Slick as Ides (14 page)

I stand up, and slip my hands in my pockets. “My client here, representing Shilling Corporation, has a complaint about Ides Notions Inc.’s newest creation.”

“The transaction wasn’t even completed, Your Honor,” Riot interjects.

“That’s as it should be,” I say, glaring at him over my shoulder.

“This is absurd. This prototype was specifically commissioned by your client through a private deal.” Riot rests his hand on the table, and her gloved hand settles next to his.

My eyes run over her face, and she stares at me impassively, then leans toward Riot and whispers something to him—her eyes on me the entire time.

Goddammit—this woman’s making me aroused, the dirty bitch.

I take a deep breath and turn back to the judge. “The paperwork clearly stipulated that no other company, individual, family or friend, should know about it, and she shared it with me.” I pull my briefcase up on the desk and take out the remote I removed from her vehicle.

“Her car was stolen, with that prototype in it,” Riot says. He stands up. “May I ask how you got ahold of it?” He tries to stare me down and look intimidating.

It only makes me smile. My shoulders relax as I stare back.

“It was given to me by the police officer that found her car, stripped bare of any identifying marks as her vehicle. He called me because he found my fingerprint on her car,” I say with a casual lean against the table my boss is sitting at.

The judge’s brows toss up on his forehead, looking more like the peak on a roof than a part of his face that’s supposed to be there. “This sounds very odd, Mr. Reid. You better have a good explanation on why your fingerprint was on her car. Do you know the defendant?”

I clear my throat, move away from the table and straighten out my suit coat. “I saw her at a gas station that night and asked her for some change so I could pay for bus fare home, since my motorcycle had just been stolen in that parking lot.” I smirk and glance over at her.

Her face is paler than usual, but other than that, she shows no sign of emotions.

“I see . . .” The judge pauses and asks, “And did you get your bike back?”

“Yes,” I answer. “It seems the same culprits that stole my bike, stole her car. It was two thugs. They ditched my bike and her car a few miles down the road from where they were stolen. The police are still looking for these perpetrators.”

He blinks and leans back in his chair, appearing to be deep in thought.

I hand him the manufactured police reports my boss bought, submitting it as evidence.

“I hope you’ve returned her vehicle to her,” the judge says, looking them over, nodding and then setting the papers aside.

“You know as well as I do the cops have impounded it. They’ll contact her soon, I’m sure.” I take a breath and continue, “But back to the matter at hand.”

“Yes, I’ve read the lawsuit.” The judge exhales and clicks his tongue. “I’m really not seeing what the problem is—why the plaintiff is even here.”

My boss yawns and stretches next to me. I stifle a laugh. “When my client here had his analysts take a close look at her prototype, it was alarming.”

“Enlighten me sometime in this century, Mr. Reid, or I’m going to rule in favor right now of the defendant,” the judge tells me.

Dena chuckles softly.

I step back over to the table and lean the backs of my thighs against it.

“Sir, this thing is a weapon,” I say, my voice flat.

“Is not!” Riot blurts.

“Shhh . . .” The judge glares at him. “Mr. Thayer, you’re supposed to be familiar with the rules of court—act like it.” The judge clears his throat, then takes a breath.

Riot leans toward Dena and whispers something to her, and then she touches him. With her gloved hand, but shit, my teeth grind as I watch the small, innocent gesture.

She’s. Fucking. Touching. Him!

She said she wouldn’t ever do that shit! Not on purpose—those were her words.

My head pounds as blood rushes in my ears.

I cough to give myself a second to center myself and to wipe my expression clean. When I’ve gotten control of myself, I go back to my explanation, “It’s a chip to be inserted into a pet for tracking purposes.”

The judge stares at me as though he thinks this is ridiculous.

“And this remote,” I say, walking it up to the judge for further inspection, “is the problem.”

“Why? I’m still not seeing it,” the judge asks.

“If I push this button right here . . .” I point at the green one in the middle “. . . it activates the chip. Sounds innocuous, right? Well, not really. If I push this red one with the P on it, well, then it sends an impulse directly into the brain and forces the animal to come back to the owner. The chip in the remote matches the DNA frequency and impulse wave in the animal, and if the animal can’t for some reason return to the owner, if they’re injured or caught by someone else, the chip will automatically, within two minutes, tell the owner the exact whereabouts of the animal.”

“What does the P stand for? I don’t remember seeing that defined in the lawsuit,” the judge says.

Riot sits taller. “The P stands for parietal lobe. That button interrupts sensory information the brain distinguishes, focusing the pet where the owner needs them to go so they can’t be distracted by anything else.”

Her eyes are steady on the judge, and she’s completely at ease.

Damn her. I’m struggling being this close to her when I’m unable to touch her the way I’m dying to.

The judge looks over at Riot. “Does it work? Has it been tested yet?”

He nods. “It has, Your Honor. We’ve actually had it tested on my very own pet. It’s safe, though, there’re no—”

“I wasn’t finished,” I interrupt. “I think you can see the implications here if someone, somewhere, was to use this on say—a human. We all know there are still slave traders all over the world that would be only too happy to get their hands on something like this,” I say, my voice going low and somber.

My eyes flick back over to Dena. She’s grimacing and once more whispering something in Riot’s ear.

“And what was the actual contract for?” the judge asks.

“It was supposed to give the data to a security system where authorities would be the only ones to get this information, not the actual owner. This way, there would be no way this would fall into the hands of criminal organizations and be used to their advantage,” I explain.

The judge nods, picks up a pen and nibbles on the end while he sits, looking like he’s mulling something over.

