Sheltering His Desire (10 page)

She draped her arms around his neck, and
pressed her entire frame to his. Her nipples dragged over his
chest, teasing him through fabric. “You’re welcome to use it now,
if you want.”

He cupped her ass, holding her as close as
possible. “I don’t have any clothes here.”

“No one said you had to get dressed
after.”

A voice whispered in the back of his head
that he was playing with fire. That this was crossing a line he
needed to steer far clear of. His raging desire for another chance
at the woman in front of him drowned it out. “You make a good
argument. I think I’m going to take you up on that.”

She brushed her lips over his. “Towels are in
the closet, I’ll be in the bedroom.”

Tate was surprised he had any restraint left,
as he stripped down in her bathroom. He couldn’t stop fantasizing
about spending the entire day in bed with Lys. Tasting every inch
of her, finding out how loud he could make her scream if she wasn’t
worried about someone hearing her. His dick stood at attention. He
was as bad as a teenager with an inconvenient boner.

He stepped into the shower. Hot water sluiced
over him, and he grabbed the body wash. Now he was going to smell
Lys on his skin all day. Did he really mind that much? His cock
jerked when he gripped it, hand soapy. A low groan escaped his
throat. He leaned his head back, eyes closed, and focused on the
sensation. Memories danced in his head as he stroked. Lys squirming
against him. Her lips wrapped around him the other night. How tight
she was when he buried himself inside her.

His balls tightened, and he bit the inside of
his cheek until a sharp pain echoed back in protest. It ached to
let go, but he forced himself to stop before he came. He definitely
wanted to save that until he had her company.

He finished the rest of his shower quickly,
dried off, and wrapped a towel around his waist.

There was a knock on the door so soft, he
almost wasn’t sure he heard it. He toed it open, to find Lys on the
other side. Disappointment tried to nudge its way in when he saw
she’d dressed. He pushed it aside and summoned a smile. “Hey,
gorgeous. Couldn’t wait?”

She grimaced, shook her head, and held up her
hand. She was holding her phone. “It’s for you,” she said.

Shit. That couldn’t be good. “Hello.” Tate
kept his tone chipper.

“Gorgeous, really?” Jared’s irritation rolled
over him. “Couldn’t wait for what?”

Double shit. “Breakfast. We were going out to
celebrate that her site went live last night.” The lie tasted
fouler than Tate expected. As if he should be bothered he had to
hide what he was doing. Ridiculous. This wasn’t anyone’s business
but his and Lys’s.

“Which is why your phone’s off.” The edge in
Jared’s tone grew sharper.

Alyssia perched on the edge of her bed, eyes
wide, watching Tate.

“I left it in the car, forgot to charge it,
it’s probably dead.” Which, when Tate thought about it might be
pretty close to the truth. When was the last time he’d seen his
phone? Last night sounded about right.

“You just let it die?”

“Yes. Not all of us treat our electronics
like additional limbs.” Tate gritted his teeth. Cold air swept over
him, and he shivered. Right, he was still in a towel. Though at
least he wasn’t as hard as he’d been a few minutes ago. “You called
for a reason. And it wasn’t to get pissy because I complimented
your sister.” Lys raised her eyebrows, and Tate shrugged. “Why did
you call her looking for me?”

“I called her because we’re getting a hold of
everyone impacted. All of your crowdfunding sites are running slow,
and since you’re renting my rack space, I’m an emergency
contact.”

Fuck. “Let me get home. I’ll call you back.”
Tate disconnected, and tossed Alyssia’s phone on her mattress. He
raked his fingers through his hair. So much for a morning with no
distractions.

Alyssia didn’t know if she was better off or
not, only hearing Tate’s half the conversation. Her attention
drifted between Tate in just a towel, standing in her bedroom
doorway, and what he was saying.

He snarled when he tossed her phone back.

So much for extending last night’s play time
into today. “Bad news?”

“Seems that way. Something’s wrong with the
crowd-funding sites. I don’t have details yet.” He raked his gaze
over her, exhaled slowly, cheeks puffing and then deflating. “I
have to get home. I really wouldn’t if I had a choice.”

