Code Monkey

by Mechele Armstrong

  Anna Marie leaned back in the chair. It didn’t creak or groan like most chairs at the company. Must be nice to be the boss. He definitely had the better chairs. “That’s great that you’ve figured it out.” She still didn’t know what this had to do with her. She didn’t want to say that for fear she’d seem stupid.

  “Where you come…”

  Ah. She quickly leaned forward to show she was listening. Maybe she should take notes? Dictation? How did one show you were attentive to every word? She had to be. This could be her ticket out of being the lowly receptionist.

  “…in. I’m sure you’re wondering about that.” A fake smile graced his lips, making him look like a Halloween mask and a gross one at that. His face was too thin for that smile. His skin stretched taut over his head.

  “Yes, sir. I am. What do I have to do with this?” Another horrible thought popped into her head. She was full of them today. Surely he didn’t think she was involved with this? She didn’t have access to anything that was top secret. She was just a receptionist who wanted to be more but hadn’t gotten there yet. Heck, she barely had clearance to use the restrooms here or get an occasional cup of coffee. She was too low on the totem pole. She didn’t even have a totem on the pole, she was so low.

  “You’re a beautiful gir—woman.” He amended the word at the last possible second. “You know that, don’t you?” His eyes seemed to bore into her a little more heavily than she wanted them to.

  She shrugged her shoulders, compressing herself, especially her breasts, which had always seemed to get in the way from recess in elementary school to running on her college campus. Should have worn a turtleneck today. This conversation wasn’t going in a direction she liked. He could be praising her business savvy or her brains, not that she ever got to use them here, but instead was talking about her looks. Why? Why would her boss be discussing how she looked?

  Blow job, baby.

  But then why the build up about the company espionage?

  “What my superiors and I have discussed is not letting the snitch know that we know, but instead, trying to get close to them and find proof of what they are doing. That way, they won’t just run and hide but we’ll get the true scoop of what they’ve done and how far this has gone.” He relaxed his hands on top of his desk.

  “Sounds like a good plan. But I still don’t see what this has to do with me.” She crossed her legs and regretted it as his gaze followed the movement. She’d been an expert in staying still when she’d been younger around her mom’s many boyfriends. She slunk into herself again, trying to emulate the teenager she’d been.

  “We’d like you to get close to this individual. Use your charms. Get proof of what they are doing. It’s a tough assignment. But one we feel you can handle.”

  Bob had to be kidding. She was supposed to use feminine wiles to get information out of a cheat? Someone who’d sold out the company to their competitor? How did he know this person wasn’t dangerous? Only how dangerous could they be? Most of the guys who worked here hadn’t seen the inside of a gym during the past presidential administration. “Sir…”

  “Perhaps we were mistaken on our choice of assignee.” He narrowed his eyes at her hesitation, scanning her. “Perhaps you don’t want to work for the rewards that this assignment would bring. After all, this would be a huge coup for our Cybernetics. To seal this breach would be instrumental in our future.”

  She hesitated as she glanced around his office. This could be her shot at moving up in the company. She might actually get an office or at least a cubicle. She’d have doors, or at least an opening, and walls, even if they were made out of cheap wood. She’d be a fool not to take this chance. After all, who knew when it would come again? “You can depend on me, Mr. Minor. I will get evidence on the person selling secrets.” She fought off an insane urge to salute him.

  “Good. I knew I could. I told my higher-ups there was no one better for the job.” That saccharine smile was back in place. He had a coy sound to his droning voice.

  Yes, Bob still gave her the creeps. She didn’t think she’d ever get over that. “Who…do you suspect of this? Who will be I be tailing?” Or doing whatever it took to get evidence. How far did they expect her to go?

  “We expect…more than tailing.” That didn’t say a lot about what she was supposed to do. “Use your charms to get information. By whatever means necessary.”

  She gulped. It looked like they expected her to take the charade pretty far. But it would get her from behind a receptionist’s desk and into proving herself in business. God, I hope this is no one I know.

  “I know it’s asking a lot. But your company needs you.” She half expected trumpets to play on that comment or banners to unfurl. “We need to get this settled before we plan to release any more projects. We can’t face another first release by those bastards.” From anyone else, it would have sounded threatening. But from him, it sounded even more empty than the coffee pot after an all nighter.

  “I know. I can handle it.” She met his eyes with her own solid gaze. She was determined to look like she could do this, even with her doubts. “Who do you suspect?”

  “Baxter. Baxter Savage.”

  The code monkey was the seller of secrets? No way.

  Chapter Two

  Anna Marie looked in the bathroom mirror. She fluffed out her hair, not that it ever needed much fluffing. She applied some lipstick.

  Rumor Red wasn’t going down as her best color.

  She rubbed her lips together, trying to soften the hue. It looked as though she’d painted on clown lips.

  “This isn’t working.” She grabbed a paper towel and blotted the garish gloss. Nothing helped.

  The sticky color smeared, making it look even worse on her because it now went beyond her lips.

  She wet the paper towel and rubbed off the awful hue. It took some scrubbing but she finally got the last of it off.

