Dirty Tycoons: King of Code-Prince Charming-White Knight

by Reiss, CD

  She spun on her heel and left the room as if her decision to get on the plane was the last to be made.

  It wasn’t. She was coming with me. She just didn’t know it yet.

  XLIII

  The airport was 145 miles away. At sixty mph, I had about two and a half hours in the car to let her know that I wasn’t leaving her. She was coming with me. I needed her support, her body, and to a large extent, I needed her brain. She was too smart and too devious to leave behind. She was too sexy and warm to do without.

  We were ten minutes out of Barrington, with farmland stretching in all directions. I was driving the shimmymobile, swearing I’d get her a new car as soon as I had a minute.

  “So he tells her, on his goddamn deathbed, ‘Make sure my daughters marry the right kind of man.’ To her face.” Harper was in the middle of a story about her father. “Then she tells everyone, and they all decide no one in town qualifies as the right kind of man. What kind of self-loathing is that? How much do you have to hate yourself to take orders from a guy who paid his contractors half what they billed? Because they ‘didn’t do a good job’? And then agree your children aren’t good enough for his?”

  My phone dinged. It was lodged in an empty space in the front console, and I could just catch the preview in the sliver of visible glass.

  It was Fitz. I pulled out the phone.

  “At one point, I wanted to fuck someone just to… hey, there’s no texting and driving.”

  She reached for the phone, but I pulled it back. “Nope.”

  “No. Texting. And. Driving. I’ll read it to you.”

  She was right. But I needed to see the text.

  “Easy does it, goose. There’s no one on the fucking road.”

  I leaned the phone on the steering wheel and read it at seventy-five mph. I don’t recommend it. Especially if the text freezes the blood solid in your veins.

  —Sorry about QI4, bro—

  Fitz was a bro all the way, and come to think if it, he was a week late with condolences. He was secretive and eccentric, but he wasn’t cheap with support.

  —Sailing around Horn of Africa.

  Back in 2 days. Talk then.—

  Harper had no trouble getting the phone out of my hand at that point. As a courtesy, she shouldn’t have read my texts, but I wasn’t surprised that her curiosity bulldozed her manners.

  The logic and timing took a second to sink in but no more.

  Of course, Fitz could have been bullshitting her the whole time. He was a bullshitter and a filthy, kinky fucker, but he didn’t have to lie about buying a factory.

  Harper tucked the phone away without commenting. The road went straight to the horizon, disappearing into a pinpoint at the end of the earth.

  “It was me, wasn’t it?” I asked. “You were after me. Just me.”

  She turned on the radio.

  I turned it off. “You went to a lot of trouble to get me here, and it wasn’t just revenge. Maybe you told yourself it was. But it wasn’t revenge at all. You were after me. Say it. Just say it.”

  “I don’t know what you want out of me.”

  I slammed on the brakes. Blue rubber smoke billowed so thick I was sure I’d blow a tire. The car skidded to the side of the road.

  “Jesus, Taylor!”

  “You didn’t bring me here to help you with Fitz. He’s not coming.”

  “Maybe he lied to me.”

  “No. No, you’re fucked if you think I’m believing another thing you say. You were after me. You knew I was making my own boards. You want me to buy the factory. You hacked me, and you set this whole thing up so I’d fall in love with you. Right? Say it.”

  “It’s not that simple.” She took a breath so deep her chest expanded.

  “Were you using him to teach you what I wanted? Or to make me jealous?”

  “I was in contact with Fitz to get him here, then he went sailing. But I never thought we could get him. We needed an unproven company that was going to have a growth spurt. You were the most likely mark, but any of the other outcomes was acceptable.”

  Funny how she ran right into talking as if she had a laser pointer in her hand and a PowerPoint presentation behind her. Strategy and tactics. Straight outta Barrington.

  “And revenge? Don’t forget revenge for not hiring you, right?”

  “Unexpected upside.”

