Roni Loren - Loving You Easy

A man with Greek-god arms stepped into the hallway. His face was hidden by the stack of boxes he was carrying, but there was no missing the size of the guy when he turned his back to them and started down the hallway.

Oh my. Cora couldn’t help but take in the view. As tall as Ren, if not taller, with Atlas shoulders and an ass that did things to the worn pair of jeans that were bordering on obscene. He bent over to set down the boxes at the end of the hallway, and she had to bite her lip to keep from groaning aloud.

Ren made a sound under his breath.

She quickly turned her head. “What?”

He gave a smug smile as they continued walking. “Nothing.”

Shit. Had she made some sort of noise? She hoped to hell she hadn’t.

“Hey, Fox,” Ren called out when they got within a few steps of the man.

“Yeah?” The guy straightened the boxes so that they wouldn’t tip over and turned their way, his gaze landing first on Ren and then sliding to Cora.

The front view was even better than the back. Green eyes, gold-brown hair that would probably be curly if grown out, and a stubbled jaw that should’ve made him look harsh but only fired up her long-standing Indiana Jones fantasies. He looked like he should be chasing bad guys through the jungle instead of in some tech office.

Cora smoothed a hair away from her face and tried for a polite smile, but she wasn’t sure the expression made it all the way there. And he didn’t return any warmth if it did. If anything he looked wary.

Ren nodded toward her. “I wanted to introduce you to Cora Benning. I’ve just hired her to fix some security issues in one of the games. She’ll start Monday.”

Fox frowned. “Security issues?”

“Yeah. I’ll go over it with you in a few minutes. I’m just walking Cora out to take care of details with HR.”

Fox put his hand out. “Hayes Fox.”

His voice was a rumble, that growing thunder right before a storm reached you. She took the offered hand, and the minute his fingers wrapped around hers in a firm hold, all intelligent thought emptied from her brain.

Ren clapped Hayes on the shoulder. “Hayes is the co-owner and our CFO. He’s been working remotely as of late, but he’s moving back into his office today. So you’ll be seeing him around.”

Hayes was unapologetically holding her gaze, evaluating her, reading her. She didn’t know if she was passing whatever test he was giving her, but she couldn’t seem to look away. Or act like a normal human being. Use your words, Cora. She swallowed past the knot in her throat and pushed down the ridiculous reaction. “Nice to meet you.”

His eyes narrowed for a second, like he’d noticed some chink in her armor, and she shifted uncomfortably in her Converse, but then he released her hand. “Well, I’ve got to get the rest of this stuff out of the office. I’ll leave you to it.”

He stepped past them without waiting for a response. She couldn’t help but turn to watch him go. When he was out of sight, she let out a nervous laugh. “Well, that went great.”

Ren gave a dismissive shrug. “Nah, don’t worry. That was Fox’s version of a warm welcome. You’re good. Come on.”

Cora followed him down the hallway, but when she peered back one last time, she saw Hayes leaning against his doorjamb—watching them with a deep frown.

That same odd, crackling awareness moved over her. Danger. She turned forward and rubbed the goose bumps from her arms.

Maybe she should’ve stuck with helping out at Marv’s Auto Parts.

Hayes stood in the doorway of Ren’s office, two cups of fresh coffee in his hands. The windows were dark at this hour, and Ren had his back to him as he sat in front of his triumvirate of monitors. His hand gripped the back of his head and his legs were splayed out in front of him like he’d just run a marathon and collapsed in the chair.

“That bad?” Hayes walked over and set the coffee on the corner of Ren’s messy desk. Ren had briefed him this morning on the security breach, but then had told him not to worry about it, that he’d handle things. Hayes hated that Ren still felt like he had to kid-glove him with work stuff. So he’d insisted on taking on the logistical tasks while Ren dug into the game to see what he could find.

Ren had relented and Hayes had introduced himself to the team, even though that’d been the last thing he’d wanted to do today. Everyone had seemed professional and welcoming enough. Ren had obviously prepped them that they should be expecting him to return soon, but he’d caught a few watchful glances. He was sure there were whispers after he’d left the room, but there was nothing he could do about that. It was a new part of his existence that he was going to have to get used to. Released or not, he was a former convict. People would always wonder if he’d really done that horrible crime and had simply had enough money to get away with it.

But Ren was right. He couldn’t hide forever. There was a company to run. So he’d gotten the awkward introductions out of the way, and then had delegated what needed to be done for the day. He’d gotten them to take Hayven offline. Then he’d set up a refund for this month’s members to compensate for the downtime. He’d drafted a notice to go out to everyone to be on the lookout for fake emails. Despite the fact that they were in crisis mode, being busy had actually felt good. He liked having a mission, an objective.

But now it was bordering on eleven at night. Everyone else had gone home for the weekend and Ren had barely left his office. The guy could go into obsessive hyperfocus mode with stuff like this. He’d forget to eat and sleep if no one reminded him to take a break.

Ren ran a hand over his face and rocked forward in his chair to grab the coffee. “I don’t know. I can’t find anything obviously wrong, but I can feel the bastard’s dirty fingerprints all over my game. And I know systems get attacked every day, but this feels like more than that. Be a troll, a troublemaker, a thief—fine, whatever. But this shit could get someone seriously hurt. Cora could’ve been raped.”

“It definitely feels personal,” Hayes said, stepping to the side and eyeing the row of Ren’s drawings. Though members could personalize their characters, Ren had designed the components and liked to see how people put them together. A version of Master Dmitry was pinned up there, but Ren had left him shirtless and had inked in elaborate tattoos of snaking, thorny vines over his chest. Dmitry was trying to grab at them but they were part of his skin, leaving him in beautifully rendered anguish as he tore at himself. Hayes looked away, afraid Ren would notice his lingering attention on the art. “This attack took time to orchestrate. Whoever it was had to know enough about the game—who was talking to whom, who lived where—to even set it up.”

“Exactly,” Ren said, tone grim. “It has intent.”

Hayes turned away from the wall of drawings and watched the steam curl off his coffee. “Did Cora say anything about possible enemies? A crazy ex or something?”