Concern rolled over her disappointment. “My
site?”

“All of them. Jared just said running slow.
But it was bad enough someone called every emergency number until
they got him. I’m sorry, but duty calls.”

“If you’re working on my stuff, I want to be
in on it. Stay here.”

“I get the feeling this is a more global
thing.” His towel slipped lower on his hips, and she couldn’t keep
her gaze from drifting. The corners of his mouth twitched. “I need
to get dressed.”

She really didn’t want that, but she could
compromise. “I guess.” She kept the teasing in her tone. “But do
the work here if you can. You’ve got to remote into the office even
if you go home.” It wasn’t because she hated to see him leave. Not
even close. The clench in her gut was completely and totally
because the future of her shelter depended on her site working.
“I’ll grab your phone. Is it really in the car?”

“Probably.” He gave her a half smile.
“Thanks.”

By the time she got back, just a moment or
two later, he was already logging into a remote computer. She
plugged in his phone and set it on the desk next to him. When he
grabbed her wrist, a shock raced over her, sending her earlier
desires tumbling through her body.

He spun in the chair, tugged her between his
legs, and rested his hands on her hips. “The moment’s not ruined,
just delayed.” With each word, his breath caressed her stomach
through her shirt.

She wanted to close her eyes and sink into
the moment. Drop onto his lap, and see what they could get up to.
That he needed to focus was only one of several reasons that was a
bad idea. She stepped out of his grasp before temptation won out.
“Jared’s waiting for you to call him back.”

Disappointment splashed onto Tate’s face
before vanishing just as quickly, and he turned back to her
computer. “Yes, ma’am.” He fiddled with his phone.

Seconds later, Jared’s voice filtered through
the speaker. “What did you do, punch it to ninety to get home so
fast?”

“Decided I was too impatient. I’m staying
here. What’s up?”

****

Tate forced himself to concentrate on the
conversation, and not the lingering scent of lilacs that still
teased him.

Jared launched into an explanation. “Someone
has tweaked your server configuration so you don’t have any
bandwidth. Mikki is working on it. Second, we had trolls in the
comments. Most of them on the shelter’s site, but because of the
brand, it bled into the other sites as well. We had to shut down
comments.”

“Mikki’s not in my budget.” Tate had tried to
snag her, but V held onto her top talent.

“Consider it a personal favor.” Some of the
irritation faded from Jared’s voice. “They’re Skriddie services,
she’s Skriddie operations, so we’re blurring the line.”

Tate smiled, despite the situation. It was
nice to have good friends. He needed to make a call on what to do
next.

“What kind of comments?” Alyssia asked.

It had been a controversial decision to add
comments to the campaigns, but these were meant to be social
platforms to show support for the small businesses using them.
Letting people interact was meant to show that, knowing they had
filters in place on each site, and their assigned community
managers kept an eye on what was being said.

“Nothing.” Jared’s response came too quickly.
“Explain again why you’re at her place, Tate?”

Tate rolled his eyes at the screen, glad no
one was watching. “Are we talking a dozen comments? A hundred?”

“Thousands. They’re hidden, but not gone from
the back end.”

Tate suppressed a roar of frustration. He
dialed into the database server. “I’m guessing we can delete them
all.” Next, he loaded an admin window, and clicked into the
comments. He tried not to read the details.

I could never support a shelter that kidnaps
people’s dogs and refuses to give them back.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

You should all rot in hell, you sick,
puppy-killing fucks.

His gut sank with each new note. So much for
the issue with Thompson dying quickly and quietly.

“Oh, God.” Lys’s soft voice dragged his
attention from the vitriol. He whirled in his chair to find her
leaned against the far wall, raking her fingers through her hair.
“This is bad. It’s so, so bad. What am I going to do?”

He was on his feet in an instant. He closed
the distance between them and rested his hands on her shoulders.
“Look at me. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. We’ll fix it.”

“Right now, I’m having a hard time believing
that.” Her voice cracked.

“Fuck. We have another problem.” Jared’s
voice sounded tinny coming from the phone.

Tate glanced over his shoulder at the
computer, then back at Lys.

“Take care of it.” Resignation hung heavy in
her voice.

