The Hacker

by Herkness, Nancy

  Not light enough, because Dawn reached across the table to touch the back of his hand. “High school is hard on everyone. I was a metal mouth myself. Even worse, I had brothers who called me Train Tracks. On the other hand, they’d beat up anyone else who called me that.”

  “How many brothers?”

  “Two. And three sisters.” Dawn gave him a slanted smile. “My mother didn’t figure out that the rhythm method doesn’t work until after I was born. Then she wised up.”

  “I envy you,” he said. “I’m an only child.” Raised by a hardworking single parent. It had been lonely, so he’d sought companionship within the cyberworld on the school library’s computers. He couldn’t regret it since it had led him to where he was.

  “You ready to order?” The server’s question made him start. Neither of them had opened their menus.

  He looked at Dawn. “Whatever you recommend. The lasagna?”

  She nodded and rattled off a list of Italian dishes while the server scribbled on her order pad and departed.

  “That sounds like a lot of food,” he said.

  “You’ve earned it.” She gave him a sideways look over the rim of her glass. “I worked you hard this week.”

  “So you admit it.”

  “I knew you would thrive on a challenge.”

  That was gratifying. “I’d like you to continue to train me, even after the data problem is resolved.” When had he made that decision?

  Her eyebrows rose. “You’re going to trek out to Jersey on a regular basis?”

  “I was hoping you would come to the city,” he improvised. “I’d provide transportation and pay for your travel time.”

  She sat back in her chair. “You don’t need to go to so much trouble and expense. There are plenty of excellent trainers in Manhattan. I could even recommend a couple.”

  “I’ve tried other trainers.” A lie. “I like your style and I can afford to indulge myself for the benefit of my health.”

  “You’ve only worked with me for three sessions so I’m not sure you know my style.”

  “Okay, I like you and I trust you.” Odd how true the latter was.

  She raised her glass as though toasting him. “Thanks. I like you too. We’ll discuss it once the issues at Work It Out are resolved.”

  The server appeared with a large platter and a basket of breadsticks. “Your antipasto.” She looked at Dawn. “Shall I tell you what’s on the plate?”

  “No, I’ve got this,” Dawn said. She pushed the platter closer to Leland and began pointing to the various foods artistically arranged on a bed of dark-red radicchio leaves. “Soppressata, olives, fresh mozzarella balls, figs, roasted red peppers, provolone cubes, prosciutto, Genoa salami, artichoke hearts. And don’t miss the breadsticks. They’re the best.” She pulled one from the basket and bit down on it with a crunch, closing her eyes as she chewed.

  He followed suit. The flavor of garlic and olive oil exploded in his mouth, along with the delicious, fresh crispness of the bread. He understood why she closed her eyes to concentrate on the first bite.

  “You’re right,” he said. “The breadsticks are superb.”

  She opened eyes that held a wicked glint. “I’m always right.”

  “Why do I feel that there’s an extra meaning there?” Something nagged at his memory.

  “Because that’s what you said to me in one of your emails.”

  He gave a wry grimace. “Obviously, I was joking.”

  “Were you?” She tilted her head so her hair slid over her shoulder, her expression provocative.

  “God, yes. I’m not that big an ass.”

  She gave a little choke of a laugh. “You aren’t an ass at all. Just sure your opinion is the right one.”

  “If you’re referring to my desire to keep you away from the dark web, I will not apologize for it. Otherwise, I am very flexible, as you have pointed out during our training sessions.”

  He heard her breath hitch slightly and then she nudged the platter toward him again. “Mangia! This stuff is good.”

  “What should I eat first?”

  She frowned at the platter for a moment before picking up a piece of fig and wrapping it in a slice of prosciutto. “Sweet and salty,” she said, offering it to him. “My favorite combination of flavors.”

  When he took the morsel from her, their fingers brushed and he felt the sparks run up his arm. For a moment, their gazes tangled across the table, fanning the sparks into something hotter. Then she pulled her hand away and dropped her eyes to the platter, grabbing a cube of provolone.

