Which was not what she needed to be thinking about.
"I'm serious." She forced herself to visualize Cupid between her legs, and felt appropriately horrified again. "My website has been hacked and you've got to fix it before clients start seeing it."
Evan flopped down onto the couch with his legs spread and said, "What did they do to it?"
Halley paced back and forth and cleared her throat. "Well, um, it's kind of hard to explain." Like dryer sheets. She'd never been able to figure out how those things worked.
Evan pushed his unkempt hair out of his eyes. "In my dream, this is the part where you walk in and stand in front of me, and I pull on the bikini strings…"
Evan's voice was low, charming, and luscious across her body as she walked over to him.
If only he knew how horny that made her, he wouldn't find it so funny anymore. More likely he'd leap out of his window to get away from her.
Halley cleared her throat for emphasis, ignoring the way his boxer shorts pulled up tautly and showed her a fabulous glimpse of his assets. One false move on his part, and she would be seeing a whole lot more.
Giving what she hoped was a casual grin, she said, "I told you to enjoy the dream then. What's behind those strings is a lot better in fiction than in reality." In real life, she wasn't exactly giving Pamela Anderson a run for her money.
Evan patted the seat on the couch next to him, which she totally ignored. Standing was much safer.
Evan said, "I hate it when you're down on your body." He raised his eyebrows up and down. "You've got great tits, sweet stuff."
That was so close to what she wanted to hear, yet so damn far.
"Well, I haven't made it into the Great Tits Hall of Fame yet," she joked, then could have kicked herself. She shouldn't be extending a conversation that dealt with body parts.
Evan threw his arms over the back of the couch and laughed. Then he shrugged on a grin, causing his chest to ripple in an attractive distraction that made Halley feel like a virgin at a Chippendales strip show.
Inspired. Eager. Amazed.
Then he ruined it by talking. "That's because the nominating committee hasn't seen you right now. Geez, are you cold or just happy to see me?"
Considering it was August and he had no air-conditioning, she would give him only one guess.
"Alright, very funny." Fighting the urge to cover her enthusiastic nipples with her hands, she strode off in the direction of his bedroom, where he kept his computer. "I'd say leave my chest out of the conversation but it's bound to pop up again once you see my website."
Not that she was jealous or anything of those huge melon-dwarfing breasts the hacker had stuck under her chin. Okay, so she was jealous, but only a little. At least she could do gymnastics or ballet if the urge ever struck her. Let's see a D-cup woman do that.
Halley shuddered as she walked into Evan's bedroom. The queen-size bed wasn't made. Gazing at those crumpled, still-warm sheets made her flustered. And aroused.
Evan let out a yawn next to her. Good to see he was as affected by her as she was by him.
She forced herself to turn away from the bed and walk to Evan's computer area. At least a third of his room was consumed by all kinds of computer equipment, wires, and other things she had no clue what to call.
"What did you say the problem was exactly?" Uhh. "Someone tampered with the website."
"Well, it can't be too bad. I designed the site myself, you know, and it's completely protected from hackers." He sat down at his computer desk and turned the machine on.
As it booted up, Halley came to stand behind him, careful not to get too close. She braced herself for the image that was going to pop up any second now. She wasn't sure having Evan fix it was worth the humiliation of having him see it. Then again, it was either Evan or potentially hundreds of customers. Closing her eyes, she gulped and waited for Evan's hysterical laughter to fill the room.
Chapter Two
Holy hell. Evan was speechless as he took in the sight of Halley smiling prettily on the home page of her website. Totally naked from head to toe.
Tampered was a hell of an understatement.
Halley was right. She had been hacked.
"Those bastards!"
"I know!" Halley's hands landed on his shoulders.
If he hadn't been so distracted, he might have enjoyed that little skin-to-skin contact, but he was too pissed off right now to appreciate it. "What a total kick in the balls. I cannot believe they got through my firewalls. This site was hack-proof!"
Halley's nails dug a little too deep. He winced and shifted away from her.
"That's not the point, Evan. The point is I'm naked!"
Was she ever. Jesus. Halley's ugly beige dress had disappeared and her smile seemed to have gone from professional to suggestive.
He liked it. Now if he could only get her to smile at him like that, instead of the perpetual "best buds" grin she always gave him.
"I don't think they got your best side, sweetheart," he said when he'd retrieved his voice from his throat, where it had been lodged like a beer nut.
She slapped his shoulder. "That's not even me!"
"I know." Did she think he was stupid? He knew every inch of her body, from her bouncy blond hair to her oddly chubby little toes. And everything in between.
He turned to look at Halley. She hadn't changed much in the ten years they'd been friends. Her hair was a little shorter these days, almost to her ears, and her clothes had toned down in style and color, but she was still the same Halley.
His best bud. That for quite a while now he had been wishing could be more. He had never seen Halley naked, but he had made a study out of her in clothes, and knew every curve of her delicious body.
There were plenty of occasions on which Halley really hadn't been wearing that many clothes in front of him, like trips to the beach and the pool, and those awe-inspiring times when she had opened the door to him in her PJs, no bra under those tight little stretchy tops.
