Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Mason
I ended my call with Billy and leaned back in my office chair with a grin. I had a good feeling about this new omega playmate. He seemed cheeky and open and willing to try things. I loved that.
Well, a lot of that I’d gotten from Billy’s profile on the Dark Fantasies Club app. The omega had some great reviews from past playmates as well. And the pictures he’d included in his profile were beautiful. Unlike a lot of other omegas looking for thrills, Billy hadn’t posted any pornographic pics of himself, just hot, tasteful snaps that left a lot to the imagination in all the right ways.
A lot of the omegas who used the Dark Fantasies Club app were just after cheap thrills and no-strings sex. Billy seemed clever and up for more, which was exactly what I needed in an omega playmate. I’d fitted out my second apartment with prototypes of several of the new security devices I’d been developing for Horizon Tech in the last few months, and I was dying to test them out on someone who might just be smart enough to find the chinks in the armor.
Or maybe the kinks in the armor, if the vibe I got from Billy was true.
I sighed and smiled out my office window at the high-rise across the street, looking, but not really seeing it. My mind was already spinning with ideas for how to snatch Billy, how to transport him to the apartment, and how to lead him into testing equipment that he shouldn’t know existed. Everything in my play apartment was one hundred percent classified. So much so that not even my business partner, Colin, knew about some of it.
Of course, that was the problem.
I lost my smile and sat forward again to finish the code I’d been typing on my laptop before Billy’s call had come through. The thermal imaging camera I’d been working on wouldn’t develop itself. The design I’d been incubating for the last several months would be sharper and more sensitive than any other infrared cameras currently on the market. It would be able to pick up a cough by the heat of the droplets coming from someone’s lungs.
I’d already had nibbles from three major corporations who were interested in manufacturing and marketing the equipment, not to mention the military. The cameras were only the beginning of the integrated security system I’d been working on for years now. If I was able to bring my vision fully to life, I’d have something to offer the world that would provide an unprecedented level of safety and security for even the most vulnerable targets.
Which was why Colin was a problem.
Speaking of….
Colin knocked on my office door, then let himself in without waiting for me to invite him. I immediately closed my laptop.
“I’ve got good news for you,” Colin said with a smile that felt more like greed than joy.
I fought not to sigh and rub a hand over my face. “Does this have anything to do with the offer from Victory Holdings that I’ve told you a dozen times we’ll be refusing?”
Colin’s exuberance turned into peevishness like someone turning off a light.
“I don’t know why you have such a problem with money,” he said, moving toward one of the chairs in front of my desk, still without me having given him permission to intrude. “Victory is offering enough of it for both of us to sell Horizon Tech and retire to our own private islands.”
“Victory is also known to be connected to some very shady people,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.
“Everyone and everything is connected to some very shady people,” Colin said, trying to mirror my position. It wasn’t going to happen, though. Colin was a beta, and even though he was large for a beta, he didn’t have my naturally powerful, alpha physique.
A point which clearly bothered him.
“You’re not seeing the bigger picture here,” he went on, frowning. “Victory Holdings is just like any other company. I know you have these weird…weird morals about your designs, but you can never know where the things you invent are going to end up. We could sell the designs and prototypes to Little Mary Sunshine’s Bunny Farm and they might still end up in the hands of right-wing terrorists somewhere.”
“Mmm hmm.” I gave away nothing about my thoughts on the matter, either through those hummed syllables or through my expression.
“Victory is offering us millions of dollars, Mace. Tens of…maybe hundreds of millions of dollars,” Collin went on, saying way more than he needed to or should have without me having to poke at all. “No one else, especially not the government, is going to offer us anything like that. But Victory’s offer comes with a time limit.”
A time limit that I was certain was designed to get Horizon Tech to leap before looking.
“You can’t just sit there and let opportunities like this pass you by,” Colin pressed on, still talking.
That was Colin’s major problem. Discretion and secrecy were necessary in research and development of any sort, whether it was security systems or weapons or baked goods. There was always some one else out there waiting to snatch ideas right out from under you.
Case in point, Colin had nothing to do with the actual development of my security system. He was a glorified office manager. We’d gone to grad school together, but after graduating, he’d put his focus into idea after idea that didn’t pan out. When that proved to be too frustrating for him, he glommed onto my ideas, which actually worked, instead. He called it focusing on marketing instead of R&D.
And yet, he still thought we were a fifty-fifty partnership.
I would have and, arguably, should have ended our partnership and gone into business with myself, or with my friend, Alex. The hitch was that, despite his questionable taste in clients, Colin was way better at finding the funding for the expensive projects I was working on than I was. That and Colin had a beta wife and three kids under the age of five to take care of. I didn’t want to leave them high and dry.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, uncrossing my arms and loosening up my posture. “I won’t say no to Victory Holdings outright, even though I have serious doubts about them.” Serious doubts that included a question about whether they were working with terrorists and whether my security innovations would protect criminals instead of keeping innocent people safe. “We need to follow some of the other leads, though.”
