Screwing the Superhero

www.nobleromance.com

Screwing the Superhero

ISBN 978-1-60592-141-9

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Screwing the Superhero Copyright 2010 Rebecca Royce

Cover Art by Fiona Jayde

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any existing means without written permission from the publisher. Contact Noble Romance Publishing, LLC at PO Box 467423, Atlanta, GA 31146.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Wendy Warner is a bit of an oddball. Raised in an orphanage, she has found solace and friendship by watching the television show,
Space Adventures
, and participating in fan clubs related to the show. Every month, on the second and third Friday, Wendy comes to work dressed in a costume from the show that she wears to charity events. This has earned her the disdain of many of her coworkers but not from her boss, the president of the company, Draco Powers, who rather likes the way the uniform hugs all her curves in the just the right places.

Draco Powers is a real-life Superhero who told the world that, yes, Superheroes do exist, but, no, we won’t work for free or without health insurance. Some people refer to him with derision as the “Capitalist Superman.” Draco is being hunted by an organization called the Organization, whose motives are unclear and yet still cause death and destruction wherever they go.

The Organization has decided that Draco’s biggest weakness is the way he cares about his employees and has picked Wendy out as their next target. To save her, Draco will have to come to terms with his real feelings for Wendy and why it is that he has so long resisted complicated relationships. But he’s running out of time … .

Wendy Warner knew why her coworkers stared. They did the same thing every time she wore the outfit. She thought by now, they’d be used to seeing her this way, considering she dressed in the uniform the second and third Fridays of every month.

That equated to twenty-four days a year. Maybe the first couple of times warranted the amount of attention her outfit drew, but not now. After all this time, garnering the looks and the gasps was just out of hand.

Wendy sighed and nodded to the receptionist, who didn’t respond
—she never
did—
and continued walking toward the elevators of Powers, Inc. Only support staff used the elevators because, well, Superheroes didn’t need them—they could fly.

She sipped her coffee, noticing she was, once again, alone in the elevator. Almost as if everyone in the building thought he or she would become ‘nerds by association’

simply being near her. Shrugging, she pushed the button for the top floor and decided to move on with her day.

It wasn’t as if she was the only person in the world ever to wear a
Space
Adventures
uniform. Over four million people watched the show every week. Sure, to be as devoted as she and the rest of the
Space Adventures’
fan club were may be unusual, but Wendy enjoyed showing others how devoted she was to the show. She wasn’t hurting anyone. Hell, she only wore the uniform to work because at the end of the day, she’d have to rush to the soup kitchen her group volunteered at twice a month.

Charity was one of the principles aspired to on
Space Adventures,
and to do things as a group, to remember the principles of the show and why they loved it so much, was good. People who worked for an organization employing Superheroes should understand the idea. One would think.

Only no one had ever asked why she wore what she wore. Instead, they preferred to gawk. But Wendy was comfortable in her flashy red shirt tucked neatly into the matching pants, with the show’s emblem displayed proudly on her shirtsleeves and right pants pocket, and the pretend communicator she affixed to the top right of her outfit.

The elevator dinged her arrival and she steeled her shoulders. Walking through the lobby made her skin tingle with awareness from all the stares, but her discomfort multiplied exponentially whenever she got to her floor.

The brightly lit area was sparsely populated. Only the top executive Superheroes worked here—Ace Hudson, who, it seemed, was never in the office, and Wendy’s boss, Draco Powers. He’d started the company a decade earlier upon graduating college and pronouncing to the world,
“Yes, superpowers exist. Yes, people with them wanted to do good
things; but no, his Superheroes will not be working for free or without health benefits.”

Part of her job as Draco’s Handler was to make certain he got paid, got enough sleep, and didn’t get overbooked. She also ensured cases and tasks beneath his skill level were farmed out to the underling Superheroes. Wendy smiled. Draco would never call them underlings. No, he would probably say his ‘associates’. He was good at being politically correct. Wendy, as a rule, was not. But that was why she did what she did and he did what he did.

Walking toward her desk, she held her head high, her stare straight. As Wendy passed through the rows of cubicles, she overheard Ace’s secretary, Tania Monroe, take a deep breath. “Looks like it’s that time of the month again.”

Biting her lip, she dug deep, hoping to find the ability to keep her mouth shut stored somewhere in her personal reserves. After a moment, she concluded no such ability existed. She came to an abrupt stop. “You know, Tania, it’s bad enough men talk about us using derogatory remarks; you would think as women we could find better ways to speak to one another.”

She turned the corner without looking back. Tania had been standing next to Kate, which meant the two would have a grand time at Wendy’s expense as soon as she was out of earshot. Some of the hostility, Wendy knew, stemmed from jealousy. As a Handler, she got to leave the office and travel with the Superheroes. Her job was integral to their operations. She was highly trained, highly sought after, and all but impossible to replace. Not to forget, they paid her a hell of a lot more than they paid those mere secretaries.

But the underlying reason for their attitudes? They just didn’t like her. Though they weren’t the type of people whose good opinion she should seek, their comments still hurt every time she recalled them.

She settled at her desk and took the deep breath she’d attempted to take earlier.

If she wore the uniform to work—at this point, she did so out of principle as much as anything else—then she needed to accept the snide remarks that accompanied her decision.

In truth, she was more than prepared to do so. Unfortunately, the hurtful comments didn’t cease when she dressed in her regular work clothes. No, if anything, the words stung even more. She could take off her pretend uniform, but she could never alter the things about herself everyone seemed to hate.