When I sit down and look over at her once more, she’s green, looking sickened by the pen in the judge’s mouth.

“Mr. Thayer, present your defendant’s case.” There’s a little drool on the judge’s chin. He promptly wipes it off with his sleeve.

She gasps softly and has to turn her head away from him.

I watch her gloves come off and her hands frantically search through Riot’s bag he’s brought. She pulls out a small container and rubs something on her hands. I assume it’s hand sanitizer, but who knows with Ides.

“Your Honor, the contract was vague about who was supposed to receive the information on the whereabouts of the chipped pet, and the contract has been revised since its original draft.” He passes the judge the agreement. “My client here, representing her company, has made it clear to me that they were only acting in the best interests of Shilling Corporation, giving them maximum control of the information the chip will provide. There was a clause in the paperwork that she was to have full creative control since this was a private deal, where she alone was creating and manufacturing—it wasn’t done through her company. This is genius work, and it’s not Ides Notions Inc.’s responsibility to keep this out of the hands of anyone else other than Shilling Corporation. This lawsuit is a waste of everyone’s time. Ides Notions Inc. isn’t even going to be using any of the proceeds made off this invention and most of it’s going to charity.” Riot takes a deep breath and when he looks at her, the adoration is clear as fuck, and I’m grinding my teeth once more until my jaw throbs.

“Remind me which charity the money’s going to,” the judge says.

“It’s a homeless shelter for teens that have either been abandoned or run away.” The pride on Riot’s face is killing me, because she’s beaming at this douche.

I shoot a quick text to Jason to look it up as soon as Riot mentions the name.

A second later, Jason’s sent me a text that reads,
That’s where she went after her dad went to prison.

Pangs of sadness rifle through me, wishing she’d turned to me when all that shit happened so long ago.

“I thought it was going toward a new campaign for protection of minors with parents that have guns in the home,” the judge says.

“Well, yes, a portion is going toward the research Ides Notions Inc. is currently involved in. But less than one percent of the income derived will go toward that. It’s for a new DNA typing for guns, to ensure that a family member cannot inadvertently or purposefully pull a trigger on someone with matching DNA. ”

The judge’s jaw pops open.

Mine does, too.

Holy shit, this woman is astounding. I know she’s the one heading this up. Who else would be this clever and inventive?

The judge’s brow furrows. “Why would Ides Notions Inc. be involved in that? It doesn’t seem like their usual M. O.”

“The CEO here”—Riot motions to her—“was involved in a previous situation as a minor, where a family member assaulted and pulled a gun on her. They fired and missed, thankfully, but she’s been drafting this project up for years. It’s finally been approved through the proper channels and authorities, but the stipulation was it had to be funded through grants and donations.”

The judge nods.

The boss next to me snaps his fingers, and when I turn toward him, he points at his watch, telling me to wrap this thing up.

“Your Honor, this is all fascinating, but it’s beside the point. It doesn’t matter what Ides Notions Inc. intends to do with the funds. The problem here is how this weapon works, and what to do about it.”

“Are you proposing it be destroyed?” the judge asks, his brows popping up.

His right eye twitches, and I can tell he’s fallen under her spell—the magnificence and brilliance that is Ides.

I fail to answer.

The judge searches out my boss, and there’s a look that transpires between them.

“Let’s take a fifteen minute break, and then we’ll reconvene. I’ll most likely have a decision by then,” the judge says, then dismisses us.

I look over at her, sitting all serene and beautiful as fuck, and I’m even harder now. The thought that she hasn’t said a thing out loud during the hearing to defend herself, hasn’t been even remotely riled, pisses me off, but also makes me want to bite into her tits while I’m fucking her into the wall.

God, she really is a demon, sent to destroy my entire ego.

I motion to Jason at the back to get me her new phone number, along with her fucking pansy-assed lawyer’s.

I step out of the room, and less than a minute later, I’ve got Riot’s new number.

Asshole changed it when she told him I’d hacked his phone, and that was how I knew about their conversation. Fuck, it still gives me lockjaw when I think about the shit she said to him—complimenting his loser-ass.

She mostly calls me an asshole, smiling, and while I’m fucking her raw, but still . . . I want her mouth saying nice things to me—not him.

She was right, though, that I’d gone through his phone, not hers—and I’ll do it again, repeatedly if it means being a step ahead of him and his slippery, used-car salesmen feet.

Before I figure out where I want to go for this break, I send a quick text to him.
If you touch her again . . .

A deep growl vibrates low, in the back of my throat.

The bathroom’s at the end of the hall, and there aren’t very many people nearby, so I step inside and lock the door.

Before I’ve even thought this through, my zipper’s down, my hand’s on my cock, and when I look at my phone, Jason’s already gotten her phone number up on my screen for me.

I dial her up.

“Hello . . . ?” Her soft voice makes my dick bob.

“Mmm . . . Ahhhhh . . . . Ahhhhh . . .” I stroke long and slow.

“Look, whoever this is, I’m hanging up,” she huffs.

“Don’t . . .” I manage to say through gritted teeth. “Please.” I yank it harder, and I know she can hear my quick jerking hand with my dick sliding in it.

“Oh. My. God. You
are
a sick bastard,” she says, her voice going soft and trembling.

I smile and tighten my grip on my shaft.

Stroke . . . Stroke . . . Stroke.

“Ahhhhh . . . Mmm—oohhhh,” I pant, imaging her hand doing this to me. “You feel good, sweetheart. So good. Wish I had my laptop in front of me so I could speak to you while I watch the video I took of you being fucked by me—legs spread wider than humanly possible. Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”