  Five ninety-nine down the drain. She tossed the tube in the trash and pulled out her standby. Good old Peach Passion.

  She finished up her lips and tossed the lipstick back in her purse. Looking carefully in the mirror, she smoothed down her hair again.

  You’re way too nervous for this.

  She hadn’t been this nervous on her last date several months ago. She should have been. It had been a bad one. A jerk in handsome package. She’d met him at some school function and thought he’d been nice. Until she’d seen underneath that thin veneer of varnished personality into the cesspool below. Lots of guys she’d dated had been like that. Octopus arms and only thinking about one thing…getting under her skirt.

  Why was she so nervous about this situation? It wasn’t like anything was going to happen.

  Because this would help her get ahead in life or send her to the bottom of the barrel. If she succeeded at this, she’d finally get a chance to use her mind, rather than her voice or looks. If she succeeded at this.

  She would.

  How complicated could it be to seduce Baxter Savage?

  Whoa, back the train up. Who said anything about seduction? That’s not gonna happen. Ever.

  Bob had said by any means necessary.

  She would use charm. She would cajole. She would snoop. But she wasn’t about to seduce Baxter for this. Not even for a promotion.

  No part of her body would touch any parts of his. There would be personal space maintained at all times.

  She swallowed.

  Not even that nice ass of his would come near her.

  Well, if you’re ever going to work on selling out that nice ass, you’d better get your ass out of the bathroom.

  She flounced out of the bathroom, trying to do her best sexy walk as she flounced down the hall by Baxter’s cubicle.

  She cruised by it several times without being noticed by its inhabitant before finally stopping at the entrance and hesitantly knocking on the wall or whatever it was that the side of a cubicle was called.

  A head popped up in the next cubicle, rathe
r like a meerkat popping out of a den. “You looking for me?” Baxter’s neighbor seemed hopeful. A little too hopeful.

  The Peach Passion and low-cut blouse were for Baxter, not him. She resisted the urge to slouch or slink down. “I’m looking for Baxter.” She poked her head inside the cubicle and walked over toward his computer. “Who isn’t there.” Figured. He was always in his cubicle or…

  “I think he went down by the front desk. To get a soda or something.” The man mumbled, looking dejected, as he lowered back down. A desk chair let out a loud groan.

  Baxter had gone down by her desk while she’d come to his to find him. Figured. She zipped down the hallways, heading for her area.

  She rounded a corner on the fast side and ran right into someone. An open Styrofoam cup with soda sloshed and spilled all over her.

  A strong hand moved to grab her so she wouldn’t upend. The other hand that wasn’t holding the cup belonged to Baxter. Her prey.

  Who had a strong grip for a code monkey. His hand was warm and firm as he grasped her tightly. His body also came against her as he moved. A warm body that was much harder than she’d expected.

  Oh my.

  His face went from surprised to stricken in the span of ten seconds. “Anna Marie. Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry.” He sat the soda cup on a little nearby table and looked down at her.

  Sitting at her desk, she’d never realized he was taller than her. It wasn’t hard to be taller but he was a nice height. Their bodies would fit together perfectly. Almost as if they’d been made to go together.

  Oh my.

  She throbbed in places she hadn’t since she’d been a teenager lusting over the latest guy on the cover of a teen magazine. Since she’d lain in her bed looking at the pin ups on her wall and found all kinds of special places. Nipples. Nether regions. She’d read that in an old romance. All of them were tendrils of energy right now. Over Baxter? Her body screamed Yes! even while her mind questioned the way being up against him felt.

  He released her much to her disappointment while still babbling. “Let me get you some paper towels. I wasn’t expecting you to be there. Here. Wherever.”

  The soda chilled her body as it soaked through her thin cotton shirt, maybe a good thing as she felt a bit heated. She felt like her body was on fire. “It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” Because she’d been headed for her desk to find him. Now, he stood in front of her. How fortuitous.

  “I…just…let me get some…” He strode around the corner and came back with an armful of paper towels. He began dabbing at her clothes. “Here.” He swabbed away at the spots of soda now staining her shirt and matching skirt.

  Which made her body tingle in unusual places even more than before.

  Especially as he came close to her breast, making it jump with his ministrations. A shiver ran up her spine as he was so close to touching her intimately. He could probably see down her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a nigh neckline. Not to mention her breast was jiggling as he tried to wipe away the soda

  He dabbed for several seconds in that one spot. His eyes seemed focused on doing what he was doing. He licked his lips.

  She held her breath.

  The next spot was on her nipple. Just how far would he go to clean to her up? How far did she want him to go?

  So much for the personal space that she was going to maintain. How had that gone out of the window?

  She grabbed for the towel. “Here let me.”

  He let go of it and took a step back, albeit reluctantly. His eyes seemed to be darker than they were before “Yeah. Um yeah. I’m sorry. I should have been paying more attention. I can clean your clothes. Either dry clean or wash them for you. It was Mountain Dew.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his tan pants. That were now tented over a huge erection.

