Tristan folded his hands over his stomach and recited the speech he’d been composing in his head the whole time Colleen had been talking with Anjali because he sure as hell wasn’t telling her about Bell’s new deadline. “I’m very concerned about your safety. Since I have nearly six weeks to finish the GameShack project, we’re going to rewrite my Anonymity program so that you can drop off anyone’s surveillance anytime you want. I want you to be able to walk through an airport or a shopping mall and get on an airplane without it ever being recorded anywhere, from the State Department’s computers to the closed-circuit video. I want you to be able to rent a car or work anywhere you want without the Butorins or anyone else tracking you because I’m not sure how this will turn out. I have plenty of time to figure out how to proceed with the rest of the project, but I want to write this code over the next few days and finish it. I want you to be safe.”
Colleen was watching him closely, scrutinizing his expressions. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your phone call, but where would I go, right?” she asked, gesturing at her one-room apartment. “You said something was impossible when you were talking to them.”
He nodded, trying to seem offhand and casual. “Lots of things are impossible about this situation.”
“Right,” she said. “Okay.”
“But I want you to be safe, so I’m going to do some serious coding over the next few days. Do you mind if I use your rig, here? You can use my laptop if you need to get online.”
“Sure, but you hired me to be your coding consultant. I can help.”
Tristan studied her for a minute, noting the serious, steady intent in her dark eyes. By her own admission, Colleen had half a degree in computer science. However, CS was one of those fields where a degree meant little for an ambitious self-starter, and he suspected Colleen was one of those self-taught geniuses with an interesting GitHub account.
He could back up everything with multiple copies. If she messed up something, he could recover it within a minute or two. “I would appreciate your help.”
20
Logan
Tristan
Coding consumed their lives.
Food was their first problem. Colleen had pizza delivered from her favorite place for lunch, and then Tristan called Jian to arrange thrice-daily meal deliveries.
And so the white boxes and paper bags arrived.
If Tristan couldn’t wine and dine Colleen at the best restaurants in the city, the best restaurants would come to them.
And coffee delivery. Tristan had placed that order personally.
A courier arrived with an espresso with cream for him and a caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top.
Colleen smiled at him over the peak of whipped cream, and his heart warmed.
In the parlance, those sorts of things were the responsibility of a Big to do for his little. A Dom provided new and exciting experiences, showed his little sub the world, and adored his good little, and then he took her to bed and ruined her for other men.
That was the problem with the Big/little power dynamic relationship. If it didn’t end in a lifelong commitment, it was tough for any other man to live up to.
But Tristan couldn’t take her to Paris and Rio because the damn Butorins were hunting them. So that part of the relationship was off the table for now while they were holed up in her apartment.
Which left adoring her and taking her to bed.
And maybe it was because they were cooped up and working well together on the program to erase Colleen from the internet, or perhaps it was because they were telling each other stories about their lives and hers were cute and sweet and heartbreaking at times, but the adoration part of their relationship seemed to be outpacing the other aspects.
For him, at least.
Between working sessions, they dined on Chateaubriand and scalloped potatoes, Niçoise Salad and ratatouille, and of course, the best desserts and wine the city had to offer.
And when they collapsed onto her slim mattress, exhausted after coding for many solid hours, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. The softness and satin of her body enticed him, and he liked to blow her mind with a few orgasms from his hands and tongue that she screamed into her pillow before settling between her legs for a long slow screw that languidly built to an even greater peak.
Tristan did most of the primary work on the project, writing the initial pass of the code, and then he passed it to Colleen for fine-tuning and revision.
He improved upon his program that rendered him anonymous in every picture and video taken of him, which he’d pulled out of his secret spaces on the internet and downloaded onto her hard drive.
Downloading the initial chunks of the program took longer than he’d expected, and he found the internet speeds in her apartment were dismal.
Uploading the finished program was going to be a problem. Writing and compiling it was going to take long enough. They didn’t have days to upload it and set it free.
That was a problem. They were going to have to find faster internet somewhere for the upload.
Tristan watched for an opening to make a quick, private phone call, and his chance came whilst Colleen was in the shower.
Tristan wound his courage up into a tight ball and gritted his teeth. “Hi, Logan. It’s me.”
A man’s voice, with an odd mix of the Midwest and New York that did not meld into a neutral American accent in the slightest and instead sounded like two different people having a conversation, said, “I figured that from the caller ID, yeah. Whaddya need?”
“I just want to ask a question.”
“Why? You need another helicopter rescue?” The way he said you was definitely the yoo of New Yorkers.
“No.” Tristan reconsidered. “Probably not. Do you have an aunt or somebody in your family named Mary Bell?”
Logan’s tone switched to one that was serious, sinister, and all New Yorker. “Why the hell do you want to know?”
“Whoa there, old chap. It was just a question.”
“It’s never just a question when you drop the name Mary Varvara Bell.”
Funny, Tristan hadn’t mentioned her middle name. “Forget I said anything.”
“You didn’t ask anything, and I didn’t tell you anything.”
“Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly the attitude I would take if anybody asked me about my Aunt Mary.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Imagine Michael Corleone at the end of the movie crossed with Hannibal Lecter.”
Wow. “Are you serious?”
“In a designer skirt.”
“Are you serious about the Hannibal Lecter part?”
“She can get in your head and figure out stuff about you that you didn’t know about yourself and then convince you to do shit that you never thought yourself capable of. Maybe not so much the cannibalism or chianti parts.” Logan paused. “Probably.”
“But she took over for your grandfather?”
“Yeah. He ran the family business like a business. She runs it like a third-world dictatorship.”
“Yikes. I’m surprised the Malefactor wasn’t grooming you to take over.”