Page 5 of His Captor

“Unless you blindfold me when you grab me and keep me blinded the whole time,” I replied in a low, seductive voice.

Ace just laughed, low, menacing, and tempting.

Then he ended the call without saying goodbye.

I blew out a breath and tipped my head back against the seat, grinning up at the cab’s ceiling. This was going to be the best vacation ever.

CHAPTER TWO

Mason

Iended my call with Billy and leaned back in my office chair with a grin. I had a good feeling about this new omega playmate. He seemed cheeky and open and willing to try things. I loved that.

Well, a lot of that I’d gotten from Billy’s profile on the Dark Fantasies Club app. The omega had some great reviews from past playmates as well. And the pictures he’d included in his profile were beautiful. Unlike a lot of other omegas looking for thrills, Billy hadn’t posted any pornographic pics of himself, just hot, tasteful snaps that left a lot to the imagination in all the right ways.

A lot of the omegas who used the Dark Fantasies Club app were just after cheap thrills and no-strings sex. Billy seemed clever and up for more, which was exactly what I needed in an omega playmate. I’d fitted out my second apartment with prototypes of several of the new security devices I’d been developing for Horizon Tech in the last few months, and I wasdying to test them out on someone who might just be smart enough to find the chinks in the armor.

Or maybe the kinks in the armor, if the vibe I got from Billy was true.

I sighed and smiled out my office window at the high-rise across the street, looking, but not really seeing it. My mind was already spinning with ideas for how to snatch Billy, how to transport him to the apartment, and how to lead him into testing equipment that he shouldn’t know existed. Everything in my play apartment was one hundred percent classified. So much so that not even my business partner, Colin, knew about some of it.

Of course, that was the problem.

I lost my smile and sat forward again to finish the code I’d been typing on my laptop before Billy’s call had come through. The thermal imaging camera I’d been working on wouldn’t develop itself. The design I’d been incubating for the last several months would be sharper and more sensitive than any other infrared cameras currently on the market. It would be able to pick up a cough by the heat of the droplets coming from someone’s lungs.

I’d already had nibbles from three major corporations who were interested in manufacturing and marketing the equipment, not to mention the military. The cameras were only the beginning of the integrated security system I’d been working on for years now. If I was able to bring my vision fully to life, I’d have something to offer the world that would provide an unprecedented level of safety and security for even the most vulnerable targets.

Which was why Colin was a problem.

Speaking of….

Colin knocked on my office door, then let himself in without waiting for me to invite him. I immediately closed my laptop.

“I’ve got good news for you,” Colin said with a smile that felt more like greed than joy.

I fought not to sigh and rub a hand over my face. “Does this have anything to do with the offer from Victory Holdings that I’ve told you a dozen times we’ll be refusing?”

Colin’s exuberance turned into peevishness like someone turning off a light.

“I don’t know why you have such a problem with money,” he said, moving toward one of the chairs in front of my desk, still without me having given him permission to intrude. “Victory is offering enough of it for both of us to sell Horizon Tech and retire to our own private islands.”

“Victory is also known to be connected to some very shady people,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.

“Everyone and everything is connected to some very shady people,” Colin said, trying to mirror my position. It wasn’t going to happen, though. Colin was a beta, and even though he was large for a beta, he didn’t have my naturally powerful, alpha physique.

A point which clearly bothered him.

“You’re not seeing the bigger picture here,” he went on, frowning. “Victory Holdings is just like any other company. I know you have these weird…weirdmoralsabout your designs, but you can never know where the things you invent are going to end up. We could sell the designs and prototypes to Little Mary Sunshine’s Bunny Farm and they might still end up in the hands of right-wing terrorists somewhere.”

“Mmm hmm.” I gave away nothing about my thoughts on the matter, either through those hummed syllables or through my expression.

“Victory is offering us millions of dollars, Mace. Tens of…maybe hundreds of millions of dollars,” Collin went on, saying way more than he needed to or should have without me havingto poke at all. “No one else, especially not the government, is going to offer us anything like that. But Victory’s offer comes with a time limit.”

A time limit that I was certain was designed to get Horizon Tech to leap before looking.

“You can’t just sit there and let opportunities like this pass you by,” Colin pressed on, still talking.

That was Colin’s major problem. Discretion and secrecy were necessary in research and development of any sort, whether it was security systems or weapons or baked goods. There was always some one else out there waiting to snatch ideas right out from under you.

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