curves and coding

  Kat Baxter

  Curves and Coding

  Kat Baxter

  Copyright 2021 by Kat Baxter

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Edited by: Emily Beierle-McKaskle

  Copyeditor: JADE

  Book cover: Sweet ’N Spicy Designs

  https://www.sweetnspicydesigns.com

  With regard to digital publication, be advised that any alteration of font size or spacing by the reader could change the author’s original format.

  Created with Vellum

  contents

  Curves and Coding

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Thank you for reading!

  Excerpt from Curves and Cowboys

  About the author

  curves and coding

  From the author of Real Men Love Curves comes your next sweet and steamy read about co-workers who want each other and the secrets that might keep them apart.

  Code monkey. Programmer. Computer nerd. Hacker. I’ve been called them all. They’re all true. But so is convicted felon. It doesn’t matter that I hacked that system to protect a friend.

  It’s why I can’t have Samantha, despite the fact that I want her more than anything. She’s sweet and funny and her sexy curves keep me up at night.

  But then I kissed her. I couldn’t help myself. One night, it’s all I can give her because I don’t want her to know the truth about who I am.

  Who am I kidding? One night with her will never be enough.

  Curves and Coding is the second book in the new Windsor Securities series. If you love bad boy nerds with filthy mouths and curvy, adorkable heroines, then you’ll LOVE Kat Baxter’s newest release. BUY now or read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited.

  **Author's guarantee: no cheating and HEA.

  chapter one

  Jason

  The office is dark, and I’m all alone, but I prefer it this way. It’s when I get my best work done. I’m the main tech guy for an elite security company so I spend a lot of my time downloading, upgrading and coding. Which means I have access to everyone’s computers.

  I’m currently sitting at the main reception desk and I’ve had to raise the chair to the highest setting because Sam—she’s our receptionist—is pocket-sized. Well, in height. In every way that counts, she’s full and lush and so fucking sexy I have a hard time thinking straight when we’re in the same room.

  The first week she was here, I couldn’t be around her at all because I had a constant hard-on. The number of times I had to lock myself in one of the bathrooms to jerk off was embarrassing. Like I was a goddamn teenage virgin. I haven’t been a virgin in a long damn time. I might not have the same game as a lot of the ex-military dudes I work with. But plenty of pretty girls like nerds.

  Just not Sam. Sam, who liked everyone, who joked and teased and flirted with every guy who walked through the front doors, clammed up and went silent whenever I was around.

  Because that was just my fucking luck.

  It’s already distracting enough sitting here in her chair, surrounded by her intoxicating scent and all of her personal things. The picture of her family, the stack of weird stuffed toys. They’re shaped like beans, but I think they’re supposed to be characters from Star Wars. Tsum-Tsums I think they’re called. For someone as pretty and decidedly not nerdy as she is, she sure has a thing for Star Wars. She even has tiny Kylo Ren and Rey figurines. Don’t even get me started on all her colored pens. The woman is obsessed with pens of varying colors.

  I push my glasses up my nose and focus on my task.

  I login and move through the screens to get where I need to go, but something grabs my attention. I double-click the icon on the file labeled “forbidden.”

  I scan through the first several pages until I realize what I’m reading. This is a story of some sort and I can only assume part of Sam’s secret fantasies.

  The rain pours down around us, but I can’t feel the cold or the dampness. All I feel is the intense arousal that flows through me whenever he’s close to me. He crowds into me, pressing my back to the bricked wall behind me.

  “So you have any idea how much I want you?” his voice is low and growly.

  My core tightens as his deep blue eyes search my face.

  “Fuck, Sidney, I’m hard all the time around you.” His finger drags along the edge of my low-cut sweater. “You wear things like this to tease me, don’t you, baby?”

  “I can stop if it bothers you,” I say. I slide my hands up his hard chest. The rain is pure background at this point and my lips are dying for him to kiss them. My breasts ache for his hands.

  His hand slides along my neck to cup the back of my head, then he’s kissing me. Long and deep and hard. His tongue is magic as it spears into my mouth and slides against my own. I know I’m whimpering. I know I’m rubbing against him like a cat in heat, but I don’t even care. I’ve wanted him for so long and finally—FINALLY—his mouth is on mine.

  I look away from the document and adjust my pants which are noticeably tighter than they were before. I shouldn’t be reading this. It’s her own private intellectual property.

  I’ve heard her talk about the fact that she’s a writer, but I never knew what kind of writing she did.

  My impression of Sam has always been that she’s a good girl. She doesn’t dress provocatively, she’s friendly to everyone, and she’s hilarious. This bit that I read though suggests there might be more going on than I expected.

  I know Sam is too good for me. I’m a reformed convicted hacker, and I’m not gentle in the bedroom. I’m not a romantic guy. I’m not a relationship guy. I’m the stereotypical geeky loner who stays home with his laptop and video games. When I get the urge, I find a willing woman and we’re one and done. She knows what she’s signing up for.

