by Adira August
“Yeah. About a fire. You know, spreading and bringing down the building.”
Nicky laughed out loud. “What the fuck movie did you see that in?”
They both pulled packing out of the crate, revealing gleaming sections of metal that would form a greater structure.
“What? Fire’s hot, it’ll weaken the floors and melt the … I-beams or girders or whatever that hold it up.”
“Where’s the … ah, here.” He pulled a heavily padded package from the crate. “Electronics,” he said. “Look, I’ll call the construction guy, but office or room furnishings burn at about 550 degrees. A lot of kitchen ovens go to 600.”
He spread out the package contents on the workstation top. “Steel melts at 2750 degrees fahrenheit, okay? You could hold a 600 degree flame under a girder all day long and it wouldn’t even soften.”
“But there’ll be restaurants, gas lines,” Ben said. “Maybe liquid propane. Stuff like that.”
“Beautiful. These components look perfect.” Nicky examined the controller parts. “It’s impossible for any kind of regular fire to bring down a highrise. Smother your occupants with smoke, maybe. Poison them with gases from the plastics, could happen. Blow up a few guys with a propane tank or blow out windows with a gas tank explosion. But weaken the girders? Bring down even one floor? Never happen. I promise you, bro,’ it’s the stuff of lazy TV writers.”
Ben rolled over a dumpster-like plastic trash bin for the packing material.
“Okay. So, is there anything that can do that? Bring down a building the size I want to build?”
“Sure,” Nicky said, prying open one side of the crate. “Controlled demolition.” He leaned against the crate, eyeing Ben. “Are you worried about terrorism?”
“Like I said, important visitors.”
Nicky picked up his cell.
“THERMATE,” CAL DERRICKSEN said over the speaker on Nicky’s phone. “Nano-thermite, if someone can get it. See, anything else requires weeks of preparation. If they get inside the central elevator core, they’ll have access to all the main columns and beams. They can get it set in a few days. Hours with enough guys. You’ll want high security there. I suggest cameras in the core and alarmed access panels that can only be unlocked from a secure, remote location.”
“I see,” Ben said. “And would there be a way to know it was thermite? I mean, a way to be sure it was done intentionally? I’m concerned with liability if the source of the destruction isn’t obvious.”
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of evidence. In the way the structure collapses. The microspheres from molten steel in the debris. Any materials analysis will show traces of the elements in thermite. I highly doubt anyone would believe you somehow got military grade thermate and brought down your own building.”
“Thanks, Mr. Derricksen, you’ve been very helpful.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hart. I’d be interested when you start looking for a construction site manager.”
“I’ll keep you in mind,” Ben said and Nicky clicked off. “Seems a knowledgeable guy.”
Nicky was slowly removing his work gloves, not looking at Ben. “Know one of the problems with being nerdy and brilliant?”
“Having your head shoved into toilets?”
“Tunnel-vision,” Nicky said as if Ben hadn’t spoken. “Concentrating so fully on the thing in front of you, a circus clown could juggle flaming monkey skulls at your elbow and you wouldn’t notice.”
Nicky glanced around at the walls and ceiling. “Anyone listening?”
“No. Security sweeps it daily.”
“Even so,” Nicky said. “My clearance level requires me to submit to a polygraph any time the government demands it. That’s when the tunnel vision is a blessing. I’m a guy who almost never knows anything interesting.”
Nicky walked up to Ben, head down, hands on hips. “We flew away from Cheong last September,” he said quietly. “You walked away from millions because the man’s a monster. Now you supposedly want to contract with him and”—Nicholas Hart raised his head—“you thought I wouldn’t put it together? I was there, asshole.”
Ben stepped back, shocked at the fury in his brother’s face.
“You refused to return some New Jersey thug’s phone calls and he killed people and kidnapped Talia St. Clair because he thought she was Avia. Cheong has four times your net worth and global reach. He enslaves children and rents them out as sex toys. He’s evil fucking personified. You think he won’t destroy you and everyone you love?”
“Nicky-”
“SHUT UP.” Nicky roared. He stalked away, paced back and forth, and came back. Head down again, he halted close to Ben. “I have a family. A child. A husband. I’m leaving now. We’re going somewhere. Anywhere far from you. If you do this thing, Ben, we’re never coming back.”
THE SUN HUNG ABOVE the mountains in the western sky, throwing long shadows over the courtyard. Through the window, Ben could see Avia coming toward the palas. The research building was where he usually spent his Wednesdays. He’d met Avia on a Wednesday morning for a one-hour interview. He’d quickly cancelled his time in the palas to talk her into becoming his next “companion.”
At that time, she hadn’t known what he’d done or what a sacrifice that had been for him. She did know now, and wouldn’t interrupt him here unless it was important.
She stepped into the semi-gloom of the long, high-ceilinged room. Ben was alone, sitting on a high stool next to a large open crate. Her footsteps echoed slightly in the mostly empty space. He didn’t get up or greet her. He didn’t know why she’d come, so he didn’t know if he was glad she was there. Or if she was.
She walked right up to him, until she was between his knees, her hands on his biceps. His arms went around her, loosely, and he looked her over, bemused.