  So she’d felt it too. He smiled to himself and popped the fig and prosciutto into his mouth. Again, the tastes burst over his tongue and he found himself groaning in appreciation.

  “Told you,” she said, grinning at him. She picked up a piece of roasted pepper, a cube of provolone, and a slice of soppressata, wrapping them together and holding the little package of food out to him. Her fingers gleamed with the oil the pepper was bathed in, and he wanted to taste it on her skin.

  He kept his hands flat on the table and inclined his body toward her. Her eyes widened and he thought she would draw back. Then she bent forward and brought the morsel to his mouth. He took it from her, flicking his tongue over her fingers to lick the oil from them.

  Her breath hissed in sharply, but she let him savor the texture and taste of her skin before she took her hand away. He chewed the delicious bite but his attention was all on the woman across the table from him. He could see the accelerated rise and fall of her breasts. He wanted to unfasten the white buttons gleaming against the black silk of her blouse and suck on her breasts the way he’d sucked on her fingers.

  “Shall we request that our lasagna be boxed up to go?” he asked.

  This was the question Dawn had both wanted and dreaded. Leland’s blue eyes blazed with the same intensity of arousal that she felt. Her gaze skittered over the defined swell of muscles under his T-shirt, the determined line of his jaw, and the strong, tapering fingers she’d seen clenched around dumbbells. Add to that his formidable intelligence and the aura of confidence his success gave him. Nat was right. He was a powerful man; she would not be able to control him the way she had others.

  Panic tightened her throat so she pictured Leland at one of Alice and Derek’s parties, his head bent while he listened with respectful attention to Natalie discussing her salon’s business. She reminded herself that he had volunteered to put his computer genius at the disposal of a local gym just because Alice had asked him to. She closed her eyes to replay the delicious slow drawl of his voice, soothing her with its honey.

  Her throat eased enough for her to open her eyes and rasp out, “Lasagna to go works for me.”

  Because she might never have this chance again.

  Her reward was a smile from Leland that was so hot it practically scorched her. He lifted his hand and instantly conjured up their server despite the crowd of customers.

  She busied herself with stuffing the cork back into the open wine, although what she really wanted to do was take a long swig directly from the bottle. Dutch courage, they called it.

  Yet her body hummed with anticipation. One of Leland’s hands lay on the tablecloth, and she imagined how it would feel skimming over her bare skin, cupping her breast, gripping her thigh. Heat flared in her belly, banishing her fear. For now.

  When she raised her head, she found him watching her, the heat in his eyes matching hers. His smile was pure lust and she felt an answering curve in her own lips.

  “Sorry you’re not feeling so great, Dawn,” the server said, setting a large brown shopping bag on the table. “Carmella gave you some biscotti for tomorrow morning to dip in your coffee. She hopes you feel better by then.”

  “Please tell her how much I appreciate that,” Dawn said. She hadn’t even heard Leland make up an excuse for why they were leaving early.

  He pushed back his chair and came around the table to hold hers as she rose. She could feel the desire
vibrating between them through the air. It made breathing something she had to think about. She grabbed the open wine bottle while he picked up the take-home bag and the untouched bottle, all in one hand. His other hand was on the small of her back, the firm pressure of his palm sending a streak of sensation to coil between her legs. God, she wanted him to touch her there where yearning pulsed. She could almost feel his long fingers sliding into her.

  The limo glided up just as they exited the restaurant.

  “How did the driver know?” she asked as Leland opened the car door.

  “I sent a preset text message. No need to even look at my phone to do it.”

  “I thought he was a mind reader or something.” She slid across the leather seat so Leland could fold himself into the space that suddenly seemed smaller than before. He set the bag on the floor, took the wine from her, and slotted both bottles into holders in the limo’s side console. The privacy screen between them and the driver was already raised.

