6 What A Willful Boy

Joel dumped himself down next to Adam on the sofa, who was nursing a terrible headache with an ice pack.

"I'm not going to be your host nor your maid. If you stay here, I'll kill you if you mess up the place." Adam warned him, but his words lacked the threat or strength to make one. Naturally, he was exhausted.

"Like I would." Joel sighed. He didn't want to show it, but he also was tired.

His earlier meetings with Adrian Masters, his business partner and fellow CEO, had been wrought with interesting updates and signs of unusual troubles looming in the technology industries. In particular, complaints expressed around the web on AI data gathering and training being unethical. And all fingers pointed at T-Strike with questions on their information practices for their A-Man product. But all the various threads of complaints from many walks of life were all subconsciously leading to a conclusion, which was a frightful thought in his mind.

He glanced at Adam, who was still nursing his headache. "I wonder how much of a part will he end up playing in The Game?"

His eyes narrowed when the image of the man's uncle, Charles Thornton, surfaced in his mind. For such a shrewd man to be swiftly cast to one side in favor of his younger brother said a lot about the bad vibes he had been unable to shake off—a mysterious group of business players were about to start a dangerous game.

"First, Erika returns to reclaim her voice from the AI program, stirring up rumors and negative chat across the net on T-Strike's unethical data contracting and uses. Now, Charles moves out of play to allow us to win over MyCommIT's market share in the AusPac region, but..." His countenance clouded with dark and sinister expressions.

"What power is pulling these strings?" His voice was unsettling with low tones.

"What are you mumbling about?" Adam groaned, breaking through his train of thought.

Joel relaxed his expression and eased into a lighter and more playful mood.

"Darling. Let me give you a massage." He snuggled closer to the man, who was doing his best to shove him away.

"You carried me up two flights of stairs, massage yourself!" Adam screwed up his nose, then switched his expression to one of wonder. "Actually, how could you do that? I weigh under 60 kilos?"

"Ha! What a light weight; I've lifted more for longer where I've been." Joel flashed him a devilish grin. "Keen to check out my muscles more closely?"

"Forget it!" Adam huffed and shuffled off the sofa to head for the showers. He paused and skewed his head around toward Joel. "Don't follow me."

He hurried to his bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

Joel sighed and eased further onto the sofa, his grin not fading. "Willful boy. Don't you know that your defiance makes me want you more?"

He licked his lips as his mind slipped into pleasant, wanton thoughts of their intimate boss-subordinate bonding time. Preferably with some exciting foreplay.

Unable to contain his urges, he headed for the bathroom to check in on him and perform some duty-of-care.