He kept his voice low. “I’m worried about
you. It will wait a minute.”

She dragged in a shuddering breath, and broke
free of his grasp. “I’m fine.” The emotion vanished from her
voice.

“Tate.” Irritation swelled in Jared’s
voice.

“Go.”

A string of foul words spilled through Tate’s
head as he sat back in the desk chair. “What?” He couldn’t help the
occasional glance over his shoulder, at Lys pacing, and tugging at
her hair.

“Mikki’s doing work on the structure. She
says someone’s been making manual donation entries in the database.
She’s only found the one in here so far, but since it’s wasn’t
added by the software, she’s concerned there are more hiding out,
and it’s for a couple hundred dollars. Your development team
followed security protocols, right?”

Tate risked one last glance at Alyssia, who
had paused, and was watching him, brows knitted together. He didn’t
want her to hear this. How did they even find that? “Yes, and it’s
fine.”

“It’s not fine. It’s—”

“It’s not an issue.” Tate barked. “I know
exactly what it is. It’s not a security breach.” Please don’t let
him push the matter. Not with Lys listening. Now wasn’t when he
wanted to explain he’d slipped the manual donation in last night
when he’d worked on her site.

“If you say so.”

“Positive. Focus on the actual problems.”
Tate looked behind him again, but the room was empty. An invisible
grip tightened around his chest. Nothing to get worked up over. “I
thought you plugged all your security holes. Where’s this coming
from?” The dig wasn’t fair, but Tate’s frustration wouldn’t let him
hold it back. Between Jared and Mikki, they’d accounted for so many
technical security holes they could fill volumes with the work
they’d done. Still, someone had managed to bypass security.

“We did plug the holes. Someone’s been
screwing with your settings.” Jared spilled off a list of
details.

Right, the technical stuff. They’d done
triage, it was time to step back and fix things more completely.
Tate let his thoughts trip through a list of next steps. “I’ll get
a hold of someone to help with client and user-facing messages.
We’ll paint a pretty picture. Back in ten.”

It was a good excuse to hang up and go check
on Lys. Despite his tension, relief tickled his senses when he
found her. She was in her bedroom, still completely dressed. Except
she’d curled up on top of her comforter and fallen asleep. She
snored softly.

Of course. She’d been up all night. He
brushed her hair off her face, and the impulse to lean in and kiss
her on the cheek raced through him. He banished the desire. That
wasn’t a casual gesture. It definitely fell outside either facet of
their relationship.

After one last, ambivalent gaze in her
direction, he pulled a blanket over her, and headed back into her
office. He closed both doors, so he wouldn’t disturb her.

He made a few calls, found someone on the
Skriddie marketing team who didn’t mind putting in the extra
time—especially with the promise of compensation—and called Jared
back. The morning melted into afternoon as they worked through
configurations, strategies, handed out assignments, and monitored
timelines that only had minutes of leeway depending on the
task.

A hand rested on Tate’s arm, and he
jumped.

“Sorry.” Lys’s voice was soft enough only he
would hear, despite the speakerphone. She set a plastic bag on the
desk next to him, Chinese takeout boxes peeked out at him. The
heavy scents of citrus, spice, and grease hit him, and his stomach
growled in response. Maybe he should have eaten earlier. “I thought
you might be hungry.”

He put the phone on mute—they were in a lull
anyway—and whirled in the chair to face her. “I didn’t hear you get
up.”

“Then you didn’t hear me go out, either. I
snagged your keys so I could get into your apartment.” She held up
a second bag, and he realized it had clothes in it. His clothes.
She shrugged, playful smile dancing on her face. “Wishful
thinking.”

The desire he’d squelched earlier rushed
back. He stood, tangled his fingers in her hair, and crushed his
mouth to hers. She whimpered against his lips and dug her fingers
into his shoulders. His pulse roared in his veins, mingling with
the desire to press her against the wall and strip her down. He
subdued most of the response. “Thank you.”

Pink dotted her cheeks. “How’s it going?”

“Good. Getting it under control.” He traced
his thumb over the back of her neck, and twisted a strand of hair
around one finger. “Still got a few more hours, though.”