by Hamel, B. B.
“Keep that,” I say. “Remember what happens when you disappoint me every time you look at it.”
She gapes as I smirk, grab my jacket, and leave the conference room. I shut the door behind me, my body still vibrating with a need for her, but that taste is going to have to hold me off for a little while.
I have some work to do.
11
Emma
David is such a bastard, but the night after he pulled me into that meeting, I get myself off in my bed before falling asleep just thinking about the way he touches me.
I don’t know the last time I felt this way. David drives me crazy and pisses me off but I love it. I honestly can’t get enough of it. He makes me feel so good and come in ways I never even dreamed possible. I know he was angry about that meeting, but the way he punished me… well, I don’t think he was really all that pissed.
The next day at work, Sven calls me into his office again. “I don’t know what you did,” he says to me, “but the move is canceled.”
“We have a new project now, don’t we?”
He nods. “We do. And you are to lead.”
“Lead,” I repeat.
“I’m still in charge,” he says, not breaking eye contact. “But you are lead developer. Does this please you?”
I shrug a little bit, heart beat spiking. “I guess so.”
“Good. If you fuck up, I fire you.”
I nod. “Fine.”
“Fine. Go now, explain to them what you do.” He waves at me, looking back to his computer. I get up and head for the door. “One more thing.” I stop and look back at him. “Make sure you tell them that you’re the reason we stay.”
I nod a little bit and leave. I don’t know why he specifically wants me to tell them that last part, but I’ll do what he wants. I don’t want to piss Sven off anymore. I’ve already jerked this team around enough, so I better start playing ball.
But now I’m the freaking lead. Sven is still our manager and he’ll allocate tasks, but I’m the lead developer. I’ll come up with the tasks and work closely with Sven to manage the whole project.
It’s going to be crazy. I’ve never had to deal with something like this before, but here I am, all because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut in that meeting.
I walk out toward the cube farm and stop in the open space between Sven’s office and everyone else.
“Excuse me?” I say loudly.
Nobody answers. Mel pokes her head out, eyebrows raised.
“Uh, everyone,” I say again. “This is important.
“Hey, fuckfaces,” Mel says, standing up. “Emma’s talking to all you fucking assholes, so you better listen up.”
I blink at her, shocked, and she smiles sweetly at me. One by one, all the others come out of their cubes and come over toward me, filling up the space fast.
There are about ten of us. I thought there were fewer, but apparently some of these guys never leave their space. I take a deep breath and let it out. This is one of the oddest, ragtag groups, and now suddenly I’m leading it.
“Okay, everyone,” I say. “We have a new project.”
“What is it?” Larry says, interrupting.
“She’ll get to that,” Mel snaps at him.
“It’s probably something about the Mark 2,” Monk grumbles. “I mean, we’re moving there.”
“Packing up all our shit and going to the middle of nowhere,” Ed adds. “I hate the satellite offices.”
The group grumbles along these lines.
“Everyone, shut up!” I say loudly.
That gets their attention. Mel nods approvingly.
“Listen up,” I say. “We’re not moving, okay? I saved your asses, and we’re staying right here. Okay?”
There’s silence as everyone stares at me.
“Seriously?” Larry finally asks.
“Seriously,” I confirm. “We’re staying.”
“Fuck, yes!” Ed says, laughing. “Good job, Emma!”
“Great job,” Monk agrees, grinning.
The tension suddenly eases, and everyone seems totally happy and willing to listen to the new project. I can’t believe it, but it turns out that they all cared more about moving to a satellite facility than they did about what they’re going to be working on.
Sven told me to tell them they’re staying, and to take credit for it, all to save my ass. He knew they’d react this way. I glance at him through the glass windows of his office and although he’s not looking over at me, I still feel like he’s watching.
Maybe he’s not so scary after all.
After everyone calms down, I explain the new project. They seem to get it, and everyone starts talking excitedly about how they’ll do the various necessary pieces. We break for the morning, and Mel meets me in my cube.
“Lead, huh?” She grins at me. “You’re moving up quickly.”
“Lucky breaks,” I say. “Seriously. Just totally lucky.”
“Right. Well, this project sure beats the last one.”
“What was that anyway?”
“I mean, an ethical algorithm?” She shakes her head and laughs. “This is going to be downright fun.”
“I’m glad you approve,” I say, and I really mean it.
The rest of the day is spent divvying up tasks and creating a task board. It’s basically a big whiteboard with Post-it notes stuck to the front. Each note is a task, and as the tasks are finished, they’re moved from the pending part of the board into the finished part, thereby showing what coding tasks need to be finished.
I work on splitting it up with Sven. It’s tiring work, trying to come up with an entire structure for this thing in an afternoon, but Sven’s a genius. He seems to anticipate everything we’ll need and he easily understands exactly how we’ll have to implement it. Honestly, I don’t think I would be able to get this done as fast as I’m going to if it weren’t for him.
When we’re finished, he kicks his sneakers up on his desk and looks at me. “The troops, they watch you.”