  I leaned over to her and draped my arm over the back of her seat. “Stop. Lying.”

  “Fuck you.” She got out of the car and slammed the door.

  “Oh no. Fuck you.” I got out.

  She was walking back toward Barrington. Fifteen miles in cowboy boots. I should have let her go. Just taken her fucking car, driven it to the airport, and dumped it there. But I had a score to settle.

  I took her by the elbow and spun her around, letting go as soon as she was facing me. A truck blew by. Gravel smacked my cheek, and she turned away from the road as if slapped.

  “Who’s in on it? Catherine?”

  “Never.”

  “Johnny. Butthead? Who else? How did you get them to clean up the factory? Tell me. Is it the whole town? Are all of you in on it?”

  Eyes on the ground, toes pointed inward, arms crossed, her body language was guilt. The white heat of my anger was directed at her and back at myself for falling for it. The rage burned through my tenderness but didn’t consume it. And that made me angrier.

  “You know what? You’re right.” I held up my hands. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Leaving her, I walked back to the car. Another SUV went by so fast the car was lifted a little from the ground. Fuck these assholes. Fuck this town. Fuck Harper Barrington. The Watsonette. Goose.

  She didn’t make a sound behind me. I was going to leave her on the side of the road. Let her figure it out.

  You’re not leaving her anywhere.

  Maybe not. Maybe I was going to turn the car around, put her in it, and leave her at Pat’s grocery store, where I found her. And I was never going to see her again. I was going to leave her there and not even kiss her. Then I was stealing her shitty car and leaving it in long-term parking. Because—

  “I can’t let you leave,” she said from behind me. Closer than I left her. She was a stealthy little goose.

  “Good-bye, Harper.” Three steps from the trunk of the car, I waved without looking. Just to hurt her. Just to pay her back for the lies. I wasn’t leaving her on the side of the road, but I still wasn’t done with the lava burning my guts.

  The car’s lights flashed, and the horn tooted. All the locks clacked.

  I spun around. She had a little handmade remote control in her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t let you go.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” I was in her face in three steps.

  “We have to fix QI4 from here.” Her voice was steady as a boat on a mirror-flat sea. “I can’t let you leave. You’ll never come back.”

  “You know what kind of parasite kills the host?” I picked up a rock from the side of the road. She could lock the doors all she wanted. “An extinct one. If I don’t fix this, I can’t buy your fucking factory.” I lifted the stone, tossing it up a few inches and catching it again as if I were Mr. Nonchalant.

  “I know, but—!”

  I threw the rock through the passenger side window, then I reached in to unlock the doors. They clacked. She ran to me and grabbed my arm, hair blowing all over her face when a truck passed. She had a desperation I’d never seen before. Putting my hand on the door latch, I kept my face hard and cold, or I was going to be her bitch, and I was no woman’s bitch.

  “You can’t leave,” she cried. “Please. I love you.”

  In a flash of a second, I went from a stretched, bursting bag of hot rage to a brittle shell around an empty cage. My brain went dark. Neurons stopped firing. My heart flatlined for a beat while I absorbed the shock. She was the first woman to tell me she loved me, and she’d caught me in the defenseless state between coherent thou
ghts.

  As if sensing an opening, she put her hands on my chest, looking up at me with her blue/brown halo eyes. I filled my lungs, my heart thumped, neurons fired. She wasn’t lying when she mouthed it again.

  I love you.

  What a brave little psycho she was. What a reckless woman. What a fierce and sensitive warrior.

  Somewhere in the conflict of my admiration, a voice cut through.

  You’re not leaving.

  I was leaving. I was taking the car and going back home to salvage what was left of my life. Her love was irrelevant.

  You’re staying.

  I could come back. I could deal with this whole Harper mess later.

  You’re staying with her.

