She nods. “And if I’m driving, I’m good for at least another two.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” I reach for her breast and pull her nipple into my mouth. Then I move to the other, getting both nice and wet. I grab them between my forefinger and thumb and pinch her hard. Her pace increases. The only sounds are the wet sloppy noises of two bodies crashing together.
“I’m going to come,” I announce.
Fiona sits up straight and works hard to ride my cock. I groan as I unleash my load and feel her insides holding me tight again.
She collapses on me, breathing hard.
“Damn, woman, I think you just fucked yourself dry.”
We continue to lie together in the bed. I like having Fiona cuddled up, her head resting on my shoulder. It doesn’t take long before the Sandman comes calling.
Chapter 14
Fiona
I feel the bed shift, and the light hits my eyes.
“You’re awake,” Bash says as he hands me a cup of coffee. He’s in a pair of boxer briefs and looks absolutely delicious. His hair is wet at the edges, and he smells like sandalwood.
“I am.” I look around and without window coverings, it is much brighter than I’m used to. “You’re a morning person, aren’t you?”
He grins. “I am.”
“Let me guess, you’ve already worked out, made coffee, showered, and are ready to go to work.”
He blushes, and it’s rather cute. “Maybe.” He sits down next to me and stares at my bare chest as the sheets pool around my waist. “What time do we need to meet Damien at your offices with Hunter?”
I look around for a clock or something that indicates the time. “What time is it?”
“Just after seven.”
“Damien will be at the office at eight. Crap. I never sleep as well as I did last night.”
Bash pushes his chest out. “Must have been all those orgasms you had.”
“I think you’re right.” We were up entirely too late last night enjoying each other. I race into the bathroom and hop in the shower. I need to wash the smell of sex away.
After a whirlwind morning, Bash and I make it to my office just as Damien arrives. I show him to the conference room and go in search of Hunter.
I find Trevor emerging from his room. “How did it go last night?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not great. Hunter was upset, and he took a rideshare to his old apartment. Did you know it was still taped off?”
I nod as I make myself a cup of coffee. “I did. It’s a crime scene, but I’m hoping we can get it unlocked this week.”
“Well, he totally freaked out. He returned frantic. He kept talking about Eric Martin and all the problems he creates.”
I stop and look at him to make sure I understand correctly. “Eric Martin is a problem for them?”
“Apparently Jenn thought he was a real problem, and they were considering terminating him.”
I lean against the counter. “He told you that? Because when I asked him if he was having a problem with anyone at work, he said no.”
“Maybe he wasn’t having a problem, but Jenn was. I’ll try to get to the bottom of this.”
I knock on the door to Hunter’s room. He doesn’t answer, and my pulse quickens. I knock again. “Hunter?”
I hear a mumble.
“I’m going to open the door,” I announce. When I enter, Hunter is dressed in what I suspect are the same clothes he had on last night. His eyes are bloodshot and swollen. “How’s it going?”
“Not great.”
He sounds exhausted, but I can help him get through this. “Damien Lewis is here for our meeting,” I tell him. “Why don’t you jump in a hot shower, get some fresh clothes, and join us in the front conference room?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does, Hunter. We have several questions for you. And our goal is to get this behind you so your company can go public.”
He acknowledges me but doesn’t move. It’s not like I can physically move a six-foot-tall man into a shower.
I reach for his hand. “Come on. You can do this. Don’t give up on us. You need to find the strength to figure out why Jenn did what she did. You need to do it for Jenn.”
Tears pool in his eyes, and the hurt he’s feeling rolls off him in waves. We need to get to the bottom of this. Slowly Hunter gets up and goes to the bathroom.
Back in the kitchen, I grab the coffee I made for Bash and head to the conference room. “Hunter is hopping in the shower and will be here momentarily,” I announce. “He went by the apartment last night and had a meltdown.”
Damien looks up. “Did he go in?”
“I don’t think so. He should be out in a minute. Damien, I’m sorry. I should have asked. Can I get you some coffee, too?”
He nods and tells me how he likes it. I set the cup in front of Bash and go back to make two more. I love this machine. It was an extravagance when we first moved into this office, but it makes coffee in something like fifty different ways. And it’s good.
I spot Hunter making the dash from the bathroom back to his room in a towel just before I return to the conference room with the two coffees. “Hunter just got out of the shower,” I report. “He should be here shortly.”
While we wait, I pepper Damien with questions about his Hawaiian wedding plans.
“We’re getting married at Jackson Graham and Corrine Wood’s beach estate in Maui,” he explains. “It’ll be my fiancée, Gabby, and my family, and of course, Jackson and Corrine.”
“That sounds beautiful and very intimate. I heard the estate sits on a cliff with a spectacular view of the ocean.”
“It’s pretty stunning. Gabby and Corrine are best friends from college, and I moved out here to follow them.”
“Such a romantic story.” I smile, knowing how Bash feels about romance.
Hunter pushes his way into the conference room. “Morning.” He doesn’t make eye contact with any of us.
“Here.” I point to a seat at the head of the table. “I saved this spot right up front for you.”