“My turn,” she said, searching his face for approval.
“Sometimes I'll want to do what I want to do. So - so maybe when I want that I could just say ‘My turn.’ Would that work?”
Months had passed since that conversation. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Suddenly he wanted very much to let go of the reins for a while. He nodded and felt the tension drain from his body.
Her arms went around his chest and she pulled him to her, off the chair, her face just under his shoulder, snuggled against his pec. He dropped his head, taking in the wonderful scent of her hair, arms tightening around her, feeling her body warm and alive against his.
Avia led him outside and through the wall and down the walkway to the parking lot to her little red hatchback.
He had never been in her car. He was driven in SUVs and flown in helicopters, for the most part. He folded himself into the passenger’s seat.
She grinned at the sight of him struggling with the seat belt, his knees against the dash. Leaning across him, her breasts pressed into his stomach. She found the seat release. They slid abruptly back.
“Whoa!” He flailed for a second and she giggled.
“Avia...” his voice was rough. Her breasts were now pressed into his belly and crotch. She wriggled a little, teasing him, feeling him swell. His strong hands were on her back. “Avia. We’re in the parking lot.”
She ducked her head and scraped her teeth across his trapped erection through the cloth of his khakis. Tilting onto her side across his thighs, she gave him a coy look.
“You think it matters where we are?”
When she’d turned on her side, one of his hands ended up on her hip, the other in her hair. The hand on her hip gathered her skirt, pulling it up. It was a small car. One of her legs was bent on the driver’s seat, the other knee was on the floor.
“Does it?” He smirked down at her.
It’d been a long time since they’d played together this way. But Avia wasn’t the innocent she’d been five months ago. She returned his smirk and unbuckled his wide brown belt. “Not according to you.”
Ben wasn’t sure if it was a game of sexual chicken or she seriously intended to blow him twenty feet from the barbican
, where security people came and went regularly. Either, way, he reckoned to come out a winner. Ben Hart didn’t back down.
He continued to pull her full skirt up onto her back, reaching down for more until he came to the hem, and underneath, her smooth thigh.
She’d unbuttoned him and opened his zipper. His hand on her thigh froze, all his attention on her hands at work. One released the recline feature and the seat tilted back, opening him to her, pushing his crotch forward.
He couldn’t recall ever being in this position with a woman: on his back, waiting for her to decide how to pleasure him because it would pleasure her. Doing as she wished instead of as he bid. The idea of her wanting him so badly where they could be observed, set off a mad electric tingling in and behind his balls, something hot and expanding and tight.
She used two hands to work his pants halfway down his hips. Then, she pulled his briefs down in the front, exposing his thick, red shaft. He watched her, not letting himself flex toward her, wanting her to come to him. Need him.
The expanding fire reached his spine and his cockhead at the same time she shifted her body and ran her open mouth up him from sac to slit. The movement caused his hand to slide up her thigh and over her ass.
No panties.
He groaned as he gushed precum. He felt her fingertips spread it lightly over his glans. Her hot, wet tongue touched him.
He broke.
Yanking her up by the forearms, his tongue plunged into her. His arms trapped hers and he ravaged her mouth as if he would somehow consume her. He pulled back suddenly and clutched her to him, her body canted and twisted, full and real and alive against his.
“Avienne,” he breathed.
She moved her arms and he loosened his hold. Reaching down between them, she yanked up her skirt until his substantial length lay hard and hot against her skin, pressing into her. Working her body around and her knees up, she lifted. Her cool fingers wrapped around his heat, guiding him to her entrance.
“Avienne.”
He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes to see the moment she felt the head of his cock opening her. The soft, high-pitched sounds she made with every breath urged him to drive into her. But he held back, needing the feel of her, slick and tight and clutching at him as she sank slowly down. His name became a prayer… “Ben ...Ben ...Ben ...oh, Ben …”
His hands slid under her sweater, folding down her bra cups exposing her breasts. She gasped. Her core clenched around him and she squirmed against his tormenting fingers on her nipples.
They both forgot where they were.
BENEDICT HART LOOKED around Avia’s condo while she made dinner. He realized the whole of her one-bedroom unit would fit in the castle's library.
A half wall separated the simple kitchen from the rest of her living space. A small dining table was pushed up against it. Ben lounged back in a sturdy pine chair that matched the tabletop, appreciating the sway of her backside as she turned and reached and chopped and stirred.
She took a pan of cornbread from the oven, grabbed a dish of butter and only had to twist and reach to place them on the table. She followed this with bowls of something with chicken that gave off a wonderful, spicy aroma. A handful of silverware and a half roll of white paper towels completed the job.
When she left the kitchen to join him, she brought glasses of ice water.
“Thank you,” he said, not standing to hold her chair because it felt like the wrong thing to do. “What is it? It looks wonderful.”
“I have no idea,” she said. “One night all I had left in the house were bits of leftovers. Part of a roast chicken, half an onion and a pepper, some fresh cilantro, some black bean salsa. I threw it all in a pot. Whatever it is, I think it’s Mexican.”
“Is this Mexican cornbread?” he asked, taking a warm square from the basket.
She grinned. “Think of it as a really fat tortilla.”
