by Logan Jacobs
“Any news on that?” He leaned forward, and his voice dropped to a whisper, even though there was just the four of us within earshot.
“Nothing yet,” I said. “I’m trying not to involve the police.”
“Understandable,” Dan said, and then he nodded to Dynamo. “I’ve got some friends that are good at doing the kind of stuff police can’t. If you are looking for help, I can let them know.”
“I might take you up on that,” I said as our eyes met, “but for now, I want to deal with it myself. I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”
“Please do,” he said, “and while you’re here, I’d love to help you stave off boredom. Just shoot me a text any time. Let me know what you’re up to. We can keep meeting up. I can get you into a lot of pretty sweet events. I mean, you’ve got the name, everyone wants to party with Miles Nelson, but this is my hometown, I know people here, and I know you, and I can vouch for you. Hook you up, bro.”
“Sounds great,” I said. But I didn’t care about getting introductions to Grayville’s elite social scene. It wasn’t Slade who could potentially be useful to me. It was the Shadow Knight. And I still wasn’t quite sure if the Shadow Knight genuinely wanted to be helpful to me, or if he wanted me to stop treading on his territory and go back to Pinnacle City.
Maybe the Shadow Knight hadn’t quite made up his mind yet himself.
“So what’s the super scene here like?” Elizabeth asked in a lighthearted tone. “Any, uh, villains we should be on the lookout for?”
I knew she still didn’t want to believe that Dan Slade was the same person as the Shadow Knight, unless something during this yacht outing had caused her to change her mind about that anyway, but I guessed she was humoring me by asking.
“Well, I wouldn’t know much about it,” Slade said as he glanced over at me, “but I think the superheroes of Grayville have got things covered. I know you’re a very talented and motivated woman, and I know you want to help Miles out, but I think while you’re here, you should just relax and see the sights. You can get back on the crime fighting scene when you return to Pinnacle City, don’t you think?”
“Evil rears its head in every quarter,” Dynamo replied sternly, “and good men must always be prepared to rise up and quell it.” I knew that she was using the word “men” in the gender-neutral sense of humans in general. Some female superheroes, like the Killer Kitten, really liked to play up the girl power aspect of their work. Dynamo seemed indifferent to that. She simply classified herself and her capabilities among the ranks of her male counterparts and didn’t want to be underestimated or singled out for praise as an exception.
Slade sighed a little under his breath, but then he nodded his head amiably. “Spoken like a true superhero. Irrespective of your current, ah, professional affiliation. If you don’t mind my asking, what was the source of your, ah, irreconcilable differences with The Wardens, so to speak?”
“I wanted more creative freedom,” she replied after a few moments.
“I see,” he said as his eyes narrowed for half a moment. “So, Miles is easier to work for?”
He glanced back and forth between us a few times. I think he probably surmised that Dynamo was naturally inclined to stick a bit more to the straight and narrow than I was, and he was probably wondering about our dynamic; whether Dynamo kept my worst impulses reigned in, or whether I was slowly chipping away at her formerly unassailable moral integrity.
“Yep,” Elizabeth said. “He’s great.”
“That he is,” Dan said as he raised his glass to me. “I’m really happy you all decided to come today. I gotta say that it gets a bit lonely. Know what I mean?”
“Lonely?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Dan said as he turned to the shore where all the beautiful bikini wearing women were frolicing. “At the top. Know what I mean?”
“Sure,” I replied, and I did understand what he was saying. Being a rich genius made it a bit hard to relate to everyone. I was used to people wanting something from me. But then again, wasn’t that what relationships were? Two people wanting something from the other person?
“Sooooo…” he said as he cleared his throat. “I’ve got something going on in a few nights. A little party. Don’t say anything now because I can’t bear rejection, but if you guys are free. I’d love to have you over.”
“We’ll think about it,” I said, and then Slade nodded at me, and we all turned our attention to our drinks.
