Binary

by Sarah Cole

  “Thank you all for coming tonight. As business, industry, and community leaders we hold a certain responsibility to make this world a better place because we hold the resources at our fingertips. More importantly we owe it to the smallest members of society, our children… because they are all of our children. Whether we want to believe it or not, they belong to all of us. It takes a village to raise them, and our decisions directly impact their lives. Those little lives are our future. At Linwood Technologies, we’ve made it a priority to give back, especially to education. Not because it looks good on paper, or because it provides a tax break, but because it is important. It is important to those children and those schools. It changes their lives, and it changes ours.”

  With how passionately Carter speaks about this cause, I as well as everyone in this room knows he means every word, and it just adds to the allure of Carter Linwood. Every man in this room wants to be him and every woman in this room, myself included, wants to be underneath him. I’m lost in a web of thought when the room bursts into applause and a giant check for twenty million dollars is uncovered and presented to the Washington State board of education. Carter shakes hands with a few people and steps off stage to give them a chance to thank the major contributors. As soon as he steps off stage, his eyes search me out and he makes his way over wrapping his arm around my waist like we belong together.

  I know we can’t happen, but there’s a part of me that is sick of fighting my attraction for him, so I let it happen. It can’t go any farther than this, but for right now it is nice just to be wanted, and for him to be completely blind to the person I really am. The night continues on with Carter never leaving my side. We talk and dance, and for once, I feel normal.

  Hours later the band packs up and people call for their drivers, but Carter still holds me close.

  “Come home with me,” he whispers in my ear, causing me to shiver.

  “You know that can’t happen.” I press my hands lightly on his chest, but instead of pushing him away, I just rest them there, feeling his heartbeat.

  “I know you think it can’t happen, but I know it should,” he protests.

  “I need to go home alone, but more importantly, I need to keep work and my personal life separate.” I try to put some distance between us as I turn and walk across the shiny, marbled floor towards the door.

  “Anika… please.” He laces his fingers through mine as I continue to walk, but I just shake my head. As much as I want to, I just can’t. Things are complicated enough as it is, and I can’t make it worse.

  We step out onto the sidewalk into the cool, breezy night and I look for the car I called minutes ago.

  “Why?” he asks the question, I keep asking myself.

  “It’s complicated,” I say, seeing the car pull up beside us.

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he says, facing me, but I see there’s something more than want in his eyes. I can never quite put my finger on what it is, but there’s a dangerous edge lying in wait under the surface, and every time I see it, I want to know what it is. I want to feel and take whatever it is Carter wants to give. Something tells me he’s damaged in his own way and I want to bathe in his pain.

  “Complication is all I know, Carter. Just let me go…please,” I say sadly, edging towards the now open car door.

  He pulls me into him, and I let him. I want to feel his arms around me again. I want to feel the way my heart beats in my chest when he touches me.

  “Thank you,” he says, and I don’t understand what he means.

  “For?”

  “For tonight. For letting me pretend you were mine for a few hours,” he says mirroring my own sadness, and it twists something painfully inside of me.

  I hate it.

  And I love it.

  He leans forward, and brushes his lips softly against mine in an almost kiss. It isn’t enough. It never will be, but it is all we have. I reach up brushing my fingertips along his jaw, and he closes his eyes almost as if he is trying to commit this moment to memory. I know if I stand in this spot a second longer, I’ll want to stay by his side forever. I take a step back, breaking our connection and I slide into the black leather backseat and the door closes.

  ****

  I pull on my sweatpants, and hang the dress in my closet before I climb the stairs to my office. Sitting in my office chair, I type in a combination of codes to bring up a few windows on my computer screens and place my forehead in my hands. I have no idea what I’m looking for. I just know there’s a connection, and I have to know what it is.

  The sun is dawning low on the horizon when something catches my attention. It is a simple bank transaction from over a decade ago. One singular deposit for seven million dollars from Carter’s father to a bank account I’ve seen before because it is one of the many bank accounts that belongs to Lance Jennings. Knowing I finally have a starting point, I dive back into my work despite my exhaustion.

  Five pots of coffee later, I’m staring at the connection I was looking for and I feel the rage burning hotter than ever inside of me. I don’t know the motives behind what happened, but I know the what, and suddenly I admire Carter Linwood more than ever. He himself has been tainted by the virus that is Lance Jennings. Carter was kidnapped and held for ransom for just over four days. The media nor police ever caught wind of this incident, which I understand, because I’ve been on the receiving end of one of the Senator’s shit storms, and it isn’t pretty. I don’t know what happened to him during those days he was held, but if it was anything like the things I’ve witnessed firsthand, I now understand that look he gets in his eyes, and his need for control that he tries to keep hidden.

  He’s known pain at the hands of Lance Jennings, but he won’t know it again because I’ve made up my mind. I’m keeping Carter as far removed from any of this as possible, and I’ll get justice one way or another…for both of us.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Carter:

  Anika and I have been dancing around each other for weeks now, and I can feel us teetering on the edge of this fine line we’re walking. I’ve made it no secret that I want her, and I can see it in how she responds that the attraction is mutual, but she has given me very little in return. I’m to the point that I don’t care what she wants anymore because her body is telling me what it needs, and I’m going to be the one to give it to her.