She put a sheet of paper towel by his bowl in lieu of a bread plate, taking another for herself. They ate in silence for a few minutes, each of them settling into the feel of being with one another, removed from his vastly larger life.
“The last time I ate like this with a woman I was in college at her off-campus apartment.”
“Do you ever wish you were back there? In a simpler time?”
“There was nothing simple about that time, believe me,” he said. “But highschool, growing up, everything was straightforward. Every day had structure. A crisis was a bad birthing or a delayed feed delivery. Losing a ballgame.”
She didn’t say anything in case he wanted to go on. Ben didn’t talk about his past much. She didn’t think it was a secret, he was just a man living very much in the present.
“Easter’s in about a month. Would you like to go to the ranch with me? Spend a week or so with my family?”
The yearning to say yes was painful to her. “More than anything. But … we have things to work out.”
He thought about that. “Can we finish eating first? This is really good.”
He got up and went to the kitchen to refill his bowl. “So, tell me why you almost always wear the full skirts. I think the only pants I’ve seen you in are sweats when you’re staying home.”
“You’re about to see me in them again when dinner’s over,” she answered as he sat back down. “And they aren’t all full, mostly they’re A-line. I hate pants, unless I’m working outside or lying around. They feel restrictive, almost never fit me right. Ride up. My skirts are freeing to me, comfortable. But they look formal enough that I can go from desk to interview to dinner. I just like them.” She smiled at him. “So do you.”
He nodded. “I really like the garters. Why-”
“No,” she interrupted. “You don’t want to know why I won’t wear pantyhose. But I will say, garter belts make me feel secretly girly. Sexy in a way that’s just for me and doesn’t show. All my underwear used to come in matching sets.”
“Used to?”
“You didn’t make matching bras for your tearaway panties, so, yeah, ‘used to’.”
He pushed his plate away, frowning. “It’s been five months! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Like what? Gee, Mr. Billionaire, please change your whole manufacturing plan and add matching bras for me?”
“Yeah. Only call me Ben.” He got out his phone.
“No work! My turn, my rules.” He hesitated. “When’s your next appointment?”
“The ten with Hugo in the morning.”
“Then it’s my turn until then,” she insisted. “Turn it off. Please?”
“I have to tell security or they’ll send out the cavalry.”
“Okay.” She almost glowed with the pleasure of watching him disconnect from the world.
He put his phone away. “But remind me about the bras. If you want them, other women want them.”
She pushed her bowl away. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll email you the kind I like from the sites I used to buy them from.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he said. “Tell you what. How about if I clean up while you go get your sweats on? Meet you on the couch, with wine.”
She got serious. “Let’s skip the wine, tonight.”
He nodded.
BEN WAITED FOR HER on the small sofa that dominated her living room. She sat at the opposite end, her feet pulled up and her arms wrapped around her knees.
She told him everything. Every conversation, every humiliating rejection, every sudden insight. She pointed to her reporter’s notebook she’d left out on the coffeetable. “I put down everything I want to say to you in there. I thought I might need a reminder. But I don’t. I just need to know you want to hear it.”
He kept his face impassive. “This is about the future? What you want us to be?”
She nodded.
“Then I don’t want to hear it. Not yet. There’s no way to consider any kind of future until we’ve dealt with the past.”
“But you said,” she proteste
d. “Monday, you said I had to go home and figure out what I wanted.”
“That was before I knew you had the digital files,” he said. “Files you could have asked me for. But you went behind my back to Hunter Dane.”
“I didn’t go behind anything. You were gone to—wherever you fly off to. Again.”
“You could have waited.”
“Or I could ask Hunter. I didn’t want to wait.”
He stood and stepped to the front window. It was two steps. He glanced outside and turned away in frustration. “This is a lousy place for an argument. Too damned small.” He crossed the room to the cleaned-off dining table and sat down.
“What do you want to fight about first, Avia? How much of my business I conduct out of town, which you’ve always known? Or the fact that you have no impulse control and ignored me in your search for answers?”
Her stomach dropped at his cold countenance and sudden distance. “You told me once that as long as I wanted you, you weren’t going anywhere. Is that still true?”
“What the hell does that have to do-”
“Is that still true?” She was on her feet.
He shifted, then, but in a way Avia had never seen before. It was as if his face turned to stone, his eyes flat. He was perfectly still, his voice deadly calm.
“I have this fantasy about you,” he began. “Every day I have you brought to me naked. And I beat you. I beat you with straps and whips and floggers and canes”—he rose and took a step toward her—“and listen to you scream and cry and beg me to stop and promise you’ll never lie to me again.”
He took another step toward her and she sank onto the couch.
“But I know you will lie to me again.”
Ben loomed over her, his face half-shadowed in the light of a single lamp. She couldn’t breathe for the pounding of her heart.
“Every day. Every day I beat you and every day I know you’ll betray me. Again. And still, I can’t let go of you. I hate you for what you did.”
He bent over her until she was laid back as far as possible and his face was inches from her own. The fury that was not in his voice was in his eyes and the whiteness of his knuckles where he gripped the top of the couch and the edge of the cushion she was on.
