by Lexi Archer
Digital Dalliance
Lexi Archer
Copyright 2015 Lexi Archer
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Individuals pictured on the cover are models and used for illustrative purposes only.
This novel is based on a previously published work rewritten with all new content.
First digital edition electronically published by Lexi Archer, March 2015
Let your fantasies come true with Lexi Archer…
Thanks for downloading this story and supporting me! Check out my catalog, all now available on Kindle Unlimited:
Lexi’s author page: your wildest fantasies in one convenient location!
Want to know when I release new stories? Sure you do! Subscribe to the Lexi Archer mailing list for all the latest updates and book news!
Sign up at: http://lexiarcher.com/subscribe/
Table of Contents
1: Date Night Denied
2: Mysterious Stranger
3: Second Chance Denied
4: Slightly Astray
5: Suspicions
6: Not That Kind of Girl
7: Honey I’m Home
8: Friendly Chat
9: Nuclear Options
10: Digital Date Night
11: Spying
12: Pixelated Passion
13: Secrets Revealed
14: Pics?
15: Video Chat
16: IRL?
17: Dinner Date
18: Real Life Role-play
19: Double the Fun
20: Aftermath
More from Lexi Archer
1: Date Night Denied
I smiled as I walked through the door. The day had been a real bitch at the office, but coming home to Kayla always made it worthwhile.
“Honey, I’m home!” I said as I stepped through the door. No answer. I frowned. Usually she said something.
That frown stayed plastered on my face as I stepped into the dining room that had been turned into a computer room since our idea of entertaining guests ran more to ordering a pizza and parking it in the kitchen while we had a movie night in the living room rather than surrounding the dining room table and chatting with people.
Kayla was at her computer staring at the screen, completely engrossed. Probably not even playing the game. No, my wife’s favorite thing to do in Tales of Elassa these days was that stupid role-playing stuff.
I grinned just a little. Not that I could put that stuff down entirely. The game had been how we met, after all. Of course back then she was actually interested in playing the damn game. Back then she would go on raids with me so we were sort of spending time together even if we were playing the game.
Not so much anymore.
She’d long since dropped out of the guild where we met. Now she was with one of those role-playing guilds where they spent all their time telling stories to each other about the game’s cookie cutter generic fantasy back story or whatever. She told me about it from time to time, but my eyes glazed over when she talked about that crap almost as much as her eyes glazed over when I started telling her about the latest in-game raid progression I was doing.
I was a little annoyed to see her already in the game tonight. She got home before I did thanks to her office closing earlier than mine, and that meant she was usually good and vegged out by the time I got home. That also meant there was no chance of having a little fun tonight even though it was a Friday. There’d be no going out to dinner. More importantly there’d be no coming back home and having some fun in the bedroom. I knew from experience that all of that was off the table once she had her nose buried in her monitor.
I sighed and went to the bedroom and changed out of my work clothes. Instead of changing into out-on-the-town clothes, though, I just changed into my pajamas and moved into the computer room. Sat down and fired up my own machine. If she was going to game then I could too.
I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I was going to get a smile or anything else. Kayla glanced at me, but that was it. So I put on my headphones and figured I’d get ready to go on raid night after all.
I’d told the guys in my guild that it was a tossup whether or not I’d be able to make it on a Friday night raid, but when I logged on everyone started greeting me like they expected to see me tonight. It hit me that they had a good reason to expect to see me. We hadn’t actually gone out on a date in more than a month. No wonder everyone took it as a given that I was going to be on for the Friday night raid.
I held back a sigh. I didn’t want to let on that I was upset. The last thing I wanted was to have a discussion with my wife about how much time we spent playing the game. That was an argument I really didn’t want to have considering it was both of us spending time in game that was part of the problem and I didn’t want to miss tonight’s raid.
I shrugged. Whatever. If she was busy, if she thought interactive crappy creative writing with some of her friends in game was more important than the Friday date night we’d agreed to a month ago the last time we argued about spending too much time in the game, then that was her business.
Though sometimes I worried when I thought about what she might be up during some of those “role-playing” sessions. We were on a role-playing server which was like a special playground designated specifically for the kind of person who thought that telling stories about playing the game was more fun than actually playing the game. I’d originally started here because the friend who got me into the game played on this server, and I stayed because it turned out there were far fewer stereotypical gamer assholes on the role-playing servers than on other servers.
Not that they didn’t exist at all here, just that the rules for these servers tended to keep those types away.
I hadn’t even realized Kayla was into that sort of thing until we moved in together. By then I’d heard the rumors. Rumors that made me hesitant about her doing that sort of thing. Rumors about people hanging around in the starter zones telling stories. And the stories they were telling were more like some sort of interactive erotica improv. Basically what they were doing was role-playing having sex. There was really no way to cherry coat it.
