Page 30 of Sex, Lies, & Techy Guys (Love on the Sunshine Coast)

CHAPTER 14

lance

The ark-worthy thunderstorm hasn’t let up, but with our heads buried in the dark web, our only concern is that the power doesn’t go out.

The ever-changing glorious aromas coming from the kitchen keep us aware that Penny is hellbent on torturing us.

One of the times I left the office, she was lounging on the couch, on the phone with her designer friend, Mila. Penny’s nervous about her appointment tomorrow, but she quickly shifts to talking about how Kyle and I work such long hours. Did she not want me to hear her concerns? It pains me that she would turn to someone other than us for comfort.

I make a deliberate show of looking at her wall clock. Seven o’clock already. Time to call it a night.

Running a warm bath and loading it with lavender bath salts I find on the counter, I set a timer for thirty minutes and tell Penny to relax in the tub until the timer goes off. I kiss the top of her head and add that she better be ready for our full attention when it does.

Kyle and I will have done our best to tie Penelope Fournier to the crime. Our dark web connections have been exhausted. The people we’ve trusted to look at the odd dead ends are as perplexed as we are. No one on the dark web knows her, which probably means she has an alias, as we all do when we dabble in illegalities.

But the more we’ve dug into this, the more we’re convinced she’s not guilty. The evidence is what it is, but when a billionaire is pissed off, his ability to pad a judge’s pockets might mean a preponderance of evidence isn’t necessary for a conviction. Which means the evidence we’ve provided could be interpreted unscrupulously.

I let Kyle know about the timer and he agrees. We double check the ferry schedule for the morning and hope the storm won’t mess it up, for the sake of our meeting or Penny’s.

Seconds before the timer should be going off, we send our final report to the lawyer.

A heavy stone sits in my gut as I stare at the thumb drive. If someone wanted to, they could twist the evidence we found. That’s partly why we’ve written a full report that we believe Miss Fournier’s account was merely used in commission of the crime as a red herring. The good and the bad news about the digital world is that anyone can hide or be anyone they want to be at any moment. Our adventures on the dark web prove that.

No one would talk to us if they knew which side of the law we’re on. And that Kyle aka Deep Precision and I aka Loose Ends had made a pact years ago to protect people. But we’ve done all that we can on this job and feel confident in our assessment.

Penny’s uneasy after her bath and slips a t-shirt and panties on. “I’m heading to bed.”

I cup my hand behind her head and kiss her forehead. “It’s okay, babe. We don’t have to have sex every night. If you’re not in the mood, that’s fine.”

“Thanks for understanding.” She ducks away and retreats to the bedroom.

I’m right behind her. “Do you want to talk about the meeting you have tomorrow?”

“No. It’s stupid stuff leftover from my ex. I’m not dragging you into that mess. You’ve already fixed enough for me.”

“How about I give you a massage?”

“How about two massages?” Kyle adds.

“Is that even possible?”

“You’re going to be the lucky one who gets to find out.”

I had no doubt we could arrange ourselves to both massage her, but what I hadn’t thought about was how hard it would be to touch her body for so long. My erection throbs and Kyle’s not in any better shape as we stealthily slide off the mattress when she’s sound asleep.

We grab the sides of the sheet and pull it over her while we head to different bathrooms. My hand is a terrible substitute for Penny, but after rubbing her soft skin, watching my fingers work her pale flesh, and ignoring the fact that the lavender did nothing to cover the intoxicating scent of her sex, if I don’t jack off soon, I’m going to have the worst case of blue balls ever.

I need a clear head going into the brief but important meeting in the morning.

When the sun peeks through the windows, I confess to losing the battle to sleep. The thing about compiling evidence is that the evidence is factual. It’s what someone chooses to do with it and the assumptions they make that can bias it.

We provided all of the facts we could find, based on what we were hired to do. The problem is that they don’t add up. My conscience attempted to deal with that all night.

I head to the kitchen and start fumbling around to make breakfast. Kyle picked stuff up yesterday and I want to give her another morning off. The storm rages on or I would have gone out and picked something up, but I’m plenty capable of cooking.

She’s grateful that I made sausage and muffins but is otherwise quiet. Respecting her space is harder than I would have imagined. We try to figure out if we can carpool and drop her off at her meeting so we only have to take one car on the ferry to Vancouver but she insists on driving herself. Are we overstepping? Crowding her?

At least Penny’s car is in the garage so she can stay dry before her meeting. She’s been flustered enough as it is.

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