  But Samantha, she’s a forever kind of girl and I have zero things to offer a woman like that. Doesn’t make me not want her though. Doesn’t make me not go home and think of her rocking curves when I’m in bed alone.

  I’m not even a good guy. Case in point, I’m violating her privacy by reading this. Even acknowledging that, I don’t close the document, I read the whole damn thing.

  And a couple days later when I rescue her on the side of the road when her car breaks down…yeah, any good guy could do that without kissing her. That is not how I handled it.

  chapter two

  Samantha

  I’m shutting down my computer for the day and getting ready to leave the office when the front door opens. The owner comes in, tall and broad and ridiculously handsome—as all the men who work here are. He walks with a slight limp because he has a prosthetic leg from the knee down.

  “Hey bossman, I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.”

  It’s then that I see the red-headed bombshell behind him.

  He smiles widely at me and it’s not that Cade isn’t a smiler, but he’s not really a smiler. But that grin is big and effortless and one hundred percent authentic.

  He grabs the woman and pulls her close to him. “I wanted to show Summer the offices and introduce her to everyone.” He kisses the woman’s cheek. “Sugar, this is Sam, she keeps us all in line and makes sure everything runs smoothly.”

  I stand and walk around the desk to shake the woman’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Summer, was it?”

  “Yes, it’s Summer. And the pleasure is all mine.” She glances around the open space that acts as a lobby for Windsor Securities.

  “If you’re on your way out, I don’t want to keep you. Just wanted to show off my girl,” Cade says.

  “I didn’t realize you’d been seeing anyone,” I say.

  “It’s new,” Summer says at the exact same time as Cade says, “it’s forever.”

  Interesting. “Oh hey, how was your brother’s wedding?”

  The couple in front of me crack up and I know I’m missing the joke.

  “It’s a story for another day.”

  “Sounds like it.” I watch from my desk at reception as Cade shows Summer around making introductions.

  I feel a spike of longing as I watch them interact, not because I have a crush on Cade or anything like that, but they are so obviously crazy about one another. I can’t imagine they’ve been together long—because surely he would have mentioned a girl before now. Plus, his entire demeanor is different.

  Still, this is the stuff of romance novels. It’s the kind of love I write about. The kind of love I dream about for myself—when I let myself dream about that kind of thing.

  Of their own volition, my eyes scan the bull pen of desks to land on the familiar chiseled jaw and tousled brown hair of Jason Murphey.

  He’s standing by his desk, shaking hands with Summer. Those sex-god, pouty lips of his tugging into a rare genuine smil e as he chats with her.

  I say rare, because Jason isn’t much of a smiler. Or much of a chatter, for that matter. If you’re lucky, you can get a smirk out of him and a sarcastic comment. If you’re me, you get a scowl and an annoyed grumble. And that’s on a good day. On an average day, I get glazed dead-eyes that look right past me and stony silence.

  Hey, I get it.

  He’s smart.

  Like, crazy smart. Scary smart.

  In an office full of pretty smart guys (all ex-military except for Jason), he’s a computer hacker who puts us all to shame. He was top of his class at MIT for God’s sake before he dropped out for mysterious reasons.

  And then there’s me. The lowly receptionist.

  I don’t mind being the lowly receptionist. Most people at Windsor Security are great. No one treats me like shit because I’ve never served my country. Almost no one rolls their eyes at my (largely unused) degree in psychology. Mostly I answer the phones and greet any clients who might happen to visit our fourth floor offices. I keep the Keurig well-stocked and make small talk with the clients.

  That’s enough for everyone in the office. Well, nearly everyone.

  Mostly, I love that this job keeps my brain empty and stays here when I leave. Allowing me plenty of time to write in the evenings and weekends.

  And if that’s not good enough for a certain brilliant programmer? … Well, he can bite me.

  It’s just that I can’t stop wishing … well, that he would actually bite me.

  Somewhere interesting, like the inside of my thigh. Or maybe my ass cheek.

  Great.

  And now, I’m flushed (and probably splotchy) and my pants are definitely wet.

  Because the list of things I wish that man would do to me is long and detailed and more X-rated than the books I write.

  Okay, as X-rated.

  Since Jason either doesn’t know I exist or doesn’t like me, the whole perennially damp panties situation is a little out of control. And, yes, I know. It’s very unlikely that he doesn’t know I exist when I’ve worked here for nearly year. I know.

  But it’s easier to pretend that’s a possibility than to face the fact that my dream guy thinks I’m a useless airhead.

  Don’t judge me.

  You can leave that to me, because trust me when I tell you I am not proud of how obsessed I am with Jason.

  Who will never in a million years look at me the way Cade is currently looking at Summer.