“Leads? What leads?” Colin huffed. “No other offers come close to what Victory is offering.”
“What about Jonas Enterprises?” I asked. “What about the potential government contract?”
Colin snorted. “The government pays shit,” he said. “And Jonas Enterprises are nothing but a bunch of do-gooders vegetarians who think we should protect the planet at the expense of the people who actually live on it.”
Jonas Enterprises was an umbrella corporation with a mission to leave the planet better than we found it. They supported environmental causes, were developing alternative fuels, and were interested in my security tech as a way to make smaller companies doing the same in unstable nations and locations safe from local gangs who wanted to shut them down.
But no, they didn’t have the funding to pay what the shady people of the world could pay.
I didn’t care about the money, I cared about the principle of the thing.
Colin knew that.
“Don’t make me pull up the agreement,” he said with a scowl.
I sucked in a breath. And that was the other reason I hadn’t walked away and taken my toys with me years ago. When Colin and I had first graduated and started the company as wide-eyed, idealistic twenty-somethings, we’d formalized an agreement that we would always work as a team, splitting not only the profits, but any decisions made on the company’s behalf fifty-fifty. Back then, when I was green and stupid. I’d signed a document that basically said Colin had a fifty percent share of my intellectual property.
I needed to get a lawyer to look at that old agreement. Soon.
“None of this needs any sort of a decision right away,” I said, pushing my chair back and standing. I carefully picked my laptop up as I did. “I have a couple things to do with the rest of this afternoon, and then I’ll be away for the weekend.”
“Away for the weekend?” Colin asked incredulously, eyeing my laptop like it was a slice of chocolate cake he wanted. “You can’t go away for the weekend. We have that outing with the investors from Victory to go to.”
“Reschedule it,” I said, heading for my office door. “Something has come up and I’m needed elsewhere.”
“You can’t reschedule with people like that,” Colin said in a tight voice as we reached the hall.
I stopped and turned to him. “I don’t want to do business with people like that , end of story.” I walked on. “Cancel the meeting entirely. I haven’t liked the feel of Victory Holdings from day one, and I like them even less now.”
“But—”
“Cancel the meeting,” I said firmly.
“It’s not a meeting,” Colin called after me as I reached the elevator. “It’s a party. We were invited to a party. I’ve already told them you were coming.”
I stared firmly at him as I got into the elevator, holding his gaze. “I’ll think about it,” I said as the doors slid shut.
Once I was alone as the elevator swooshed down, I blew out a breath. I hadn’t handled that as well as I could have. Half a dozen of our employees had seen the whole exchange from their cubicles. Who knew what Colin was saying to them now?
It didn’t matter, though. I had other options, and I definitely had other things to think about.
A feisty little omega named Billy who wanted very bad things done to him, for example.
By the time I made it to the parking garage and my car, I was smiling again. Already, plans and ideas were forming in my head. I’d certainly never had trouble coming up with ideas, whether that was for security tech or kinky scenes to play out with masochistic omegas.
My play apartment wasn’t just set up with high-end security cameras and locking mechanism for the doors. I had motion-activated containment units set up in various spots around the doors and windows, and a few other, highly experimental things involving mild electric shocks and other things that would subdue ordinary people, and leave kinksters dripping with arousal.
But a lot of pieces needed to be put into place before I could tackle any of that.
As soon as I was in my car with my laptop tucked safely on the passenger’s seat beside me, I plugged in my phone and dialed Alex.
“Hey, Mace,” Alex answered after a few rings, as I backed my car out of its parking space. “What’s up.”
“I need a favor,” I said. “Well, two favors, really.”
“Oh?” Alex, ever the good friend, sounded interested.
“First,” I said, starting for the exit of the parking garage, “I need you to find me a good lawyer who can look over that shitty agreement I signed with Colin to see if I can walk away from Horizon Tech without losing my shirt, and all of my research.”
I could practically hear Alex’s wince on the other end of the call. “Things are that bad with Colin, are they?”
I hmphed. “Thing have been that bad with Colin for years. Now he wants to sell my research to a holding company that I’m pretty sure works with the mafia.”
“Yikes.”
“To put it mildly,” I said, then sighed and rubbed a hand over my face once I’d turned onto the road outside the parking garage. “It’s only a matter of time before he figures out how to go behind my back. I don’t want everything I’ve been developing for the last five years to end up being used by the same people I want it used against.”
“I completely understand,” Alex said. “Send me a copy of your agreement and I’ll have some of my top attorneys look into it.”
“Thanks.”
“So what’s the other thing?”
I grinned. I couldn’t help myself.
“I need you to be my second this weekend,” I said. Even my tone of voice changed to something lighter and more fun.
“I see,” Alex said, more amused than anything now. “Found yourself a playmate on the app?”
“Yep,” I said. “And this one promises to be a lot of fun.”
“Anyone I know?” Alex asked slyly.
