LITMIR.BIZ

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saw a nipple bud tightly beneath the soft material, and felt a masculine surge of satisfaction. Oh, yeah, she definitely noticed he was there.

      “Um…” She was flustered, he noted, and trying to move past. Getting a grip, he ignored his moment of insanity and walked around to the front of the desk.

      What had gotten into him? Sheesh, she would have him up on charges of sexual harassment, and she wouldn’t be far off the mark. He also felt…guilty? Shaking his head again, he knew he had made the right decision about meeting Nilla or breaking it off. Now he was actually feeling guilty about having a response to another woman behind the back of his virtual lover? This was ridiculous. He had to get his life back. He had to have sex. With a real woman. Clearing his throat, he modulated his voice to be cool and professional.

      “What kinds of other problems have you been having?”

      “I came in on Monday, and for some reason, all my article files had been erased. I had backups of most of them, but it put me behind because—”

      “Where did you have them stored?”

      Bristling at his interruption, her eyes went glacial.

      “I always keep my active folder on the desktop, so I can have quick access to it.”

      “Maybe you deleted your files by mistake. Folders and files don’t usually delete themselves.”

      “No, they don’t. But neither did I. Something happened, and they were gone.”

      He sighed. It was never anyone’s fault when something happened to their computer. “Anything else?”

      “Yes, last week I could barely get anything done. My computer kept freezing up, and was very slow. I had to keep shutting it down and restarting. Then it just snapped out of it and was fine.”

      “Sounds like minor stuff. Probably won’t happen again. I’ll send a tech up to look at it later.”

      With that, he gathered up his laptop and walked out of the office, leaving her feeling abruptly dismissed. Raine sat down in her chair and let out a breath it seemed she had been holding the entire time he had been in the office. What a strange conversation. Why did he dislike her so much? And why had her body leaped in response to such a casual, accidental touch? It was horribly embarrassing, especially with him.

      She tried to forget it. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed. He was in no small hurry to get out of her office, so she wouldn’t have to worry about it again. Shaking off the uncomfortable feeling, she checked her in box, and saw the e-mail pop up on her screen. From Rider. No subject line. Opening it, she saw only one word.

      Please.

      The decision to meet Rider was becoming a vague possibility in her mind. She kept trying to push down the sense of anticipation, of hope that this time—this man—could be different, but it kept emerging, especially after talking to Gwen. How could she use this as research when she was so obviously losing her objectivity? What if he was just the way he was online? Could she do this? Should she? Her stomach fluttered thinking of it.

      What if meeting him turned out to be a total bomb? What if he was crazy, or even worse, married? But in her gut she knew neither one would be true. He would be great. And she would be…well, she wasn’t exactly chopped liver, but she also wasn’t the adventure girl that she had come across as online. In fact, far from it.

      But she had always thought, with the right man, someone whom she could open up with, someone who would care, maybe things could be different. Maybe she could be different. At the worst, the spark would fizzle when they actually met, and that would not be a tragedy.

      All in all, she led a pretty normal, sane and sometimes boring life. Could she live up to the sexual fantasies they had shared online? Her sex life had ranged from mildly interesting to nonexistent.

      But maybe it wouldn’t even come to that. All she had to do was meet him. That was all.

      Her readers had been sending her tons of similar questions and stories about their Internet romances and how to handle them. And now here she was, like so many of her readers, wondering what to do. Take the chance? What was life without a little risk, right? How could she ever really know unless she took the leap? She would just control the risk, make sure things didn’t go any direction she didn’t want them to go. Maybe. Maybe she could risk it. One more time.

      JACK SHOOK OFF his aggravation, catching a coffee at the cafeteria and heading back downstairs to the Batcave, as they affectionately referred to the subterranean floor of the office building.

      He tried to ignore the anxiety of wondering what Nilla was doing at this very second, what she was wearing, if she was thinking of him, if she was considering making them a reality.

      The incident with Raine only had his body more fired up, and he hoped something would happen soon, or he was either going to have to dig into his address book, which he was loath to do. They were women he had dated, and whom he liked. He wouldn’t feel right using one of them to work off the hots he had gotten from someone else. It was more likely he was facing several weeks of cold showers until he got over this.

      Never again would he get involved in an online love affair. It was just too hard on the body. He slid a furtive glance at his e-mail. He couldn’t believe it, but his heart actually flipped when he saw an e-mail from her. Sent only moments ago.

      He stared at it for a few moments, then opened it. One word.

      Okay.

      Hot damn! He thought his face would split from grinning, and all of his aggravation was lost in a consuming sense of anticipation. He was caught unawares by the person standing behind him.

      “Uh, sir? Sir?”

      Jack spun around in his chair, realizing he probably looked as if he had won the lottery, and not really caring. One of his guys, Neal Scott, was standing in the doorway behind him. Taking a breath, he got his excitement under control and put his professional face on, though he couldn’t quell the buzz of anticipation that was running through his blood.

      “What’s up, Neal? Sorry, I just, um, just got some good news.”

      “Oh, that’s good, sir.”

      “Please don’t call me sir, Neal. Jack is fine.”

      “Okay, um, sir, Jack. You asked me to stop by to look at the security bug you were dealing with.”

      Jack watched the young man in the office. Neal was a great worker, and a nice kid, if a little shy. Jack knew he was in his twenties, but there was just something about him that made him seem much younger. Neal kept to himself a lot, but Jack had been including him more, trying to draw him out a little, and it was working. Neal was loosening up a lot, and had even gone out with a bunch of them a few times.

      Jack liked the kid and thought he could really be an asset to the company. Hell, Neal seemed to do nothing but work—he had been in his office most of the weekend, which Jack had seen when reviewing the security logs.

      He was smarter than hell, too, but he didn’t have much confidence, and was generally overlooked by management. So, Jack had been giving him some more challenging jobs, bringing him along slowly. He pulled a chair up and gestured for Neal to sit down.

      “Yeah, take a look at this. It’s been giving me a headache all day.”

      Neal squinted behind the thick, black-framed glasses he always wore and read the screen full of numbers and symbols quickly and with interest.

      “Yeah. There. I see it. Might be a worm.”

      “I’ve tried to close it down about ten times, but it keeps popping open. You are a much slicker programmer than I am, can you work on it?”

      “Yeah, sure.”

      Neal got up to leave and Jack shook his head.

      “Hey, Neal. I see you were here all weekend?”

      “Um, yeah.” Neal

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