Chapter Six #2
They were mine forever.
Mine.
No one could take them from me.
The smile grew wider as that thought lingered as he walked naked through the house, making a pit stop in the bathroom first, then the kitchen to get his can of soda to slurp on before he went to his office.
The underfloor heating meant he didn’t need to get dressed if he didn’t want to, and often he didn’t when he was alone.
“I’m not alone anymore,” he whispered gleefully to himself, parking his ass in his big, leather gaming chair.
The cool leather caused him to shiver, so he reached for one of the fleecy blankets he kept under his desk and wriggled it under his bottom, his free hand going for the bag Arlo had placed on his office desk two days before.
They’d not talked about it in front of Soren, with the newness of the mating he sensed and agreed with Arlo, they really didn’t want to take the shine off their mating.
It sparkled inside him. The connection like spun gold threading him, Soren and Arlo together.
It was too precious to tarnish, and Taggart would never want Soren, with whatever past haunted him, to experience a reminder by accident.
He hummed as he snuggled into his seat, giving himself a few moments of the happy before he emptied the bag onto his desk.
He eyed the contents, his belly trembling.
The computer hard drives, data sticks, he expected.
The recording eye devices, not so much. He’d watched the news and knew that Cosmo and his mates had retrieved the eyes of the owls and that what was on them had brought about the downfall of the existing council.
The two eyes staring up at him, though clean, weren’t super clean, and they felt sticky against his fingers, giving him the ick when he hesitantly reached out to touch them.
His nose wrinkled, and he shut off the part of him that wanted to scream, ‘you’re holding a dead owl's eye’.
He forced his morbid curiosity to the forefront—it was the only way he survived delving into the darkness—and let the inquisitive mind work on figuring out how to Bluetooth the eye to his computer to gain access to whatever information it held.
Once he’d done that on one of his multi-terminals, he went through repeating the action.
Then started attaching the hard drives and data pens.
He connected those to other terminals until he had eight fresh streams of information running through his systems. The wall of screens in front of him flashed data as it downloaded.
Taggart had built his supercomputer, which was basically the parts of about a dozen computers, pulled apart and rebuilt to make it work for him.
He had a storage unit full of bits, computer parts, additional screens and anything a true geek needed to fix anything that broke.
He never talked about this because no one knew exactly how clever he was with computers.
Once he’d mentioned it, which led to a lot of questions about money and the Daddy wanting to take control of Taggart’s.
His gut had made him wary when the Daddy didn’t want anyone to see them together.
So, Taggart had ghosted the guy because he struggled with confrontation and was grateful he’d never brought him to his house.
He ran his gaze over the latest brand new computer lying in bits on his worktable in the corner. It had arrived the week before. He hadn’t found one yet that he couldn’t disassemble and put back together to make it work better.
As a sideline, he occasionally sold his ideas to companies—never using his real name—and then bought the new computer to take it apart and start again, it was fun making things work faster.
He’d just not been able to get one to work as fast as his mind.
He was hopeful one day he’d achieve that, until then, he liked to read how folks blew up the internet loving his new creations.
That was the simple part. Looking back at the multi-screens, he could already see locked data files hidden there in the information. He’d always been able to see things others couldn’t when it came to code. He figured it was all to do with how crazy fast his brain worked.
Grabbing his headphones to play some tunes and not wake anyone, he plonked them on and rammed up the base, grinning, his head bobbing as he got to work.
Despite the awfulness of what he knew—or part knew because the media never shared everything—he became buzzed with excitement as his fingers flew over his specially designed keyboard to allow him to work for hours without his wrists aching, his mind unpicking the code to break the encryptions blocking him from accessing some of the data.
His mind worked as fast as fingers flying over the soundless keys as he fought to figure out how to break through. This was the fun part, beating a faceless foe who thought they could hide stuff from him.
His neck ached, and his shoulders were stiff when a warm hand touched his cool skin, getting his gaze to shift.
It took longer for his brain to compute and focus as he blinked rapidly, noticing Arlo’s large, tattooed barrel chest in front of him.
His gaze moved up the glorious expanse, his mind switching gears as it landed on Arlo’s moving lips.
“Huh. What’s that Daddy, you need to speak up?” he shouted, forgetting about the headphones.
Arlo’s big shoulders shook as he reached over and plucked off the headphones, filling the room with the loud dance music.
“You’ll damage your eardrums with how loud that is,” he grumbled, then kissed the tip of Taggart’s nose, taking away the sting of the rebuke.
“It helps me focus when I’m working, Daddy.” It was the truth; sound helped his mind to calm.
Arlo’s gaze shifted to the bank of screens, a deep groove appearing between his brows. “How on earth do you keep up with all that?”
“Easy peasy, Daddy. My brain likes it.”
The sound of feet shuffling over the wooden floor got Taggart hitting the block screen mode out of habit.
Everything shut off, and Arlo was the one blinking rapidly. “Shit, did I hit something?”
“Daddy, does Taggart want me to make breakfast for him?” The hesitation and feelings coming from Soren suggested he’d picked up some of Taggart’s disquiet at him seeing anything.
Taggart was up out of his seat and around Arlo to pick up Soren and hug him. He nuzzled the warm skin, noticing just how chilly his body had become and how hungry he was. “I’m starving, and yes, please.” He gave Soren begging eyes. “I like freshly made waffles with chocolate.”