go into the building, then stopped. "Wait! What's your name? I mean, your whole name?"
"Winters. Holden Winters."
"Holden Winters?" Emily shrieked. I stared at her in amazement. Emily was not a shrieker.
"What? Do you know him?" I asked, confused.
"Not personally, no," she said, shaking her head. "Sometimes, I forget you're not from here." She opened her laptop and started typing. A search results page popped up with pictures of Holden and a long list of web pages mentioning him. I saw the club, Mana, something about WGC, and lower down, headlines with the words murder, tragedy, and
suicide. All of a sudden, I realized I was way over my head.
"I'm not spying on him," I said, looking away from the screen. "Just tell me what I need to know."
"Okay. First, you have to tell me—is he really that gorgeous in real life?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Damn," Emily sighed. "Okay, this is a sad story, and if it wasn't mostly common knowledge, I wouldn't tell you. But he may assume you know anyway now that he told you his name . . ." She trailed off.
"Just tell me, Em!"
"Okay, so the Winters family are old Atlanta. In our parents’ generation, there were two brothers. I can't remember their names. They all lived in this huge estate in Buckhead. Big money."
I didn't need her to add the last part. I'd only been in Atlanta a few years, but I knew an estate in Buckhead meant big money.
"When I was a baby, so your Holden was probably a little kid, one of the brothers and his wife died in a murder/suicide. It was a huge scandal, really ugly. The kids—I think they had three or four boys—went to live with the other brother and his wife. Then, like ten years ago, the other brother and his wife were both killed in a break-in. But there were rumors that it wasn't really a break-in, but that it was another murder/suicide."
"Oh my God," I said, letting out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. "So his parents are dead?"
"I don't know which side of the family he's from, but either way, yeah. I remember the media was awful. I was too young for the first murders, but I was about eleven the second time, and it was horrible. The media followed the kids everywhere—they couldn't stop picking the whole thing apart. I still remember seeing a picture of all the kids at the funeral, the oldest boys trying to look strong. One of the youngest boys—they looked like twins, so I don't know if it was Holden or his cousin—was hugging a girl who'd been about my age. The only girl. Charlotte, I think. Or Caroline. Something with a 'C'. She was sobbing, and he held on to her so tightly. It was sad."
"Did they ever catch the killer?" I asked, my voice thick in my throat. I couldn't imagine losing my family like that, to such sudden violence, and then having to grieve under a microscope. I understood why it had stuck in Emily's head. She’d been through her own nightmare at a young age, part of it at the callous hands of the media. Seeing the family, kids her age, subjected to such violating attention at what had to be the worst time of their lives would have made an indelible impression on her.
She shook her head. "No, I don't think they did. They must have looked hard. The Winters family has the kind of clout that can turn the world upside down. The oldest son took over the business and became head of the family. I'm sure he pushed to solve the case. But as far as I know, they never found anything."
I sat in silence, trying to absorb what I'd learned as Emily flipped back open her laptop and started clicking.
"Did you know he owns Mana?" She asked. Dumbly, I shook my head. "And he runs WGC—the gaming company—with his cousin, Tate. I bet WGC is Winters Gaming Corp, or Company. Something like that. Holy shit, they still look like twins." Fanning herself, she rotated the laptop to show me a picture of Holden and his cousin at what looked like a tech conference, both in suits, grinning and gesturing toward a huge screen in front of a crowd. Good God, they were hot.
"He owns the club?" I asked. It explained how comfortable he was there. My head was spinning a little from the overload of information.
"And WGC. I heard a rumor they were working on a new physics engine. I'd love to get a look at that. If you guys keep going out, will you ask if I can see it?"
"One thing at a time," I cautioned. I was way out of my league with Holden Winters. Way out. "Let me get through dinner tonight before I start asking him for favors."
"Yeah, good point. Still, I heard that on top of the physics engine, they've got a team working on something new in emergent gaming for Syndrome 2. But that's only a rumor."
Emily's vision unfocused as she got lost in speculation of gaming technology. She was a fellow grad student in the CS department at Tech, but her focus was on gaming. With a dual concentration on interactive intelligence and graphics, Emily's research projects tended to fall in line with the same kind of work Holden's company did. It was no surprise she was distracted.
"Hey," I said, clapping my hands under her nose. "Focus, please. I have less than an hour before he's going to be here, my hair is a mess, and I'm not wearing any makeup. I need serious help."
