Page 7

Chapter Seven

Sera

"I've passed this store a lot," he says, his hand on the small of my back as he leads me toward the Deja Vu Love Boutique... a freaking sex store . "But I've never had a reason to go in... until now..."

"Are you kidding me?" I say, looping my arm around his, laughing. But the laughter comes from shock, not amusement. Ever since the texting at dinner, my body has been buzzing, my core throbbing insistently.

“I thought you were a modern, romance-book-reading woman, eh?” He nudges me playfully.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

He wraps his arm around me, walking confidently through the doors into a whole different world. There’s lingerie on display, toys in the corner, BDSM stuff on the far side, a curtain leading elsewhere.

“Do you think that’s where the naughty movies are?” I whisper.

He kisses me just under the ear, prompting a cascade of electric warmth to shimmer over me. “ Naughty movies ,” he teases.

I pinch him in the side, laughing. “Excuse me for not being some hardened sex store visitor.”

“This is my first time, too,” he says.

I roll my eyes at him. “I still can’t work out if this is a line or if you really mean it.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he says fiercely.

I avert my gaze from his intensity. When he says stuff like that, it makes me want to ponder about the future. But with his identity revealed, it feels impossible. He lives on the West Coast. I live in Tampa on the East Coast, and there are things keeping me there.

We haven’t spoken about it yet, but we won’t be able to avoid it forever.

He squeezes my side. My hip. Before he touched me, I would’ve cringed, thinking about somebody doing that. I wouldn’t say I have low self-esteem, but I’m not some confidence queen either. Except, he brings that out in me. He makes me believe I’m beautiful.

“What do you think about this one?” he says, his voice low, near my ear.

The store is full of tourists and shoppers, but everybody keeps to themselves.

I examine the toy. It’s a vibrator with an attachment. “It looks… complicated.”

He keeps his hand possessively on my hip, his mouth close, heating my body up with the warm shivers of his breath. “It seems simple to me. I lay you down, strip you naked, kiss your perfect curves, and then bring our toy to your horny, soaked sex. I push the attachment against your needy nub while I tease your entrance with the bigger part, rubbing it up and down, making you wild before I finally push it inside and…”

I gasp and claw onto his solid torso, digging my fingernails into him.

“I take it you like the sound of that?” he says.

“Hmm…”

“How can you be so eloquent about tech, but not be able to speak now?”

I mock glare up at him. “You know why.”

His smirk is cocky and full of swagger, and it drives me nuts in the best way. “The question is, what will you be wearing before I strip your clothes off? What outfit will make my mouth water as I struggle not to devour you? It’s a trick question, because every outfit will, but still…”

He leads me toward the lingerie. A slight note of anxiety flutters through me as I look at the selections. “I’ve never worn anything like this before.”

“But you’ve thought about it,” he says.

“How do you know that?”

“Reading those books, letting your imagination run wild, you must have thought about it. Should I be jealous of your bookish boyfriends?”

“They never had faces.”

“I thought these were romance books, not horror.”

“Ha ha . I mean, they’ve never had clear features. They were always just big, muscular men… but I never knew who they were, or could be. They seemed so far away from… Hey, I love this song.”

He grins. “You’re so cute.”

The pop artist is singing about a man she left in North Dakota, wondering if he’s ever going to find her again, wondering if they’ll ever reconnect. It had little connection to my life before I met Luke.

“Who is it?”

“Delilah Sky,” I tell him. “She was a child star when I was her age, but she’s moved onto more mature stuff.” I bob my head along to the music. “Do you seriously think any of these would suit me?”

He stops in front of a full set of lingerie complete with stockings. The fabric is pale green.

“It matches your eyes,” he says, trailing his hand over my back… then down to my ass. I check my surroundings, but no one is paying attention to us. “Why don’t you try it on?”

“Do you think they let you try on lingerie?”

“I’ll buy it either way… even if you don’t like it, it’ll be worth it to see you in it.”

A sense of adventure shimmers over me. I’ve gone from dreaming to living, and it’s incredibly satisfying.

“Okay…”

“Choose your size,” he says.

