Trickster

by Nicola Cameron

  When they weren’t working or fucking each other, they talked. Delaney told Mark about growing up near Phoenix with his parents and two sisters, running at night with his pack under the desert moon, meeting Scott at college and immediately clicking with the other shifter, and how he’d come to Dallas at Scott’s invitation three years ago to start Trickster. In turn Mark told him all about Waxahachie, the pride of being a Texan and why he loved his state despite the idiots running it, and his secret dream of someday going into space. The intense, intimate connection left the both of them simultaneously wrung out, elated, and energized as the mating bond deepened, becoming part of the bedrock of their lives.

  Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. With the run-up to release weekend closing in on them, the Lone Star project manager started holding QA meetings every morning to go over testing milestones. Mark knew the meetings were tedious but necessary as new bugs were also popping up on an almost daily basis, but it also meant long hours as they ironed out all the various issues.

  Delaney conducted his own weekly meetings with the Engineering team every Friday, making sure that things were on track for all the Trickster projects. Mark sat at the end of the conference table with the other contractors, doing his best to look alert and nonsexual as he watched his lover get status updates from the project managers.

  It didn’t help that various body parts was still tingling from being stripped and spread out on Delaney’s desk not two hours ago. The shifter had developed a downright addiction to cocksucking and loved to get Mark seated on his desk during lunch, trousers and underwear off and legs spread on either side of Delaney’s chair as he kissed, licked and sucked his way around Mark’s inner thighs and sac before worshipping his cock. Mark had to smother his moans when he came, which added to the hotness of the act, and loved feeling the shifter’s throat muscles milk every last drop out of him.

  Afterwards, Delaney would lick him clean, ending with tender kisses on his balls, then drag him down to straddle the shifter’s lap for a fast hand job before they both had to go back to work. Mark had started to dream about sliding down directly onto Delaney’s cock instead and riding him hard, squeezing his cock and muffling the other man’s cries with his mouth. Maybe after Lone Star goes live. That’ll be one hell of a way to celebrate the release.

  He smiled as the meeting broke up and Delaney flashed him a smoky look before ducking out the door with the project managers in tow. I can’t get enough of him. It’s insane. Wonderful, but insane.

  The only fly in the ointment was Caren. He’d called her and let her down as gently as possible, explaining that he’d met someone and he didn’t want to string her along. Unfortunately for him, she didn’t seem ready to let go. He was still getting daily texts from her, all of them calm but firm requests that they meet face to face. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS LIKE ADULTS, she’d said in her last text. YOU OWE ME THAT MUCH.

  The truth of it was, he did feel guilty about breaking up with her, even though technically it wasn’t his fault. And it wasn’t like she was getting hysterical or threatening to boil a bunny in his kitchen. Even during a split, she was the cool, collected executive she’d always been.

  The sticking point was running the idea past Delaney. One of the things he’d learned over the last two weeks was that shifters were decidedly territorial, and he didn’t know how Delaney would handle the news that his ex-girlfriend wanted to see him. By the time the Lone Star release day came around, the guilt had built to the point where he was getting short-tempered with Delaney.

  That afternoon they were at Mark’s apartment. Delaney asked him where he kept his coffee cups.

  “The cabinet.”

  “Which one—”

  “Just look, dammit!” Mark snapped.

  The next thing he knew, he was pushed gently onto a kitchen chair. Delaney grabbed another chair and straddled it backwards, facing him.

  “Okay, I know this is going to get my man card pulled, but what’s wrong?” the shifter asked, brow creased. “You keep biting my head off, and I can’t tell if I’ve done something or you’re just stressed about the release. Talk to me, babe.”

  Mark bit his lip. Reluctantly, he explained the text messages and waited for the explosion. To his surprise, Delaney shrugged. “I can’t blame her. She deserves the closure, even I can admit that,” he said, his whisky-colored eyes catching the afternoon sunlight. “And I got to admit, I do feel a little shitty about taking you from her.”