I laughed. Though we’d known each other since we were kids, Alex and I hadn’t become friends on the level that we were not until we’d accidentally discovered that we were both part of the Dark Fantasies Club. Ever since then, we’d acted as each other’s seconds and swapped ideas for fantasies. And yeah, we’d played with the same omegas before, though not at the same time. Sharing was more Alex’s thing than mine.
“I don’t think so,” I answered him. “His name is Billy, and when I spoke to him earlier, he mentioned something about a conference.”
“Ah, an out-of-towner,” Alex said.
“My thoughts exactly.” I turned onto a major road that would take me away from the heart of the city, where the apartment I lived in was located, and out to a quieter neighborhood closer to the suburbs where my play apartment was. “I feel like all the hard players these days save their fantasies for when they’re miles away from home so no one finds out.”
“Any idea where Billy is from, then?” Alex asked.
I shrugged. “Not really, and it doesn’t matter to me. It’s just a day or two, then I’ll never see him again.”
Alex was quiet for a moment before saying, “Are you ever going to look for a relationship again?”
I frowned. I wanted to say it was none of his business, but as my best friend, it kind of was.
“I’m not ready yet,” I said quietly.
“You and Davy broke up three years ago,” Alex reminded me.
“Correct,” I said as neutrally as I could.
“There are other omegas out there, you know,” Alex went on. “Ones that actually do want to have babies.”
“I’m sure there are,” I said, trying not to sound as dark as the whole breakup with Davy had made me feel.
I’d dated Davy for two years, and I was certain the two of us would get married, have a family, a house, and a dog, the whole nine yards. I was surprised, as the question of marriage was finally put on the table, when Davy told me he never wanted to have kids. I felt like I’d had the rug yanked out from under me when he broke up with me then and there, packed the things he’d been leaving at my place, and left without any further discussion.
It turned out that Davy had already been on the fence, but the kids thing was the deal-breaker. That had hurt. Not so much that one minute we were talking about marriage and the next we were two strangers who used to date, but that he’d held back how he really felt from me for so long.
“You still there?” Alex asked, making me realize I’d gone silent.
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “Just stuck in memories for a second.”
Alex let a beat pass before saying, “Hang in there. It’ll happen someday.”
Paradoxically, I laughed. “You sound like my Aunt Myrtle,” I said. “She keeps telling me at every family gathering that my time will come and the right omega, one who wants a family, is out there waiting for me.”
“Your Aunt Myrtle isn’t wrong,” Alex said, teasing in his voice.
“Oh, so you think I’m going to find an omega who likes consensual non-con and wants to have a large, traditional family?” I asked.
“Dude, people are kinky,” Alex said. “That doesn’t mean they don’t also want a completely normal life on the outside. In fact, I think the more normal people appear to the rest of the world, the kinkier they are behind closed doors.”
I made a face, even though Alex couldn’t see it. “You’re probably right. But I have way too much going on right now to sign up for any of the normal, vanilla dating apps. I’ve got Colin and the company to deal with, for one.”
“That situation won’t last forever,” Alex reassured me. “I’m sure one of my staff can advise you on the best way to get out of the company with your intellectual property intact. If it comes down to it, would you be willing to pay Colin a percentage of sales for anything you developed while working with him?”
“As long as it means he doesn’t have any control over my tech or who I sell it to, yeah,” I said.
“Then I think you’re in a pretty good position,” Alex said. “If worst comes to worst, you might be able to dissolve Horizon Tach and form a new company that Colin isn’t a part of.”
Relief surged through me at that suggestion. I would feel like shit for leaving our entire staff without jobs all at once, but they’d all get top-notch severance plans, and nothing said I couldn’t hire them for my new company.
“I bow to your superior judgment on these things,” I told Alex, turning onto the road that would take me the rest of the way to my play apartment. “And if you want to go into business with me….” I let the question hang.
“I would seriously consider it,” Alex said.
More relief washed through me. Going into business with Alex would be a definite silver lining to the cloud of bullshit I’d likely have to deal with if we actually did find a way to dissolve one company and form another.
“And now,” I said, changing back to a happier topic, “I’m on my way to my play apartment to make sure it’s nice and set up for a certain kidnapping that’ll take place on Friday.”
“Ooh, a kidnapping fantasy,” Alex said. I could hear the smile in his voice. “Those omegas are always a blast. They fight back.”
“Just the way I like it,” I said, settling into my good feelings again. “As soon as I reach the apartment, I’ll send you his contact info so you can meet him and get in touch with his second.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Alex said before we said their goodbyes and ended the call.
I was looking forward to it myself. A hell of a lot. Not only was I eager to test my tech, I needed to blow off some steam with a lively omega. The only thing that could have made the fantasy better was if Billy went into heat. Since he hadn’t mentioned it, I assumed his heat was a long way away.
It didn’t matter. Playing with likeminded omegas was a blast, and from the short exchange we’d had, I had the strong feeling that Billy would be one to remember.