When I do so, he grabs the packaging and walks toward the checkout.

My entire body is ablaze. I feel drunk. My head normally only gets this light when I’m in the throes of some tech haze, ideas clattering into ideas. Now, I’m on fire for an entirely different reason.

When he returns, he’s staring at me with clear hunger in his eyes. He looks like a man possessed.

“Shall we?” he says, motioning towards the changing rooms.

“Are you going to watch?”

“I’m not sure how kindly they’d take to that… but I can wait outside, can’t I? Innocently, not going insane as I think about you in the changing room, your body naked.”

We walk toward the changing rooms together. My heart is thumping so hard. Book quotes vie for attention in my brain as I struggle to stay sane, and not completely lose it. In the changing room, I’m achingly aware of him just past the curtain, my breath quickening at the thought of all the possibilities.

Stripping off my clothes, I put on the lingerie, looking at myself in the mirror. Something magical happens when I’ve put it all on. It’s like I’m able to see myself, how he sees me, sexy and hot. I stand up straighter, my back arched, emphasizing my breasts, the dip in my waist and the flare of my hips.

A moment later, he slips into the changing room, looming over me, his gaze fixed on the mirror. I don’t turn, instead, meeting his eye in the reflection.

“You’re even more beautiful than I thought you’d be,” he groans. “Fuck… Look at you, Sparkplug. That bra pushes your cleavage together perfectly. Those stockings – oh, fuck , how they sink into your curviness, highlighting how thick your thighs are.”

“I don’t think you should be in here,” I whisper.

He smirks, wrapping his arms around me from behind. He presses his body against mine. Every inch of his muscular build is throbbing as if he’s barely holding back his desire.

He sinks his hands into my breasts, groaning as he leans down and begins kissing my neck. Petals of pleasure shimmer over me, dancing over my skin, shivering through my body. He angles his hips so that his rock-hard length is pushing against my ass.

I moan as I move, grinding against him, massaging his steel with my ass. His moans talk of his obvious enjoyment. He slips one hand down my body toward my sex, then pushes down through the fabric. Outside the changing room, I can hear footsteps, someone walking past our small pocket of pleasure. I bite down to stop from moaning, but that just makes him wilder.

He stares at me in the mirror, slipping his hand into my underwear and pushing firmly against my neediness, grinding his hand with frantic urgency. He heats me up, boiling my pleasure point, driving me closer and closer to the edge. I close my legs around his hand, keeping him there, trapping him close to me.

“I need to feel you come,” he growls in my ear. “I need to feel your pussy get soaked. I need to feel your core flutter for me, pulsing as your body talks to me, like a text telling me how badly you need this. Need us.”

I reach up, touch his face, clawing onto his firm jawline as I attempt to remain quiet. He moves even faster, his bare hand against my clit, passionate fire flooding me as I rock my hips in time with him.

He reads my desire to scream, smirking as he slips his hand over my mouth, muffling my moans, and holds it there. I gasp and fall against him, bucking against his hand, chasing the pleasure.

When the orgasm hits me, it feels unreal, like I’m floating, my body warm and languid. I stare into the mirror, into his burning eyes. That’s somehow sweeter than the physical feeling of him touching me. I never dreamed my real-life silver fox would look at me like this, full of desire and need.

“Excuse me?” A voice comes from beyond the changing room.

Luke smiles, holding back a laugh. As the last tickles of the orgasm tease me, I give him an urgent look.

“Whoever’s in there, I suggest you’re gone when I come back,” the staff member says. “I’ll give you a minute.”

I put my hand over my mouth, then let it drop as shock grips me. “Oh my God,” I whisper. “I can’t believe we did that.”

He chuckles. “You better get changed, beautiful.”

“Do you think we’re in trouble?”

“If I was willing to let anyone else see you in this – which, for the record, I’m not – they’d have no choice but to understand.”

“You better get out of here, at least,” I say. “She can’t get mad at me for being in here alone.”

“Good point…” But his hand glides across my body, caressing my skin.

I turn, shoving him in the chest, grinning up at him. “Seriously, Luke. You’re going to get us in trouble.”