  “Your place, my place, or a hotel?” he asked, taking her hand and raising it to brush his lips over her knuckles. “Wherever you prefer is fine with me.”

  “My place.” She felt safest on her own turf.

  “Good. I don’t want to wait much longer.” He turned her hand to kiss her palm, his warm breath sending a shiver through her. “What’s the address?” he asked, pushing the intercom button on the console.

  “Right. The driver isn’t a mind reader.” She rattled off her street address and the driver confirmed that he’d heard it.

  Leland settled back onto the seat beside her. She liked that he sat close enough that their bodies grazed against each other from shoulder to knee, yet he didn’t crowd her. Instead he twined his fingers with hers and rested their joined hands on his thigh. “Would you like a glass of wine en route? The limo is equipped with appropriate glassware.”

  “We’d have to chug it because my apartment is about five minutes from here.” There was a nervous quaver in her voice that she couldn’t quite suppress. She hoped he hadn’t heard it.

  “A most convenient commute.” The Georgia honey was deep and thick in his voice now. It seemed to slide through her, rich and sweet and sexy.

  “That’s why I chose my apartment. Easy to walk to and from the gym.” Nerves were beginning to tighten her chest.

  He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. The tiny friction sent a ripple of sensation skimming through her. She needed more to keep the fear at bay. She pushed up from the seat and swung her leg up and over his thighs so she knelt on his lap, facing him. He released her hand so he could wrap his fingers around her waist to steady her.

  “No use wasting those five minutes,” she said before she cupped his face and brought her lips to his.

  Oh my God, the man knew how to kiss. He found the perfect angle for their mouths and took full advantage of it. His lips were warm, firm, and delicious. When he drew her bottom lip into his mouth with gentle suction, she moaned and rocked her hips into the erection she could feel through his jeans. His grip tightened on her waist as he tilted her hips to press against him in exactly the right spot to make her arch and gasp.

  She jerked in surprise when the driver’s voice announced that they had arrived.

  Leland smiled into her eyes in a way that sent extra heat surging through her. “We could just stay here.”

  “The driver would make me self-conscious,” she said, shifting off his lap. And the space was too confined.

  Leland swung the door open and climbed out first, reaching back in to help her. She decided the lasagna and wine could stay in the limo. She didn’t want to risk losing the scorching arousal that overwhelmed every other feeling at this moment.

  As always she had her keys in her pocket, her free hand already curled around them. It was pure reflex. At least she could skip her customary scan of the entrance hall and the staircase as she led Leland into her building and up the stairs. When she keyed in the combination for the dead bolt, she felt him brush against her back, making panic flicker briefly. She shoved it down and pushed open the door, turning off the beeping alarm.

  She glanced up to see his eyebrows raised, but he made no comment about her array of security measures. Instead he closed the door behind them and pressed her against the wall in her foyer, his fingers curving around her head so that he could angle it for a kiss. She tried to lose herself in the pleasure of his mouth, but the feeling of being trapped began to build. She used a modified self-defense move to spin them both so that their positions were reversed. He broke the kiss to look down at her with a slight frown. She didn’t want to answer the questions she could see forming in his brain, so she drew his head down again to meet her lips and bent her knee up against the wall to lever herself against his hard cock. The distraction worked on both of them as he cupped her bottom, his fingers digging into her buttocks to pull her in tight to him.

  “I want your breasts,” he said against her lips. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “Let’s sit on the couch the way we did in the limo,” she said. “I liked that.”

  “No argument here.” He used his hold on her butt to lift her feet off the floor. She wrapped her legs around his hips, opening herself further to the exquisite pressure against the V of her thighs. Every step jostled them together, spinning ropes of yearning through her.

  “Yes, oh, God, yes!” she gasped as he walked.

  And then he turned to drop down onto the couch, staying toward the front edge so her legs didn’t slam into the back cushions. She unhooked her ankles from behind his back and scrambled up to plant a knee on each side of his thighs. This was a position she felt confident in.

