16. Travis
Ifrowned as I watched Emily head towards the elevator, following closely behind her. There was a sinking feeling in my gut that I struggled not to think about, but it was all that I could do.
How did she get into the server room?
She shouldn’t have been able to do that without help, and there weren’t any IT staff on duty at this hour. I’d have to ask the night security staff if one of them let her in and tell them not to do that again.
The server room was the beating heart of Ross Industries. It contained all of our information. Information that could be used to predict our moves, short our stocks, or steal the tech we were developing. IT staff only earned access after working for the company for years, and we drilled them rigorously on security protocols. Emily’s access as one of the reporters allowed IT staff to show her the server room and some of its files under close supervision.
Now here she was after hours, alone, and somehow in the most secure part of our building.
Then again, I was here too. I had decided to stay behind and do some research on a company before I chose to invest in them as was my intention.
I had been going through their numbers and the rise and fall of the market when I had seen movement from the security camera. I had given it only a cursory glance since I was expecting security guards to patrol the halls at these hours, but I was shocked to see Emily instead.
I’d thought she was heading to the commons cafeteria, but she walked past there, not even looking in that direction. My brows raised in surprise when she headed towards the server room.
Is this part of that journalistic integrity she was telling me about? Trying to get access to places we don’t want to show her?I wanted to believe that. But it could so easily be something much, much worse. A person could make billions if they paid a reporter to steal our data and use it against us…
It had not escaped my attention that Emily had been making close friends with the people who worked in the server room. I had even been jealous when I saw how hard one of the employees made her laugh.
I hoped she really had just left her purse behind and gotten a friendly guard to open the door. But deep down, I didn’t want to ask. A guard should have stayed with her, monitoring her while she was in there and I had an awful feeling I’d learn that she had let herself in somehow, which would mean she’d somehow circumvented our most advanced security system.
I jerked myself out of my thoughts. I should check with the guards. I should lecture them about server room security. But Emily was here, and it was late, and I really didn’t want to think about what it might mean if I found out none of the guards had helped her.
“It’s late,” I proposed as we walked through the marble lobby. “Why don’t I give you a ride back home?”
She stiffened. I prepared myself for her rejection since we both knew what happened the last time I had given her a ride.
“Fine. That would save me some time.” Her cool response surprised me.
I grinned as she walked past me, heading to the elevator. I called my driver to have the car ready to go.
“I’m glad you were able to find what you were looking for,” I said as we got into the car.
I glanced at the purse dangling from her shoulder, praying that really had been all she found.
“Yeah, me too. Nothing like getting home and realizing you don’t have your ID.”
But she had her work ID? I supposed it made sense that she might have been wearing it when she left, clipped to her lapel instead of tucked into her purse. If she’d forgotten her purse, she could easily have forgotten to take her work ID off.
You’re rationalizing, I told myself.
“We are going to have to check the access on all the ID badges. You shouldn’t have been able to go into the server room. Did one of the security staff help you?” It was still on my mind, so I spoke about it.
“It opened for me,” she looked surprised and reached for her badge where it hung around her neck. “Do you want to check my badge now?”
She made a show of looking at her pass that hung around her neck, resting low on the curve of her chest. She played with the card teasingly, drawing my attention to the swell of her cleavage in the top of her shirt.
The server room was out of my mind immediately. I spent my life focused on work. The thought of pleasure was tantalizing.
“Are you doing that on purpose?” My eyes were locked on her perky breasts and the motions of her fingers.
“What do you mean?” she asked, raising her eyes to meet mine innocently even as she dipped the card in the slit of her breasts. My body tensed and my hands ached with the need to touch her and feel her close to me.
“Fuck!” I turned the music louder and pressed the button to partition the driver’s compartment so he wouldn’t see us.
“What are you doing?” she asked me as I pulled her closer to me.
“Don’t act all innocent now. You know what you just did.” I pressed my lips to hers, letting out a deep groan that betrayed her need. My fingers traced the buttons of her shirt, undoing them until her breasts bounced free of the lacy brassiere she had on.
“So beautiful,” my words came out in a raspy tone as I teased the perky nubs of her nipples in my hand.
I wrapped my lips around one, sucking it into my mouth and enjoying the way she pushed her soft breast into my face.
I moved her to my thighs and moved from beneath her, pressing the hardness of my cock into her heat. I grinned when she threw her head back and her lips parted in a delightful moan.
It wasn’t just her body. It was making her, making a woman like Emily Skye happy.
I had missed having her in my hands, missed being inside of her as I watched her face fill with pleasure. My fingers fondled her heat, separated only by her panties, and I retrieved it, sucking in the taste of her.
“The taste of you lingers on my tongue like a memory,” I murmured as I pulled away from her. I slid her skirt up her legs until her matching lace panties were exposed to my view and I hooked my thumb around the strings, dragging them down her legs.
Satisfied, I laid down along the seat and positioned her until her heat was above my face and my tongue watered from the anticipation of her.
She lowered herself until she was inches away from my tongue and I swiped at her, licking her heat to her clit and sucking when I reached the delicious bean. I enjoyed the moan that stemmed from deep within her. Something about being with her like this felt deeply right.
My hands tightened around her waist as I pulled her even closer until she was fully seated on me, her face pressed against the window as she panted and moaned while I went to town on her, eating her out like a man starved.
I stiffened my tongue, dipping it into the very core of her and massaging her insides. My cock stiffened even harder when she let out a louder moan as her hips began to move on their own, rocking on my tongue as she chased after completion.
I sensed her tense as she came in my mouth and I sucked greedily until I had taken in every last drop of her essence.
I sat up, taking her with me as I rested her gently on the seat until she was laying, spread out for me like a feast I was eager to devour.
Quickly, I undid my belt and unzipped my trousers, breathing out a sigh of relief when I spring off the restraints. I positioned myself above her and buried my cock into her, sucking in the moan she expelled.
My lips latched into her neck as I fucked her with abandoned restraints, unable to control myself as I moved within her. I looked up from my position at her face filled with pleasure.
I was utterly fascinated by her, there was no other way to explain it. Every word that came out of her mouth, every time she teased me, her every expression and even her doubts and misgivings of me. It was as though she was everything, I’d been denied all my life. Strong, independent, valuing integrity over profit.
I was fascinated by all of her. My eyes closed when her hands wrapped around my back as she pulled me closer. Her very touch sent me into a land of beautiful dreams and pleasure and I knew in that instant that I was done for. There was no other way to explain it.
The realization of her power over me was not a frightening one, but at the same time I could not help the niggling feeling of suspicion that I had been struggling to push aside all evening.
I tried not to think about the server room. Journalistic integrity, that’s all it was. Of course. I should have expected a reporter like Emily Skye, who had made clear that she wouldn’t write about my company unless she could be truly independent, to find a way to get the whole truth on her own terms.
She wouldn’t sell out. Wouldn’t work for one of my rivals who would pay millions for the data that lived on those servers. Would she?
I knew my brothers would have a different opinion if they learned what had happened tonight. I told myself that they didn’t know her like I did. I told myself I wasn’t blinded by love.
Love
I looked at her beneath me, her eyes closed, lips parted as she moaned my name over and over again.
I jerked inside of her at the realization.
I was in love with her.
I hadn’t allowed myself to feel this way since Barbara. And here I was, finally falling in love again.
The more I thought about it, the more it scared me. There were only two paths here: make it work with Emily Skye or live without her.
Would I be able to do either one?