  She’s thawed a little towards me since the company picnic and gala, but she still shuts down easily. Today for instance. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something more intense about her. She’s laser focused, colder and more removed than usual, but at the same time there’s this electricity that buzzes in the air around her. It’s like she’s waiting. For what, I don’t know…but I’m having the hardest time pulling my eyes away from her as I try to figure it out. She makes me want to be a part of it.

  “Anika,” I say across my desk, but I get no response. I repeat her name twice more, and still nothing.

  “Anika!” I finally snap.

  “What?” she snaps back, her blue eyes blazing into mine with intensity.

  “Your phone will not stop ringing.” I say softly.

  She snaps out of whatever daze she was in and picks up her phone as her eyes glance at the screen.

  “Excuse me, I need to take this,” she says and I nod, excusing her.

  “Hello, Erik,” she greets, and for the first time, her tone softens to something I’ve never heard from her.

  She glances over her shoulder, sensing me watching her, and the next sentence out of her shocks the shit out of me because it isn’t in English. I knew her name was obviously Russian, but I had no idea. Thinking back, it makes sense with how she speaks. It isn’t an accent necessarily, but rather a crisp formality in how she delivers her words. If she does have an accent, she does well at hiding it. Our eyes lock and she stares me down like she’s trying to figure out whether to strangle me or eat me alive. I can’t tell, and it should be concerning that I don’t care because I’d tak
e either right now just to feel her hands on me.

  Trying to ignore the way her eyes roam over my body, I watch completely enthralled by the exchange as she smiles a real smile, like the ones I rarely get from her, and it makes me want to kiss that mouth again because the one time I did wasn’t nearly enough. But then another thought crosses my mind when I wonder if it’s a friend she’s talking to or someone who means more. I swiftly stomp that idea down because I just don’t see how it’s possible that I wouldn’t have known about something like that or at the very least, suspected. Her heavy sigh pulls me from my brooding as she lays her palm across her forehead and her tone becomes a bit firmer.

  As I sit here with my mind spinning one hundred miles a minute, I’m trying to wrap my mind around this woman. She’s easily the most difficult person to read that I’ve ever encountered, and I begin to wonder if that is why I’m so drawn to her. I hear her end the call, and she sits back in the seat before me without a word.

  “Russian,” I say as more of a statement than a question.

  “Indeed.” She raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Family?” I ask, trying to pull any little bit I can from her and silently hoping she says yes.

  “Brother,” she confirms with a smirk.

  “What about your parents?” I ask, and her smile falls as she visibly stiffens.

  “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry, if I’d have known…I wouldn’t have said-” I begin, but I can’t finish because I’m distracted by the look she’s giving me.

  “Don’t be sorry...Shit happens and I learned how to deal with it. I do have a way you can make it up to me, though,” she says, catching me off guard with her tone.

  “What’s that?”

  “Fuck me,” she deadpans.

  “You’re kidding.” I run my tongue along the bottom of my lip and smirk at her, waiting for her to crack.

  “I’m not.” she starts around my desk.

  “Why would I do that? You’ve made it abundantly clear we are not going to happen.” I motion between us. “You have to tell me why. Why now?”

  “Maybe it’s what I want, but I just haven’t let myself have it. Maybe I’m sick of denying myself of things.” She walks slowly, dragging her painted fingernails around the edge of my desk seductively. “Today is a day for getting what I want. I want you, Carter, and I know you want me too.” She bites her lip as she begins unbuttoning her blouse, and I’m hard as fuck as the lacy top of her black bra begins to show.

  I stand, nearly tripping over my feet as I walk to the door and lock it. I’ve waited so long for this that I won’t second guess it. I damn near run back to her, and as soon as she’s within reach, I grab her by the neck and devour her mouth. The moment our lips touch, something ignites between us and I can’t get enough and she can’t seem to either. Our kiss isn’t sweet or gentle, but desperate and fierce as we finally get the very thing we’ve both been denying ourselves of. Instead of satiating some of my need, it does the opposite – making it burn hotter, and I want to climb inside her and tear her apart.

  “I can’t fucking figure you out,” I whisper harshly, breaking our kiss, and I feel her hands begin to work at my belt.

  “You shouldn’t even try.”

  “Shit! Anika, tell me who you are,” I growl, searching her eyes for any sign at all that she feels this like I do. This isn’t just a casual fucking for me for once. I feel this inside my bones, and I need her to feel that ache too.

  “I’ve told you who I am – everything you need to know,” she says against my lips and I push her away, still holding her face in my hands.

  “No, you haven’t. I want to know what makes you-” I can’t finish that thought in fear of it stopping whatever is about to happen here. “I need to know everything about you.”

  “If I told you the truth, you’d wish you hadn’t asked. You’d go back and wish I’d have lied to you. Let’s just leave it at that,” she says with a certain vulnerability that I’m not used to from her.