With that kind of data stored in his memory banks, it was no wonder he was suddenly dreaming about her in triple-X.
Today Halley was a little pale, but that could be because she was looking at her head slapped on porn. He wondered how pale she would be if he told her he wanted to be more than friends. Way more than friends.
Not that he had any intention of telling her. That was a surefire way to screw up the best friendship he'd ever had. Sometimes he couldn't control himself and he blurted out comments that were way too revealing, like the recurring dream he'd been having. But Halley always assumed he was joking. Or she wanted to believe he was joking.
"Of course I know that's not you. Your body doesn't look anything like that." Halley's body was perfect. Breasts that would fit into his hands, a narrow waist, firm, sleek thighs, and an ass that could stop traffic.
Not that he'd noticed or anything.
And the hard-on he was now sporting in his boxer shorts was pure coincidence. A morning erection, twenty minutes late.
"You don't know what my body looks like," Halley said in shocked tones, as if he'd admitted to looking under the bathroom stall.
"Yes, I do. I've seen you in a bathing suit, and this body is not your body." This body, with the overgrown breasts and scrawny legs, did nothing for him. Halley's body made him want to drop to the ground and beg.
He turned and tried really hard not to look at her breasts. He failed miserably, and winced at her nipples jutting out in her tank top, her chest heaving up and down in indignation. If she had any idea the torture he endured in the name of friendship.
Innocently unaware of his lecherous thoughts, Halley said, "It doesn't matter whose body it is. Can you get rid of it?"
"Sure, I can fix it. No problem."
He dragged his gaze away from her firm breasts. With supreme effort, he turned back to the screen and eyeballed the image there again. It was then he noticed the little figure between her legs. Or whoever's legs they were.
"Jesus, Halley, this is the trademark of the Three Commandos, well-known hackers and online legends."
"How can you tell?"
"They always put a cartoon figure in their work. Cherubs, demons, devils, usually revolving around the themes of heaven and hell. And see? There's a C on each wing, and one on his bow. The Three Cs." Evan found himself excited in spite of the circumstances. He had a chance to dig into the Three Commandos' handiwork, and see if he was up to the job of restoring Halley's site to its prehacked state.
Since he had gotten burnout and left software development three years earlier, he had been doing consulting work. It was low stress, paid great, and left him plenty of free time for relaxing and playing in a baseball league. But he missed stuff like this. The challenge of the computer, figuring out its inner workings and how man had manipulated those.
The Three Cs had thrown down a challenge to him. To figure out how they had managed to so obviously and effectively corrupt the site he had built for Halley. It just might require enough brain capacity to keep his mind off Halley for an hour or two.
"So why did they pick on me?" Halley wailed, obviously not concerned about the mysterious guts of a PC.
"Did you serve them bad fish, maybe?"
"I don't serve bad anything."
He didn't doubt it. Halley personally oversaw everything about her business. Despite her horror, he grinned at the screen in total appreciation for the art of the Three Commandos. They had style, you had to give them that.
"Sweet stuff, whatever you did, it earned a cherub going down on you."
Halley flushed. Her cheeks were vivid pink and her mouth dropped. "I didn't do anything, and that's not me," she stubbornly insisted.
"I know it's not you. We've been over this. I'll fix it, so don't get your panties in a bunch." There he was. Doing it again. Mentioning underwear when that was the last thing in the world he should be discussing with Halley.
Inevitably, the image of her in nothing but panties rose in his mind. His cock throbbed and he shifted in his chair, hoping Halley didn't happen to glance down into his lap. The Leaning Tower of Penis might be a little hard to explain.
Halley whacked him on the back. Not a light teasing pat. Or a seductive brush. But a whomp. Right between the shoulder blades. "Let's see how you would feel if you were naked on the Internet."
He tossed her a grin, almost grateful she'd lobbed him hard enough to knock a few teeth loose. Maybe if she whacked him on the head next, he'd recover his sanity. "But you just said that's not you."
"Technicality!" She dug her hands into her hair and twisted her fingers around until her hair was in a makeshift bun. Her shirt rose way up past her belly button, flashing him with smooth pale skin.
God, he loved her. He had loved her almost as long as he had known her. It was a love that had grown out of friendship, and was deep and solid and forever. In the last couple of years that love had extended to the physical, as in he'd love to get his hands on her body.
Sometime before he died or she married some putz.
Evan stared at her and contemplated reaching forward and licking her stomach, dipping his tongue into her belly button. He was abnormally horny today, which was probably the result of not dating for the last six months. For years, he had avoided his feelings for Halley by marathon dating, but lately, he just couldn't even fake his way through it anymore.
Halley waved her hand back and forth in front of his face. "Hello? Did you fall back asleep? Can you fix my site today, or do you know someone we can call who can do it if you can't?"
That distracted him from studying the smooth skin of her abdomen as his ego suffered the insult. How could she even doubt he could fix it? He could fix it with one hand tied behind his back. He could fix it submerged in water. He could fix it even if Halley was sucking his cock.
Well, maybe not that one. Painful hot throbbing filled his boxers. He wouldn't be doing anything else but enjoying, if Halley ever took it upon herself to suck him.
