The Hacker

by Herkness, Nancy

  “That was enough . . . for now,” he said. He reached into his back pocket to produce a foil envelope, which she took from him and ripped open with her teeth.

  While she waited, he unbuckled his belt, unfastened his jeans, and shoved his briefs down far enough to release his cock. The muscles inside her gave a little quiver of anticipation at the sight of him, and she stroked down the length of his erection for the sheer pleasure of it.

  He moaned and pushed into her hand. A snap of panic hit her and she snatched her hand away to remove the condom from its envelope. She rolled it onto him to remind herself that she was in control.

  He moaned again at her touch and curled his hands around her hips, balancing her as she knelt on the couch over him. She positioned him between her legs and bent her knees so that the tip of his cock pushed into her, sliding in easily because she was so wet with anticipation. Still the fear rose into her throat so that she had to focus on breathing in and out.

  When he dug his fingers into her hips and pushed her down further onto him, her throat tightened. But she was not going to let her past ruin this. She lowered her mouth to his, seeking comfort in the searing kiss he lavished on her.

  His kiss fanned her need high again so that she wanted all of him inside her. She surged downward on him, reveling in the stretch and completion as he filled the hollow ache inside her. They groaned into each other’s mouths at the same time and began to move.

  She lifted and fell. He thrust and withdrew. Their rhythm synchronized and accelerated until she could do no more than hang on to his shoulders and feel the coil of her desire tighten into a scorching pinpoint of wanting. His grip on her turned to steel as he held her just above him so that he could drive in deeply and hit her clit at the same time.

  Her climax exploded so that she arched back and shouted his name, her fingers digging into the swell of his deltoids. Her muscles clenched around him so hard that she felt tears squeeze out of the corner of her eyes at the intensity of the release.

  “Oh, yes, Dawn, darlin’!” he shouted as her orgasm triggered his.

  She felt him pumping through the cadence of her own grip and release, saw his head thrown back against the sofa cushion, his eyes glittering beneath half-closed lids. His hips bucked up from the couch, seating his cock even deeper and setting off another shudder of pleasure within her.

  They stayed locked together until both had wrung every ounce of satisfaction from their joining. Then he lowered his hips and slipped out of her while she sagged forward to rest her forehead against the back of the couch. Her sensitized breasts brushed against the soft silk knit of his T-shirt so that another warm shiver rippled through her.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her bare back.

  She gave a weak chuckle. “Are you kidding me? After that? I’m just coming down from the high.”

  In more ways than he knew. Triumph shimmered through her. She’d had sex with Leland and enjoyed it. Relief and maybe even joy tumbled in her chest along with pure physical satisfaction.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That got intense.”

  She couldn’t see his face and couldn’t read his tone so she sat up. His eyes were closed, his face slack with satiation. “Is intense good?” she asked.

  His eyes stayed shut but his lips curled in a way that made her relax. “Intense is real good, darlin’.”

  She slumped forward again, savoring the afterglow while he held her. Her skin cooled and she felt goose bumps rise on it. Still, she didn’t want to move.

  “I need to get rid of this condom,” he said into the contented silence. “And maybe we could move to your bed for comfort’s sake. Not that I won’t always have fond memories of this sofa.”

  Tension tiptoed down her spine. Lying down on the bed with him might be a problem. She mentally squared her shoulders and reminded herself that this was Leland. They’d already had sex and it was fine. More than fine. Fantastic.

  She sat up on his lap and realized that she was naked while he was fully clothed. Another tremor of nerves hit her. “There’s a bathroom through there. First door on the right.” She pointed toward the hallway. “When you’re done, my bedroom is farther down the hall to the left.”

  He kissed her shoulder, his lips warm against her chilled skin, before he gently shifted her off his lap and onto the cushion beside him. She grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to cover herself as he stood, his height suddenly intimidating.

  He bent to lay his palm against her cheek, his gaze soft. “I’ll meet you in bed.”

  Most of her worries dissolved under his gentle touch. This was Leland.

  Leland stood in the bathroom and frowned down at the alarm app on his cell phone. He wanted to spend the rest of the night in Dawn’s bed but the Fincher RFP hung over his head. He tried to calculate how long he could allow himself to stay with her before he would need to get back to work.

  But his brain refused to do the math because all it could think of was the sight and sound and feel of her moving over him and with him and around him. His cock stirred as the images replayed through his mind.

  He groaned and typed in 12:00 a.m., the first time that shoved through the haze of desire. Maybe it was the wrong hour but he couldn’t afford to sleep all the way until morning. Especially since he wanted to make love to her again, this time slowly and thoroughly.

  Not that he had any problem with fast and intense, but he looked forward to exploring her beautiful body, to learning where she most enjoyed being touched, to tasting her fully.

  He shoved his phone back into his jeans pocket and headed for Dawn’s bedroom, doing a quick once-over of the photos she’d hung on the walls of the hallway as he passed them. They were clearly her family through the years. One made him stop to take a closer look because it was a younger Dawn—maybe fifteen or sixteen years old—with her siblings. They wore matching red T-shirts from a bar and had their arms slung around one another’s shoulders while they laughed into the camera. He examined Dawn’s face, trying to figure out what made her look so different in the photo than she did now. She was beautiful then too, with her sleek dark hair, smooth olive skin, and generous mouth, but her eyes held a different expression somehow.