  Relief surged through Mark at the admission. “I was worried you’d be jealous.”

  The shifter affected an innocent look. “Me, jealous?”

  “You. Remember what happened at Kroger? With the bag boy?”

  Delaney huffed. “That little shit was checking out your ass.”

  “That little shit was maybe sixteen. And the way you loomed over him, he probably thinks he won’t see seventeen.”

  “He won’t if he keeps checking out your ass.”

  Mark had to laugh at that. “Seriously, you’re okay with this? Because I don’t want you hunting down and scaring the shit out of my ex-girlfriend,” he said. “Note the accent on the ex.”

  Delaney made a rumbling noise deep in his chest. “I’ll behave, babe. As long as you promise that you’ll come back to me.”

  “Right, like I’d ever leave you. We’re mated, remember?”

  “Hm.”

  Mark frowned. “I don’t like the sound of ‘hm.’”

  Delaney bit his lip. “I just know that none of this is what you expected,” he said. “I mean, did you ever see yourself settling down with a man?”

  “No. But let’s be honest, did you?”

  “No. But I’m also a shifter, so I knew it was a possibility. And then there’s the fact that you’re mated to someone who isn’t human. That puts you in a certain amount of danger.”

  “Okay, stop right there,” Mark cupped the other man’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “Yes, we may be different species, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met, and I wouldn’t trade you for anyone. You’re my mate, and I’m glad you’re in my life.” He sighed. “As for danger, I could get killed going to the store, or in the damn shower. Being scared and playing it safe is no way to live life. If we run into problems because you’re a shifter, we’ll deal with them together. But don’t you ever think for one moment that I’m going to leave you because of it.”

  Delaney’s entire face lit up. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Damn straight I do.”

  “Good. Means I have an excuse for doing this.” He stood up and nudged the chair out of the way, then knelt down between Mark’s knees, urging them wider. Grabbing the zipper on his jeans, he tugged it down and bent forward, mouth wet and open.

  Mark closed his eyes and tilted his head back, the better to relish his mate’s skilled lips and tongue. “For future reference,” he murmured, “you never need an excuse for this.”

  After his orgasm and a reciprocal blowjob for Delaney, Mark texted Caren with an agreement to meet. Unsurprisingly he had directions to her office two minutes later, with instructions on where to park in the attached garage structure. Of course she’s working on the weekend.

  Thinking about it, he texted back an okay. If I get this over with now, I can still get a nap before I head into the office.

  He went to tell Delaney and found the shifter dressed to leave and standing at the front door, car keys in hand. “There you are. Sorry, babe, but I need to go home and do some prep work before tonight,” he said, pulling Mark into a kiss. “Plus I really need a nap.”

  Mark raised an eyebrow. “I do have a bed here, you know.”

  “Yeah, and if I stay here I’m going to pull you into it, which means I won’t get any sleep.” Delaney rubbed his nose against Mark’s. “I’ll see you at the office at ten tonight, okay?”

  Another kiss and he was out the door, whistling. Shrugging, Mark closed
the door and turned to look for his own shoes and car keys. Never mind. I’ll tell him about Caren tomorrow.

  ****

  Caren’s office turned out to be in one of the newly constructed buildings along the Dallas North Tollroad. He found the address and pulled into the garage, noticing the rows of empty slots. Well, it is Saturday. Not a lot of people are going to be in the office today, right?

  He pulled into a space near the elevator, two spaces down from an SUV. As he got out, Caren walked out of the elevator, smiling at him. “Right on time. I always did appreciate that about you, sweetie.”

  Mark had his mouth open to reply when someone grabbed his upper right arm and something hard poked into his ribcage. He glanced down to see a black barrel, then up at Red’s scowl.

  Fear thudded through him. “Caren, run!”

  She folded her arms, smiling at both of them. “Don’t be silly. I’m exactly where I want to be, sweetie.”

  “What?”

