Page 52 of To Catch A Rook

He hadn’t known who I was the last time I let him rail me in the gym shower. He still didn’t, if Jediah’s little criminal club party was any indication. I knew how to seduce a man as well as I could seduce any woman, and Kellan hadn’t been hard pickings that day.

I couldalways tell when an Alpha male needed to let out a little frustration. They walked around like a Neanderthal, brows crunched together and bulky shoulders all tense and hard. Like they wanted to smash something. More like they needed to smashsomeone.

A little well-placed positioning, a few well-timed glances, and if there was interest, I could shag a shower mate in less than fifteen minutes.

It was hard to be me, really. It was a sacrifice to offer my body to men and women to be fondled and sucked and fucked dry. Someone throw me a right old pity party later.

Kellan wasn’t a mark—not officially, at any rate—but I wanted him close. For my plan with Alvarez to work, I needed one of his kind in my back pocket. What could be closer than a man you let fuck you in a public loo?

He wasn’t the type of man I could find on the fuck-n-chuckGrinder. I had scoped out his gym and got a membership. I bet on timing and chance and did a bit of research. If he hadn’t been into men, I would have befriended ol’ Kell-Bell and caught him in my net that way.

‘Lucky’ for me—I loved my new little nickname—he wasverymuch into men. Or his dick was a sensational liar.

Two sexy projects I had on the go. If I had time before all the pieces were in play, I’d see what I could do to bring the three of us together.

I finished my workout and casually searched the bench area before heading back to the showers alone. I could have used another feisty shag today, but I’d made my point.

Kellan was clearly a Dom, and there was nothing a Dom enjoyed more than bringing a brat to their knees. I could be a brat to get his pants down; through that, I’d get his guard down too.

I’d take that pity party now.

Three weeks working for Alvarez was the typical snooze fest that came with working in tech. The team of software engineers and developers I managed were the stereotypical lot of socially awkward geniuses who’d spent all of ten minutes in a pub.

Hard to have them develop a hook-up app when I was sure most of them had never touched a real dickybird.

It wasn’t a problem, really. I’d design the app in my sleep and give my crackpot team the credit. It was a simple premise and an easy interface. It just needed to be designed by someone who actually understood human behavior.

I was the man for that job.

I wasn’t here to make Marco Alvarez another billion dollars. Quite the opposite, if I could get into the system I needed. That was therealjob.

I stood from the cubicle in my team’s ‘bull pen’—Americans had some of the craziest names for things—and stretched my arms over my head, done with this façade of a day.

Marco offered me an office, but I didn’t need some pretentious setup to make myself feel important on what was already a farce of a job.

I worked beside my team when I needed to show up at all, and pried as best I could in a group of people who didn’t talk. It was incredible how thirty euros worth of pizza and a case of watery beer could open up a crowd better than any crock of ‘team-bonding.’

“Gertie,” I called out as walked down the hall toward her desk. “What do you say we go for dinner tonight?”

My cute little administrator giggled sheepishly. I’d learned she was quite the powerhouse of her own, knowing all the ins and outs of the Alvarez empire like nobody’s business. She struggled with outright attention, so I lavished her with it, determined to bring that little blush to her cheeks every day.

“Mr. O’Donnell,” she sputtered, to my amusement, “I told you I like women, right? I don’t think I’m the kind of company you’re looking for.”

“Even better!” I chirped enthusiastically, flashing her a wide smile. “We can observe all the beautiful things in life together over tacos and go home with no expectations.”

At her relieved smile, I shot off a cheeky wink. “I’m an excellent wingman, too, if something pretty catches your eye.”

Another delightful sputter and cough. “I’ll keep that in mind. I love tacos, though.”

“Great!” I pulled her coat off the rack behind her desk and nodded toward her computer monitor, catching a quick glimpse of the files there. “We’ve both been here long enough.” I held out her coat in offering. “Join me?”

Gertie’s chagrin turned into a soft smile. “You’re quite the charmer, you know that?”

She shut down her computer with the company passcode and I managed to get the first four digits of five. She shrugged on her coat as we walked down the stairs and out toward the street.

Our building was smack dab in the middle of downtown Carlisle. Ma’s condo was only a few blocks from here, and Hillary’s building was just down the street. I liked the proximity here—nothing like Dublin’s streetscape.

We walked down to the Mexican restaurant at the other end of the row. Gertie chatted her little head off about growing up in Indiana and I filled in the space where I could. It was easy to let her talk—the more she talked, the more comfortable she’d be with telling me anything.

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