  Christ, I’m so far out of my element here. My mind and body are at war. I can’t touch her like I want to- like I need to. I need to feel her skin under the wrath of my hand and watch it burn bright red with the weight of my punishment. I don’t know if I even know what normal intimacy feels like anymore, but for her I’d try anything.

  “Why are you holding back, Carter?” she asks as she continues to undress the both of us, dropping her blouse to the floor and exposing her see through lace bra.

  “Because I can’t do this. What I like…what I want to do to you right now isn’t something most women are willing to give. It isn’t right,” I grind out in frustration.

  “Try me,” she breathes into my ear, nipping it with her teeth.

  Without hesitation, I spin her around and fist her silky ponytail, jerking her head back to expose her slender neck. She looks back at me with a new fire burning in her eyes. My eyes rake down her body, and I notice new lines of code have been added next to the single line I remember seeing at the coffee shop that morning weeks ago. I don’t know when she got them, but I wish I could remember the letter to number coding so I could try and decipher with it says. I run my fingers along it still fisting her ponytail, and I see her shudder as the goosebumps erupt across her skin.

  “I’m not most women.” She smiles a wicked smile over her shoulder. “Tell me what you want, Carter.”

  “I want you to shut your fucking mouth and lay down on my desk.” She slips out of her skirt and obeys immediately, watching me with those cat eyes of hers. Anika doesn’t have a submissive bone in her body, so, I’m stunned when she follows my orders without hesitation. Maybe there is such a thing as having your cake and eating it too.

  I take a moment to appreciate her perfectly toned abs and fit body as she situates herself across my desk. Jesus Christ, this might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to me…or the very worst. I’m still not sure, and I don’t really care right now.

  “What now?” she asks eagerly, and I slip off my pants the rest of the way and seat myself in my office chair wearing nothing but my boxer briefs.

  “Take off your underwear and hand them to me.” I snap my fingers and she hooks her fingers in the elastic waistband and slides them slowly over her thighs, causing my dick to jump. She hands them to me and I reach down and shove them into one of my pockets with no intention of giving them back.

  “Spread your legs…wider. I need to see you,” I growl out and she bites her lip and does as I say.

  “Touch yourself, Anika. Show me what makes you come.” I nearly lose it as she slides her manicured fingers seductively down her torso and ghosts them across her bare pussy before spreading herself with her fingers, showing me everything she’s got to offer.

  She doesn’t waste any time finding a rhythm as she works her clit. I watch her as she watches me pull my hard cock from my underwear and give it a few hard strokes. Quickly, I realize that I’ll never make it inside her if I keep doing that.

  I stand and rid myself of clothing completely, and reach into my desk drawer to pull out a condom. I need to feel all of her pressed against all of me. I lean forward and pull down the front of her bra, roughly exposing her perky breasts. Her fingers find my hair and pull as I bite back the moan that erupts from my chest. The belt from my pants makes a perfect makeshift restraint as I pull it from the belt loops and wind it around her wrists, fastening them together. I shove them above her head.

  “Don’t you dare move those arms,” I caution and she closes her eyes with a mischievous smile on her lips, waiting for me to make my next move.

  I take my time working each of her small dusky pink nipples with my tongue before I bite her hard. She cries out with the unexpected pain, but it quickly turns into a moan as I lick and bite my way down to her dripping folds. Flattening my tongue, I lap at her perfect, sweet center.

  “You taste like fucking heaven, Anika. You have no idea the things I want to do to this perfect pussy of yours. You’ll b
e begging me to stop.”

  Stiffening my tongue, I circle her clit over and over, careful not to touch the most sensitive part. The sounds erupting from her as she writhes and bucks against the desktop nearly send me over the edge, and I stop.

  “Carter!” she groans as her head falls to my desktop with a thump. “Just fucking give me what I need already!”

  I smack her hard on her aroused and swollen sex. She lets out a deep moan from her chest and I see her muscles clench. She’s so close I can taste it. “You better watch that mouth of yours, or you won’t be coming at all, sweetheart.”

  Using my left arm, I take her right leg and flip her over to her stomach causing half the things on my desk to crash carelessly to the floor below.

  “Oops,” I grunt, and she lets out that low raspy laugh of hers that like so fucking much.

  I grab onto her hair, and pull her back into me until her feet touch the carpet and she’s bent over my desk at a ninety-degree angle. Her round ass is just begging to be punished, and I take my hand and smack her right on her ass cheek, loving the way the skin immediately blooms red with my handprint, marking her as mine.

  “Again,” she commands, surprising the hell out of me. I decide to let it slide. Sometimes a girl just needs to be spanked and have her hair pulled, so I indulge her over and over again until my hand is numb and buzzing from spanking her, and her ass is swollen and red.

  “Please… please, Carter. I need you inside me.” she begs sounding so helpless, and I almost pound into her from behind, but I stop myself. I want to savor this moment. I want her looking at me as I sink into her. I want Anika Borkova to know who owns her body, and I want to see her face the moment she realizes it.

  I pull her up from the desk and spin her around as I sit in my chair and bring her to straddle my thighs.

  “Ride me, baby. Make yourself come on my big, hard cock.” I say as I reach around behind her and unfasten her bra, letting it slide from her body. God, she’s beautiful.