Page 53 of Nefarious
“No. I just write mods.”
Dane let it go. “So are we good? You’ll be ready to start this afternoon?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” At least he’d dropped his bullshit privileged rich kid act for the time being. “And that was good advice yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah? Things worked out?”
“Totally.” Anthony pressed his lips together, and the smugness resurfaced. Dane got the feeling Anthony thought he’d gotten one over on him. Did Selena tell him she’d tried and failed to attract him? That made no sense at all.
Dane gave him what he thought was a fatherly look of concern. “And you’re not going to let it affect your work here, right? Or let it become office gossip?”
Anthony blanched. “No, no. Of course. She doesn’t even want anyone to know about it.”
“Okay. You should respect that.” Maybe he’d misjudged the kid.
“I will. I’m just glad she’s interested in me.Me.”
Dane didn’t bother to clue Anthony into the fact that he was obviously better looking than any of the other interns, even if he wasn’t the sharpest. Of course Selena would go for him. He was surprised Val hadn’t fished him out for herself. Then again, she still might. He nodded to Anthony. “Well, I’ll see you here later then?”
Anthony left, and Dane went back to check if any of the meetings of the day might interest him. The answer as always was no, except for possibly one with the developers. He liked sitting in on high-level design. He’d let the teams work out the implementation, and he always eyed their patches because he missed coding so much. He’d have to look into thisMinecraftand see if it might be something he could do in his spare time. Maybe he’d make his second fortune as aMinecraftcoder.
A movement out his window caught his eye, and he just had a moment to realize it was Noelle before he instinctively dropped onto the floor and hid behind his desk. He heard a tap as the door cracked open.Why do people always just walk into my office?He waited, hoping she wouldn’t come in. How would he explain why he was sitting on the floor like it was storytime?
He wasn’t at all prepared to have the next conversation with her. For one thing, his phone with its voice recorder was in his jacket out of reach.
“Excuse me?” Noelle’s voice wasn’t loud enough to be directed at him, and he heard someone outside the office answer, “Yes?” She continued, “Do you have any idea where Dane went? I was hoping to catch him in his office.”
“Nope, I didn’t see him leave.” It sounded like Subhra Bishnu who sat in the cube nearest his office. He usually had on his headphones and worked face down, tapping out code or banging out functional design documents or writing furious emails to everyone about build deadlines. At some point someone had given him a red stapler, and he kept it prominently displayed with no apparent idea that it was meant as a joke.
Noelle closed the door. Dane waited a good minute before sitting back in his chair. When an idea struck, he jumped up, grabbed his jacket, and opened the door to his office, making sure Subhra saw him coming out.
A light summery scent lingered in the air that Dane couldn’t precisely define except that it belonged to Noelle. It played with his memory, but not some long ago nostalgia from New York. This smell took him back to the previous Friday night, driving with Noelle in his passenger seat. It made him recall her legs as she climbed in. It made him remember the feel of her lips when she began to bend to him.
He squeezed his fists. He wanted Noelle’s resistance to thaw, but he didn’t want to expose himself to those feelings that had left him vulnerable and raw when she’d hurt him before. He wasn’t about to open himself up to that.
Subhra looked up at him and then back at his laptop. A beat later, his head jerked up. “Hey. Were you in there the whole time?”
Dane raised a finger to his lips. “Shhh. I was hiding.”
Subhra crossed his eyebrows. “Why?”
“Long story.”
Subhra narrowed his eyes, obviously curious, but not enough to ask any more questions. “Okay.” And he went back to looking back and forth between his three huge monitors covered in Putty terminals, remote desktop connections, browsers opened onto the app, and his programming interface. It looked like insanity, and Dane felt a stab of envy that he’d been removed from the controls. When he finally left here for good, he might just immerse himself inMinecraftcoding. He needed to first find out what in the hellMinecraftwas.
Dane ducked into the stairwell, listening for any sounds and finding it empty. He took the steps two at a time and exited on the third floor. He looked both ways, as though he were crossing a busy street. When he saw Noelle swing out of the elevator bank and catch his eye, he nodded and strolled casually to the breakroom.
He leaned against the counter and waited. Within moments, Noelle appeared in the doorway with a haunted look in her eyes. She stopped and raked her eyes down him. He held his breath.
Dane was blocking the coffee maker, but he didn’t move, waiting to see how she’d respond. She quickly made up her mind and walked straight over to where he stood, placing her mug in the machine behind him, forcing him to slide to his right. The shift placed him directly in front of the assorted coffees. Noelle lifted her eyes and looked directly into his.
Her chest rose and fell heavily as she wound an arm around him, grazing his shoulder and retrieving a packet of Columbian coffee. She stood so close, he could smell her hair, run his eyes down her neck, and peek at her cleavage. He could have snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. And he believed she might let him.
He blew gently against her skin, encouraged to discover that marble could shiver. Her mouth fell open, then closed, and he would have bet money she was thinking about kissing him.
This was what he wanted from her—unlocked desire for him.
He pictured lifting her onto the counter, standing between her legs, his lips on her neck, listening to her moan as he rocked into her.