  He puzzled over it as he walked into her bedroom, a surprisingly large space done in serene shades of green. She sat up in the bed, the moss-green quilt tucked up under her arms to cover every part of her except her head and shoulders.

  The difference struck him then. In the photo, her eyes were unshadowed. Now they held a watchfulness that reminded him of Tully when he was in full FBI mode, constantly scanning the surroundings. That was part of what gave the impression that Dawn held herself under tightly coiled control.

  He had wanted to break through that control and she had certainly been passionate in their lovemaking. But he’d still sensed that she hadn’t let go entirely. Something held her back from giving herself wholeheartedly to the moment.

  Yet he felt he hadn’t earned the right to ask her why. That bothered him. He didn’t believe in purely sexual encounters and this didn’t feel like one. He liked her, respected her, and trusted her, but he had all those feelings without really knowing her.

  “You look like you’re thinking about work,” she said, tucking the quilt more securely under her arms.

  Her utterly false interpretation of his thoughts surprised a laugh out of him. “I can assure you that all I was thinking about is how beautiful you look with your hair loose over your bare shoulders.”

  Her smile was shy, an expression he wasn’t accustomed to from her. “Thank you.” The shyness disappeared. “I was thinking that you have too many clothes on.”

  “Shall I fix that or would you like to do it?” he asked.

  “I’d like to watch you fix it. Slowly.” She settled back against the upholstered headboard as though she were ready to watch a movie.

  “Can I get you some popcorn first?”

  She chuckled. “I was thinking I should get some
dollar bills. Can you dance?”

  “Not at all, but I’m pretty good at undressing.” He toed off his sneakers and peeled off his socks. She sat up straight to look at his feet. “Nice arches,” she said.

  “Seriously? You care about my arches?” He stared at his feet, having never considered whether they were arched or not.

  “It’s a professional thing. I had to study anatomy. I admire a nicely curved medial arch.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sure I can find a way to use it to my advantage.”

  “Just to be clear—I do not have a foot fetish.” She sat back again and eyed him up and down. “Are those clothes ever coming off?”

  He turned his back to her, crossed his arms, and began to pull his T-shirt up his torso. She gave him a catcall as the shirt cleared his shoulders and a genuine laugh bloomed in his chest. He ripped the shirt off and swung it around over his head like a stripper before slinging it into the corner. Then he curved his arms down in front of his thighs, made fists, and flexed the muscles in his back.

  “Okay, for that you get a five-dollar bill,” she said.

  “How about for this?” He spun around and lifted his fists and elbows above his shoulders in imitation of a body builder. Her gaze was warm with appreciation and he could almost feel it travel over the muscles he tightened. Strange, but he was only this aware of his body when he was with Dawn. When he swam, his movements were automatic, and the rest of the time he lived in his head and his computer monitors.

  “Ni-i-i-ice,” she said as he curled harder. “Another five for sure.”

  “I’m keeping a running total,” he warned.

  “Don’t you need your computer to do that?”

  “My brain isn’t that enfeebled yet.”

  “Oh, you are not in the least bit feeble.” She injected a world of dirty innuendo into her comment.

  Her voice stroked right down to his cock. He dropped his hands to the button on his jeans, flicking it open and pulling the zipper down just an inch. “You have to pay in advance for this part.”

  “That’s the one part I’ve already seen,” she said with a lascivious smirk. “But I’ll pay to see it again. Ten bucks.”

  “I’m insulted.” He put his hands on his hips.

  “Do you think I’m made of money? I have to save some for the rest of you.”

  “When you put it that way . . .” He dragged the zipper down at a snail’s pace.

  “Is this going to take all night?”

  “I’m building anticipation.”

  She made a show of yawning.

  He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and shot his hip out to one side. “Do that again and I’m leaving these on.”

  “Oh, fine,” she said, her eyes gleaming with amusement. “I’ll pay you twenty to take them off.”

  The laughter rumbled up again and he realized that he was having fun. When was the last time he’d done that?

  He wouldn’t have expected it from Dawn either. She was so intense about her work, so controlled in her interactions with him. He’d never seen a playful side to her until tonight.

  Now he wanted to touch her so he stripped off his jeans and boxer briefs at the same time before he started toward the bed.

  “Wait!” She held up one hand. “I want to get a chance to look first.”

  That sent a jolt of arousal straight to his cock. She gave him a hot smile as she saw it stir and harden. Which made it harden more.

  “Thanks for giving me an especially good view,” she purred. “I’d like to see the back now.”

  “If this is your idea of foreplay, it’s working.” He turned, savoring the knowledge that her gaze was roaming over his body.

  But he needed more so he pivoted again and closed the distance to the bed, climbing onto the foot and stalking up to her on his hands and knees. He planted a hand on either side of her hips and brought his mouth to hers, tracing her lips until she opened them to him, the sweetness of her blazing through him like hot molasses.