A few minutes later the shore party started scurrying back down the dock toward us. Once all his guests were back aboard, and had taken up their usual positions around Norma, Elizabeth, and I, Slade gave instructions for the yacht to start sailing back to its original port. Gemma, Ali, and the third woman, whose name ended up being Zatashah, continued to flirt shamelessly with me during the entire trip back, so Dan and I were only to have a few short but useless conversations around our business endeavors.
Then we were back at the dock, and I was feeling a bit drowsy from the day of cruising, drinking, eating, and mental fencing.
“So, about that party...” Dan said as he walked Norma, Elizabeth, and I to the gang walk of his yacht after I’d said my goodbyes to the group of swimsuit models.
“You didn’t get enough of me today?” I chuckled.
“It’s just casual,” he explained as he wrapped one of his meaty arms around my shoulders. “There will be a live band, champagne fountains, and some of the girls you all hung out with today will be there. Like Zatashah. I think she likes you.”
“Everyone likes me,” I pointed out.
“You are a nice guy!” he laughed as he squeezed my shoulder, and I caught Elizabeth rolling her turquoise eyes from her spot behind him.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “I hate making commitments, but we did have a good time today.”
“Sounds good,” he said as he unwound his arm from my shoulder. “I’ll text you with the information. Thanks for coming. Really enjoyed the time together, and I’d like to hang out more, bro, so please come.”
“I’ll think about it. Have a good one.” I gave him a parting wave, and then Norma, Dynamo, and I walked down the gangplank, through the harbor, and then got in our car.
“Aileen, anyone fuck with the car?” I asked as soon as I fired up the engine.
“No, Miles,” she said, “Although a group of guards working for Dan Slade’s company did patrol the parking lot and harbor while you were all out. There were fifty of them all armed with military grade armor and assault rifles.”
“Huh,” I said, “Looks like he didn’t want any problems while two of the richest men in the world were on a boat together.”
“What did you think of him?” Aileen asked.
“You know… he was pretty nice,” I said. “I know it was an act, but he was convincing.”
“Maybe it wasn’t an act?” Elizabeth said. “Maybe he’s actually a nice guy. Bit of a mimbo, but his heart could be in the right place.”
“Mimbo?” Norma asked.
“Male bimbo,” my girlfriend explained.
“That makes sense,” Norma replied.
“I’m still not convinced he is Shadow Knight,” Elizabeth said.
“There was something odd about him,” I said. “I don’t think he’s gay, but there was some weird sexual stuff going on. Or maybe I should say ‘lack’ of sexual stuff.”
“What do you mean?” Norma asked.
“Have you ever seen a guy not check Elizabeth out?” I asked as I gestured to my girlfriend.
“Nope,” Norma snorted.
“Not every guy checks me out,” Elizabeth scoffed.
Both Norma and I just blinked our eyes at the brunette beauty.
“Okay, yeah. I noticed that, too,” my girlfriend admitted with a long sigh. “That doesn’t mean he’s weird.”
“He didn’t really look at any of the women,” I said, “or really touch them, and they were all super hot.”
“Especially the one tryin
g to get her hooks into you,” Elizabeth snickered. “Zatashah? Was that her name?”
“She was probably a honey pot,” I said. “They might all be working for Slade.”
“They didn’t seem smart enough for that,” Norma commented.
“So, you think Dan Slade is gay?” Elizabeth asked. “What’s wrong with that, and what does that have to do with him being the Shadow Knight?”
“I don’t think he’s gay,” I replied, “but didn’t the Shadow Knight train a bunch of young orphan boys to be his apprentices?”
“The Squires,” Elizabeth clarified. “But you don’t think he’s gay?”
“He did have his arm around you a bunch,” Norma pointed out.
“That’s true,” I replied, “but it didn’t feel like he was hitting on me.”
“So, he’s asexual?” Elizabeth asked.
“Or maybe all he cares about is fighting crime as the Shadow Knight?” I snickered.