  She laid her palms on either side of his face and hooked her fingers around the temples of his glasses. “How badly do you need these?”

  “In this kind of situation, I work mostly by touch.” His smile was sin personified.

  “A good strategy.” She gently lifted the glasses from his face, the tortoiseshell temples warm from where they had lain against his head. She felt a strange urge to bring them to her cheek to soak in his body heat indirectly. Instead, she folded the temples in and placed the glasses on the console table behind the sofa. “Now I don’t have to worry about breaking them.”

  The flame in his eyes burned even brighter. Or else it seemed easier to read his emotions without the mask of his glasses to conceal them.

  The moment she settled back over his lap, Leland’s fingers were at the top button of her blouse. “One part of me wants to take it slow and the other part wants to rip open your blouse so the buttons pop off,” he said, his accent edged with huskiness.

  “Not too slow,” she said, “but I’d appreciate keeping the buttons intact.”

  He flashed her a quick, feral smile before he unfastened the first three buttons, pushing the blouse aside to expose the black lace of her bra. Her nipples were already taut, outlined by the fabric. He circled his thumbs over them and she felt an electric charge jolt through her body.

  “More,” she begged.

  He bent to suck at one breast through the lace while his thumb brushed over the other one.

  “Leland, yes!” She arched into him for more pressure, more heat, more sensation.

  He came close to ripping the rest of the buttons off as he pulled her blouse open and jerked it down her arms—with her willing help—before tossing it away. He flicked open the clasp of her bra with deft fingers and yanked it off as well.

  Then he stopped and simply looked at her, his hands cupping her rib cage without touching her breasts. She had a brief impulse to cover herself, but his gaze was hungry and stoked an answering desire in her. She shocked herself by sliding her hands under her breasts and lifting them for him.

  The groan that tore from his throat was pure animal lust, and she reveled in it for the split second before his mouth fastened on the bare skin of her nipple, sucking, nipping, flicking, and driving her arousal higher. She threaded her fingers into the brown silk of his
hair, loving the feel but also keeping his head where she wanted it.

  She lost track of time and space as his mouth and hands spun lightning and liquid heat through her body, all of it sliding into a single focus of longing between her thighs. And suddenly she could wait no longer. She needed him there, filling her, finishing her.

  “Do you have a condom handy?” she asked.

  He took his time releasing her breast from his mouth, licking the tip before he drawled, “I do.”

  She smiled in relief. No breaking the mood to dash to her bedroom for protection. “Let’s use it.”

  He curled his fingers around her shoulders and held her still. “What’s the hurry?”

  “I’m going to explode if I don’t come right now.”

  “Oh, darlin’, I can make you come whenever you want.” A confident smile curled his lips.

  “I want to come with you inside me.”

  “We can arrange that.” His fingers were at the button of her jeans, flicking it open, pulling down the zipper, helping her stand to shuck off the denim and her boots. But when she started to shove down her panties, he seized her wrists. “This is my job.”

  Leaning forward, he dropped her wrists at her sides before slipping his index fingers under the lace circling her hips. He bent further and pressed a kiss on each hipbone, his touch sending shivers reeling over her skin. When he moved lower and flicked his tongue against the lace between her thighs it was like setting a match to dry tinder. Her insides seemed to burst into flames.

  “Hurry,” she urged, even as she rocked her hips against his mouth.

  He blew out a breath and began to drag her panties down her legs. Her knees felt weak so she clutched his shoulders for support. As soon as her panties hit her ankles, she stepped out of them and kicked them away.

  “I want to taste you,” he said, one of his hands splayed over her bare butt to brace her, while his other slid between her thighs to open them slightly.

  “I don’t know if I—”

  But his tongue was already there, lapping at her clit and then thrusting inside her. Her muscles spasmed once before she could control them. “Leland, you need to stop or I’m going to come.”