  He felt her small hands on his shoulders. At first, she smoothed them over his skin, the touch twisting desire inside him. Then she began to press against him, pushing him away from her. He eased back without breaking the kiss. But he wanted to feel her breasts against his bare chest, so he rose onto his knees and gripped her upper arms to pull her up against him, the quilt falling away from her as he lifted.

  When he leaned into her so the deliciously hard points of her nipples brushed against him, her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders and she gasped into his mouth. That could have meant that she was as aroused as he was, but it didn’t feel that way.

  Once again he eased back, this time releasing her mouth as well. “What is it, darlin’? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I was just losing my balance.” But a flush of some feeling that wasn’t sexual colored her neck and cheeks. “Let me just shift around so I’m on a firmer part of the mattress.” She scrambled away from the headboard to kneel almost behind him. “That’s better. I’m not going to keel over now.”

  “I wouldn’t have let you fall,” he said, moving to face her.

  “No, you wouldn’t have.” She threaded her fingers into his hair on either side of his head, making his scalp tingle. Then she pulled his head down so she could sear a kiss onto his lips.

  He wrapped his arms around her back and crushed her against him from knee to shoulder, feeling the swell of her breasts, the push of her hip bones beside the flat, satin plane of her belly, the length of her thighs, and finally the hot, wet silk between her thighs as he slid his semierect cock against her.

  As he flexed his hips, she arched and gasped again, but this time it was pure arousal. He could smell it and hear it in the tiny moans catching in her throat. He wanted to taste that so he ran one hand down her back, over the curve of her buttock, and down between her legs, finding his way inside her from behind. His finger easily slipped into the liquid heat of her and she moaned louder, then mewed a wordless plaint when he withdrew it. He pulled his head away from hers and brought his finger to his lips, sucking the salty, erotic flavor of her from his skin.

  “Oh!” she said, watching him through half-shut eyes. “That’s hot.”

  “That is only the beginning of what I’m going to do.” Some instinct made him state his intentions out loud. “I want to lay you back on the bed and taste you directly.”

  Her lids fluttered and she nodded before letting him lower her to sit and then lie back, unfolding her legs to rest her feet on either side of his thighs. He stayed up on his knees, savoring the sight of her hair spread over the quilt, her taut nipples, and the spread of her thighs so that he could see a glisten of moisture between them.

  He bent slightly to palm her breasts, rolling the nipples between his fingers. She sucked in a breath but something flickered in her eyes that wasn’t pleasure. Then she lifted her hips in an invitation and his attention was drawn lower, making him skim his hands down her torso until he could curl his fingers around the lushness of her buttocks and bury his face between her thighs.

  Chapter 8

  When Leland’s mouth touched the aching spot between her legs, his touch shot sparks through her like a downed electrical wire writhing on a wet sidewalk. She slammed her eyelids shut and let herself fall into the sensation. He flicked at her clit with his tongue, then plunged it inside her, then told her how delicious she tasted and did it all again. He had an unerring sense of when she was about to crest into orgasm, her body poised in exquisite anticipation of his next stroke. Instead he would kiss her gently on the inside of her thigh, a lovely thing but not what she needed to go over the edge.

  He wound her insides into a coil of unsatisfied wanting until she was about to beg him to finish the job. Before she could open her mouth, he’d rolled on a condom, knelt and pulled her thighs up over his hips, and driven his cock deep inside her. Where he stayed motionless while her entire body down to her toes convulsed in one shrieking, nuclear orgasm.
All sensation wrapped around the hard length of him, filling her before it tore through her in a clench and release so violent she thought she might pull an internal muscle. She grabbed fistfuls of the quilt to anchor herself while she arched up and gave herself to the waves of pleasure crashing through her.

  When her muscles went limp, he still held her up, and now the rigidity of his erection felt even more sexy in contrast to the melted, liquid softness of her insides. She nudged herself against him in wordless encouragement.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked with a husky undertone to his drawl.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “but there won’t be much friction.”

  The sound he made was somewhere between a chuckle and a groan. “Friction will not be necessary.”

  He pulled back and thrust in, the motion rippling across her sated nerve endings like a warm sea. He did it again and once more and then his fingers were digging into her butt and his head was thrown back and his cock pumped inside her while he shouted her name toward the ceiling. Seeing the cords of his neck stand out and hearing the hoarseness of his voice and feeling the hard grip of his hands on her skin gave her a new and welcome sense of her own power. She had evoked this primitive reaction in a man who seemed always in control of himself.

  And then his grip eased as he lowered her hips, sliding out of her and letting his head fall forward while he sank back to sit on his heels. His chest rose and fell in great gasps.

  She let a smug little smile curl her lips. Tomorrow her upstairs neighbor might tease her about all the noise, but she was proud of making Leland yell in the throes of passion.

  He lifted his head and pushed his damp hair back from his forehead. “I can’t believe your bed didn’t collapse under the force of that explosion.”

  She let her smile widen. “Two explosions, mine and yours.”

  “Whatever you paid for this bed, it was worth it.” He ran his palm down her splayed thigh, giving it a pat before he climbed off to get rid of his condom. When he returned, she was still sprawled with her head pointing away from the headboard, too wrung out to want to move.