  The voice was correct. I was staying. Every other bit of coding in me resisted what I knew was true. I was staying to make her happy, and I wasn’t pleased with the choice. I’d been perforated between what I’d wanted before I met her and what I wanted after, then she’d ripped me in two.

  I grabbed the hair at the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and sucked air through her teeth. She went liquid.

  I pushed her against the car, grinding my erection into her. “You love me?”

  “Yes. From that day in the cafeteria that you forgot. And over the conference room table when you ignored me. All the other reasons, they’re real, but they’re not true. I hoped you’d help us in a hundred ways, but that’s not why I hacked you. I told everyone here something half-true and you something half-true, and I had my own truth. I know I’m crazy. The whole time I was trying to make this work, I knew I was out of my mind. That has to count for something. It has to because I’m admitting it.”

  I lifted behind her knee to change the angle of her body so I could press against the heat between her legs. She groaned and dug her nails into my arms.

  “Say it.”

  “I brought you because I loved you.”

  Pushing harder against her, I demanded more because I believed it. For once, what she said had the ring of truth. For once, it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

  “Again.”

  “I loved you.”

  “I’m going to show you what you love. What you want to keep here. I’m not going to fuck you like you were a virgin yesterday.” Another hard thrust. She squeaked. “You’re getting fucked like a woman.”

  “Do it.”

  I opened the back door and flicked away the few shards of glass that had flown that far. She bent to sit in the backseat. I got in and closed the door, crawling over her like a predator.

  She put her face close to mine, but there wasn’t going to be any kissing.

  Kissing was for women who didn’t hold me hostage.

  “Show me your pussy.” I unbuckled, unbuttoned, unzipped.

  “I think we can hack the system back,” she said, wiggling her pants down to her knees. “If you have his number on your phone.”

  “He’s not keeping anything on his phone.” I fisted my cock. All my frustration flowed into it. “Turn over. Show me your ass.”

  She paused. Started to turn. It was tight in the backseat. I couldn’t straighten all the way, and she had no room to flip comfortably.

  “What’s the way in?” She asked it without irony.

  I turned her over the rest of the way. Her waistband was right above her knees, and her ass was oval and flawless, with a dark, fuckable seam in the middle.

  “I have to talk to him.” I put three fingers inside her. She was wet. Very wet. “That’s the only way in. Friendship.” I twisted my hand and pressed my thumb to her clit. She groaned. “You like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You like three fingers in you?”

  “Yes. In the meantime, we can look for a kill switch. Or a flaw in his lockdown.”

  I pulled my hand out and slapped her ass. “He doesn’t do flaws.” I put my dick to her opening, letting it hover there while I spread her thighs apart. “We have to persuade him to unlock it.”

  I shoved myself into her hard and deep. She let out a long sound of surprise and pleasure.

  “I’m going to fuck you like you fucked me.” I twisted her hair in my hand and yanked her head back. “And you’re going to take it.”

  “Yes.”

  She couldn’t finish the question when I thrust into her so hard I thought I’d break her. But I didn’t. She looked over her shoulder at me. I pulled her hair until she looked forward.

  “This is mine,” I said, fucking her hard and fast. Pulling her hair to keep her still while I pounded her.

  “Fuck yes. Yours.”

  I bent over her and put my lips to her ear. “This is what you get for keeping me here. Now I own you. Your tight little cunt is mine. You happy now? You wanted me to fuck you like an animal?”

  She grunted. She was so hot. I put my fingers in her mouth so I could feel the vibrations of her groans.

  “Answer me. You want it like this?”

  She couldn’t talk with my hand in her mouth, and that was part of the pleasure.

  “Touch yourself.” I slammed her as if I could snap her in two.

  She let go of my arm, leaving a line of red marks, and put her hand between her legs.

  “Make yourself come.”

  I held back the explosion that built inside me and watched her back arch. She went stiff and tense, yelling in a language that didn’t exist.

  When she moved her hand away and took panting breaths, I pulled out of her and kneeled, facing the side window.