“I’m still not convinced,” Elizabeth said.
“Are we going to go to his party?” Norma asked, and the tone in her voice made me think that she really wanted to go.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “We need to do some--”
“Oh!” Elizabeth gasped, and I turned to see her staring at her phone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“The Shadow Knight just replied to my message,” she answered.
Chapter Five - Dynamo
“What does it say?” Miles asked me.
“‘Meet me at the corner of Peartree Ave and Winona Blvd by the dumpling shop, 10AM tomorrow morning.’”
“That’s it?” Norma asked.
“That’s it,” I confirmed.
“Should we go?” Norma asked. This time she looked over at Miles instead of me. The poor girl was constantly looking to him for approval. Well, I often sought his approval to be fair, but I liked to think I was a bit more subtle about it.
“Hmmm,” he said as he leaned back in the car seat and thought for a few moments while the engine and air-conditioning ran.
He had seemed surprisingly relaxed the entire time we were on the yacht. I thought that was actually a bit strange, since I knew he was trying to prove to me that Dan Slade was Shadow Knight, but I also didn’t deny that this outing had been fun, even if Slade seemed like a wannabe Miles Nelson who reeked of desperation.
His yacht was nice though.
“Yes,” Miles finally decided.
I couldn’t help myself from breaking into a grin. I was a lot more excited to meet the Shadow Knight for a few minutes on a street corner than I had been to spend an afternoon on Dan Slade’s yacht.
“Technically, Dynamo was the only one invited,” Norma pointed out.
“I did use the plural pronoun ‘we’ in my initial message to him,” I said with a shrug. “So he knows there’s more than one of us and he doesn’t seem to care. He didn’t say anything about bringing or not bringing other people.”
“He knows exactly who we are and how many of us there are, because he’s Dan Slade,” Miles said as he backed the car out of the parking spot and began to drive us to our temporary home. “Well, except for Aileen, anyway. She’ll be my little secret for a while longer.”
I didn’t bother to argue with him. All that mattered was that we were going to meet the Shadow Knight, and then we’d finally learn the information we needed to know about where to start with our mission.
We had Greek food delivered for dinner and chatted a bit about the party we had just been to, Dan’s boat, and the plans for tonight. After that, we looked up the intersection where the Shadow Knight had requested to meet us and calculated which angle of approach was best protected and several of the most expeditious exit routes that we could take.
I didn’t think the Shadow Knight would ever try to pull anything villainous, not that he even had a motive to do so, and I also doubted that his Supergram account had been hacked by someone who meant us harm, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. Miles agreed to all of the above, but he was an obsessive planner to the point of being paranoid, so we planned as though we were going to parley with a hostile army.
Then we hunted through the house’s collection of board games, most of which we’d never heard of and didn’t seem worth taking the time to learn, and ended up settling for good old-fashioned chess, which I hadn’t played since I was a kid.
We didn’t allow Aileen to play, since she could process every possible permutation of the game and automatically select the most rational move in any given scenario. It just wouldn’t have been any fun. However, as much as she claimed not to have any need for recreation or any sense of pride in her abilities, and dismissed these as human traits that we were simply projecting onto her, she did seem suspiciously intent upon overseeing each of our games and making small noises of approval or disapproval every time a piece was moved.
I got more noises of disapproval than anyone else. It was just hard for me to get out of the mindset that everyone should make heroic moves, not just the pawns, and that the important pieces in leadership positions should be setting the example and charging onto the field ahead of the rest.
With Norma as our human measuring stick, it turned out that I was worse than average at chess, and that Miles was significantly better. He didn’t say much about it, but he didn’t have to. I could see the twinkle in his eyes and his smirk, which was always ridiculously sexy, but in this particular instance also incredibly infuriating when he beat me.
“You are too direct,” he said after he beat me for the third time.
“It works most of the time in real life,” I pointed out as I smirked at him.
