A moment later, a familiar male voice came on the line. “Santiago?”
Xander unmuted the phone. “Hi, Doug. This is Xander.”
An angry huff filled Xander’s ear. “I thought you were my boss. I left a meeting to answer the phone for you. What for? Need someone on my security team to get a background on a stripper or two you’d like to fuck?”
Anger clawed up his gut, seizing his throat. Xander wanted to reach through the phone and throttle the son of a bitch. “Are you done trying to be a comedian, Doug? Do you want to keep earning a paycheck?”
“You’re actually calling me in an official capacity?” Doug gave a hearty laugh, gasped for breath, then started again. “Seriously? Did your brother finally drink himself to death?”
“One more rude comment, one more breath that offends me, and you’re fired. Am I clear?”
Doug stopped laughing. “You don’t have that authority.”
“You want to test me?”
There was a long pause, and Xander figured that Doug finally realized this wasn’t a joke. “No.”
“Right answer. Those log-ins that your department flagged with suspicious activity? Listen—”
“You’ve got to let us shut them down.”
“That’s why I’m calling. This is damn fishy. Whoever is accessing our files through these log-ins is probably selling us down the river. Who authorized the creation of these log-ins?”
“I think Sheppard in R & D. He calls them ‘spares’ for contractors or temp workers. It’s bullshit.”
“Absolutely. These log-ins have full clearance. When would Sheppard have authorized this?”
“I’m guessing about fifteen months ago, but the authorization trail is gone. We had a massive virus get behind our firewall a little over a year ago. The paperwork pertaining to these log-ins had been scanned and stored, then the paper destroyed. That’s policy. But the virus ate all the files, along with everything on our backup storage system. We’ve been slowly validating the log-ins in every department, but Sheppard keeps saying that he and his guys don’t have time for our pointless exercises.”
Sheppard could kiss his ass, too. “So we have no idea exactly who has been accessing our information or why? And if we shut the log-ins down now, we may never know.”
“That’s not untrue,” Maynard admitted slowly. “Damn it.”
Xander pondered that reality. He wanted to stop the thieves’ access to the internal systems and proprietary information . . . but he also wanted to catch them and nail their asses to a wall. “Can you misdirect them a bit? Maybe take everything regarding Project Recovery off our shared databases for a few weeks?” He looked down the list of dates and times the network had been accessed. Lately, the assholes had been hacking in all the time. “Maybe get someone you absolutely trust in R & D to help you work up some bogus information and insert it, call it the answer to our prayers or whatever? And put some tracking on the files. Let’s see if we can catch ourselves a mole.”
Doug didn’t hesitate. “Sneaky. I like it. Your brother wouldn’t approve.”
Probably not. Javier tended to shoot very straight. But Xander firmly believed that when dealing with crooks, you had to be every bit as crooked.
“I’m assuming responsibility of this project.” He glanced over at London. She looked both proud of him in a way he hadn’t seen anyone look at him in . . . well, ever. But she also looked a bit regretful.
“Hang on a second, Doug.”
Xander didn’t wait for the other man’s assent. He simply muted the phone and, with his free hand, grabbed London’s. “This is the first project Javier gave you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She started shaking her head, her tone deferring. “It’s not a problem. You understand what’s going on. You’re getting the job done, and that’s more important.”
“But you’re important, too. If Javier hired you, it’s because you’re smart.”
She winced. “That’s not exactly what he said.”
He stared at her in shock. “Javier admitted that he wants to sleep with you?”
London flushed a sweet pink and nodded. “So I doubt he’ll be upset if I don’t complete the project.”
“He might be, but it’s not him I’m worried about, belleza. Do you want to be involved? Do you want to learn?”
Her expression told him that she was really reluctant to answer. He mentally counted to five, then intentionally squared his shoulders at her and dropped his voice. “I asked you a question, London.”
“Yes, sir.”
Well, fuck. He’d never understood all those descriptions of people swooning over the objects of their lust/love/obsession. But he was getting it now. Smart, honest—and so beautifully submissive, London got to him in so many ways. A quick mental review of the last twenty girls he’d taken to bed made him realize that they all had a few things in common: They talked about almost nothing but themselves. They liked his prowess and his money. They had a plastic surgeon on speed dial. They fucked to get ahead or get off, not because it meant anything.
In that moment, he realized he’d never taken a woman to bed because she mattered to him. Sex had been recreation. No, escape. Buried balls-deep in one woman after the other, he didn’t have to think about the fact that no one in his life who was supposed to value him did. Not his parents nor his brother . . . Hell, he’d taken two of his teachers to bed as a junior in high school. Even they’d cared mostly about how he looked and what he could make them feel, not who he was as a person or a student.
London would be totally different. She might say she just wanted someone to take her virginity, but she wouldn’t touch a man who wouldn’t be her lover in every sense of the word.
“Then let’s work this project together, belleza,” he suggested. “How’s that?”
She sent him a shy glance, those blue eyes shining with hope. Goddamn, he’d do anything to keep that hope in her expression.
“I’d like that,” she murmured.
“All you had to do was say the word.”
