Tristan's Temptation Page 3

  It sounded innocuous enough, especially for a man obsessed with his work, but what captured her attention was the frequency with which he’d run this instance. He’d played it daily—every day, in fact, for the last two months—practically since the program had been installed. Every day, including weekends and holidays. No one was that obsessed with their work. Were they?

  She clicked on the icon and a password request flashed onto the screen.

  Her heart leapt and then settled into a low throb. As far as she knew, the only instances requiring passwords in the game were Jack’s illicit Green Door scenarios. She swallowed heavily and stared at the screen.

  Tristan Trillo had designed Green Door scenarios. Dear heavens. He had, virtually, uploaded his sexual fantasies into the game. She shifted restlessly as a sudden dampness washed through her. It occurred to her she could, here and now, discover his deepest, darkest desires.

  Dare she?

  Why, yes—she grinned to herself—she did.

  She typed his all-access password into the box and flinched when it was rejected. Damn. Clearly this was something he wanted no one to have access to.

  Of course this only fueled her determination and she spent the next half hour typing in potential passwords. His birthdate. Adam’s birthdate. His mother’s maiden name. The name of his childhood dog. His last girlfriend. His favorite brand of ice cream. The first and last names of every employee. And then, finally, she typed her name.

  Her heart stuttered when that last attempt opened the doors to his fantasy world.

  She held her breath as the curtain rose on the scene.

  Tristan sat at his desk, working as he always did. The door opened and a tawdry version of her—dressed rather like a whore—entered the room. There was some cheesy byplay but it all ended with her on her knees, taking him into her mouth and…dear God.

  Shannon sat back and gaped at the screen, shaking.

  It was unbelievable. It was gripping. It was fan-fucking-tastic.

  Tristan Trillo fantasized about her. Her!

  And—she quickly checked his history again—he had done so today! Twice!

  As alluring as this prospect was, a much more fascinating realization possessed her. This was but one of twenty or so scenarios stored in his private archives. With mounting excitement, she scanned the other offerings, making a note of each scenario and its frequency. And she noticed several rather captivating trends.

  First of all, all the sexy scenarios—all of them—featured a mildly altered rendition of Shannon. Not one other woman. Not Kat or Jenny or Sara. Not even Angelina Jolie. Not anyone else.

  Second of all, Tristan Trillo had a kinky side. She would never have expected it.

  Her heart stuttered at a scene entitled Bad Girl, which involved a delectable spanking. It made her entire body warm as the girl on the screen—the girl with decidedly familiar features—bent over Tristan’s lap to receive a well-deserved paddling. In another scene, she was tied up to receive his greedy attention and in yet another she featured as a stripper, giving him a lascivious lap dance.

  Stunned and more than a little aroused, Shannon wandered out to her patio and glanced up the hill at the darkened house perched on its crest, wondering where he was. What he was doing. Was he thinking about her right now?

  She sat on the lounger in the shadows and slipped her hand under the band of her yoga pants and let her fingers drift slowly over her engorged clit as she reflected on Tristan Trillo and his naughty little fantasies. How annoying to know that all this time she’d been sitting at her desk, lusting after him, thinking he was utterly uninterested. And all the while he’d been his office pretending to work, ogling lurid images of her on a computer screen and fantasizing about her mouth on his cock.

  How much time had they wasted?

  Tomorrow, she resolved, a new reign would begin.

  She hoped he would survive.

  Up the hill, in the house perched on its crest, Tristan Trillo sat on his sofa in the dark, staring at the computer screen, a frown on his face. His fingers hovered over the touch pad as his inner demons battled. On the one hand, it would be harmless to take a peek at Shannon’s Virtual Life. Really, what manner of mischief could a woman like Shannon wreak?

  Virtual Shannon goes to the library and borrows a book, returning it on time, of course? Virtual Shannon goes to the spa? Shopping at the mall? She certainly didn’t have any scenarios like his. She didn’t even know about the Green Door program. How could she? He’d told Jack to keep it secret, after all.

  It would, doubtless, be ungodly dull.

  What harm could it do?

  But on the other hand, snooping around on her hard drive was an invasion of privacy.

  Guilt racked him but curiosity and that driving mania to know more about her drove him harder. He would only look a little. A brief gander. For a minute. He grimaced and clicked the icon and the Virtual Life program flooded the screen.

  He scanned her history and noticed one of her scenarios was much more popular than the others. It was named only by the letters TT. He frowned and clicked on the icon and then blanched when the password prompt appeared.

  Stunned, he stared at the message as though he’d never seen such a thing before.

  Holy crap. Shannon had accessed the Green Door.

  His cock and balls tightened.

  It could mean only one thing. Shannon’s sexual fantasies were stored here, on this computer. At his fingertips. He shuddered uncontrollably at the thought.

  While he was certain her fantasies would be tame and naive—holding hands over a chocolate shake, perhaps—he was desperate to know. And the knowledge was only a password away. He immediately started typing in the usual passwords—birthday, SSN, mother’s maiden name—all of which were rejected. What else did people use as passwords? Pet’s name! With certainty, he typed in “bosco” but that was also denied. He glared at the screen, at the instance name, and an overwhelming certainty gripped him. Slowly, he typed in his name.

  The instance opened.

  He choked on his own breath.

  Holy. Crap.

  Even as the ramifications of the password she’d used flooded him, the instance began to play out on the screen and Tristan was forced to reevaluate everything he’d ever known about Shannon Weiss.

  Prim and demure. The fucking hell.

  The scene opened on a room, empty save a single chair. There was a man in the chair and he looked remarkably like Tristan.

  And he was naked.

  And he was tied to the chair.

  Tied to the chair!

  Lust, like a wildfire, licked through his gut as he anticipated what was about to happen.