Of course you couldn’t play on a server like this for any appreciable time and not hear some of those stories. Some were pretty damn funny.
Kayla swore up and down that wasn’t her thing. That she looked down on people who did that sort of thing, but still I couldn’t help but wonder sometimes.
I clicked to get into the group and ported over to tonight’s dungeon. As I did so I had to adjust my cock in my pajama pants. Why was my cock getting hard? That was odd. Must be because I was so frustrated from not getting a little bit of the fun I’d been hoping for ever since I left the office.
Oh well. I could jerk off later. Right now I had a raid to think about. I definitely didn’t have time to get turned on or anything.
I put on my headset and I was plunged into the world of raiding. A world where we had to defeat the latest big bad.
Sure there was always a new big bad that they were coming up with, but that was the nature of the game. That was how they kept things interesting. At least for me. It definitely wasn’t a “digital treadmill” like Kayla seemed to think. That’s why she got out of the whole raiding game.
I looked over my shoulder to Kayla one more time, wondering if she might turn and get the idea that I wanted to do more than sit in front of the computer for another night. No luck though. She stared straight ahead.
There was no point in interrupting her. She got as angry as I did when she tried interrupting raid night, as though writing interactive fanfiction was as involved as taking down some of the most difficult bosses in the game. She didn’t
look away from the screen. Her eyes didn’t even flicker over to me this time.
Okay. So guilt free raid night it was.
2: Mysterious Stranger
I watched John come through the door and go straight for the bedroom. Typical. We were supposed to have date night tonight but he’d spent the last three weekends doing those stupid raids and forgetting about our agreement.
I was looking at the screen but not paying attention when he walked back in wearing his pajamas. Yup. That definitely meant he was in for the night and doing that stupid raid. I glanced over and saw him looking at me but I went back to my computer. If he was spending the night in the game ignoring me then I’d do the same. I saw his name pop up on my friends list as he logged in.
Looks like it was another night of role-playing. I sighed. This was fun, but I’d been at it since I got home from work and really was hoping for a night out with John. Damn it. I put my hands on the keyboard and was transported into the world of Elassa both on screen and in my mind’s eye.
The heavy wooden door to the inn slammed open and everybody turned to look. The human who stepped through the door stopped for a moment, his hands on his belt, and surveyed the room as though he owned the place. He exuded power and authority. He had the calm confidence of someone who was in his element, someone who knew that nobody in this room would dare cross him.
This close to the city I’d say he had all the cocky swagger of an enforcer, though he wasn’t wearing their uniform. Perhaps he was an officer. Perhaps he was off duty. Perhaps he was simply working in secret and doing a terrible job of keeping that secret.
Whatever it was, everybody immediately paid attention to their drink. Paid attention to what they’d been eating. The conversation that had filled the large room was gone.
I sighed. Humans and their petty squabbles.
The man looked around the room one more time and then did a double take when his eyes ran across me. I fought the urge to smile. It wasn’t very often that my kind traveled in the human realms. It definitely wasn’t very often that my kind graced a simple tavern in the city.
Apparently my uniqueness was enough to draw his attention. I was immediately on guard. My fingers crackled with the energy of several magical surprises I’d worked up just in case it turned out he wasn’t a member of the enforcers. In this city somebody with that cocky swagger could just as easily be a member of a local criminal syndicate. Crime families seemed to spring up and disappear on an almost nightly basis in this place.
No matter what the circumstances, whether he was enforcer or criminal, I’d found it was always a good policy to be on guard when traveling through the human realms. Better to fireball first and ask questions later.
He moved over to the bar slowly which gave me plenty of time to and give him a cursory inspection. He had a tunic that was made of fine materials, though not so fine that it would mark him as a member of one of the local human noble houses. Those also seemed to spring up and disappear on an almost nightly basis around here. Part of the turmoil in the human lands. He had a sword at his side and from the way he moved with a dangerous coiled grace like a cat about to spring it seemed that he knew how to use it. He was ruggedly handsome, though not too pretty. Nothing like the men from my homeland. He had a scar running along one cheek and a nose that looked like it had been broken on more than one occasion.
Yes, definitely an enforcer or a criminal. The question was, which one? I would just have to wait and see.
He leaned against the bar and it creaked under his massive weight. He really was enormous. Not fat, just big. Broad shoulders, heavy chest, a stomach that was perhaps a little larger than most in this area which once again made me think he was working for somebody with the means to provide a regular meal. That was a rare luxury in these lands since the Sundering. He definitely didn’t have the lean look of someone who spent their time out in the world adventuring.
