Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (73 page)

Suddenly she was pulling back,
and Damian felt like he’d been hit by a truck. He was gasping slightly, not
caring that the bartender was staring.

“Sorry,” Becca was saying as she
tugged on her skirt. “Sorry. Oh god—”

She hopped down from her stool
and wobbled toward the door, hooking her purse under her arm as she wrenched
the door open.

Damian closed his tab out and
ran after her, hoping he wasn’t too late. He was nearly as drunk as she was,
but he spotted her in the parking lot as she was walking toward the bus
station.

“Becca!”

Amazingly, she stopped. Damian
ran until he caught up with her, and was alarmed to see that her eyes were
swimming with tears.

“I don’t do that anymore,” she
said softly. “I don’t go home with pretty boys on the first night because they
buy me drinks—not anymore.”

“Then don’t,” Damian said
earnestly. “I’m not asking you to.”

Becca looked suspicious.

“Really,” he continued. “I’m
not. Becca, you’re beautiful, but that’s not what I want in a woman. I want
strength, intelligence, humor…” Damian paused, dropping his eyes. When he
pulled them up again, he took a chance and grabbed hold of one of her soft,
warm hands. “Becca, I want you, and I want to get to know you more, if you’ll
let me. And I know you feel the same about me…I can see it. I can feel it.”

Becca was watching him silently,
her eyes unreadable. Damian thought she might walk away, or even laugh in his
face or slap him—but she smiled, and it was like the sun slipping out to burn
away the clouds.

“Okay,” she said. “Give me your
phone. I’ll put my number in it.”

****

“Mr. Wyles? Mr. Wyles?”

Damian looked up to find Alexis
standing over him, a look of concern on her face. “Sorry?”

“I asked if you wanted lunch?”
Alexis repeated. “Something from the bakery—”

“No,” he cut in, smiling.
“That’s fine, thank you.”

Alexis hesitated, but she backed
away, nodding. It wasn’t the first time in the last four weeks she’d found him
daydreaming, and it wouldn’t be the last—not if he kept seeing Becca as
frequently as he did. Hell, even if he stopped seeing her, he’d probably
continue to think about her uninterrupted until the day he died, because
nothing on Earth was better than being with her.

It wasn’t an overstatement or a
delusion. Spending time with Becca made him happier than anything had in years,
and it showed. He was more productive while he was working, but when he wasn’t,
he was reliving the previous night’s date or heavy physical encounter with eyes
wide open, sometimes even with people around.

Becca continued to keep sex off
the table, but Damian was more than happy with where they were at presently.
She really was the most striking woman he’d ever seen, and though she was small,
she was strong and passionate and seemed as enthralled with him and he was with
her. Because it sometimes took her an hour to get to his place, he sent a car
for her and sent one back so she wouldn’t worry about falling asleep. They both
worked early and had long hours most days, so their few hours were either
languorously sensual or crammed with activity.

Their first week, he took her to
Chinatown and they had a private dinner on the rooftop of his favorite
restaurant. The second week, he flew her to New York to see her favorite play
on Broadway. They stayed in a swanky hotel on Fifth Avenue where he’d spent all
night exploring her supple body with his mouth and tongue, kissing over her
pale nipples and nibbling the mounds of her breasts as his fingers ran over the
slowly dampening triangle of cloth between her legs. While he kissed her, she
tugged on his throbbing shaft while he struggled to keep from exploding, not
wanting the moment to end before it had to. She only let him caress her until
she got close, and when his breath came too fast, she made him back off. Still,
they lay together for hours, and by the third week, Damian was sending Becca
roses at work every day.

His own employees were giving
him grief for it, but he didn’t mind—until something happened to bring him
under a microscope.

“Have you seen this?”

Victor, his security expert, was
showing him reports of a data breach. Their software, which was supposed to
protect sensitive information and alert its users of credit changes, had
somehow glitched and made thousands of customers vulnerable. Damian stared at
the report helplessly, trying to understand how this could have happened. He
triple checked all the code himself before it was implemented, and it was run
through security walls. They’d done tests with the best hackers available, and
everything had checked out.
This isn’t possible,
he thought, even as his
eyes told him it was.
It’s not happening.

“This is bad, boss,” Miles said
gravely. “People are upset. They feel exposed, upset, like we messed up—and I
feel like we did.”

Gary was nodding, but his eyes
had a nasty glint. “Not trying to point fingers, but you’ve been very strict
with who’s allowed to go over that code before it was implemented. Maybe if you
hadn’t…”

Damian bristled, rage flashing
through him. “What are you saying, Gary? That you’re a better coder than I am?”

