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.