Encryption of the Heart (Love, Tech, & Magic #1)

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Olline had two hours to “wear something scandalous,” as Casimir put it. He put a lot of faith into assuming she had something that would fit that criterion.

She finished putting the final touches on her lips, a metallic deep purple lipstick with bronzed gloss that would keep it from fading or getting on her teeth. It matched her eyeshadow, minus the smoky fade she added that made her bright, emerald-green eyes sparkle like gemstones. Even Olline found herself mesmerized by the effect, even though she had long ago become accustomed to the uncomfortably bright hue of her eyes.

While Olline was tucking the last pieces of her hair into the twin buns on either side of her head, twisting the deep, mossy green locks so they weren’t completely lost in her ebony hair, she heard the buzzer at her door go off. She glanced at the guest’s name and immediately granted him access to her floor.

Her heartrate ticked up even as she forced herself to act calm. Forced herself to walk, dammit, as she grabbed a thick gold chain adorned with a large gold ring on her way to meet Casimir at the door. The necklace wasn’t just a pretty bauble; part of her time while digging through her clothes had been spent using her magic to hide her scanning equipment within the necklace. The necklace wasn’t subtle, but it was smaller than most of the accessories that were in fashion. Olline had taken pains to be sure it would not rouse suspicion.

Olline snapped it around her neck and opened the door without looking.

Casimir was leaning against the door frame, effortlessly breathtaking as always.

He had kept his form-fitting black pants but had traded his shirt for a sheer black top. The material was like nothing Olline had seen before. It shimmered like silk but had thick veins, akin to marbling, curving throughout, hugging every line of his muscles: his pectorals, his abs, and hard V-shaped line that disappeared at his belt line that Olline couldn’t look at too long without her gaze drifting lower. Over the shirt was a chain that reminded Olline of a spider with long spindly legs with how the multiple chains wrapped around his body. The material of the metal was enhanced to give it the appearance of liquid silver.

Olline wanted to tangle her fingers in the chain, pull Casimir close, and let her fingers dance over the defined lines of his muscles until he was weak in the knees. The same way she felt when his quick, easy smiles were aimed at her and her alone.

The fantasy was easy to build on, but not in the lusty way she had first imagined. It was startling easy to picture what it would be like to be with Casimir. The playful teasing and the flirty barbs as he took her down to the coffee shop that used real beans. Her dragging him to all the greenhouse flower shops they could find, and Casimir pretending there were better places to visit but secretly relishing it all the same. Them cuddled up on a barstool watching a musician sing in one of his little artist havens. His attention never straying, always on her, even as he trailed his fingers up her thighs . . .

But was that how it would end?

When the excitement of freedom wore off, when their shared experience wasn’t new, and all the places they visited became second nature, what then? A pang twisted her heart because when that happened, Olline couldn’t imagine him sticking around, at least not in a way that had them sharing a bed. No, better the fantasy remained just that. If she never crossed that line, then at least they could stay friends and he wouldn’t leave her life entirely.

With a sharp intake of breath, she realized she had been staring at him. But Casimir hadn’t seemed to notice. His eyes weren’t on her face at all. They were sliding along her body, his gaze like beads of ice water trickling over every inch of her.

Her body tingled under his attention like she wasn’t wearing anything at all. To be fair, she did feel practically naked in the neon green micro-dress she wore. It was skin tight with a black and silver pattern along the front that sparkled like fish scales. She had gotten the dress for a holiday party she thought she would attend with Achan and then . . . never wore. If she so much as leaned forward, the outline of her ass would peek out, so she had put on a pair of sheer black stockings that went up to mid-thigh. It didn’t help with the leaning aspect, but it helped her feel a little less exposed.

“Is this okay?” Olline asked hesitantly. “I wasn’t sure what ‘scandalous’ meant in your context. I can put tights on underneath. Or I can put a nicer jacket over my usual crop top and jeans if that’s more the vibe,” she babbled, plucking at her necklace.

Casimir’s eyes snapped up to hers. They were dark pools of blood with a primal twinkle that tightened her stomach. His chest was rising and falling quicker, and he licked his lips, taking a step toward her like he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop himself. Olline held her breath, wanting him to close the gap between them, to shut the door behind him and throw her on the bed, to mark every inch of her body with his lips and teeth.

Which was, wow, a really intense thought about someone who only recently got their autonomy back. About someone who would never under normal circumstances look at her twice.

And that’s all Olline wanted it to be, too. Casimir was fun to be with. He was a good friend and she wouldn’t risk losing that over some passing . . . thing between them. Truly!

Her eyes widened, and something about her expression—perhaps it was shock, fear, or disappointment, she really did not know what her face was doing—stopped Casimir in his tracks. He leaned inside the doorframe and that easy, casual smile returned as he met her gaze. “You’re temptation incarnate, Tav.” He took a deep breath, and said on the exhalation, “You’re perfect.”

