Erin McCarthy - Bad Boys Online

"Nora," she called as she stepped out of her office.

The hum of a half-dozen employees talking ground to a halt as she entered the reception area. Eyes avoided hers. Horace, one of her younger drivers, boldly ogled her, running his gaze up and down.

Anger raced through her. She was about to reprimand him when Horace shook his head in confusion.

"That doesn't make any sense."

Caught off guard, she asked, "What doesn't?"

"That's not even you in the picture. I can tell by looking at your"

So much for the thirty-dollar water bra she had bought. Halley cut him off. "Alright, I got it! And of course it's not me."

Like she would ever pose for nude photos in the first place.

The faces staring back at her were a mix of confusion and pity. It made her feel sick. Taking a slow, even breath, she said, "The problem is being dealt with. Let's all just go about our business, shall we?" And stop mulling over her breasts.

There were nods, half smiles, and a reluctant pulling of various bodies off desks where they had been leaning. Talking about her. Probably about how boring she was, and how unlikely it was that her naked picture would ever be splashed on the Internet.

Not that she cared. She didn't want her picture on the Internet. So what if she was boring and flat-chested and so starved for sexual attention that she had to throw herself at her best friend? Big deal. She was successful. She had scratched and clawed her way out of Hazen, West Virginia, and had made something out of herself. Something she could be proud of.

A workaholic who hadn't had sex in two years.

Argh. That wasn't helping.

Nora left the others and approached Halley where she stood clenching her fists and glaring, feeling like a bull just itching to charge. At what, she didn't know. The Three Commandos would be the logical choice.

Nora took her hand and pulled her aside. "Listen, Halley, did you read those messages I put on your desk?"

Since Nora looked ready to pop a pacifier in her mouth and cuddle her in a blankie, Halley guessed they weren't filled with uplifting news.

"No, I haven't gotten to them."

Nora squeezed her hand. "Well, it's just as well that I tell you myself then."

That was promising. "More cancellations?"

Nora tucked her red hair behind her ear and shook her head, giving Halley another maternal look even though she was nearly five years younger than her. "No, actually, things have been quiet on that front, thank goodness. Just more requests for nude catering jobs."

Great. Just great. "I hope you declined."

"Of course!" Nora bit her lip. "But the part you're really not going to like is that your dad called."

"My dad ?" Ohmigod, her father never called her. Her dad worked twelve hours a day, but there was still barely enough money to put food on the table. Calling long distance to Halley was out of the question.

"Did someone die?" Her heart dropped to her shoes, and she wondered if something was wrong with her mom or with one of her three younger sisters.

Nora shook her head. "No! But he saw the picture on the web."

" What ? How is that possible?" Her parents didn't have a computer. As far as she knew, her dad had never even seen one. There wasn't a real pressing need for a town of coal miners to surf the web.

Nora whispered, looking distinctly uncomfortable, "I guess your cousin Jake was bored, fooling around, and came across it. When he told your dad last night, your dad insisted Jake show him."

Halley shook her head to clear it. All she did was flip hair in her mouth. "You got all that from my dad?" Her dad wasn't known for long, drawn-out conversations.

"No, your mom got on and told me after your dad couldn't string anything together after 'Where the hell is Halley?' "

Halley clutched her head in pain. "Oh, crap, this is awful. My parents think I have a nude catering business."

They were sweet, hardworking, churchgoing folk. She was surprised her father hadn't already had a heart attack.

"Well, I told them it was a mistake."

But did they know that wasn't her body? Yuck, yuck, and triple yuck.

"Thanks." Halley forced her head up and patted Nora on the arm. Hopefully with a phone call, she could assure her parents she wasn't running a prostitution ring or stripping online.

Something Nora had said popped into her head. "Wait a minute? My dad saw this last night?"

"That's what he said."

"I wonder how long it's been up there like that, then?" She couldn't remember the last time she'd checked the site prior to that morning.

"A week."

Halley spun around. Horace was listening to them with no sign of embarrassment.

"A week?" She was back in bull mode, clenching fists and leaning forward. All she needed was the nose ring and the red cloth target. "But we just started getting calls today."

Horace shifted on the balls of his feet, and coughed into his hand. "It started a week ago with just the tray disappearing, then your top, then your skirt. Last night was when the angel showed up."

She stared at him in horror. "Why didn't you say anything?" You total jackass .

He shrugged. "I wanted to see what would happen next."

Unemployment was what was happening next. "Horace, you're fired!"

With the audacity to look startled, Horace said, "Hey! Whoa, don't overreact."

That was not overreacting. Overreacting would be grabbing his nuts with her hand and squeezing the hell out of them.

She had been doing a week-long striptease on her website and no one had bothered to mention it to her.

That was it.

Nobody turned her into an online stripper and got away with it. Time to take Evan up on his idea to get revenge on the Three Commandos.

It was petty and juvenile and wouldn't solve her problems, but the Three Cs were just begging to get knocked down a peg or two.

Besides, she needed to talk to Evan, and clear the air about her dog-in-heat imitation earlier. But first she was going to tell him to hack away, with her permission.

It would be her pleasure.

Evan stared at Halley on the screen, restored to her previous state of conservative dress and tray holding.

He should be feeling smug, pleased with himself. It had taken him only two hours and thirty-seven minutes to fix Halley's website.

Naked was better, he concluded. Not that weird impostor body, but Halley's real body, soft and curvy and peach colored. That would be way more interesting than the goofy brown dress she was wearing in the original, now-restored, shot.

It wasn't what he should be thinking about, but he couldn't stop the image from assaulting him. Nor could he stop doing a mental instant replay of the kiss he and Halley had exchanged.

A better apology was in order. But he didn't want to apologize. He wanted to lock her up in his bedroom and keep her so sexually satisfied she'd never think to leave him again.

The idea had merit. But it was probably illegal.

But if Halley were willing…

Of course, that wasn't going to happen.

Evan stood up and stretched his arms up over his head. While he had dragged on khaki shorts over his boxers at some point, he had never bothered with a shirt. It was sticky in his apartment since the AC had crashed and his landlord had yet to fix it.

The heat was causing a thin sheen of sweat to roll across his chest and forehead, making him itch. He wandered toward the kitchen, realizing he had never eaten breakfast or lunch and he was now starving. But when Evan got into something like breaking through the hackers' trail, he lost sight of mundane tasks like eating.

Now that he was done, his appetite returned with a vengeance. Despite the funny odor kicking up out of his garbage receptacle in the kitchen. Wrinkling his nose, he bagged it up and hustled it out to the dumpster, squinting as the bright sun hit him in the eyes.