I could feel him swelling, his tempo increasing as he found his own rhythm. I urged him on with my hips, my ribs on fire, my insides aching for his seed. His breath caught, and he plunged deeply inside of me, pushing a thread of white hot liquid into my core. I cried out with release, my own fire quenched by his liquid.
He lay carefully beside me, untying me from the bed. My hands were still bound together as he pulled me close to him, mindful of my ribs. We lay together, recovering slowly as our breath returned. He then untied me, helping me to sit upright. With my hands free, I grabbed his head, pulling him in for a kiss. I could taste my own salty tang on his lips, his mouth once again warm.
“Raise your arms up,” he said gently. I looked at him warily, eying the headboard again. He laughed, and picked up the ice packs he had brought with him, pushing them gently against my ribs. The mass of cold made me gasp a little, and I held them in place while he wrapped the bandage around me.
“I have a feeling that wasn't part of my doctor's orders” I grinned at him as he finished and looked over his work.
“But I bet it made you feel better,” he said as he kissed my nose.
“Much! Now, tell me about your day...” I tried again. He wrapped his arms around me, his lips right at my ear, whispering the secrets of his day.
***
I have never felt so happy to go to work. The next day I practically skipped into my office, though with my leg and ribs being as sore as they were, it was more like a happy limp. Stack of paper covered my desk, stray get well soon cards popping out like affectionate mines. The thoughtfulness of my co-workers amazed me as I worked my way though my absence. It felt good to be back in the swing of things. I focused on catching up, ignoring the files burning a hole through my laptop. I wanted to work on the mystery of those files, but my job kept popping up. It took me a week before I felt like I had finally caught up enough to look at them.
***
I looked at my desk. The inbox was empty. It was a little after 5pm, so most of the staff had gone home, but Mr. King was working late that night. He was my ride home, so I was working late too, but I had finally caught up. It was the perfect opportunity to look at my files. I pulled them up and began working on them when an email popped up on my phone. It was a system wide update about the 401K matching program again, reminding everyone to sign up to the full amount. It suddenly hit me that I had downloaded my statement the night of the accident. It was one of the files that had been on my computer, but I had never actually looked at it.
I opened it up, checking the balance. I had started out putting only 5% into the fund, but with Olivia constantly emailing about the matching incentive I had recently upped it to the full 10%. Something about the date stuck out to me, so I cross referenced it with the projected employee fund costs. Despite me upping my fund, the payment to the employee matching fund didn't increase.
It struck me as odd and I pulled up those files. The fund amount never seemed to change- it was always the full amount. I began pulling up employee pay records, looking for fund contributions. They didn't match up. I took a deep breath, a feeling of anticipation rushing through me in waves. This could be it. I looked at the other numbers for other departments, pulling up the pay stubs to match spending reports for every department I could think of. None of them matched properly.
I leaned back in my chair, my brain buzzing around in my head trying to focus on what I was seeing. I could even follow how clever it was, the safeguards in place to keep anyone from finding out, and because of that, who had done it. It was an incredibly creative way to steal money from the company without the company finding out, or even suspecting.
Whoever was doing this was making it appear as though almost every employee was donating at least 10% of their pay into the 401K plan, and thus being fully matched by the company. In reality, only about 75% of the company was actually at the full matching criteria, 20% had partial matching, and 5% weren't even actually enrolled.
Whomever had set this up had created imaginary accounts that the company was matching incentives into. The excess funds were diverted into a separate account, thus effectively siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. The company expected to pay that much in matching incentives, so no one had looked into to see that it was actually matching real employee accounts. My head was still spinning around the concept, but I knew I was onto something big. I took a couple of screen shots, saving them immediately to my cloud storage, and picked up the phone.
“Mr. King, please...” I waited patiently as Ms. Aloute rang into his office. “Mr. King, I found it. I think I figured out who is stealing from the company. I'll be up in a moment to show you my work.” I barely registered his response as I slowly set the phone back in its cradle. It was all about the matching 401K plan.
“Very good Ms. Vanders. You figured it out. I'm afraid you won't be able to do anything about it though. Please get up slowly.” Olivia Roberts voice purred from behind me. I turned slowly in my chair to find her pointing a revolver straight at my head. Her perfect pink lips curled in a sadistic smile as I slowly stood.
“Good. Now, I need you to be the good little girl that I know you are; if you behave and do as you're told, you don't get shot. I don't want to kill you, Ms Vanders, but you are not ruining this. Now get your jacket. Pick up my keys on the desk there. You are going to drive me to the airport. I have a plane to Cape Verde to catch.” Her plastered smile never faltered as she slid the gun into her coat pocket, clearly keeping it pointed at me through the fabric.
“How did you do it?” I asked cautiously as I put on my coat. I tried to move slowly, hoping that too much time would pass and Mr. King would notice I was gone and call security. It was a thin hope, but still one I was willing to cling to.
“No stalling. Move faster and maybe I'll tell you.” She growled, waving the gun in her pocket to accentuate her point. I picked up her keys and she grabbed my arm and pushed the gun into my ribs. I was incredibly glad she had picked the side that didn't have the fractures, but it still hurt. I limped a little as we walked, my leg protesting the speed that she wanted me to go.
“Walk faster.” She growled, practically dragging me along.
“I can't- I got a little busted when my car rolled over, remember?” I hissed at her through clenched teeth.
“I'm sorry about that. I only meant to scare you, but you just hit that shoulder and flipped. You should be grateful I called the ambulance for you at all.” Her voice was cold and uncaring as we entered the garage. She waved to the guard and pushed the gun in my ribs until I waved to him as well. He waved and turned back to his newspaper, letting us head to the car. I wanted to scream.