Gary shrank back into his chair,
but his eyes remained defiant. “I’m just saying. You’ve been understandably
distracted. We dropped the ball on this one, because you always say we’re a
team—but maybe we wouldn’t have dropped it if we were
more
of a team. Do
you know what I’m saying?”

Damian did, but he didn’t
respond. The rest of the men sensed his anger and fell silent, dropping their
eyes one by one.

“Get back to work,” Damian said
coldly. “All of you.”

The shock of their faces was
worth his sudden change in tone. He watched them stand and start to filter out,
but their motion was stopped by Victor standing and raising his hand.

“Just got word,” he said,
peering at his tablet. “I ran a sweep, because I don’t think you’d make a lazy
mistake,” he shot a look at Gary, “and it paid off. Looks like we have evidence
of a bug being planted from our side that weakened our defenses, then the hack
occurred.”

Damian swallowed, his heartbeat
speeding up. “Wait. You mean…it was an attack? And someone planted the bug from
within
our
systems?”

Victor nodded, then frowned as
he realized the implications. His eyes swept over the men, and smiled a
predatory smile that held no warmth.

“Looks like we’ll be working
late tonight, boys.”

Damian sat in his office and
called Becca from his cellphone.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” he said. “I have bad
news.”

“No!” Becca said. “You’re
cancelling on me?”

“Yeah.” Damian sighed. “It
looked like we were hacked, and someone helped them from our side.”

Becca gasped. “What? One of your
employees?”

“Probably a higher up,” he
confirmed. “Victor is doing some questioning now, and he’s also trying to find
out more about the bug.”

Becca made a thoughtful noise.
“Hey, why don’t I come visit
you
? You sound super stressed. I bet I can
help with that.”

Damian laughed. “Becca, I highly
doubt what you’ll do to me will
relieve
pressure.”

He could hear the smile in her
voice as she spoke again. “Are you sure about that?”

Damian started to respond, but
her velvet tones made him pause. “Are you saying you want to…”

“Yeah,” Becca chirped.

Damian let out a startled laugh.
“Here? Now?”

“No time like the present,” she
confirmed. “I’m putting on my shoes now. But no pants,” she said softly.

The front of his slacks were
straining at the zipper when he hung up, and Damian passed a hand over his
erection, his mind buzzing with thoughts. He had no idea what had made Becca
decide she was ready to have sex with him, but he was incredibly grateful she
was finally comfortable enough. She used sex as an ice breaker in college, she
explained, but she tried to make it more personal now.

****

Damian heard her lock the outer
door behind her as she came in, and his heart leapt to his throat. He’d taken
off his shirt and belt in anticipation of her arrival, and he was standing when
she strode in, red hair floating around her like a burning halo. She was
wearing his own tan-colored trench coat belted tightly around her waist, and
her eyes were alive with fire as she looked into his eyes.

Becca unwound the belt and let
the coat fall to the floor, revealing her naked body in all its glory. Her tear
drop shaped breasts swung as she stepped toward him, and he started to push his
pants to the floor just as she reached his side of the desk.

Becca met his eyes and smiled,
flashing him her dimples as she stretched up on tip toes to wrap her arms
around him. Her stomach brushed his erection, and she giggled. “Someone’s happy
to see me.”

Damian slid his palms against the
warm curve of her ass and pulled her soft body against his. “I’m always happy
to see you, Becca. I want you, and I love you.”

Her mouth fell open, and Damian
realized he’d never said it aloud before now. He wondered if he should take it
back, but he couldn’t do it without feeling like he was lying, so he waited for
her to speak with his heart hammering in his chest. There was fear in her eyes,
but something else, too—and it was slowly taking over and warming her gaze
until her dimples returned, and she smiled again.

“I love you, too,” she said
softly, and Damian saw at once that she meant it. His heart cracked open, and
he lifted Becca with both hands and lowered her body to the desk, raking his
eyes down the curve of her body as he pressed his engorged cock against her
already slick folds.

Becca pressed her hips upward as
Damian leaned forward, sinking himself inside her slowly, so that her walls
quivered as they swallowed his shaft. Damian leaned his body against hers,
relishing the press of her round breasts against his hard chest as he hilted
himself inside her. He gasped and thrusted again, grinding his weight against
her clit as he moved.

“
Oh,”
she breathed
against his ear. “God, Damian. You feel…perfect.”

Becca’s strong thighs locked
around his waist as he slowly drew back and pushed his shaft inside her again.
His body was on fire with pleasure, but he fought to pace himself as he slipped
inside her over and over again. Damian gazed down at Becca’s face, her features
a picture of rapture as he slipped out of her and surged forward again,
pressing against her g-spot as his strokes grew harder and faster.

