Chapter 12 Helena
HELENA
Ijerked awake at a hand resting on my shoulder.
“Steady now,” Erryn murmured, her voice settling the rush of adrenaline spiking through my blood. “There is food if you want it.”
Erryn was on a call and ignored me as I padded back to the kitchen to find four individual containers of food lined up neatly on the small marble counter, labeled in black marker.
I lifted the first lid carefully. Sliced chicken breast. The second held steamed green beans; another had carrots; and the last was crispy, roasted potatoes, with a small pot of sauce on the side.
I took them to the couch, where I tucked my legs beneath me and happily dunked a potato into the ketchup.
Erryn’s tone shifted, and I dunked a slice of chicken, watching her surreptitiously as she pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.
“What do you mean they’ve declined?” she said.
Silence, broken only by the low murmur of Ben’s voice on the other end of the line. I couldn’t make out the words, but I didn’t need to, given that Erryn’s posture had gone rigid and she looked like she wanted to shoot someone.
“Then give me the bullet point version,” she said evenly, clearly furious.
I downed a potato, easing the hunger pangs in my slowly waking stomach.
“Bullshit,” she continued. “They were informed of the scope.”
More silence.
I chewed slowly, wondering how badly her little blonde-haired assistant wanted to die right now.
“They think it won’t integrate? On what basis?”
I could almost picture Ben scrambling on the other end. Erryn’s tone dropped another degree.
“No. I haven’t got time to fuck around with it. Just move straight to Vanguard.”
She hung up, muttering something under her breath.
“AUREX declined?’ I asked nonchalantly.
“Mhhmm.” She steepled her fingers, glaring at her screen.
“Artemis has a file on Vanguard Tech as an integration she was looking into, and no issues have been flagged. The recommendation came from Maxim, and there is an email chain here where she is enquiring about Maxim’s personal security, which is also through Vanguard. Good of them to keep me informed.”
“Well, nice to hear one of the Chairs is serious about home security,” I said, keeping my expression impassive as she transferred her glare from the screen to me.
“I see the nap did wonders.”
I popped a carrot into my mouth and chewed, giving her an innocent smile.
“Just making observations.”
She leaned back in her chair, eyeing me.
“Helena, let’s say the interface was hacked and my personal files were obtained. Then they make it past the Meridian’s physical security and bypass the security system to allow them access to my floor. You are missing a vital piece of information here.”
“And that would be?” I asked, popping another carrot in my mouth.
Erryn shifted, placing her gun on the table in front of her with a dull thud as she kept that cool glare on me.
“They are as good as dead if they try.”
“Right,” I said, putting my food down. “And if you are taken unawares?”
She laughed under her breath, an idle finger tracing the edge of the gun. “That hasn’t happened in a long while.”
She shifted in her seat, and I remembered the bullet wound, the silver divot in her flesh from where someone had shot her.
Rage coiled in my gut, and I wished I could have been there to slowly tear the flesh from the shooter’s body, strip by strip, letting their screams lull them to eternal bed rot in hell.
“No?” I stood, her attention a weight on my skin that—fuck—I enjoyed far too much. I had seen the way her gaze lingered on me, and the parts of my body that seemed to entice her the most.
How far would she let me overstep?
“No,” she said, watching my every move with predatory intensity.
God, I wanted to…Fuck it.
I wish I could have taken a picture of her expression as I slid into her lap, her free hand resting on my hip as my weight settled.
“Are you sure?” I murmured, watching her intently.
That hand tightened on my hip, the tips of her fingers brushing bare skin as I leaned in, my lips stopping an inch from hers, teasing the kiss I was desperate for. She smelled intoxicating, the curve of her neck so close I could just lean in and…
“Helena.” My name was a warning on her tongue, sending goosebumps in a wave across my body.
I eased closer, intent on proving my point before I let myself give in to this woman, my hand sliding down toward where her gun now hung at her side in a loose grip. This had been coming since the moment I knelt at her feet with her gun at my temple, and we both knew it.
She laughed softly, her breath a caress against my lips as the cool muzzle of her gun grazed the underside of my jaw.
“Really fucking sure,” she said, her voice low and husky. She settled back into her chair, her gun still held in place as she dragged her gaze down my body.
“Bold, Helena.”
I grunted as the muzzle pressed harder, tipping my head up, her hand at my hip inching slightly higher until the warmth of it scorched my skin.
“I was making a point,” I said, my own voice as husky as hers.
