Page 35 of Hard Wired

She opened her mouth, then hesitated. “Occasionally.”

He leaned forward to whisper, his lips brushing her ear, his cheek against hers. “What makes you get hot when you think about it? Do you want a man to dominate you?”

She squeezed her legs together. He was lighting up every one of her nerve endings.

“I like communication.”

“We’re communicating right now. Are you getting wet?”

“You could find out.”

“I will if you’ll let me.” Dominic’s hands moved to her thighs, gently massaging, while he kissed along the line of her jaw. “Come back to the couch. I want to make you feel good. No expectations.”

“I’d like to make you feel good, too.”

He took her hand and brought it to his crotch. She felt the hard length of him tucked against his fly. “You turn me on, Sylvie. But I don’t have to come, either. Let’s see how close we can get to the edge without going over. How long we can make it last.”

Now, she knew she was in trouble. She’d worried she couldn’t trust him before, and maybe she still shouldn’t.

But she had the feeling he could convince her to do anything if she gave him the chance. Her clothes weren’t going to stay on for long if he kept talking like that. It wasn’t like her to surrender so much control. Yet she didn’t want to say no, either.

He led her back over to the couch and tugged her down into his lap. Dominic kissed her, taking long pulls from her lips.

Sylvie unbuttoned his jeans. “Can I touch you for a while?” She’d been so distracted earlier she hadn’t even gotten a good look at him.

His smile was lopsided. “If you insist.” Dominic reached for his zipper.

Then her computer dinged. She almost ignored it, but the laptop rang out again with another notification.

Sylvie groaned. “I should check on that. One of my programs is mad about something.”

“Do you have to?”

“I’m supposed to be working.”

That thought made her feel sheepish. Max probably wouldn’t appreciate the way she’d been spending her workday.

She went over to the table and paused, expecting to see a notice about her diagnostic. Maybe the program had detected the source of the problem with Crane’s security system.

But it wasn’t the diagnostic.

Sylvie stared in horror at the screen. It showed an old-school, 8-bit animation of a dragon breathing fire. Something she’d thought was funny when she coded it for the firewall she’d designed for this machine. But she wasn’t laughing.

Alert the villagers! the notice window read. The castle is under attack!

“Oh, fuck.”

Downstairs, Maureen screamed.

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