Slick as Ides (37 page)

We’ve also made sure it’s set so that if it recognizes some of the person’s DNA, but it’s less than a certain percentage, it will still fire. So, if a perpetrator manages to stab the person and get the victim’s blood on them, the gun will still be able to shoot the attacker.

“Hey, Mr. Vapor, is there anything I can get you before I go?” one of my employees asks me.

I look up at him. “Can you tell me what other ideas have been tried on these weapons real quick before you go? That’s all I need right now—information.”

He grins and settles his hand on the table. “We were originally working with the internal trigger lock, but it was unreliable. I have to say though, I didn’t think the laser sighting was the way to go. Not all weapons have one of those.”

I smile at him. “How long have you worked on this particular project?”

“For the last six months non-stop, sir.” He gives me a hopeful look like he’d love to join Westin and me.

“Are you staying or going? We could use your help.” I point at the chair on the other side of me.

“Staying,” he says, his eyes impassive, but his smile bright.

“She’s gonna kill us for messin’ with her shit,” Westin tells me.

“She’s gonna let me fucking do this, because I’ll let some asshole tear me to shreds if I don’t protect my woman and make her feel like she accomplished something this helpful.” I pass the gun to Westin. “Aim it at my shoe. See what happens.”

Since his DNA isn’t coded into the gun, I wonder if it’ll work.

But when he aims it, the pin dislodges right away, and he can’t fire it.

“Fuck. It’s already working,” the dude across from me says.

“Fucking A it is,” I say, nodding.

I take the gun back, kick Westin’s boot. “Take your damn boat off your foot. I’m gonna see if it works if I shoot at your shit.”

“No. I like these shoes,” Westin says, backing away.

“Here—you can use mine,” our new helper says.

“What’s your name?”

“My real name? Or the name Ides lets me use around here.” He casts his eyes around. Is he looking for her? Is he interested?

“She’s into letting all sorts of shit fly around here, and I’m cool with that,” I start, “but you get this shit straight—she’s mine.”

His eyes go wide. “No, I didn’t mean . . .”

Westin bursts into a howling laugh. “Always jealous!”

“I’m sorry, I . . .” The guy across from me shakes his head, and looks mortified that I thought he was hot for Ides.

“Name?”

“Brigand,” he says. “But my real name is—”

“That
is
your real name as far as I’m concerned.” I smack Westin’s arm. “This here is Fingers. And you can drop the Mr. for me. Just call me Vapor, and we’re all good.”

I nod, and he does the same in return.

“All right, Brigand. Your shoe’s about to get drilled. You ready?”

He sets the shoe out so I can hit it and covers his ears.

Pap!

Pap! Pap!

The gun works fine for me.

Westin shoves me from behind. “You owe this guy a new shoe, fucker. Or else you need to give him a raise.”

“Definitely getting a raise, if you stay here a few more hours, and help me do the same to Ide’s personal hand gun. I want that fucking thing ready to go so when we get home, she knows she won’t ever have to worry I’d turn on her and use her own gun against her.” I touch the rifle next to me. “Ready to pull what might be an all-nighter?” I glance at Brigand.

He smiles wider, his teeth a white crescent sliver.

“Sounds like he’s in.” Westin chuckles.

“What about you? Stayin’?”

“It’s too hot in here. I need a fan or something. What is this, a sweatshop?” Westin laughs and slaps the table.

“Seriously? If you touch this damn pistol with your tongue on the metal parts, I’m betting to God, your fucking tongue will be glued to that thing. It’s arctic in here. I couldn’t get a hard-on if I wanted to.” And just as I say that, Ides approaches us, hands me her backpack with her weapon inside and gives me a heated look.

“How’s it going?” She gazes over the table, then her eyes land on Brigand. “These two assholes treating you okay?”

He nods, swallows and looks intimidated as hell by her.

“You tell me if they start acting like a bunch of idiots.” She motions for him to give her his phone he had set on the table at some point. He gives it to her, and at my astonishment, she plugs in her phone number. “You call me the minute they act up, and I’ll come back here and kick both their asses. And I won’t do it by turning their shoes into Swiss cheese.” She hands him back his phone, and then she digs out a wad of cash from her pocket and gives him some. “Buy yourself a new pair.”

“B-but I-I don’t—”

“Brigand . . .” Her right brow slants up, and she looks devilish and sexy as fuck. “I insist. When I make a mess, I fix it. When the man I love tears your shoes to shreds because he’s a jealous ass, I pay for you to get a new pair, because I can.” She sticks out her tongue at me. “Just promise me you’ll buy yourself a new pair.”

“Can I upgrade?” Brigand’s voice cracks.

“No,” I say, while she simultaneously says, “Yes.”

“Well, damn. I’m working
here
from now on. Fuck the body shop.” Westin’s barking laugh rings in the air again.

“You’re hired if you can figure out how get my woman here to give me her saliva right now so I can type her handgun,” I say.

She gives me a look that says, “Are you challenging me?” Then she takes my palm in hers, and spits in my hand. “Good enough? Or do you need more? Just say the word. Only I won’t stick around. Fucking too many germs in spit.” She fights off a slight shiver.

“Fuck. You better turn the AC down in here,” I warn. “You’re making me excited, gorgeous.”

Brigand looks away. Are we embarrassing him?

“Doesn’t take much, Mr. Vapor. Just keep it tucked in your pants. I haven’t approved nudity on the work floor yet.” She grins and then saunters away.

And I swear, I’m harder than the steel on these guns, sitting next to me, no matter how many ice crystals are about to form on my eyelashes with how freezing it is in here.

“We got this. We’ll have her gun ready to go in no time.” Westin claps my back, and some of her spit drips off the side of my hand.