“And I’ve made mine,” she said. “Get on the desk, Helena.”
My gaze snapped to hers, the muzzle digging hard into my neck.
“What?”
“Get on the desk.” Her eyes had a glint to them that I hadn’t seen before—a feral edge that sent my rapidly increasing heartbeat straight to my clit. I was aching, wet, and I finally had her full attention.
I lifted myself to perch on the edge of the desk, directly on the files she had just been studying. Erryn leaned in, her gun never wavering as she reached behind me with her free hand, closed her laptop, and tossed it onto the couch.
“You want to play this game?” she murmured, her lips brushing mine. “Because I will show you how it’s played. You think you can catch me off guard and disarm me?” She tsked, running her gun from my jaw slowly down my neck to my chest and coming to rest directly over my heart as she straightened.
“Take it off then,” she ordered.
“Or wh—”
I barely had time to utter the first words of my retort before she swung the gun to the right, the silenced shot breaking the tension as the bullet blew through the table an inch from my hand, leaving a neat hole in the wooden surface. The gun was trained back on me in the same breath.
My ears rang slightly in the silence following the deafening shot.
I needed her to touch me. The rebellious part of my mind wanted to tease and test her, to see how far I could push this vicious edge.
But another, new corner of my mind was desperate to please her.
I wanted her attention, and I didn’t want to give it back.
It was a new high; now that I had tasted it, I wanted more.
I shrugged out of the loose top, letting it fall in a haphazard pile on the floor at her feet, baring myself from the waist up. Every place her gaze touched felt like it was on fire.
“Much better,” she said, the tip of her gun skimming over the swell of my breast, and I sucked in a breath as it barely brushed my nipple, peaking at the touch of cool metal. “And the rest.”
I did as I was told, lifting my hips enough to slip my pants down and kick them off to join the pile of clothing on the floor, and she still hadn’t touched me.
Her gun lowered, her gaze lingering on my breasts, then sliding lower.
“Open your legs,” she said.
Fuck.
Slowly…ever so slowly, I spread my thighs, showing her just how wet I was, and I nearly groaned out loud at the flash of desire across her face. The brief crease between her brows as she devoured me with her eyes.
“Wider.” Her voice was rough, but she still held every ounce of composure as she waited for me to comply. I adjusted myself on top of her papers and leaned one hand back to do as she asked.
“Now show me how you wish I were touching you right now.”
“Erryn.” There was want laced into every letter of her name, and those cool grey eyes raised to mine as her gun trained on the gap between my thighs.
“Show me.”
I slid my hand across my thigh and hesitated. Not because I was shy. Fuck no. Because I was already too close to coming.
She fired again, and I gasped, flinching at the noise and the streak of fire against my thigh. I glanced down to see a graze in the flesh, the bullet lodged deep in the table beneath me.
My blood welled in the shallow graze, the pain of it nearly tipping me over.
I slid my fingers down, feeling how drenched I was, gathering it on my fingertips and sliding them back to my clit as the first drips of my blood hit the papers.
“Good girl,” Erryn murmured, watching my fingers slide over my clit, then down to dip them inside myself again.
I was already at the edge, keeping my touch as light as I could stand to draw it out, the aching pulse a sweet agony as I fought to keep the orgasm at bay.
“None of that,” she whispered, pressing the muzzle to the back of my hand and forcing me to increase the pressure. “You can come for me, Helena. I didn’t say it would be the only time.”
It hit me like a head-on collision. I fell back on my elbow, my body wracked in a violent spasm of pleasure, my body clenching, simultaneously desperate for more and barely able to cope with the intensity. I gasped, my breath catching, and still, she didn’t touch me.
“Well done.”
I opened my eyes, panting as the aftershocks tore through my body, sitting up to reach for her and coming up short as the muzzle once again came to rest under my jaw.
“You did very, very well,” she said softly. Her gaze lowered, and I jumped as she ran a fingertip along my thigh that was slick with my orgasm, then brought it to her lips.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the way her lips wrapped around her finger, sucking my taste off it with a soft sound of approval.
“Now, go to bed,” she said, flicking the safety on her firearm with a dull click and sliding it back into its sheath.
“What?” I blurted, my mind taking a moment to catch up.
“Bed.” She raised a brow in faint amusement. “Sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, and I need you rested.”
I would have argued, but I was still coming down from the euphoria of my orgasm, and by the time I had collected a coherent argument, she had stepped away and was striding off to the kitchen.
This woman was going to be my undoing.