The Hacker and his Heart's Desire Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE Prologue Cane

  CHAPTER TWO Tony

  CHAPTER THREE Cane

  CHAPTER FOUR Tony

  CHAPTER FIVE Cane

  CHAPTER SIX Tony

  CHAPTER SEVEN Cane

  CHAPTER EIGHT Tony

  CHAPTER NINE Cane

  CHAPTER TEN Tony

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Cane

  CHAPTER TWELVE Tony

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Cane

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Tony

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Cane

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Tony

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Cane

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Tony

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Cane

  CHAPTER TWENTY Tony

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Cane

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Tony

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Cane

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Tony

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Cane

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Tony

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Cane

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Tony

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Cane

  CHAPTER THIRTY Tony

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Cane

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Tony

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Cane

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Tony

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Cane

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Tony

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Cane

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Epilogue Tony

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Books by Rebecca James

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  The Hacker and his Heart’s Desire

  Copyright © 2019 by Rebecca James

  Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  Cover Artist: Reese Dante

  Edited by: Jenni Lea at Proof Your Love

  Beta read by Jill Wexler

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

  For Donna, who insisted I write

  about a motorcycle club.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Prologue Cane

  Six Months Earlier

  The brightly lit studio had been cleared of all but those who had to be there: Blaze, his business partner, Julianne, the cameramen, and me and Tony.

  “Here’s your chance to show our audience you’re more than just a surly muscle man with a big cock,” Julianne said to me, trying to give the motivation I needed for the porn scene we were about to do. What she didn’t know was I didn’t have to be motivated with Tony; my body knew what it wanted.

  “Get into character. Yes, you want to dominate this guy—turn him over and whack his beautiful ass before fucking him until he passes out. But you also have feelings for him. Deep feelings that confuse you as you touch his willing body.”

  What Julianne didn’t realize was she was giving me carte blanche to touch Tony Sarto the way I wanted to without having to put up the pretense of not giving a shit about him.

  This would be our third time in front of the cameras together. The first had been a promo with just a kiss—nothing I’d expected to be anything special, but I’d been wrong. People talked about chemistry, and I’d have to say I never believed in it until the moment when Tony’s lips touched mine and fire had rushed through me, leaving me scorched and unexpectedly bare.

  Our second time had been after Julianne, intent on pleasing the female audience by getting me and Tony in front of the cameras again, had set up a BDSM scene. I hadn’t thought Tony would agree. I was pretty sure he’d been avoiding me since the last scene, and he’d been pretty negative when Blaze had approached him about doing more. But he’d shown up, and when I’d taken on a Dom persona, the feisty little fucker had surprised me by turning into the perfect sub, sweet, pliant, and oh-so-obedient.

  And because that scene had been interrupted by Blaze’s boyfriend’s sudden freak out, we were about to do it again, only this time Julianne wanted to see emotion.

  I’d been living like a robot for so long, I sometimes forgot I was a man with feelings, intellect, and interests that went beyond the struggle to keep my two lives separate—the one with my motorcycle club, and the other playing toady to my cruel and egotistical cousin Karl. The handsome blond man standing before me was someone who I would’ve liked to have explored something deeper with if it hadn’t been for the fact that anyone who got too close to me automatically drifted into Karl’s orbit, and that meant danger.

  Pretending not to understand Julianne’s instructions, I grunted my way through them until Blaze called “Action.”

  And then everything changed in an instant.

  The bright lights disappeared, the cameras, the people—they were all secondary to what was happening between me and Tony. After that, it was a struggle to remember to occasionally school my expression into something Julianne would have to verbally correct because I was half crazy by the sight of Tony’s round ass and the feel of it giving under the strikes of my palm while the grunts and sighs he emitted filled my ears and brain until I couldn’t hear anything else. I was stiff as a board under the leather pants I wore and only half mindful of the cameramen moving around us.

  And the emotion? Not a problem. I touched Tony’s soft skin with reverence, planted tender kisses along the curve of his spine, breathed words of praise into the shell of his ear. As long as the camera rolled, I was the man who’d wanted to touch and hold Tony Sarto from the moment I’d laid eyes on him. I attributed his perfect responses and the soulful way he looked at me to excellent acting skills. Until later, when I found out differently and my own acting skills were unexpectedly put to the test.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tony

  Over the months I’d been away from the club, I’d grown accustomed to sleepless nights of lying in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling and making patterns from the shadows, stains, or cracks—depending on where I was—until my eyes were sore and heavy with exhaustion that finally set me adrift.

  But Hung—real name Jeovanni, or Jeo for short—obviously preferred to flop around like a fish out of its tank when sleep eluded him.

  “When Ax said you were a shit roommate, I didn’t think this was the reason,” I said into the darkness.

  “Huh?” On the double bed across from my single, Hung pushed himself to a sitting position and swung his long legs over the side. “Didn’t know you were up, T.”

  “Like I could sleep with the noise you’ve been making. What’s going on?”