Damien starts off by telling us about the court date next week and what we can expect. This is more for Hunter’s information.
“I understand you went by the apartment last night,” I prompt.
Hunter nods. “It was still covered in yellow tape.”
“Did you go inside?” Damien asks.
He shakes his head. “I might have if the police hadn’t been there.”
“It’s an active crime scene,” Damien warns. “Please don’t go in until they release it. They’ll notify me when that happens, but most likely you’ll need to move out since the condo belonged to Jenn.”
Hunter looks at the floor, and I see a tear escape down his cheek.
“Did you know Jenn had a prescription for Zoloft?” I ask.
“She’d hinted at getting some help managing her moods, but I didn’t know she was taking anything.” He sighs. “The stress of this business is huge. We’d been working nonstop for the last seventy-three days. It could get depressing. She had a good therapist.”
“Do you know who that was?” Damien asks.
“There’s an appointment card on the fridge, but I can’t remember her name,” Hunter says.
“Did you know she’d stopped taking the Zoloft?” I ask him.
Hunter looks at a painting on the wall on the other side of the room and gives us a half head shake.
“Did her therapist know?”
He shrugs.
“That’s a pretty serious drug to quit cold turkey,” Bash says.
“I didn’t even know she was taking Zoloft.” Hunter runs his hands through his hair.
“When I asked you before if anyone was a threat to you or causing a problem at work, you assured me there was no one. Last night you told Trevor you think Eric Martin was out to get Jenn?”
“I don’t know that for sure,” he hedges.
“Trevor said you were upset abou
t Eric Martin last night.”
Hunter tears up again. “Jenn thought he was more trouble than he was worth, and she wanted him fired. But he didn’t know that, and anyway he’s not violent; he’s just a yeller.”
“Did you feel the same way?” Bash asks.
“I’m pretty easygoing.” Hunter crosses his ankle over his knee and looks out the window at the cable cars on California Street. “I didn’t let him get to me. He reminded me of my older brother.”
“Were you planning on firing him?” I ask.
Hunter sighs loudly. “We’d been in contact with the lawyer who drew up our articles of incorporation. He was looking into his employment contract to see how much it would cost us.”
“What was he telling you so far?” I prod.
“That Eric would most likely be able to keep his financial position within the company, which would make him the largest shareholder after Jenn and me.”
“What happens to Jenn’s shares now?” Damien asks.
“They go to whoever she designated. But she made it her parents, with the caveat that they use the money to take care of her sister.”
“Would it surprise you to know you are her designated heir?” Damien asks.
Hunter turns to look at him for the first time, his brow furrowed. “It would. She was very clear that she wanted to look out for her sister, who has Down syndrome. Her parents’ estate has a large trust Jenn would manage when they pass to care for her sister. But she knew if she wasn’t around, the trust wouldn’t cover the cost of a caregiver. She set up her own finances to make sure they’d cover that if she was gone. I was fully on board with that. If we hit it big and we were married, she’d have income from my options anyway.”
“Why do you think she changed that?” Damien asks. “It was changed three days before she died.”
“I had no idea she’d made the change. If that’s the case, I’ll probably gift them to her family for her sister’s care. I don’t want it.”
Damien looks at his note pad. “We should get labs back in a day or so. Do you know what else Jenn might have eaten during the day?”
“I know we work together, but she sat in a different office and she snacks all day. She could have had nuts, dried fruit, chocolate, or even a power bar.”
“Tell us about The John Riley Company,” Bash says.
“They hired a few people away from our company who were unhappy. They weren’t our A players, so we didn’t push hard to have them stay, but we did insist that they not work in cloud computing after they left.”
“Did they agree?” Damien asks.
“Yes. They were banned from working on that for six months, but The John Riley Company has video games and other places they could be working while they waited to run out their time.”
“What is your personal relationship like with John Riley?” Damien asks.
Hunter takes a deep breath. “If he was hit by a bus crossing the street, I wouldn’t rush over to help him, but I might call 9-1-1.”
I smirk at that. I can think of a few people that would aptly describe in my own life.
“He’s the guy most likely to take a lot of your clients if this case goes forward, isn’t he?” I ask.
“He’s not the only one. There’s Claris Clouds, Rainmaker Storage, and several smaller competitors. We’re just the farthest along in this part of cloud computing. With SHN’s help, we’ve also begun to look at eating up a few of the smaller players that have some tech that would be complementary after we go public.”
“Is The John Riley Company one of them?” Damien asks.
“No way. He’s not the kind of guy we would be interested in doing business with. I’m not sure his funding is on the up and up.”
“Are they like BrightStar, who was funding start-ups as a way to launder Russian crime money until they were shut down by the FBI?” I ask.
“Something like that, but it wasn’t Russian. It was money from China,” Bash says.
We talk for another hour and a half before agreeing to meet again tomorrow at the end of the day. There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered.
As Hunter gets up to leave, I throw one more question at him. “Hunter, tell me about you and Jenn’s drug use. Did you guys experiment with more than hallucinogenic mushrooms? Weed?”
