Page 107 of Speechless
“Bastian was right. That was an understatement.”
Aiden sat down in the chair at his desk with an amused smirk. “I’d argue it wasn’t an understatement. To me, this is enough.”
I’d argue that having six monitors and what looked likethreegiant towers was more than enough. But computers and I generally hated each other, so who was I to judge?
“Fair.” I unlocked the little safe and pulled out the flash drive, suddenly nervous. “This is why I reached out to you.”
“Wherever you found it, I’ll always be grateful.”
“I got it—” My thoughts froze me. If Tracy hadn’t gotten into her car accident, I would never have been promoted or had her broken filing cabinet. I wouldn’t have found this or reached out to Aiden.
There’s no telling whether I would have tried to do the Element article if Tracy was still here. It wasn’t a comfy thought. I liked to think that I would have run into the Breaker Pack some other way, or maybe the same way if I’d gone to the club. Even pretending that didn’t give me Aiden.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just realized how close I came to not meeting any of you. My boss died a few months ago in a car accident. Without that, none of us would be here.”
His eyebrows rose. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Anyway, it was an old file of hers, and a contact gave me this. But I have no way to unlock it. Do you have a program that can do it while we play?”
The look on his face was pure confidence, and it was hot as fuck. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside before reaching for the drive. “I can make that happen. Now take your clothes off. On the bed.”
Aiden caught my wrist before I could turn away fully, lifting it. One finger ran along the links of the hand chains I wore. “Leave these on.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
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TRINITY
Ipulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, watching the muscles in Aiden’s back move as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Windows popped up across the six giant monitors, stacked two on top of each other and three wide.
How the hell he knew where to look? I wasn’t sure. But there was something beautiful about watching someone entirely in their element.
A soft chuckle. “You weren’t kidding. This thing is locked up tighter thanIwould lock it up. That’s saying quite a lot.” He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s on here?”
“I don’t know yet. Hopefully, a smoking gun of some kind.”
“For?”
I lifted my shoulders and shook my head. “I’ll let you know.”
His expression told me he wasn’t fully buying it, but he went back to typing. Only a couple minutes later, and a window popped up with flying bits of code and what seemed like a progress bar. “It will analyze it and evaluate what it needs to open. In the meantime…” He swiveled in his chair.
Aiden might be a hacker, but his body didn’t look like he spent all his time on the computer. I knew he’d played rugby, and the way his body looked, he might as well have walked off the field an hour ago.
Both forearms were covered in tattoos—what looked like maps and some other symbols I was going to pin him down and ask about at some point—and the edge of another one peeked up from the waistband of his sweats. How far did it go? What was it?
He went to the closet and grabbed a blanket and a black duffel bag. I’d seen enough of them to know it was a bag with all his kinky shit. Doms at Element often had them near where they were scening.
“What am I in for?”
Aiden spread the blanket over the lower half of the bed, lifting my feet to place it underneath. “Waterproof,” he said, and went back to the bag. A set of cuffs and belts landed on the bed. He dug further through the bag. “You’re in for exactly what I told you. I’m going to make you come as many times as possible, even if you don’t want to anymore, even if it hurts.” He shot me a wicked grin. “Especially if it hurts. Until I decide we’re finished, or you use your safe word.”
“What if I pass out?”
He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him, watching him wrap the leather cuff around my wrist. Then he shrugged. “Passing out is not a safe word, and somnophilia is one of your ‘absolutely yes’ kinks.”
Everything tightened and warmed. His choice or a safe word. End of story. “Okay.”