I blink and glance over my shoulder. A few people are watching Sven and I, and they quickly look away when they catch me looking.
“Why?” I ask him.
“Because we plan their future.”
“Ah.” I laugh a little bit. “Makes sense.”
“You should take them out, yes?”
“Like, for drinks?”
He chuckles. “Yes, for drinks. Get stupid programmers drunk. Tomorrow, they work harder.”
I nod a little bit. “I think I can handle that.”
“Good. Go away now. I finish this tonight, yes?”
“Really?”
“Go away,” he says again. He gets his feet off his desk, opens a drawer, and takes out a bottle of vodka and a glass. He pours himself a drink. “I finish work, but I don’t do it sober. Nostrovia.”
I laugh a little and leave his office as he throws back a huge glass of vodka in a single swallow. Sven is definitely insane, but he’s not as terrifying as I thought he was when I first met him. And on top of that, he’s an absolute genius, probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life.
I walk out toward the cube farm. “Hey, guys?” I call out. “Who wants to go drink?”
Heads poke out from their cubes, and everyone’s grinning at me. Mel gets up and walks over, taking me by the arm. “Girl, I thought you’d never ask,” she says.
“First round’s on me,” I call out, and Monk gives me a little cheer.
We go to a local place called Mickey’s, and although it’s barely after five, the place is packed with young professionals. Mel spends twenty minutes talking shit on everyone in our division, which is pretty funny, and Larry does an impression of Sven that’s eerily accurate.
“Seriously though,” Mel whispers to me, a gleam in her eye. We’ve been hanging out for about an hour, and she’s already had three drinks. “He’s huge. Totally huge.”
“How do you know?”
She shrugs again,
her gleam turning into a full-on grin. “He gets horny when he drinks.”
“Oh my god,” I say, giggling nervously.
“I was limping for, like, two days after that thing.” She looks over at Monk and sighs. “I wish he’d fuck me again.”
“Oh my god,” I say, giggling nervously as Mel bats her eyes at Monk. I can’t imagine the two of them doing anything but arguing, but he looks back at her with a sly little smile, and I suspect she’ll be limping for another few days after tonight.
I make sure I spend a few minutes with everyone. I can’t say we’re all best friends, but after a couple of hours I’m finally starting to feel like I’m a part of the team. Which is funny, considering I’m now the freaking lead. Whether they like it or not, I’m part of the team now.
It’s amazing how fast things can change. One second, they’re all working hard on whatever mystery project Sven’s been whipping them into a frenzy over these past few months. Then suddenly I come into the picture and change everything. Hell, I blame David, but they don’t know that. All they see is their hard work getting pawned off on some other team, who might end up getting all the freaking glory for their hard work.
“It sucks,” I say to Monk, and he nods his head serenely. “You guys should at least get to finish… what was it again?”
“At least we should get credit,” he says, shrugging. “I don’t even care about finishing that stupid project. I just want people to know that I was a part of it when it’s all finished. I think it’s going to be pretty cool.”
Just as he finishes talking, I spot someone walk in through the front door. It takes a second for my brain to catch up with my eyes before I realize that it’s David.
“Maybe I can help with that,” I say softly.
“Can you? I thought you were just some—” he starts saying, but I stand up and walk away. Monk’s kind of an ass, and I don’t mind being an ass right back.
David scans the room and stops, spotting me as I beeline toward him. He grins at me as I approach.
“I heard Maudette still has Julie,” he says over the loud music.
I shrug a little bit. “Had to take the team out for a little team-building exercise.”
“Alcohol makes everyone feel closer, that’s for sure.”
“How’d you find us?”
“Sven told me.” He smirks and steps closer. “I’m enacting the contract.”
I blink, surprised. “Right now?”
“Right now,” he confirms.
I take a deep breath. I only had one drink but I suddenly feel completely drunk.
“Are you actually… going to?” I ask him.
“You’ll see.” He reaches his hand out. “Coming?”
I glance back over my shoulder. Mel’s watching me and I know she’ll probably make some assumptions based on what I do next, but fuck it. I think she’ll understand. I mean, she’s the girl that spent like ten minutes talking about how big Monk’s dick is and how badly she wants it again.
I want something similar. I take David’s hand. “I’m coming,” I confirm, and we leave the bar together.
12
David
This time, she knows where we’re going as soon as the building comes into view.
“I didn’t think I’d be getting another chance,” she says. “Especially not after what I did in that meeting.”
“Normally you’d be right,” I say. “I was pretty annoyed.”
“But what?”
“But we had a breakthrough and I can’t help myself.”
She perks up a little bit. “Breakthrough?”
The car parks and we step out. We walk together toward the side entrance again, just like last time. “It’s not a big, flashy one, but it’s important.”
“What is it?”
“There were some bugs when it came to tight handling at low speeds. We couldn’t get the braking matrix to line up properly with our acceleration protocols and it was absolutely janky.”
She frowns a little bit. “I didn’t notice it the other day.”
“That’s because Dirk was driving.”
Her eyes widen. “It wasn’t on autonomous?”