  Since I’d returned from my sabbatical, Hung had spent most nights out somewhere, most likely fucking somebody—or several somebodies. He’d previously shared this bedroom with Axel, and before I’d left, I’d slept wherever I landed at night—on the couch, on a pallet in the basement, on the back porch, in any empty bed. Before they’d gotten married, Zeke and Morgan had been in and out of the clubhouse, so I never knew when they would need Zeke’s room, and sometimes Skitz got to it first when they weren’t there. While I’d been gone, Cane had taken over that room rather than the tiny extra office in the warehouse where he’d been sleeping. I was glad because it meant he was finally fitting in with the club. It was better he was in the house where everyone else was and not alone in the warehouse.

  Hung was rustling around in the nightstand drawer. Rising to lean on my elbow, I said, “If you’re looking for a condom, no tha
nks.”

  Hung snorted and flicked on the nightlight, a man on a motorcycle that lit up from the inside. It made me smile.

  Tall, Brazilian, and charismatic to the extreme, Jeovanni Mendoza was an odd mixture of tough biker, sensuous Casanova, and unpredictable little kid. He had no trouble getting bed partners when he wanted them, which he often did. He and I had never fallen into that category though. My club brothers were exactly that—brothers. Well, except for Cane. From the start, he’d never quite fit into that mold where I was concerned.

  I watched Hung move about in the glow of the nightlight. He wore only a tight pair of black briefs that accentuated the round globes of his ass as well as the huge package tucked in the front that had earned him his nickname. As he moved across the room, he seemed to exude sensuality.

  The window creaked as he raised it, and I shivered and pulled the bed covers up to my neck.

  “What the fuck, it’s freezing out there. Jeo, close the damn window,” I hissed.

  Ignoring me, Hung sank onto the desk chair, cigarette in hand. His face lit up in the brief glow of the lighter, and when he puffed out smoke, he said, “Hold onto your panties, Granny. I’ll only be a minute.”

  “If lung cancer doesn’t get you, pneumonia will,” I grouched, voice muffled by the blanket now draped over half my face.

  Hung took another drag, staring out the window into the black night.

  “You didn’t answer me before. What’s bugging you?” I asked after a moment watching him. “I hear you’re not working for Hard Time anymore.” I waited a moment in the silence before adding, “And you’ve changed since I’ve been gone.”

  Hung blew smoke out of his nostrils. “I could say the same about you.”

  I frowned. “I haven’t changed.”

  Hung flicked his ashes out the window. A blaring horn from the nearby highway cut the quiet air and a dog started barking down the street, quickly followed by a loud, “Shuddup!”

  “You changed when Cane joined the club,” Hung said. “If he’s done something to you, you need to tell Blaze. You know the bossman’ll kick the fucker out.”

  That weird feeling I got when I thought of Cane and what had precipitated my leaving sideswiped me, and it was a minute before I could speak.

  “He didn’t do anything to me.”

  “Yeah, right, and I got a two-inch dick.”

  I barked out a laugh.

  Hung turned his head and blew his smoke out the window again.

  “I worried about you while you were gone, T.” Hung’s accent was smooth, rich, yet barely there. I imagined it played a huge part in his seduction technique.

  “No need to have worried. Didn’t Blaze tell you I was okay?”

  “He was worried about you too. You didn’t check in enough.” Hung took another drag of his cigarette. “What made you finally come back?”

  I sighed. “Missed you guys.”

  “I’ll beat the shit out of Cane if you want me to.”

  “I told you, he didn’t do anything to me.” Before Hung could say something about his dick size again, I corrected, “What happened wasn’t his fault.”

  “And what happened, exactly? Last I remember, you two did a fucking hot porn scene that had the money rolling in for months. Blaze’s got a big check cut for you.”

  “He gave it to me.” And I’d promptly sent the majority of it to my mother in California.

  Silence hung in the room until a loud pounding on the wall, followed by Blaze’s voice, made me jump. “Hung, are you smoking in there?”

  “Jesus, fuck,” Hung muttered and stubbed out the cigarette on the brick outside before shutting and locking the window. He climbed back into bed. “Can’t smoke, can’t fuck. What the hell can I do?” he said loudly.

  “You can fucking sleep,” Blaze replied from the other side of the wall, and I laughed. There was absolutely no privacy in the clubhouse.

  “Yeah, well the same to ya next time you start rocking the bed into the wall!” Hung called back.

  Smiling, I waited for Blaze’s retort. Instead, there was silence until a long moan from Lake locked my gaze with Hung’s. He shook his head and switched off the nightlight just as the rhythmic creak of bedsprings started up, each punctuated by a loud thump against the wall.

  “Now you’ve done it,” I said, and Hung groaned and covered his head with his pillow.

  At least he’d forgotten his question about me and Cane.