  “I think we can backdoor him,” she said.

  “It needs a social engineering component. Turn around.”

  She turned halfway. I took her by the hair again and looked her in the face. She was dewy and loose. Her tongue flicked over her lower lip.

  “You’re going to suck my cock now. Any objections?”

  “No.”

  “Open your mouth.”

  She did it, and I pushed her head onto my erection. She took what she could, and my hand demanded more. When I let her off, she sucked air.

  “Is he on Chaxxer?” she groaned.

  “Yes, but you aren’t anymore. Finish sucking me.”

  Looking up at me, a mischievous smile crossed her lips as if she’d just had an earth-shattering idea.

  “What?” I asked, thinking she had a hack on her mind.

  “Nothing.” She went down on me, sucking like a champ, using her hand with just enough expertise to get me off and just enough clumsiness to be one-hundred-percent Harper.

  I didn’t correct her. I wanted her exactly like this.

  I came in her mouth with the back of my head on the backseat window. She took it like a good girl, looking up at me again with that mischievous glint in her eyes. When I was done, she closed her lips and swallowed.

  She straightened her back, and I pulled her up. I wasn’t squeamish about kissing a girl after I came in her, especially Harper, who deserved to be kissed long and deep and without a second of hesitation.

  I thrust my tongue past her lips, holding her head as if it was precious, and I tasted the sharpness and felt the thickness of bathroom cleaner. “Ugh!”

  When I pulled away, she started laughing. She still had a lot of my cum on her tongue. It dripped off the crease in her bottom lip.

  “Fuck!” I said, reaching into the front center console, trying not to close my mouth or open it wide enough to drip all over me. I found a napkin and spat into it, then I wiped my mouth and let myself laugh. “You’re in trouble, goose.”

  She was still laughing. I couldn’t help but smile with her. I pulled out another napkin and held it in front of her mouth. She closed it and tried to swallow but couldn’t stop laughing long enough to gulp.

  “Okay, come on.” I held the napkin under her chin, but she was holding her belly and laughing. Tears streamed down her hot, pink cheeks. I had to control myself enough to wipe her face. “Stick your tongue out.”

  She managed to do it, and I wiped it down with the napkin.
<
br />   “Oh, my God.” She ran her wrists over her eyes. “That was… oh, my God. You should have seen your face.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was like…”

  She made a face that crossed horror, shock, distaste, and wounded pride, and we both fell into laughing fits. She fell into my arms and made the face again. Then I made the face, and she shook her head because I’d gotten it wrong. We were cracking up and trying to form words. Failing.

  “Okay, seriously,” I said. “Can I pull your pants up?”

  She was lost in it. She seemed to be making up for a few years’ worth of missed laughter in the backseat of the Chevy. I pulled up her pants, and she arched her back so I could get them in place.

  My mouth tasted like Mr. Clean, and she delighted the fuck out of me.

  XLIV

  “That’s it?” I asked from behind the shower curtain. “You think he’s going to fall for that again?” She was using the closed toilet as a chair.

  “You fell for it last time. Not him.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.” I stuck my head under the water.

  “Anytime.”

  “But he knows your exploit probably better than you do at this point.”

  “The problem with you guys is you think it’s not going to happen to you. You think you have your bases covered. The more direct we make it, the more likely we are to get through.”

  “You think he ordered something from Amazon, coming through your distro center, and he’s going to bring it to the office and just roll in and out of the cage with it? Because he didn’t learn from me?”

  “He doesn’t know it was your watch that had the transmitter.”

  Her voice was clearer, louder, with a more defined echo. I opened my eyes. She was naked in the curtain opening.

  “You like what you see, goose?”

  “I like what I see.” She stepped into the shower, getting under the faucet as if she was entitled to the flow. “Why is this freezing?” She turned the temperature up.

  I soaped her shoulders, running my hands down her back. “The distro center’s going to be a red flag. It’s a loser.”