He grinned down at me. One of his teeth was missing. His eyes openly ran up and down my body and I fought the urge to reach out and smack him. Reaching out and smacking him was the last thing I probably needed to do at the moment. With the magic that was just itching to be released from my fingertips I was just as likely to embroil him in a column of flame or disintegrate him where he stood as actually physically smack him.
Occupational hazard of working with powerful magic.
Stranger finished his inspection and chuckled. The inspection made it clear he was the kind of man who had to categorize everything as to whether or not it was a threat. The chuckle and the way he smiled at me made it clear I’d been dismissed as no threat at all. There was a time when that would’ve made me bristle with anger. There was a time when I was out to prove myself and my ability when I might have been tempted to teach him a lesson.
But that time passed while his great grandparents were probably still children. Experience taught me that having somebody dismiss you out of hand like that could be an advantage rather than a liability. Especially with meatheads like this who thought a sword at their side was the only thing they needed to make their way through the world.
He returned his attention to my eyes for a moment, then moved down to my chest. That was another move that would’ve made me bristle once upon a time. How dare a human look at me like that! Only now it was just one more thing I welcomed as a potential advantage, a potential weapon in my arsenal, and I have to admit that feeling his eyes on me like that did send a thrill running through me. A thrill that I’d never admit even to myself because that was definitely not the sort of thing I was looking for in these taverns. That was definitely not the sort of thing I would ever do with a barbarian human like this for that matter!
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” he said.
His voice was deep and gravelly. It promised danger. It promised quick death to anyone who crossed him. I had to fight the urge to giggle as he stood there trying to look imposing and threatening with no idea that I could disintegrate him with the flick of a finger if I wished it.
“I sometimes have reason to travel in human lands,” I said.
“Oh?” An elf is rare enough, but it’s even rarer that we see an elf maiden from the Hokuten Order traveling these lands.”
I bit back a curse. He wasn’t supposed to know that. Wasn’t supposed to know who I was, what I was, who I represented, and yet he was here he was saying it plain as day for everybody in the tavern to hear. Talk about bad manners! Poor form and bad manners!
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
There was still time to salvage this. Still time to hope he’d take the hint. This had been off to a promising start, and I didn’t want to be disappointed now.
“Of course you do, elf,” he said.
“Why would you think I was in the Order?”
He grinned. “I just have a way of knowing these things.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. Of course he’d say something like that. Of course he wouldn’t have any good reason why he knew what he knew. He just expected me to take it on the face of things that he was some super genius fantasy Sherlock Holmes who could immediately tell everything about a person’s background from looking at them. I complained to John about these types all the time, though I don’t think he really paid much attention when I started talking about the role-playing scene.
Of course I knew this guy could tell everything from looking at my profile and the guild tag over my head, but he wasn’t supposed to bring that into our conversation. It was supposed to flow naturally. It was supposed to come out in the back and forth. Now for the first time I regretted ever using one of those role-playing profile plugins in the first place. They caused more trouble than that they helped in my experience.
“I think our conversation here is done,” I said.
That grin on his face grew even wider. It was definitely ruined by more missing teeth that became obvious as his mouth opened.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about
! So are we going out to the edge of the zone or what? Maybe have a little fun?”
I pulled away from the keyboard let out a noise that was halfway between a frustrated angry cry and a strangled retching noise. I should have expected this. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen for a moment, tried to collect myself, tried to think about how I was going to respond to this asshole.
“Something wrong?” John asked.
I wheeled my computer chair around to face John. It looked like they were at a pause in the raid. Of course they’d pause right at the last moment I wanted to draw his attention. He could get funny about this type of role-player. He acted like I didn’t know how to handle them.
His massive gaming rig hummed as various fans turned on and off to make sure all the expensive widgets he’d put in the thing to make sure the game ran at maximum settings at all times worked.
I wasn’t really big into computers. Not like I’d been back when I was into the raiding scene along with John. No, as long as I could load the game and go to some of my favorite zones and role-play that was enough for me. He was still very much a power gamer in every sense of the word though, and apparently that necessitated the kind of computer that looked like it could gain sentence at any moment and try to wipe the human race from the face of the earth in a desperate act of self-preservation.
Not that I could complain too much about John’s obsession with having the biggest and the best. He certainly made enough that it barely put a dent in the budget, and his constant pursuit of the biggest and the best meant he was always upgrading my computer with the castoffs left over after whatever latest upgrade he’d put into his machine.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
“I was having a promising session with some new player at the inn and then he comes out and asks for it,” I groused.
I didn’t have to tell him what “it” was. The main reason John was on a role-playing server rather than some other server was because I happened to play still on this one. Plus he and his friends were always going on about how the “care bears” on this server wouldn’t know decent raiding if it bit them in their prose-spewing butts which made it easier for them to dominate the endgame.