  ****

  The following morning, I sat on the screened-in back porch bundled in my jacket, scarf, and gloves with a mug of hot coffee in my hands. Pepper, a border collie we had adopted from Isaac’s shelter, lay in a shaft of morning sunlight near my feet. I admired the way the dawn light hit the snow, casting streaks of yellow tinged with pink over it. It made me want to get out my canvas and oils, although I rarely painted landscapes. I preferred nudes.

  I sighed. Spring was too far away. Winter was beautiful, but my childhood in California had ruined me for the cold.

  I watched Blaze walk out of the warehouse across the back yard. His new business partner, Julianne, was with him, her burgundy-tinted hair coiled into a tight bun. The two got into Julianne’s car and drove away.

  I’d always felt a little like a misfit among the Hedonists, not being the type of biker the rest of the club members were. Sure, I rode a Harley and wore a leather jacket with the Hedonist patch on the back, but my looks leaned more toward scholarly law student than tough motorcycle rider. I was quiet, innocent looking, and a little bit of a nerd. I’d met Blaze at a road show in Pennsylvania a few years ago when I was traveling around on my used 2010 Dyna Wide Glide looking for a place to settle down. He’d invited me to visit his club in New York City, and not too long after that I’d become a member of the Hedonists. Once I’d gotten to know Blaze, I’d suspected his habit of honing in on the directionless and emotionally needy had been what had led him to me that day.

  When I’d returned from my recent sojourn, I’d been both surprised and touched to find out how much the club had missed me. I’d missed them too, of course, but I hadn’t really thought my absence would be that noticeable.

  I looked up from studying my coffee cup to see Nick, Hard Time’s receptionist and Julianne’s cousin, walking across the lawn. He wore a stylish lavender coat that came to his knees and high black boots, and his dark hair was partially covered by a jaunty lavender tam.

  When he climbed up the steps and onto the back porch, he smiled brightly at me.

  “Good morning! You’re up early.”

  “I could say the same about you,” I said, grinning back. Nick and I had formed a fast friendship before I’d left, and I’d missed him a lot. He was sunny and snarky and brought life to a room when he stepped into it. He and Lake didn’t get along so well, but I suspected that was due to Nick’s tendency to flirt with Blaze. But he was like that with any good-looking man, and he had a boyfriend I didn’t believe he’d cheat on because underneath all the flair, Nick was fiercely loyal.

  “Blaze and Julianne had me working on invoices.” Nick said, taking a seat on the glider chair and tucking his gloved hands between his knees. His nose and cheeks were pink from the chill and made him look younger than his twenty-five years. “I like this time of day. I’m much more industrious now than later in the afternoon, and I needed to get a lot done. I’m about to go on a four-day trip with my daddy.”

  “Yeah? Where to?”

  “Barcelona.”

  “Wow. That’s some trip. Are you an only child?”

  Nick frowned before bursting into laughter. “Not my dad! My Daddy. My boyfriend, Royce.”

  My mouth fell open. “Oh. Sorry, I misunderstood.”

  Nick waved a hand at me. “It’s fine. We have a Daddy/boy relationship. Anyway, he’s taking me to Barcelona with him this weekend.”

  I shook my head, chuckling. “When you said trip, I thought you meant somewhere like the Catskills. Barcelona’s great. I’ve been there a couple of times w
hen we lived in Italy. I was really young though. I’d love to go back.”

  “Royce has a cabin in the Catskills we go to sometimes.” Nick shrugged. “I’m glad you’re back; I missed you.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad to be back.”

  “Really?” Nick’s dark brows rose.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked.

  “I just thought you wanted to be away from…certain people.”

  “Cane didn’t do anything to me,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time since I’d been back.

  Nick let out a derisive puff of air, obviously not believing me.

  I frowned. “Really.”

  “I heard you yelling at him the day you came back. You told him to stay away from you.”

  I sighed. “We just don’t get along. I needed to get out of here for awhile, that’s all.” I’d gotten the feeling that day Cane had been on the verge of apologizing for having driven me away, and I’d known I couldn’t stand another softer version of Thanks for the fuck, but I don’t want you. So I’d lashed out.

  No dummy, Nick gave me a stubborn look. “I know there’s more to it.”

  Amused, I asked, “Do you want me to make something up?”

  Nick lowered his eyes and picked at a thread on his coat. “I just want the truth. I thought we were friends.”

  “We are friends.”

  “Then how come you won’t tell me?” His puppy dog look turned suddenly sly. “I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me yours.”

  I’d told no one—absolutely no one—what had gone on privately between me and Cane. It was too cringingly embarrassing and hurtful to my ego, not to mention my heart. But it might be nice to get it off my chest, and I trusted Nick. No way in hell was I telling Hung—he’d go ape shit on Cane, and this wasn’t Cane’s fault. He’d only been honest with me, even though his delivery could have used improvement.

  I licked my lips. “Okay,” I said.

  Nick’s face lit up. “Really? You trust me with your secret?”

  I nodded. “But you go first.”