“We might use Adderall when we were on a coding marathon, which has been a lot lately. But we didn’t touch the hard stuff like meth or heroin. Jenn had played a lot with coke when she was in high school, but she didn’t like it anymore. We used low-grade stuff to relax.”
I nod, and Hunter steps out. The rest of us remain to discuss our next steps. We decide Maureen and I will work on the personal aspect of the company and what may come out of the emails, and Gage’s team will go after some of the more in-depth information—like Jenn’s medical history and her drug use. Then together we’ll work on a timeline to make it clear.
After we finish, Damien heads out and Bash follows me into my office. “I’d like to stay here with you and take you from behind at your desk.”
I bite my lip. That sounds rather fun. “You’re pretty naughty.”
“You bring out the best in me.” He smiles. “I’ll order groceries for dinner tonight. What time can I pick you up? Six thirty? Seven?”
“Six thirty is perfect.” I lean in and plant a wet, juicy kiss on his lips. “Let me know if you learn anything.”
After Bash leaves, I go in search of Hunter. I find him lying down and watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
“This sucks.”
“You know, you’re not in jail. Take Trevor with you and go to your office. I’m sure your team needs some leadership right now.”
“That was usually Jenn. Not me.”
“Well, you’re free to stick around as long as you need to, but I’d like Trevor to go with you if you decide to go anywhere—not because I think you’ll get in trouble, but I worry that they’re going to try to set you up. They won’t if you’re not alone.”
“Okay.”
I leave him and return to my office. A little while later, Maureen comes in and reports that she’s broken into the Department of Justice’s mainframe and is looking for information on us to see why they’re so hot and heavy about my dad. So far she can’t find anything.
“Be careful,” I warn.
She gives me a single-shoulder shrug. “They never notice. I’m careful.”
“Clear Security has offered to put our unmentionables in black bags and store them for us,” I tell her. “I’d like to fill the first one today and work this week to get as much out as possible without being obvious.”
“You trust those guys?” she asks.
“I do—especially Jim, who started the company with Gage and Bash. I know Gage is a nemesis, but they’re good to us.”
Gage is the only person who seems to get under Maureen’s skin. I would guess it’s because they’re both incredible hackers and can’t really outdo each other. Their skills are complimentary, if they could ever accept that.
“Then it’s a great idea,” she agrees. “At least we’ll know if they decide to break into the bags.”
“They won’t. We share clients. Besides the personal relationship, they want to keep us happy professionally too.”
“I also got into The John Riley Company’s mainframe.”
“Anything interesting?” I ask.
“They aren’t as far along in the development of their product as Distinctive is, and John Riley is sexually harassing one of the female engineers who works for him. He’s sent her a bunch of dick pics. I won’t lie, I copied those emails and put them in my cloud.”
I scrunch my face in disgust. “Why?”
“Because I may out him,” she warns.
“If you out him, he’ll think she did it, and if he’s the guy behind this, he could harm her.”
She sighs. “I know. That’s why I didn’t do it immediately. I need to be more
calculating.”
We sit in silence a moment.
“I notice how good Bash has been to you,” she says quietly. “You’re looking serious.”
I shake my head. “You saw what those assholes did to my place. I don’t feel comfortable moving back into the brownstone again. That’s why I’m staying with him.”
“What did Walker Clifton say?”
“He apologized for the FBI, but he’s got other problems. I haven’t bugged him about this.”
She nods. “I get it.”
We order in ramen for lunch and continue to work. Before I know it, my afternoon is slipping away. My cell phone pings, alerting me to a new message.
Bash: Hey, beautiful. I’m leaving now. I should be there at 6:30. Food has been delivered to my place and is ready for the grill.
I smile. It will be fun to watch Bash deal with fire.
Me: I can meet you downstairs.
Bash: Dominic Campbell is there to walk you downstairs.
Me: How will I know who he is?
Bash: He’s a huge black man with a don’t-fuck-with-me look—perfect for you when you try to get away.
Me: You’re no fun.
Bash: I’ll show you fun later.
I leave my office and find Dominic sitting in the conference room, looking through a copy of Guns & Ammo.
“Hi, I’m Fiona. I’ll be ready in five minutes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here today.”
“No problem. Shannon showed me around. My goal is to make sure no one you don’t want here gets in.”
I return to my office and place my computer and what I want to work on later into my bag. I return to the conference room, and Dominic walks me downstairs.
As we arrive in the lobby, Bash pulls up to the curb. “What time shall I meet you in the morning?” Dominic asks.
“Eight or so?”
“I’ll be here.”
I get in the car, and Dominic shuts the door and taps the hood twice.
“You could have told me he was coming,” I tell Bash.
“I told Shannon, so you’re good. He’s a good guy. There’s no one I trust more to look out for someone than Dominic. He’s a highly decorated former Ranger and can bench press over three hundred pounds. Any guy who thinks he can get to you will need to get through him first, and he wears this crazy bulletproof armor one of our clients makes.”
Unwrapped: Clear Security's Holiday (Clear Security Holiday Book 2) Page 10