His words left her feeling weightless, a leaf buoyed on the wind. Olline wasn’t sure he meant what he said, or . . . but what if he did? What then?

Maybe that’s not a bad thing? It would be less complicated than what happened with Achan.

She clenched her jaw. Achan was the last person she wanted to think about—ever again. Achan had never said such kind and romantic things to her, ever . The realization made her bold, far bolder than she had been so far. Instead, she returned Casimir’s smile with a playful grin of her own.

Grabbing the clutch that held the rest of her equipment, she slid past Casimir. Her hips brushed his, a firestorm raging over her skin and tingling between her legs. She blamed that scorching heat on her sudden loss of inhibition, letting her fingers trail over that seductively smooth and chilly sheer material he was wearing, giving the spider chain the lightest tug. Olline couldn’t help herself; she had been dying to know how it felt. It was probably a stupid idea, or she thought it was until she felt his breath hitch under the feather-light touch of her fingers.

Her brain refused to process that response, but her body . . . well, it was doing funny things to her. If she acknowledged how tight her nipples became or the sensitive tingle between her legs, she might die of embarrassment.

Without looking back, she said, “Come on, Cas. We’ve work to do.”

“Welcome to Refractory, my dear.”

Olline shouldn’t have been surprised by where Casimir took her. It was one of the pleasure clubs that he had once co-owned with his brother. Kullen had long since taken full ownership, making it the perfect location for Etzel to plant Casimir in. Olline hadn’t been to a pleasure club since she left grad school, and that had only been as the dry chaperone for her friend’s birthday party. That experience had been blurred out with her trying to herd her friends away from one mistake after another, so her memory couldn’t be trusted. This club was more . . . hedonistic than she was expecting—or prepared for.

She assumed the club, Refractory, was mainly designed by Kullen. Nothing about the space felt like Casimir.

There was no live music, just dueling synth-bots on either end of the cylindrical space. Refractory was all mirrored surfaces, so you could see everyone and everything, no matter where you were. Especially the dancers on their platforms that moved up and down, going from the ground floor to the top of the four-story club. Two of the three were women wearing some sort of thin, micro-bikini made of tiny lights that barely covered anything but had the effect of stars collecting at their most intimate places. They moved slowly in a sensual dance that was both captivating and mouthwatering.

The other dancer was a man, but he was wearing only metallic body paint from what Olline could see. His role seemed primarily to be taking different patrons on to the platform and transporting them up to the higher levels. The patrons didn’t come back down with him. Which would have been ominous until she saw what the higher levels contained.

The main floor was rather traditional; people were simply dancing, even if some of them looked like they were doing more than that, despite the clothes. But the upper floors . . . Olline wasn’t an exhibitionist, but watching the club goers being fucked so publicly and so thoroughly by pleasure workers and other patrons alike had her nipples hardening and her core turning to liquid all over again.

Casimir gently led her away from the entrance toward the bar where a steady flow of servers was coming and going. They wore leather from head to toe. Chains around their waists allowed for patrons to pull them close to make their orders, and not all requests were for liquor. It was obscene and yet . . . And yet Olline was hot as magma, the pressure between her legs begging for release.

Casimir ordered something for them from the bot-bartender, the only thing here not available for pleasure. Olline wasn’t sure what he ordered, too absorbed in the surrounding people. “Tav,” he whispered in her ear, his lips a breeze on her earlobe, “you’re going to need to focus a little harder if you want to find whatever bugs Etzel has here to spy on me before he spies us.”

Her breathlessness had nothing to do with the task she was here to do. She tilted her chin up—she told herself it was to hear him better, but it was a flimsy lie at best—exposing her neck as if in offering for him to kiss her instead. His gaze trailed over the curve of her neck, and his eyes glossed over briefly before he blinked the look away.

He handed her a crystal glass with amber liquid instead and stared intently at the bot-bartender. But she had seen him look at her, and it had to mean something, didn’t it? She twisted the glass, letting the liquid catch the light. “If you want me to work, you probably shouldn’t be plying me with alcohol,” Olline said, desperate to say something, anything, but having to almost shout to be heard over the thumping music.

His thigh brushed against her, and she could practically feel him rumble with a chuckle. “If we aren’t going to dance or fuck, Tav, we have to drink. Can’t look too conspicuous, after all.”

She nearly spit out the tiny sip she had dared to take.

Olline refused to let herself think too long on his words, lest she get lost in the fantasy again. Because the fantasy wasn’t just sex anymore. Granted, a lot was, and she wasn’t exactly proud of that, knowing what she did. But, well, Casimir had this effect on her and she was tired of pretending he didn’t because her body liked to betray her at every turn. Which was rude, but she wasn’t entirely mad about it. The whole thing was confusing. But his words, the way he stared at her, the way he listened to everything she said. How could she not fantasize about this, whatever this was, of becoming more? Maybe it didn’t have to end when the job was done?