I glower at him, and then tell him to get back to work, in my most brutal boss tone I possess.

Mostly he laughs and calls me a pussy, but over the next three hours, we get her gun typed.

I place my phone on the stand and step back.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that has some saliva on this thing. It should have her skin oils on it along with her fingerprints. Her hands have been all over it today, watching the latest video footage I took of us fucking in the garage. Safety off, I point the gun at my phone, but the trigger won’t budge.

I need another test subject. Can’t stop now.

Before Westin can protest, I’ve grabbed his keys up from the table he set them down on, wiped them off with my shirt, licked them and set them down on the stand. When I aim at them, the same thing happens.

“Shouldn’t it have shot off a round? It doesn’t have my DNA programmed in.” Westin shifts in his seat.

“I set it to recognize the prominent DNA. I wiped off some of yours and slathered it in mine. The percentage of it being mine was greater than yours, so it froze up. It works.” I stare and grin at his keys.

“Goddamn,” Brigand says, almost breathless.

“Perfect.” I grin like a fucking lunatic, because that’s what I am.

A fucking lunatic with a disabled weapon, and a woman that’s really gonna want to ride me hard tonight.

Chapter 22

Vapor

“Good Lord, how did you come up with this?” I stare at the cobra. “This is crazy genius.” I blink and my mouth drops open.

“Well, I . . . Uh, I wanted to get rid of clogs in the drain but didn’t want plumbers in my home with their cracks hanging out, sweating in my bathroom, so I, yeah . . .” she trails off and turns a shade of pink that reminds me of my favorite pair of her undies.

“So, let me get this straight. This thing went down the drain in my home and my dad’s.”

“Yes.” She blinks and smiles harder.

“And then you had it cut through the wiring for his Internet, plant a virus inside his home network and then you even did a scan of his entire home for other electronics.” I breathe hard. Can I have a bigger hard-on for this woman? I stroke her invention.

“Guilty. I know where every electronic device is in his house, who’s using it, what it does and how often it’s used. And I can shut down his Internet access at any time along with his phone line.”

I turn my head toward her. “And how do you keep it from infecting the neighbors’ lines?”

She rocks back into her seat and tucks her hands between her hair and her neck, then lifts her hair up. “The virus can take orders so it only infects whatever area I tell it to. I programmed it to be large enough to hit his main house, his garage and guest house in the back. It even covers most of his backyard. Should do what we need it to.” Her cheeks grow a brighter pink.

“Making you hot—all this talk?” I smirk.

“No. What makes me hot is you, salivating over my metal contraption here.” She fans and fluffs her hair for an air flow.

“So, how are you going to be putting Rich out of business? He doesn’t have a cobra in his possession.” I reach out and stroke it again, studying all the parts of this thing.

“He doesn’t have to. Your dad’s company gave him their weasel, which is a pale imitation of the cobra, but I was able to get one of my guys in there to change it. Rich didn’t bring it home like I’d hoped he would, but he brought it to the corporation. He put it in their stockroom there. Jason’s girlfriend, Lexi, is in there now, as a new hire. She’s tweaking it, and it should do what we want fairly soon.” She bats her lashes at me and purses her lips, but it’s innocent and hell, I’m harder now.

I stroke her thigh. “And what else are your dirty little guys doing for you?”

“Well, don’t be mad, ‘kay? But I wanted to help you, too, so I filed for a patent for your invention White Flag.”

“My what?” I chuckle and give her a look like she’s overdone it on the happy pills today.

She opens up her laptop she had set off to the side and logs onto some website I’ve never seen before. “This is how we really take Rich down.”

I wrap an arm around her waist and she types in a code with a few numbers.

Ten people are logged on.

Chafe: We’re ready. Just say the word.

Totesmway: We’ve recruited more. It’s good to go, Ides.

I turn to her with my mouth hanging open. “Sweetheart, what did you do?” My eyes go big.

“You were aiming for military, waving the white flag so everyone would surrender. I wanted you to think about starting smaller, testing it out, then growing it outward. So right now we’ve got people set up to monitor big companies like your father’s. They look for glitches in the system, get inside and red flag any illegal activity they pick up on. It’s a monitoring system. We use the slimboy to break into their codes.”

I blink and breathe so loud there’s a whistling sound in my throat. “You did this? You took my box of shadows and did
this
?” It’s definitely illegal, the shit she’s talking about, but I’m not sure if I care at this point. This is so hot.

“Sorry, hon. I just wanted to help you and show you it had other potentials. I was so impressed, but what you were going after was a little scary. I want us to be able to hide what we’re doing, and this was so bold, we would’ve always been running. You said you want kids—well, let’s take your dad’s company’s apart, get rid of Rich, maintain a smaller operation for now, and then we can see where it goes.” She fans her face with her hand for a moment. “I’m really sorry if I overstepped my bounds here. I did it because I love you. And my Lord—this invention of yours made me so hot, I had to change my undies twice.”

I grip her upper arms and make sure we both have eye contact. My heart swells just having this open moment with her. “Just answer me this—it’s all I need to know—did you think it would work?”

She blinks and nods.

“I’m not talking about what you’ve done with it. I’m talking about what I did solo before you tweaked it. Did you think it would work?” I peer into her bright blue eyes, searching—pleading for the truth and praying she really does believe in me.

“It does work, Nick. It’s ingenuous. I could never think this global and big.” She beams at me. “It. Blew. My. Mind.”

“Really?” I check for any facial expression that would suggest she’s exaggerating so she won’t hurt my feelings.

“Really, honey. You put your blood, sweat and tears into this one, and I could see your personality, your ultimate goal that is always there in everything you do, but never to this magnitude.”