“You are correct,” he admitted. “Especially when you hit as hard as you do.”
“If these were real battles,” I continued, “the pieces that got assaulted would have the ability to fight back. A castle, for instance, that’s a fortress. Throwing yourself against one would be bad tactics. You’d more than likely be the one to get annihilated, not the structure itself. The fact that the castles are permitted to move is stupid, and if a pawn were to train hard enough and fight fiercely enough, it would in many cases be able to overcome a bigger and better-equipped unit. Not to mention that in the real world the pawns should obviously work together and attack in formation, not just fling themselves on suicide missions.”
“True enough,” Miles said with a laugh, but we both knew that planning wasn’t my strength, it was his. My strength was doing. In The Wardens’ hands, I felt more like a show pony. In Miles’ hands, I was a weapon. Maybe the weapon that I had been born to become.
But it was dangerous to surrender your will to another’s mind, especially when the other person had a mind as brilliant and complicated as Miles’, and the fact that I was wildly attracted to him made it an even more dangerous pitfall.
Norma, much to her credit, was a better sport than either of us. She did her best not to so much as crack a smile when she beat me, even though I could tell she was elated on the inside, and unlike me, she didn’t make any excuses or attempt to justify herself when she lost a game to Miles. I guess she was more humble and less competitive than either of us. It was also painfully obvious that she was head over heels in love with her boss and a bit jealous of me, but she was even more of a remarkably good sport about that, too. Really, I had to admit that I hadn’t thought much of her at first one way or the other, but she impressed me more every day as I got to know her better.
After a while, Norma said she was going to bed. The girl seemed to have a serious caffeine addiction but nonetheless she was always the first to get tired, but that could have just been because I had superhuman stamina, and Miles was one of those guys whose mind was always going at a hundred miles per hour and could stay up all night if he thought there was something worthwhile to do.
Once Norma left the room, Miles leaned in and kissed me. What started out as a gesture of affection turned into something hungry and passionate as I climbed into his lap. Then he tipped
me over onto the rug on my back and ground his hips against mine as our tongues continued to battle more intensely than the chess games we had just played. I could feel his erection pressing against me, and I desperately wanted to feel him inside of me. It didn’t matter that we were in the living room surrounded by board games, children’s artwork, and family photos, and it didn’t matter that Aileen was still there. It was disorienting sometimes, but I had mostly trained myself to stop thinking of her as a person, since she really wasn’t one, she was just a piece of technology, and watching us fuck would have no effect on her.
But then Miles surprised me by standing, picking me up, and carrying me over to the stairs that led to the master bedroom where we were staying. I wasn’t exactly a lightweight, I was dense enough with muscle that I outweighed many people who took up more space than I did, but he didn’t seem to have any problem carrying me. He was strong, by human standards, and I appreciated that. I wouldn’t have been interested in a tech geek who just slouched at a desk all day. The combination of an intellectual genius and a man who was willing to physically jump into the fight, however, fascinated me more than either aspect of his identity would have on its own.
When we got upstairs, he closed the door behind us and then threw me onto the spacious bed and stripped off the silk pajamas I’d been wearing. Then he yanked off his own tee shirt and sweats and remounted me in the same position as downstairs on the rug. I was already soaking wet, so I spread my legs and tilted my hips up to offer myself to him. Then I gasped when the bottom of his long cock rubbed against my slippery clit.
“Elizabeth,” he purred as he slid his length up and down against my folds, and while I hated my name on anyone else’s lips, when he said my name it sent shivers down my spine.
“You are teasing me,” I groaned as I tried to angle my hips so that his tip would find its home inside of me.
“You don’t like it when I play games with you?”
“Fuck chess.” I reached down with my hand to guide his tip where it belonged, and then I let out a groan of satisfaction when he began to spread me with his girth. Then his entire length was inside of me, stretching me, pushing against all of my walls, and I had that blissful feeling of being crammed full of him.