  “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go this far, but you’ve been so tiresomely compliant about following the rules.” She reached forward and chucked him lightly under the chin. “You’re such a good boy, aren’t you? I bet you even roll over and pant for Smith on command.”

  Mark felt his jaw drop, and closed it. “Caren, what are you doing?”

  Mascara’ed eyes opened wide ingenuously. “Adding a trapdoor code to the Lone Star Credit Union’s online banking system, sweetie. I thought I could sneak it in through your laptop, but you didn’t bring home any of the right files.” She sighed, shaking her head. “And I went to all that trouble, too. Dating you, having dinners with you, listening to you babble on and on about that stupid Doctor Whoever show, getting you in position to be hired at Trickster. I thought it was all going to be worth it in the end. Just goes to show that even I can make mistakes.”

  Anger began to seep in, displacing the fear. “So, what? You’re holding me hostage or something?” Mark said. “Because I can tell you right now, Trickster isn’t going to let you put any damn code into Lone Star’s security system.”

  She laughed, a bright sound that echoed in the empty garage. “Oh, I’m not going to do it, sweetie. You are.”

  Chapter Seven

  Four hours later, Mark pulled into the parking lot at Trickster, his stomach churning as sweat trickled down the back of his neck. The tiny black blister riding on the bridge of his glasses felt like it weighed a ton. “Just to make sure you’re not doing anything naughty,” Caren had said as she attached the tiny spycam. “Like the song says, I’ll be watching you.”

  And then there was the flash drive Caren had given him, which seemed to burn in his front jeans pocket. He wanted to yank the damn thing out and throw it on the ground, smash it to bits.

  But he couldn’t. Not while he could still remember Caren holding up her phone. It had showed a picture of Delaney asleep in his bed, pale against the burgundy sheets.

  God, he prayed Delaney was just asleep.

  “My other employee is currently at your boyfriend’s house,” she’d said. “Where Mr. Smith is currently out cold and under guard. You’re going to be a good boy and insert my trapdoor code into Lone Star’s security upgrades, then come back here once the release is finished so that I can test it and make sure it works. If it does, then Mr. Smith will wake up tomorrow with nothing more than a pounding headache. If it doesn’t, or if you try to call the police, or let anyone at Trickster know what’s happening, my employee will shoot Mr. Smith in the head. It’s really as simple as that.”

  He’d been pushed into the SUV, which belonged to Caren, handed a laptop, and run through the installation procedure over and over again until she was satisfied he’d remember it. Once that was done, she’d handed him the flash drive. “Don’t lose it, sweetie,” she said, giving him a pixie smile. “Remember, it’s the only thing keeping your boyfriend alive right now.”

  Mark pulled his trembling hands off the steering wheel, grabbed his laptop bag and got out of the car. If he inserted the trapdoor code, Caren would have complete access to Lone Star’s financial system, with the ability to drain customer accounts and transfer the money to her choice of offshore financial institutions. Even if the National Credit Union Administration could cover the loss, it would be a huge scandal among the thousands of credit union customers. Lone Star Credit Union would almost undoubtedly collapse as a result, Trickster Tech would be sued into insolvency for allowing the theft to happen in the first place, and he would be looking at jail time for his part in it all.

  If he didn’t insert the code, Delaney would die.

  Sick to his stomach, he signed in with the building’s night security guard and headed to the fourth floor where Trickster Tech had its offices. To his surprise Aimee was at the reception desk, and she gave him a wave as he walked in.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, hoping he sounded normal.

  “Acting as gofer, backup typist and general dogsbody for all you poor fools doing the release,” she said with a smile. “I’m also ordering pizza around eleven, so what kind do you like?”

  The prosaic question threw Mark. He stammered something about sausage and onions, when he heard voices coming from the corridor where the executive offices were located. It sounded like Scott Devlin was arguing with someone. “I better get to my desk,” he muttered.

  Aimee nodded. “Good luck with the release.”

  “Thanks.” Head down, he hurried to his cubicle.