He smiles toothily. “We’re already in trouble, Sparkplug.”

He slips out of the changing room, leaving me to ponder his words. We’re already in trouble… I know what he’s talking about: the magnetism drawing us together, the desire that won’t quit.

After getting changed, we leave the store together. A staff member gives us a knowing look, but she’s got a smile on her face even as she tries to look stern. Outside the store, Luke sighs, his demeanor changing as he checks his phone.

“Time for more work?” I ask.

“Yep,” he replies. “And it’s mind-numbing work.”

“What are you doing? Searching the code? All of it?”

He looks at me bleakly. “I can hear in your voice. You know how hopeless that is.”

“But you need to find the sabotage,” I tell him. “It’s crazy, because your products are usually so slick. Especially with self-driving. You’ve done more in that department than all other companies. In fact, you’ve made them look like amateurs.”

He kisses me gently on the forehead. “That means a lot,” he says gently. “This new venture into AI was supposed to improve on all that. Hell, it improved on all that. But now, right when I need it to work the most, it’s failed me.”

I lay my hand gently against his chest. “I’m sorry. Can I help? I’ve got nothing to do this evening, anyway… except sit around and think about a certain silver fox.”

He leans down, his lips hovering over mine. “Are you sure thinking is all you’ll be doing?” He kisses me long and deep, then pauses for a moment before he goes on, “You could help.”

“Why do you say that like you’re not sure?”

“ I’m sure.”

“What is it, Luke?”

“You work for TechGuard,” he says.

“Do you think we were involved in the sabotage?”

“I know you wouldn't do something like that.”

“Nobody on my team would, either,” I snap. “It’s a small team, and I know every member. We’d never even dream of risking our place in the company. Our department is one of the smaller ones. You know TechGuard is mainly invested in antivirus, things like that. We need to prove ourselves, justify ourselves.”

“Hey – I said I know you wouldn't do something like that. Are you sure you don’t mind sacrificing your evening?”

“I’m sure,” I tell him. “I want to help. I can search a chunk of the code. Just get me some coffee and I’m good to go.”

Luke leads me to a conference room in the hotel that his team has taken over. Everybody has their laptops open, lots of people with headphones on, as they comb the code and search for the culprit. I’m able to slip right in, put my headphones on, listen to some Delilah Sky – hearing her in the store has reinvigorated my love for the singer – and do my part.

It's not mindless work, exactly, but it’s mindless enough that my thoughts can wander from time to time. My thoughts return to the changing room, the fierceness in his eyes as he watched me like I was the most attractive woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

He sits on the other side of the large conference table. Every so often, he looks up, catches my eye, and we share a private smile. After two hours of screen-staring, I stand. “Coffee, anyone?”

Everyone says they’re good, so I leave the room and head down the hall to the coffee machine. I put in some coins and make my selection, waiting as it loads.

A bald man – Steve, I believe his name is – approaches. Luke introduced us when I first arrived, but with so many names, it's difficult to be sure. I know he's the co-lead designer, though.

He offers a tight smile that looks strained, as though he'd rather be grimacing. "So, you work for TechGuard."

I nod.

"You've seen some of this code before, then."

"Not the part I've been given," I tell him. "That's new to me. As I understand it, TechGuard was just a small part of the project."

He runs a hand over his bald head. "A cynical man might say that having a coder from TechGuard working on this project post-sabotage is tactically unwise. Luckily, I'm not a cynical man."

"Why do I get the sense you're insinuating something?"

He holds his hands up. "If I've given you that impression, all I can do is apologize. It wasn't my intention."

"My boss, Graham, is the husband of the woman who saved my life. He's a kind, selfless man. One of the best I've ever met. He would go above and beyond to do what's right, both for his business and the world. He genuinely cares about AI, and right now, he's dealing with far too much to think about sabotage ."

I grab my coffee and return to the conference room, ignoring the shocked look on his face. When I sit down, my cell phone buzzes. It's Luke.

Luke: Are you okay?

Sera: I'm fine.

I reply “fine”... but that isn't exactly true.