Well, that's not what I was expecting, but when I hear my name called from the pick-up counter, I figure that I'm at the right place. The second I grab the order, my phone buzzes with a message from an anonymous number.
I glance up at the camera in my view and flash it a smile before turning back to my phone. The message is written in code just like the first puzzle, but I quickly decipher it and realize that it's sending me to my apartment. With another grin at the security camera, I leave the sandwich shop.
Fiona is waiting by the door when I make it home, the grin on her face making my chest ache with want.
Six years later, and I still want her. Desperately.
“That was quick,” she says, grabbing my tie and yanking me against her. I feel her smile in the kiss, and when she pushes back, her face is radiant. “I thought it would take you at least an hour to solve the first one.”
“Tsk, you underestimate me,lamia flamma,” I rasp, circling my hand around her waist and pulling her in for another kiss. “Still, if you wanted a lunch date so badly, all you had to do was ask. You scared my assistant there for a second.”
“Hmm, I was craving a specific sandwich. Thank you for getting it for me.”
“And what do I get for all my effort?”
“You aren't done yet,” she giggles, tapping my chest playfully before pulling back. “There's one more puzzle for you to solve. It's in the receipt.”
My brows furrow as I take out the receipt and read through the order. I quickly notice that one of the sandwiches has triple the pickles added to the order.
Fiona hates prickles. Except when she's…pregnant, like with Marco.
My eyes widen as they whip back to Fiona. “You're pregnant?”
“Three for three,” she beams, waving a positive pregnancy test at me. “I'll have to make the puzzles harder next time.”
“You're pregnant,” I mutter, dropping the bag as I sweep her in my arms and spin her around. She laughs happily, arms wrapped around me, when I finally put her down.
“Fuck, baby. You know just how to drive a man crazy.”
***
Fiona
I spent a year poking into his steel-hard security system, studying it as one does for an exam without being detected. Quietly peeling the layers one after the other. I did it all so I could one day surprise him by hacking into his system as a prank, but I never thought all that learning was to announce my pregnancy. But then, I saw the test results, and I knew I just had to.
A part of me wishes I could have seen his face when he realized his system had been hacked. But there is no beating the look on his face when he saw what was on the receipt.
“Are you happy?” I ask the man whose ring I've worn for three years. “Marco finally gets to have a sibling.”
Lorenzo slides his hands under me, and I gasp when he hitches my hip, so I wrap my legs around him. “I'm happy every day I get to wake up with you next to me,” he rasps, his mouth brushing mine as he carries me toward our bedroom. “My life changed the day I came across your profile.”
I laugh, recalling the panic I'd felt when I received a message from a stranger pointing out a flaw in my project. Someone else would have taken advantage of that oversight, but somehow, a beautiful friendship bloomed out of it.”Can you believe that the same girl whose encryption keys were hardcoded into the client-side JavaScript is the same one who hacked into Raziel's system?”
His eyes light up wickedly as they always do when I use his hacker name. “Impressed doesn't begin to cover it,” he says, gently laying me down on the bed. He pushes back, and I watch hungrily as he tugs off his tie, those wicked eyes on mine. “I guess I'll have to make some adjustments to the system so that a certain hacker doesn't get in again.”
I pout at that. “At least let me play a little with the system.”
“Next time, let me watch you work?” he says, but I'm done listening, my eyes busy tracking the hands unbuttoning his shirt. “It's so goddamned sexy, watching my pretty wife working to wreck a system I worked so hard to program.”
“Huh?” I whisper, biting my lip when he pops open the button to his pants to reveal the huge bulge pushing against his boxer briefs.
Naked, Lorenzo is a god.
All those rippling muscles painted over with ink. My gaze moves to the tattoo on his rib, the one that betrayed his identity in my brother's kitchen that night. To date, it's still my favorite tattoo on him.
My eyes drop to his hard cock, thick and long, between his muscular thighs. Christ, he's big all over. Just looking at his glistening head, red and slick with pre-cum, makes my pussy ache with need.
“Do you need more time to keep looking?” His voice pulls me back to his face, and I flush when I find a dark brow arched at me.