  To his dismay Fazia and Miaying were already at their desks, dressed in casual wear and ready to spend the next four hours running final pre and post loading tests. The sandboxed production server was already connected to Trickster’s T-3 line so that the new security upgrades to the credit union’s server could be installed once the pre-loading tests were complete.

  “You’re early,” Fazia said, winged eyebrows rising. “I didn’t think you were going to show up until ten.”

  He sat down and typed in his password. “Couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d come in and get my tests started.”

  He kept up the idle chatter with the other programmers while he went into the production server’s secure file system and located the file that would carry Caren’s trapdoor code. Heart pounding, he checked it out onto his computer. Once the credit union management and Scott Devlin discovered what had happened, they would look at the check in/out logs. His name would be electronically tagged on the target file, marking him as the culprit.

  I wonder if Delaney will come visit me in prison. Assuming that he forgives me for destroying Trickster in the first place.

  But at least he’ll be alive.

  He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket, thumbing off the cap. The exposed USB connector glinted pewter in the office’s low lights.

  His desk phone rang, startling him. Putting down the drive, he picked up the handset. The outside line button was lit. “Hello?”

  A woman’s chuckle. “Don’t start getting any second thoughts now, sweetie,” Caren crooned over the phone. “No one can help you now. Just do what I told you to do, and your boyfriend lives. Remember that.”

  The call cut off, and Mark was left staring at the phone. So much for her bluffing about the spycam.

  He put the handset back into its cradle, wanting to throw the damned thing out the window. You have to do this for Del. No one can help you now. Just do it.

  No one can help you.

  He blinked, hand still on the phone.

  Except—

  Turning to keep his head and the spycam aimed at his computer monitor, he blindly picked up the handset again and laid it to the side. Finding the line buttons by touch—the direct outside line, and the one used by Aimee to patch calls to any office phone—he pressed the second one down. The button lit up blurrily in his peripheral vision. He pressed it again and the light went out.

  He hit the button quickly two more times, then three more times with a slightly longer pause on each light, then the original three quick hits ag
ain. He repeated the sequence twice more then paused, praying that the former Signal Corps officer wouldn’t just call him to find out what was going on.

  The light lit again and stayed on, then flickered briefly. Dash dot dash dash dot.

  GO AHEAD STATION.

  Now came the tricky part. Using his mouse to scroll through the file on his screen, he painstakingly tapped out a message in Morse code with his left hand. BEING FORCED TO HACK CODE. GUNMAN ON DEL AT HOME. SPYCAM ON GLASSES. TELL SCOTT. SAVE DEL.

  A pause, then dot dot dot dash dot. UNDERSTOOD. KEEP HACKER EYES ON YOU.

  He took a deep breath, feeling drops of sweat trickle down his temples. Focusing his attention on the monitor, he opened the integrated development environment where he could review code for mistakes and bad syntax, as well as edit and add code. Such as Caren’s trapdoor code.

  He flinched when he felt hands on his shoulders. They squeezed, then released. Long and short squeezes, silent Morse code.

  DO WHAT HACKERS SAID. CHECK FILE BACK IN THEN REVIEW CODE UNTIL I TELL YOU TO STOP.

  Dry-mouthed, he pushed the flash drive into one of the USB ports, opening it as soon as it registered as an external drive. It contained a single text file with Caren’s code. Copying the code, he pasted it into the appropriate section of the Lone Star file, saved it, and checked it back into the server. As slowly as he dared, he started checking out other files, scrolling through each one before closing it and opening a new one. After what felt like an eternity the hands squeezed on his shoulders again. STOP.

  He obeyed, sick at heart.

  “Okay, we’re good,” Aimee said quietly from behind him.

  No, don’t talk to me! “Aims, I’m busy—” he said quickly, hoping Caren wouldn’t understand.

  “It’s okay, Mark,” Aimee soothed. “We located the transmission uplink. Security recorded you checking out files and looped it, and is blocking your signal and transmitting the loop back. You’re safe.”