Her smile beamed with growing confidence. It thrilled him like hell. It also aroused him, and his cock stood up, prodding his zipper, begging for her attention. How he’d love to grab some stolen moments with her, lay her out on the rug in front of the fireplace. It didn’t matter that it was June and the temperature was flirting with one hundred during the day. The firelight would make her skin glow as he peeled off one garment at a time, loving each inch he revealed along the way. He’d worship her lips, her nipples, her pussy. He’d caress her waist, palm her hips, and ease his cock inside her deep, deeper, until she stretched to accommodate all of him. Until she knew that some part of her belonged to him and always would.
“Are you all right?” she asked suddenly.
Shit. Business. Doug Maynard on the other end of the phone. Get your blood flowing to the head up north.
Unmuting the phone, he sucked in a breath. “Okay, Doug. Let’s implement this plan. Who can we trust to help you swap some of the info on the secret drives for bogus data?”
“My son-in-law. He’s solid.”
“All right. I’m trusting your judgment, so don’t fuck me here. Try to get some really good IP trackers on those IDs. See what else you can dig up internally, have your son-in-law do a little recon on his coworkers, and see if anyone is having financial problems or is disgruntled—anything that might point a finger to someone willing to sell us out.”
“You got it. I think that’s the right move.”
“Keep everything associated with Project Recovery safe. That’s your new number one priority, got it?”
“Absolutely.”
They hung up, and the pizza arrived.
“Any wine in the house?” London asked as she searched the kitchen and found plates, forks, and even a few veggies for salad.
Xander opened the lid, and heaven smelled a lot like basil and garlic to him in that moment. “No. Just vodka, which I poured down the drain earlier. Javier is going to love me for that.”
With a rueful nod, London agreed. Together, they sat back at the kitchen table and ate enthusiastically, still studying the documents from Javier’s briefcase. She moaned when she tasted a particularly cheesy bite, and that didn’t help Xander’s libido. If Javier stayed sacked out all night, how the hell was he going to restrain himself from sneaking into her room and doing his level best to seduce her? Maybe he shouldn’t.
She blinked up at him as she swallowed a sip of water, hesitation stamped all over her face. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Anything.” Especially if it got him closer to her.
Still, she paused, looking like she was gathering her courage more than her words. “Your brother asked me this question, and I didn’t have an answer. I think . . . because there isn’t one.” She shook her head, as if realizing that she was getting ahead of herself. “Why me? I’m not allergic to Google. I’ve seen pictures of you with gorgeous models, socialites, even porn stars. Javier seemed to think that you’ve slept with about five thousand women. Is he exaggerating?”
Normally, Xander would deliver a great line, something slick that flattered her and didn’t really answer the question. It would make her feel special in that moment without admitting anything. But with London, he didn’t want to do what he normally did. Because, to him, she wasn’t like any other woman.
“Probably,” he forced himself to admit. “I stopped counting years ago, but . . .” He did some quick mental math. Six girls a week for the last nearly sixteen years multiplied up really quickly. And he knew that some weeks he’d far exceeded six when he’d been doing them in duos or trios, like he had the night before he’d moved out of this house. “He’s close.”
London gasped softly. Xander forced himself not to flinch.
She withdrew from his personal space completely. “Then I can’t possibly have anything you need. I think I’m in way over my head with you. You’ll just laugh at me and think I’m a silly, overweight virgin who—”
“If you finish that sentence, I’m going to smack your ass so red, you won’t sit for a week.”
She gaped wordlessly for a moment, a bit like an earthbound fish seeking water. “I haven’t agreed to give you my power.”
True, but . . . He turned his best Dom stare on her, nailing her to her chair with one glance. Her breath caught. But he persisted, leaning in, raising a brow, until she finally lowered her gaze to her lap.
“Now you have. Such a naturally sweet sub.” He hooked a finger under her chin and raised her gaze again. He caressed her rosy cheeks with his stare. “You’re not in over your head. I will never think of you as silly. I adore you at exactly the size you are, belleza. You’re curvy, womanly, real. As for being a virgin, it would be my honor to take that from you and give you pleasure in return. Actually, I’m dying for it.” He flashed her a grin. “But that is totally up to you. Originally, you might have picked me to help you lose your V-card. But you’re really helping me.” He shook his head, trying to explain. “Something’s changed for me, and I think it’s you.”
“Don’t waste your lines on me, please.”
That irked him, though he probably deserved it. “I’m absolutely serious. If you knew me better, you’d know this isn’t seduction mode. It’s me talking to you and trying to tell you something I’ve never wanted or needed to say to another woman. Ever.”
London looked away, flustered. “It isn’t about me. It’s your brother and—”
“I’ve lived with him my entire life. No.”
“I mean, it’s the situation with Javier.”
Xander turned that over in his head. “No. That’s different, I admit. And I owe you for reaching out to him and doing your best to help. But that’s not it. I’ve been trying to do the right thing for him all along, but mostly so I could get back to ‘normal,’ which I see now is completely fucked up. You’ve made me think, just by being you.” He paused and dragged in a breath, realizing how heavy the conversation had become. And strangely, he was okay with it. “You’ve made me want to be a better man so I could be worthy of you.”
She reared back . . . but her breathing turned ragged and shallow. “That’s crazy. You barely know me.”
“The little stuff, the idiosyncrasies and quirks, the way you like eggs, whether you prefer baths or showers, no. You’re right. But I think I’ve got a pretty good idea about what’s in here.” He nudged his hand between the swells of her breasts, easing right over her heart. It was beating a bit faster than normal, and when he leaned in, it picked up speed again.