  She tried not to blatantly notice or cheer as she was still blotting the spots on her breasts. She jerked her gaze up to his face and noted the way his eyes lit with each movement of her breasts under her hands. “What? Oh the type of soda.” No wonder he was so jumpy. That had a lot of caffeine. And sugar. Her mom had been addicted to soda, which probably explained a few things about her. Anna Marie didn’t touch the stuff. “It’s okay, really.” She kept her eyes level with his face, though she wanted to look down again and see if he was still excited.

  He didn’t seem convinced at her reassurances. He looked miserable as though he’d lost his best friend.

  Yet, she couldn’t help but want to make him smile again. He had a nice one. She’d noticed it last month when he’d popped by her desk. “Were you going back to your office?” Did he call his space an office? Or a cubicle? She didn’t want to insult him by referring to it as the wrong thing.

  “Yeah. I was just getting a soda.”

  She didn’t point out that the soda machine wasn’t from the way he’d just come. Now her desk? Yes, that was from the way he’d come but he didn’t have to pass her desk at all to get to the soda machine.

  She’d never realized that before.

  He came to visit her a lot. Almost every day that he worked. He didn’t have to. There was no reason for him to come by her desk.

  Her heart pounded inside her chest as her breathing escalated.

  Why would he do that?

  She’d been an idiot not to have realized that he didn’t have to visit with her every day. That he could hit the soda machine and never come by her desk.

  There wasn’t a good explanation for his trips there.

  Except that maybe Baxter Savage had interest in her.

  In her?

  She put that thought away to think about for later. It might make her mission a lot easier if he were. But surely there had to be another explanation. After all, he was the smart computer geek. She was the phone jockey with little education, something she was working on but she’d never been considered “smart.” Not like Baxter. How often had her mother told her how stupid she was? Too often to count.

  “I really will clean your clothes. I’m very sorry.” He leaned against the wall. “I’m going back to my cube now.”

  “No!” She cringed at how desperate that sounded. “I mean, I was coming from your cube. I just stopped by there.” She used his word for his office.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You did?” He sounded incredulous and why shouldn’t he. She’d never stopped by there before.

  She nodded, head moving furiously. How should she play this? “Yes, I did. I stopped by to…ask a computer question.” An inward groan rattled her throat. That hadn’t been the best plan. What could she ask that would possibly fly with this computer guru? He’d see through her in an instant.

  “Home or office?” He pulled one hand from his pocket and brushed his hair back from his face, looking less sheepish and more serious. His hair was semi-long. Dark, too. His fingers were tanner than she’d thought they’d be and he had a jagged cut on the back of his index finger.

  “My home.” Now that was brilliant. It might mean after hours visitation which would surely help her nab what she needed from him. Good move.

  “Desktop or laptop? Mac or PC?”

  “My desktop. It’s a regular old computer.” It was ancient. Didn’t even go to the internet very well. She had to use dialup and it was slow as molasses in January. She went to the library to do anything important.

  “What’s going on?”

  She thought a minute about what to say. “I think I caught a virus.” Should be easy enough to find one of those to put on her computer. Plus, there were lots of problems with them in the world. She’d seen them in headlines every other day.

  “There’s a lot of them.” He confirmed what she’d already known.

  “Yep.” Another good move. This was like playing a game.

  “Do you use protection?”

  She looked at him with a tilt of her head.

  “Virus protection.” He said it all as one word as his neck turned a little red. “Do you have anti-virus software installed
?”

  Good question. “Maybe?” She put on her best stupid girl face. She’d been doing it for years so it was perfected. It had gotten her car fixed or something done for her on more than one occasion.

  He nodded, almost as if to himself. “Do you have a firewall?”

  The blink she cast at him was real and not anything to do with a game or trying to bust him. “A what?”

  His smile was brilliant. Sunny. And captivating. He had a crooked tooth on the bottom that kept it from being too perfect. She liked his smile, something she’d noticed a month or so ago. “A firewall. For protection. If you don’t have one and you don’t have virus protection, it’s no wonder you got a virus.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. That must be why I got one. Anyway, I was wondering…if you might come over to fix it. I’ll pay you with dinner.” She held her breath, waiting for his answer. Surely the computer geek wouldn’t turn her down?

  *

  Baxter almost couldn’t catch his breath. Anna Marie was talking to him. Talking to him. Asking for his help on her computer. She wanted him to come over to her house? “I…well, you could just bring it in to me. I could take it home and look at it.” He took a deep breath, mentally kicking himself for being too honest, but he didn’t have to go to her house. Most of his friends’ computers he looked at, he took home with him. “And you don’t owe me anything. I’d be glad to help you.”

  She frowned.

  What had he done now? He was trying to make things easier on her. But she didn’t appear to like that.

  “I need it fixed tonight.” She hemmed and hawed for a second as if debating what to tell him. “I have a paper due…”

  Ah, so she needed his computer skills posthaste, which explained her seeking him out at his cubicle. She’d come to his world instead of him going to hers. No wonder she was being so nice to him. He’d take advantage of that though. He’d keep her talking to him. Yeah, he was pathetic. “I guess I could come over today. After work.” He didn’t have anything better to do. Joel and Sam would be off cavorting with each other by then probably. He’d planned to play more of the new game but this was Anna Marie. Anna freaking Marie.