Not that she would ever even dream of doing that with him, the man she thought of like a brother. But that didn't stop him from fantasizing a little. Right now.
"Well?"
Huh? He had forgotten what she'd asked him.
"Oh, yeah, of course I can fix it. It might take me a couple of hours to bypass all the firewalls the hackers might have erected but that won't be a big deal."
"Can you put it back exactly the way it was?"
"Not a problem." The only problem was that she needed to move away from him or he would never be able to concentrate.
Halley needed to get away from Evan. The feel of him, the sound of his voice, the sleepy morning smell that surrounded him, was driving her crazy.
Not batty like her Aunt Ginny. But wild kind of crazy. Really achy kind of crazy.
She hadn't been with a guy since that fiasco she had called a relationship with Lewis, the human plunger.
Given the heat in her Capri pants, it seemed a safe bet that two years was too long to go without a little woohoo.
"Can I borrow your phone?" She backed up slowly, one, two. There, that was better. She couldn't smell him anymore. "I want to call my office and let them know what's going on."
"Sure." His voice was already distracted as he peered at the computer screen. He started moving the mouse, clicking on things in rapid succession.
Halley was relieved to leave her problem in capable hands and retreat to his kitchen, which still had last night's dinner dishes in it. Dinner looked to have been Cheetos and a frozen burrito.
She shuddered. His eating habits were abysmal, and in the last few years she had taken to cooking for him a couple of times a week. But since she had been avoiding him, he had obviously resorted to barrel scraping.
She could cook something for him in ten minutes that was a thousand times better than a frozen burrito. A nice fluffy omelet would be ideal, she thought as she picked up the phone and dialed her office.
Nora picked up.
"Hi, it's me. How are things going there?" She held her breath waiting for the answer.
"Well." Nora hesitated.
Halley's stomach did a hokey-pokey imitation, shaking and churning. "Tell me."
"Okay. We've had sixteen calls requesting nude catering jobs. Three callers wanted to know if you could serve penis-shaped hors d'oeuvres, one thought he could order a prostitute complete with her own Cupid sex toy, and you remember Mr. Benjamin, that sweet old man whose eightieth birthday we catered last month? He wants a refund since we didn't serve nude at his party." Nora took a deep breath. "And I caught three of our servers printing fifty copies of the home page with your picture on it."
"Oh, no!" Halley sagged against the counter. She was ruined. Completely and utterly ruined. She might as well pack up and go back to the trailer park she had grown up in.
As a total failure.
Nora said in bewilderment, "Who would have thought so many people in suburban Pittsburgh want naked catering?"
That was a question for philosophers and Jerry Springer.
"Evan says he can fix it, so just try and stay calm. You're doing great." Which was more than she could say for herself since she had the urge to collapse on the kitchen floor in a fit of the screaming meemies.
"I shredded the copies the servers printed, but there's nothing to stop them from making more. You might want to reprimand them, it was"
Halley quickly cut her off. "No, that's okay." She really had no interest in which of her male employees had found it necessary to put on paper fifty copies of her naked body.
Which was not her naked body at all. Geez, that was the worst part of the whole thing. They had given her one of those figures that looked as if it was three or four different bodies welded together. Huge breasts, hourglass waist, curvy behind, and chicken legs.
Naked Catering Barbie. Complete with tray.
Besides, she had a hard time visualizing calling three men into her office and telling them to stop printing out nudie shots of h
er on company time with expensive office supplies. It sort of shot her advantage as their intimidating boss.
"One last thing," Nora said, her tentative voice betraying the casual words.
"What?" Halley paced back and forth in Evan's kitchen, skirting his overflowing trash can. Whatever Nora had to say, it couldn't get any worse.
She was ready.
"The church charity group called."
Oh, no. This was going to be worse.
"And?"
"They're canceling us for their five-hundred-seat event."
What would Evan do if she suddenly starting screaming "bloody hell" at the top of her lungs?
That charity dinner was five hundred times nineteen ninety-five a plate, which meant she was out a hell of a lot of money.
"They didn't even want to talk to me?" Maybe if she threw in free wine…
Nora said, "I tried to talk them out of canceling, I told them it was a hack job, but they didn't care."
She squeezed her eyes closed. "That's okay."
Her life was over, but it wasn't Nora's fault. Nora was clearly upset and Halley didn't want her to feel she was to blame. The Three Commandos were the ones to blame, and they were smarmy illusive Internet surfers, hacking their way through decent hardworking people's lives.
"I'll call you later." She hung up and ran a mental list of all the events they had coming up during the busy August and September wedding season. If even a fourth of them canceled, she was going to suffer from excess inventory, an unnecessarily large staff, and decreased income.
On a shaky sigh, she let the tears break free and roll down her cheek.
"Holy crap, you're not going to believe this." Evan came strolling into the kitchen, a grin dancing across his face.
Halley turned to hide her tears, but the smile collapsing into concern showed her he had already seen them.
He stopped dead and said, "Hey, what's wrong?"
Stupid man. What did he think was wrong? That she'd missed the JCPenney white sale?
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