Emily sat up and gave me her full attention. She was the best friend ever. Scanning me, she narrowed her eyes, cocked her head to the side, then said, "Loose hair with a little product to smooth it out, because you want to go casual after last night, and we don't have time for more. I'll do your makeup, but I'm going to go light. The jeans you wore Friday—they make your ass look great—and my plum batwing top. Casual but sexy."
"Jeans and light makeup?" I asked, biting my lip. The night before, I'd been rocking serious glamour. I couldn't go out with him wearing jeans and only a little makeup.
"Jeans and light makeup," Emily said firmly. "Trust me. He saw you on your way to lab, didn't he?"
I nodded.
"And he asked you out? Then kissed you on the sidewalk?"
I nodded again.
"You weren't the height of fashion this afternoon, and he still asked you to dinner. He probably saw you coming up the street. I bet he had plenty of time for a quick getaway. Trust me. He doesn't want some glamor girl. He wants you."
Chapter Six
Josephine
The doorbell rang, and I prayed Emily was right. When she was finished with my makeup and putting product in my hair, I looked pretty good, but I definitely wasn't glamorous. For one thing, the jeans and batwing shirt were flattering, but I was not skinny like all those girls at Mana. Though Holden had seemed to like my curves.
Telling myself to stop obsessing, I went to answer the door. Emily was nowhere to be seen. I'm sure she wanted to check Holden out, but she was so shy, she tended to avoid meeting new people if at all possible, even when they were as hot as Holden Winters.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I unlocked the door and pulled it open. Holden stood there in the same jeans he'd worn that afternoon and an untucked blue button-down shirt. As always seemed to happen when I looked at him, I temporarily lost the power of speech. He stared down at me, then said, "Are you ready to go?"
I nodded and turned to grab my purse and keys from beside the door. Holden took my arm with his, leading me down the hall to the elevator.
"I thought I'd cook you dinner at my place," he said. "But if you'd rather go out, we can do that too."
"No," I said, "dinner at your place sounds good." His arm tucked through mine, and the heat of his body beside me brought back vivid memories of all the things he'd done to me at his place. I was more than happy to go back there. I wondered for a second if he would think I was too easy.
"I promise," he said, "I won't ravage you until after dessert."
"You don't have to wait that long," I said with a laugh, deciding I didn't really care if he thought I was easy. I'd slept with him the first night we met, and not only couldn't I take that back, but I didn't want to. There was nothing I regretted about the night before except running out on him after I'd woken up.
"Well," he said, dipping his head to bite the side of my neck as the elevator doors closed, "Maybe I'll ravage you once before dessert. Or between courses."
I shivered.
"We can play it by ear," I said, smiling inwardly and wishing we were already at his place.
As we left the building, he said, "It's a nice night, so I walked over. I hope you don't mind."
"No. I like walking." I did, and it was a perfect spring night—cool, but not cold, the warmth of the afternoon lingering in the air. Around us, people strolled, heading out to dinner or just enjoying the evening. With my arm tucked through Holden's, I was mostly oblivious to everyone else. He held me close, his touch teasing my body.
It had
been a long, long time since I'd had sex before Holden, and my body wanted more. Not just more orgasms, but more Holden. No man had ever made me feel this way, so instantly hot, so seduced with just a touch. Interrupting my thoughts, he said,
"Did you have a good afternoon?"
I considered. "Yes and no," I said honestly. "Seeing you was good. The lab was not. We can't figure out why our project isn't working, and I have a bad feeling the problem is my code. I've been over it and over it, but I can't spot the bug."
"Can you tell me what you're working on?"
It was a reasonable question. There were projects that were confidential. If he ran WGC, he knew all about confidential tech. As Emily had mentioned, they were currently working on two projects that the gaming world would love to know about.
"I can, a little." Trying not to bore him to death, I explained about the spatial mapping glasses and helping the blind navigate without a cane.
"How does the phone communicate obstacles?" Holden asked, sounding interested.
"Right now, we're working on a kind of Morse code in vibrations. We've got a consult from linguistics helping us work out the best way to communicate non-verbally."
"Very cool," he said. "How do you know the problem is your code?"
"I don't. It could be the hardware. But the issue is in the connection between the glasses and the phone. We're using Bluetooth, and I wrote that part of the app. We can't get it to connect. Of all the problems . . ." I shook my head in frustration.
"I know. I always get more pissed when the bug is something basic. How many times do you connect with Bluetooth?"