“And last night? Did you think about the consequences then?”
I glanced away. “I don’t play with fire without realizing I could get burned.”
“And did you want to burn?” His voice whispered around me, a temptation in itself.
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes. I’d promised him honesty, so I said nothing at all.
He touched my jaw, turning my face up to his. I could just make out his handsome features, but the darkness washed the color from his eyes. “Tell me,” he urged, his voice low and delicious.
If I admitted it, then I gave him the power to hurt me. He’d already hurt me once, long ago. And while I hadn’t expected a love match with Gregory, I’d expected mutual respect and admiration. I’d gotten neither, only more pain. I wanted to trust Ian, to trust that he wouldn’t hurt me again, to trust that he wouldn’t turn out like my late husband, but fear stole the words.
“What are you doing, Ian?” I asked instead, my voice quiet.
He ran a thumb across my bottom lip and chuckled. “I’m trying to convince myself to leave before I kiss you.”
I made a mental list of why kissing Ian would be a bad idea, but, for once, I ignored it. I wanted him to kiss me, consequences be damned. I might not be ready to trust him with my heart quite yet, but I absolutely trusted him with my body. Ian would never physically hurt me, never take more than I offered. I knew it down to my bones.
“Kiss me,” I breathed.
He slid his hand into my hair and angled my head. His lips covered mine, warm and firm and divine. I slid my hands up his chest, one to his shoulder, one to the back of his head, and pressed upward, desperate to get closer. He groaned low and sucked my bottom lip into his mouth.
I opened with a moan and slid my tongue against his. My nipples tightened and my pulse raced, pushed by the lust blazing through my system. Ian skillfully explored my mouth with seemingly infinite patience while I wanted to rip his clothes off and ride him to bliss.
I pulled back with a gasp, aware that I was teetering on a dangerous precipice. Ian nuzzled his way down my jaw, nibbling and kissing. I let my head fall back into his hand, enjoying the feeling. I drew a mental line in the sand: I would allow this, but no further. Kisses might complicate our relationship, but sex had the potential to destroy it.
Thoughts sorted, I used the hand buried in Ian’s hair to pull his mouth back to mine. He came willingly, scorching a trail up my jaw. His hand slipped under my shirt and headed north. I stopped him before he reached his destination, though my breasts ached to be touched. But I held on to my resolve by the slenderest of threads—if he caressed me, I’d be lost.
Ian respected the line I’d drawn. His hands didn’t stray, but his mouth tempted me with every firm stroke of his tongue. By the time he pulled away to rest his forehead against mine, I was lightly panting and nearly ready to combust.
“I should go,” he said reluctantly, his voice a low growl. His breath came in uneven rasps. I wasn’t the only one affected, then.
“You should,” I agreed. I played with the soft hair at the back of his head, unwilling to let him go. Once we broke out of this quiet, hidden bubble, the real world would be all too eager to reassert itself, along with all of my doubts and fears.
He kissed the corner of my mouth and straightened. “Get ready and I’ll meet you downstairs for breakfast. It doesn’t make sense for us to switch to local time if we’re only going to be here for a day.” He pulled away slowly, then turned and disappeared through the door connecting our rooms, closing it gently behind him.
I stared at the door for a long moment, half hoping he’d come back and finish what he started. My body still hummed. It would take so little to push me over the edge. I’d never reacted so strongly to a kiss before.
I foresaw an icy cold shower in my very near future.
After getting ready, I put on my smart glasses, set up my connection safeguards, and logged in to my safe house in HIVE. Outside the window, golden early morning light hadn’t quite burned off the fog, turning the forest into an enchanting wonderland.
The forest was part of this virtual location, so I often wandered through the trees, but today I didn’t have time for a leisurely stroll. I had two replies on the note board and one of them was from Tori Waugh. Based on the time stamp, I had just missed her.
Both replies said essentially the same thing: MineCorp did not play when it came to network security. As expected, they had an entire department dedicated to locking down their systems. A remote hack was unlikely to succeed.
Tori’s note went into further detail. She wasn’t in the security department, but she knew her way around a network and had been doing a little snooping of her own. She said that a few old-timers preferred to use an older, less secure piece of software that left ports open on the systems. The sysadmins had been trying to crack down on it, but the people who used it were in upper management and they did as they pleased.
I murmured a little prayer of thanks for users who remained set in their ways. They made my job so much easier.
The ports weren’t open from the outside, but if I could get physical access to the network, I could use a cracking script to get in. She even offered a few that might be useful. She warned that the sysadmins were good, so even if I got in, I wouldn’t have much time before they caught me.
I saved the scripts, then wrote Tori an effusive note of thanks and attached enough credits to it that she and her wife could have a very nice dinner out. Unlike my other contacts, credits weren’t required here, we just helped each other out when we could, but Tori had gone far above and beyond what I had expected.
I carefully left the safe house and logged out of HIVE. I rounded up a few more scripts that might get me into MineCorp’s systems, then shut down my com and took off my smart glasses.
Now it was time to face Ian for the first time since our scorching kiss. Despite giving myself a stern pep talk about acting normal, my pulse fluttered as I made my way down to the dining room. The public areas of Rhys’s house were opulent bordering on ostentatious. Rhys hadn’t struck me as the type for conspicuous consumerism, so I wondered why his house was an altar to excess.
In the foyer, a stately gray-haired butler directed me to the formal dining room. An ornately carved table with seats for fourteen dominated the space. The glittering crystal chandelier fought for equal attention. I would’ve preferred a smaller breakfast room, but I suppose with local time being evening, that wasn’t an option. I felt severely underdressed in my T-shirt and cargo pants.
Place settings for six were laid out in the middle of the table. Ian sat at the near end with a cup of coffee. He was dressed much the same as me, to my relief, but his expression was guarded.
“Is there tea?” I asked. I’d only been out of the silencer field for a few minutes, but I could already tell that the crush of signals would be a test. If I was lucky, I’d end the night functional but with a splitting headache.
Ian waved me to the chair on his left. While I sat, he poured me a cup of tea and added milk and sugar. After last night, it shouldn’t have surprised me that he knew how I liked my tea, but the small kindness still warmed my heart.
He handed me the cup, and I took a fortifying sip. Desperate to break the awkward silence, I said, “Ada sent me a message to let me know she’s on her way back. She and Loch should be here soon.”