  Before I dissolve into a puddle of self-indulgent goo, I look down and realize that it’s time for me to head out.

  I call out a general goodbye, ignoring the stab of pain when Jason meets my gaze for an instant, his scowl deepening before he looks away. I grab my bag off the floor. “Well, I’ll see y’all later.”

  “Hey Sam, be careful out there. It’s really started to rain,” Cade says.

  I walk back to my desk and grab my umbrella. “Thanks for the warning.”

  Twenty minutes later I’m sitting on the side of the road in a downpour and the front passenger side tire is a mangled mess. At least, I assume it is. I’d known for a while I needed new tires, but I’d been putting it off.

  As soon as my car hit the mid-forties, I’d heard a loud pop, whooosh, flunk, flunk, flunk. I knew instantly it was blowout because … well, hello? … writers research everything and Kate Wallace, the heroine in my first book had a blowout. It’s why she didn’t catch the bad guy until the third act.

  My phone isn’t getting a signal for some mysterious reason and my stomach is growling. I wrote during my lunch break and munched on nuts and cheese instead of having a full meal. Basically, I have three choices. I could drive home on the flat tire and probably ruin my wheel. I could change it myself (Hey, I have mad skills.), but it’s raining and I don’t wanna. Or I can walk back to the office, which is only a five-minute drive away, but probably at least twenty minutes on foot. In the rain.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t hate today anymore, a car slows behind me.

  Great. And now I will be murdered by a serial killer. This isn’t even the most dangerous highway in Texas for serial killers! That’s Interstate 45. Where Kate eventually got cornered by the killer and then rescued by the hero.

  I’m already mentally preparing myself to fight off a serial killer with what I have in the car when I realize it’s Jason. Despite that, I jump when he knocks on my window. Of course my power window doesn’t work so I crack my door open.

  “You okay?” he asks in that growly voice I find so irresistible.

  The rain has slowed some, but it’s still pelting down on him. He’s got droplets on his glasses and his tightly cropped beard is as damp as is his short brown hair.

  Sweet baby Jesus, how does he look even hotter wet than he does dry?

  I nod in answer to his question. Then quickly shake my head when his scowl deepens, because—duh!—obviously I am not okay.

  “Need a ride somewhere?”

  “Yes!” I grab my stuff, open my door and keys, then step outside. “That would be great, thank you.”

  He puts his hand at the small of my back and guides me over to his passenger seat. I try not to shiver or melt into goo or otherwise embarrass myself. Not entirely sure I’m successful. After all, this is the first time he’s actually touched me and I feel the heat of his hand through my rapidly dampening dress.

  He drives a nice car. It’s sleek and black and no doubt has fancy leather seats. He opens the door for me, but I hesitate to get in.

  I’m about to ask for a towel or something to sit on, but I make the mistake of looking up at his face and he’s staring at me intently. My sister told me once she thought Jason was in love with me, but I’m sure she’s crazy. Still, in this moment, Jason is rocking the sexy nerd thing. Glasses, plain conservative clothes, except on Friday’s when he wears those jeans that make his ass look like a national treasure and those geeky shirts that make me laugh.

  Something in his expression changes and suddenly he steps closer to me.

  There’s a moment I’m sure he’s going to kiss me. So sure. I even bob up on my toes a little.

  But instead he leans down and says, a little loudly to be heard over the rain, “Are you gonna get in?”

  “I—” Oh, shit. I drop back on my heels. Great. Now I look like an idiot. “Do you have a towel or something? I don’t want to ruin your seats.”

  He cocks an eyebrow in the direction of the open door and I realize the rain has been getting in while I stood here.

  “Just get in,” he mutters.

  I scramble in, wincing at the water and mud I bring in on my feet, wishing I had some hard surface to bang my head on.

  Of course he wasn’t going to kiss me! It’s raining and we’re standing on the side of the road. Oh, and he hates me and thinks I’m an idiot.

  Besides which, it’s not like he knows I’ve had this fantasy of being kissed in the rain on repeat since that one Spiderman movie. Or that in my fantasy he’s my Spiderman.

  “Where to?” he asks, his voice deep and husky.

  I rattle off my address and he nods, types into the GPS in his dash, checks his mirrors, then pulls out into traffic.

  “Thanks for rescuing me,” I say.

  “Anytime,” he grumbles and I can feel the annoyance radiating off him.

  Ignore it! I tell myself.

  So what? He doesn’t like me. It’s not a big deal. Not everyone has to like me. Still …

  “I really appreciate it.”

  He gives me that look. The one that implies he thinks I’m an idiot.

  Which I can ignore. He’s just giving me a ride home. It doesn’t matter if he glares at me. I can totally let this go.

  Except I don’t. Because I’m me.

  “I'm just saying, I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” he says, as if every word is made of shards of glass and speaking to me actually hurts him.

 

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