Damian buried his face in the
soft curve of her neck, fingers pulling and twisting on the point of her
nipple. He’d never felt anything so incredible, and he was sure he’d never feel
it again, so he needed to make it last as long as possible. Becca’s sharp,
delirious cries spurred him as he drove his hips against hers, and Damian felt
controlled as he pounded her body harder and faster against the desk, but the
gentle squeeze of her body was too intense to resist for long.

“Becca!” Damian called, digging
his fingers into her breasts as his member rocketed between her thighs, slick
with her wetness. “Becca, I’m coming!”

“I’m coming!” she screamed at
the same time, throwing her head back as she shouted her pleasure to the
ceiling. “Damian! Oh, Damian!”

She bucked her hips upward and
screamed a final time, just as he exploded inside her spasming walls. Damian
saw stars as he slumped over her body, pushing himself against her weakly as
her cries softened and lowered in pitch.

Damian kissed her as he pulled
out, handing her a towel he’d kept by the desk for this occasion in particular.

Becca giggled at the gesture.
“Thank you. You’re prepared.”

Damian pulled out a towel of his
own. “Damn right I am.”

The intercom chimed, and
Victor’s voice issued into the room. “Hey, boss? I need you. Alone.”

Damian raised his eyebrows and
laughed. “Wow, that sounds serious. Think we got caught?”

Becca smiled as she pulled the trench
coat over her body, but it was distracted. “What?”

Damian laughed. “I’ll let you
collect your thoughts.”

He finished dressing and walked
out to his outer office to find Victor standing near the door, his expression
grim.

Damian frowned. “Did we hit the
intercom button? Did everyone hear us?”

Victor shook his head and held
out a manila file folder. “Look at this.”

Damian was disconcerted by
Victor’s attitude and opened the folder without question, flipping through the
pictures and sheets of paper as he spoke.

“Looks like you were targeted,”
Victor said. “But not just in general—someone was trying to embarrass you. Ruin
you.”

Damian’s eyes skidded over
emails between someone named Falcon and a series of people who only went by
their initials. They were all discussing various plots to take his company
down, shame him publicly, and hurt him—but why? These people had personal
knowledge of him and his family members…as well as his old friends from school,
Jack, Roger, and Ian, who were mentioned there by name.
So someone is
targeting some tech brats?

Damian looked up, the confusion
clear on his face. “What do we do with this?” he asked. “It seems like this is
your arena. Find out motive, turn this in, that kind of thing.”

The door opened behind him, and
Victor looked uncomfortable. “One of the people conspiring against you was
actually someone they recruited, and they pulled out early. I thought that was
odd, so I did some digging…they only went by
B
. But there’s a series of
pictures there, of them meeting and handing over a small device that was
probably used to hack into the system.”

Damian went through the pictures
again, more slowly this time. Victor was watching him, so he assumed he’d know
it when he saw it—and he did.

It was Becca.

He turned around to find her
standing before him, tears streaming from her eyes. She already knew.

“Did you just fuck me because
you knew you were about to get caught?”

Becca winced at his phrasing and
took a few steps toward him. “N-no! Damian, it’s not like that—”

“Then what is it like?” he spat.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Becca held up her hands, as if
in defense. “They told me you had something to do with a human trafficking
ring,” she said softly. “A few tech giants are, they’ve proven it to me and a
few others—and they thought you were one of them.”

“So you
attacked
my
company?” Damian shouted. “You planted that bug on my phone with that little
device, didn’t you? Used the moment to get what you wanted. Why not just call
the cops?”

“The police weren’t cooperating!”
Becca said, stretching her arms toward him. “They weren’t listening to us! And
Damian, I only planted that device because I thought you were in on it, and
they needed to make you vulnerable so you’d come forward—” Becca sobbed. She
pressed her hands over her mouth and took a deep breath before dropping them.
“They were going to use me to do it. But then… I fell in love with you,” she
said gently, resting a hand on his arm. “I did, Damian—I love you so much.”

Damian was shaking his head.
“Fuck no.”

Becca’s eyes were wide with
terror and pain. “Damian, please, let me make this up to you—”

“You can’t,” Damian cut in, and
the finality of his tone made her stop short. “You betrayed me. I don’t forgive
after that.” He looked at Victor. “Get her out of here.”

The heartbreak on her face was
sharp enough to slice his veins. Becca screamed as Victor pulled her back. “
Damian!”

He turned away from her cries,
stone cold from the feeling of betrayal that now wracked his soul.