“Nope. Sorry about that. I faked it a little bit, just to give you a better experience.”
She laughs and smacks my arm. “David!”
I grin at her, a little sheepish. “What? I’m trying to fuck you. Gotta put my best foot forward.”
She rolls her eyes but she’s grinning, which is what I wanted. I swipe my card and we step into the building. It looks just like it did last time, with the Mark 2 right in the middle, but tonight we’re all alone. Dirk doesn’t need to be up in the control room driving the vehicle. It’s just me, Emma, and the Mark 2, which is exactly what I wanted.
“After you,” I say, opening the driver’s side door.
“You’re sure this is for real this time?” she asks.
“I’m sure.”
She nods and ducks her head, getting down into the seat. I shut the door behind her, go around the car, and get in.
“Okay, let’s do this.” I use my fingerprint to start the motor. It revs into life and I tap a few buttons on the touch screen, putting it into fully autonomous mode. I enter in the pre-set course, which is just a simple figure-eight loop around the warehouse, and lean back in my seat.
“Hit the green button whenever you’re—” I say, but Emma cuts me off by jamming her finger against the screen, grinning madly.
The Mark 2 jerks forward before falling into a slower, smooth glide as it drives around the warehouse.
Emma giggles. “I felt that,” she says.
“Bugs aren’t all completely squashed, but trust me, this is so much better.”
She nods, looking totally delighted. “This is a real test drive, then?”
“The first one, actually.”
She cocks her head. “Really?”
“Yep. I just solved the issue earlier today and pushed the changes about an hour ago. It was approved right before I found you.”
“Holy crap. We’re the first two people to experience this version?”
“Yes, we are,” I say, laughing. “What do you think?”
“Amazing,” she says, and I lean toward her, putting my hand on her thigh.
She looks at me and I smirk as I kiss her. She’s surprised at first, but she quickly leans into the kiss, letting herself get lost in the moment. This is really what I came for, not this car bullshit, although I knew she’d like it. Everything I said is true, of course.
I’m just more excited by Emma than I am about my work these days, which is confusing as hell.
I’ve always been the kind of man that could lose himself in programming and work and conquest. I’ve always loved the game of creating and sustaining and building, which is how I’ve taken my company so far. I have a singular drive and it’s always been good to me.
But now, though, that drive is focused on something else. I should be thinking about my company and about the launch of the Mark 2, and I’ve been trying. I’ve been keeping myself locked up in my office, coding for hours at a time, although I technically should be letting my team write that stuff. I haven’t missed a single day of work or a single meeting, even though all I’ve wanted to do is skip everything and fuck Emma all day and all night. I want to be a part of her life and I want to meet me daughter for real.
I’ve been fucking good. I’ve controlled myself. Now I’m going to give up a little bit of that control.
My hand slides between her legs and she groans a little bit into my lips. “Is this a good idea?” she asks me, pulling back as I fumble with the button on her pants.
“You think we’ll crash?”
She blushes a little bit. “I mean, uh, I don’t—”
I laugh a little bit, getting her button undone. I tug her pants over her hips and she doesn’t stop me. She helps me get them off and she’s sitting there in these little black panties that make her fucking hips look so gorgeous.
I meet her gaze. “Your lack of faith in our technology is disheartening, Miss May.”
She looks apologetic. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Mr. Carlson.”
My grin gets bigger. She wants to play.
“I think we’ll have to punish you for this,” I say, leaning back in my chair and unbuttoning my own pants. I slide them forward and get them off while she watches. “What do you think is an appropriate punishment?”
“Whatever you think,” she says demurely. “I trust your judgment, Mr. Carlson.”
“Of course you do, Miss May.” I slide my cock out from inside of my boxer briefs and I’m actually surprised by how fucking hard I am. “Come here and let me abuse that trust.”
She leans across the car and I take her by the hair. Her mouth opens as she takes my cock between her lips and I groan softly, her tongue rolling around my tip as I press myself further into her throat.
“I believe this will suffice as a punishment,” I groan as I fuck her mouth. The Mark 2 continues to drive in its pre-programmed pattern, never varying from its path. If someone were to walk in front of it, the car would stop, but otherwise it’ll keep going as long as there are no obstacles.
Emma gags on my cock and I let her pull back, taking a breath. She’s so sexy with her hair spilling down all around her. She leans forward again and starts to suck me, concentrating on the tip before moving down my shaft, and I lean over to my left, finding her panties. I push them aside and use my fingers to tease her soaking wet pussy.
I love the feeling of her moans as she sucks my cock. There’s nothing more perfect than a woman’s deep purr as she gags and chokes on your big dick. I slide my fingers inside of her and she moans more with my dick in her throat. I thrust up, making her gag as I press my fingers deeper into her tight little pussy, pulling her closer.
She moves back, breathing deep as I keep teasing her. “Fuck, Mr. Carlson,” she says. “You’re ruthless.”
“You’ve insulted me,” I say, taking her by the hair with my other free hand. “And you’ll pay for that, you filthy fucking girl.”