And maybe, just maybe, it would work and continue to work long after the shine of a new relationship wore off. Once they finished freeing the people enslaved by Etzel Straub, of course.

Priorities.

Something in her chest suspiciously close to her heart shifted, and she found herself smiling at nothing. She shook her head and, looking anywhere other than Casimir, she brushed her fingers over her necklace, turning the scanner on. The necklace would pulse as it searched for any signals that linked to the offline control chip in Casimir’s spinal column, intensifying the pulse as she got closer to wherever the surveillance equipment was hidden. It took her device a moment to orient itself, to weed through the various signals from cybernetic biotech clogging the local data streams, before honing in on a familiar frequency.

The pulse was faint from where they stood. The main device hid somewhere near the top of the club and to their left. Because, of course, it would be on the more salacious levels if its purpose was to catch Casimir leading a target into a compromising position.

Olline turned in the correct direction and, taking another sip of her drink, flicked her eyes meaningfully in the direction they needed to go. Casimir followed her gaze and, with a deft nod, led her away from the bar and through the undulating horde.

Hands reached for her through the crowd. There were too many bodies for her to see who was grabbing her, who was trying to tempt her into a dance before taking her upstairs. But before their hands could connect with bare skin, before they could pull her into the crowd to be swallowed by the collective desire of the patrons that made her skin feel too tight and her pussy throb, Casimir intervened.

He captured her hand and pulled her away, his face set in a hard sneer for anyone who tried to pull her deeper into the mass. He pulled her against him and she felt the rumble of his chest as the man practically growled at everyone around them. His hands fell on her hips, his fingers digging in slightly with an unspoken claim to her that kept others away. It shouldn’t have been as hot as it was. Shouldn’t have made her want to run her hands over her own skin to get some relief. It definitely shouldn’t have made her want to turn around and kiss the hollow of his collarbone until he stripped her naked.

Olline was light-headed, her blood scorching where his fingers pressed into her hips. Yet she still followed the pulse from the tech in her necklace as it grew stronger as they headed for Refractory’s top floor.

The higher they went, the more sensuous the club became. They never stopped for long, though, and Olline only caught flashes of each floor. Some had people tied in elaborate silken binds to be teased by anyone willing, unable to respond to the pleasure. Other sections had vats of hot wax that people poured on exposed nipples, their cries of painful ecstasy not completely drowned out by the music.

Soon, the pulse in her necklace brought them to a mirrored panel. Olline would have missed it without the magitech device; just another panel of polished mirror in a sea of glass. Along the wall close to them were people in blindfolds being pleasured by men and women. Some wore masks, some didn’t, but most used toys to tease their blindfolded partner, keeping them guessing what exquisite device was pleasuring them. Their moans blended until it sounded like a never-ending orgasm that had Olline so wet she was sure Casimir could see the moisture on her legs. She knew this was a natural response to have, given everything she was seeing, but still.

Olline gave her head a little shake, determined to focus, and opened her clutch to bring out the mini holo-tablet she’d brought, as well as a few magitech drive sticks in order to block and divert the signal like she did in Casimir’s home. The wall of bodies around them swayed and moved, coming closer before pulling away a bit, but inching closer all the same. No one seemed to pay attention to them, but Olline didn’t know what would happen should the mass of bodies reach them, and neither she nor Casimir participated in their anonymous orgy.

Casimir seemed to read her mind as he put his hands on either side of her, framing her between his powerful arms, barely a breath between their bodies. The heat was a tangible thing that had Olline wanting to arch into him and—

“I’ll protect you, darling,” Casimir said, his voice a husky promise that broke her train of thought. “But work fast.”

“What?” she said, her voice a breathy gasp. “Why? Don’t you own this place?”

Casimir chuckled low in his throat that almost sounded like a growl. “Not for a long time. This place is technically Kullen’s, but in actuality is a front for Etzel’s blackmail schemes. Hence why he has me frequent the place.” He shifted against her, shielding her, and Olline could barely contain herself from leaning into his embrace. “There are workers in the crowd.” His breath tickled her ear, making her shiver. “They’ll know we aren’t participating and, well, we don’t want that, now do we?”

Olline swallowed, fighting the urge to turn around and trail her lips along the sharp line of his jaw. Which was insane! All of this was crazy. Ugh, stupid, sexy club making her want to do stupid, sexy things to this stupid, sexy man . . .

Shutting her eyes, Olline took a deep breath and forced herself to focus. “Yeah, we definitely don’t want that,” she said, her voice smoky. She forced a chuckle, hoping to bury the desire in her tone.

But if the way Casimir’s elegant fingers flexed against the mirrored wall was any sign, she wasn’t fooling anyone.

Shit.