Her computer bleeped, and she looked up. Draco wanted her attention. The chat box appeared seconds later.

Come and see me
.

Glancing at the clock, she couldn’t help but smile. He was so damned efficient; he put even her to shame. Every morning, at precisely 7:21 a.m., Draco buzzed her computer to invite her into his private sanctuary.

Settling her purse in her bottom drawer, she pushed her chair backward. She turned and walked past Kate, Draco’s secretary, who shot a glare in Wendy’s direction.

Wendy ignored her and proceeded toward Draco’s door. If you wanted to see Draco, you had to buzz him on the computer system. Not doing so first meant an automatic ignore. She’d been asked to come in so she did.

“Good morning, Mr. Powers.”

He spun around, his blue eyes regarding her with the steely magnificence it had taken almost a year of working for him to get used to. If he noticed, or even cared about her
Space Adventures’
uniform, he’d never once indicated.

“Good Morning, Ms. Warner. How was your evening?”

She shrugged. “Fine, thank you. I made it a level further on
Hero Land
.” She didn’t know why she told him about her online gaming. Every day she gave him a tidbit of information when he asked how she was. It just seemed imperative to say something, which was foolish because after their time working together, she knew he asked only out of habit. Keeping to a routine was one of the things Draco did well.

“Great. I assume you have today’s schedule prepared.”

She nodded. “Yes sir, I copied it to your desktop from home. There are no additions … well, not yet.”

She never knew when the police or a government agency was going to have an emergency and she’d have to rework Draco’s entire schedule. She didn’t like to toot her own horn, but she handled crises better than any Handler on the payroll did, and if Draco’s services were needed past 7 p.m., she made certain he always received overtime compensation.

“Excellent.”

Draco rose from his seat and she stifled a gasp. He almost never stood at their first morning meeting.

“Sir?”

“Hmm?” He looked at her questioningly. “I told you not to call me sir, two years ago.”

She nodded. He had. Back then, she’d fancied herself half in love with him and had foolishly gone home and written down every word he’d spoken to her all day.

Fortunately, she’d moved past her infatuation. Her best friend and fellow co-captain of their fan group, Kyle, had made fun of her mercilessly for her infatuation. What had he called Draco? Oh right, the
Capitalist Superman.
She’d tried, and failed, not to laugh at his joke.

“Yes, it’s just I’m surprised you stood up.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. Sometimes she couldn’t stop herself from speaking. There had to be some kind of therapy for her impulsiveness. Some kind of hypnotherapy … .

“My back’s a little sore.” He stretched his arms over his head, giving her a view of his abs through his tucked in black dress shirt. They looked fierce and well defined. “I got banged around pretty badly yesterday, taking down that rocket.”

“I’ll call medical right away.”

“Wendy, I’m sure it’s nothing—”

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cite Handler’s Code 815, and you should be familiar with it, considering you wrote the code. It states a Handler’s first job is to make sure her Superhero’s health is looked after. If you’re injured, I’m calling for a medical evaluation, whether you like it or not.”

She crossed to his desk, lifted the receiver from its cradle, and started to dial the medical extension. Draco’s rough hand covered hers, forcing her to hang up the phone.

He didn’t hurt her; no, he’d barely touched her. It was more the fact that he’d made physical contact with her, at all. Outside of picking her up to fly her from one destination to another, he never got close enough to touch her hand.

“I appreciate your concern. I promise you I’m not one of those men who spend time avoiding doctors. If I need to go, I will tell you to call.”

Did other men spend time avoiding doctors? She didn’t know. Having been raised in an orphanage for girls, she had no experience being around men. None. She’d never even dated.

Except for Kyle, who was a man, but she never thought of him romantically. She had no idea what men did or did not do. Instead, she spent an incredible amount of time
not
thinking of Draco as a
man
.

He was her boss, her superior, her favorite Superhero—he was all of those things, but to think of him as a man was a dangerous prospect. If he was a man then she had to acknowledge in addition to his blue eyes, he had the darkest black hair she’d ever seen—so black, sometimes it looked blue. If he was a man, then she had to sigh when she thought about how his sheer size dwarfed her and made her feel small and feminine, instead of too round and too tall. If he was a man, she had to notice the fine shape of his biceps, or the way his perfectly tailored, always black clothes clung in all the right places … hugging his rear end, begging her hands to reach out and squeeze. If he was a man, then she’d have to admit he was completely out of her league and she was sad and pathetic to make him the star of so many of her late night fantasies.

No, she couldn’t work here and think of him as a man. He was a Superhero and, by definition, not just a man. He was incredible, gifted, kind, fantastic, and so high above the realm of normal human females, he was safe for her to think about, occasionally. He was Draco Powers.

“When was the last time you saw your doctor?”

He smiled, the right half of his mouth tilting upward in an amused smirk. “I can’t imagine you don’t know the answer to your own question.”

He was right. Of course, she did. It was her job to know. It had been eight years since he’d been looked at, before she’d become his Handler. His first Handler, who’d disappeared one day without ever giving notice or coming back to work, had insisted Draco go to the doctor when the Superhero collapsed in his chair.

“Promise me it won’t take a near-death collapse to make you go again.”

Had she just asked her boss to make her a promise? What in the hell was wrong with her? Her request was the kind of thing you said to a friend, to a confidant, not to your Superhero employer … .