  The door opened and a woman entered—Shannon, but unlike any Shannon he’d ever imagined. This Shannon was a siren, a seductress. She was dressed in a tight vinyl catsuit with stiletto boots and a studded collar cinched tightly around her neck. And she carried a riding crop. She walked to the chair and stood before it, legs spread wide, hands fisted on her hips.

  She gifted him with a wide, knowing smile and purred, “Are you ready for this?”

  Virtual Tristan—apparently a little more obedient than the real Tristan—responded, “Yes Mistress.”

  “Umm. Good boy.” She traced the curve of his cheek with the crop, letting it rest on his lips. “Open.” Virtual Tristan parted his lips and Virtual Shannon slipped the tip of the leather crop into his mouth. “Now suck it,” she said.

  Tristan—real Tristan—nearly whimpered. Not because the scene was his cup of tea but because it was hers. He’d always seen Shannon as reserved and aloof. To know she had a wild side that was this…wild…made him want to march down the hill and pound on her door. And then bend her over the sofa and pound into her.

  His cock was close to bursting but he didn’t succumb to the desire to stroke it, because he knew what would happen and he wanted to finish the scene. He wanted to know what made her hum. What made her moan. What made her come.


  Virtual Shannon rubbed the crop across poor Virtual Tristan’s lips. “Do you want to suck on something else?”

  “Yes Mistress.”

  Gads. The guy was a pussy. If he had Shannon dressed in a getup like that, in a room, alone, he’d be all over her by now. Hell, he’d be inside her by now. Tied to a chair or not.

  His jaw dropped as Virtual Shannon unzipped her virtual catsuit to reveal two virtual breasts. She stepped closer to her slave and grabbed a handful of hair, directing his head to one hard, throbbing nipple. And yes, the nipple throbbed. For a second Tristan wondered how Shannon had achieved the effect but all reflections of her computer prowess vanished when she threw back her head and moaned.

  Virtual Tristan was doing himself proud as he sucked the nipple roughly into his mouth. His jaws undulated with the effort.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Harder.”

  As this byplay continued, Tristan wished he could fast-forward through the action. What he really wanted was the main event, where Virtual Tristan put his virtual dick into Shannon’s hot, wet pussy. But the program didn’t have a fast-forward option.

  He’d have to talk to Jack about that in the morning.

  So he sat there and watched as poor, immobile Virtual Tristan sat tied to the chair and pleasured Virtual Shannon with his mouth, which to Tristan seemed like a damn waste of potential.

  Maybe Shannon had control issues in bed. Hmm. He stored that nugget away for future reference before he recalled, with a cold dash of reality, there was no future for them.

  This was as good as it could get.

  The realization made him cranky so he glared at the screen, but just then things started to get interesting. Virtual Shannon had decided to strip. She poured out of the slinky catsuit and boots and stood before Virtual Tristan utterly naked but for the collar around her neck.

  What a vision.

  Tristan swallowed his drool and allowed his fingers to drift over his crotch. He stroked his hard cock, but gently, because he was already tightening with the need to come and he really wanted to get to the good part first.

  And yikes. Here was the good part.

  Virtual Shannon took Virtual Tristan’s cock in her hand and stroked. And there’s where fantasy veered far from reality. Virtual Tristan merely moaned. Real Tristan would have bucked and cursed and come right then and there. But Virtual Tristan didn’t come. He merely moaned quiescently.

  “Umm.” The seductress stepped closer. “Do you like that?”

  “Yes Mistress.”

  “Would you like some more?”

  “Yes Mistress.”

  Really? Was that all this guy could say? How about, “Give it to me, honey. Fuck me with your hand. Make me come”? Better yet, “Untie me, princess, and let me show you how a real man fucks a woman in a dog collar.”

  But apparently Virtual Shannon was satisfied with the reply, for she smiled and rewarded him with another stroke. And then she went down on her knees.

  Tristan perked right up, suddenly very interested. She bent her head and took him in her mouth, moaning as he slid into her, inch by inch, by inch. By inch.

  Shannon apparently had a very healthy imagination, at least regarding the size of a man’s member. Tristan bit back a grin. She must think he was some kind of freak of nature.

  His grin faded and his balls tightened as Virtual Shannon stood and placed her hand on Virtual Tristan’s shoulder, straddling the chair. “Do you want it?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Yes Mistress.” What else would he say? Hell, even real Tristan would utter those words if they would get Shannon to lower her hot cunt onto his aching cock.

  And she did—well, virtually.

  Saliva pooled in his mouth as Virtual Shannon impaled herself on the waiting cock and rode herself to orgasm.

  They came together—the three of them. As her moans and groans, her fevered movements, became inevitably more wild and frantic, Tristan couldn’t stop himself from stroking his cock, faster, harder, as desperate and feral as the woman on the screen. At the last moment, he had the presence of mind not to shoot his wad all over her laptop, but just barely. He released his passion into a quickly grabbed tissue and collapsed on the sofa, too drained to even contemplate the secrets he’d just learned about a woman he thought he knew.

  Chapter Three

  Shannon was already at her desk when Tristan arrived in the office the next morning, dressed demurely and sitting straight-backed in her task chair, shuffling through some papers.

  “Good morning, Mr. Trillo.” She didn’t so much as glance up as he approached. He tried not to let it annoy him.

  How could she look so reserved, so modest and detached, when last night a scene of her making had whipped him into a mindless frenzy? What depths bubbled beneath that cool British exterior? What would it be like to explore…

  Harshly, he yanked his wandering mind from the question and strengthened his resolve to resist her allure. He’d castigated himself most of the night for his lapse, in between sessions of madly jerking off. He should never have opened her laptop. Once he’d realized the mistake, he should have driven back to her house and switched machines.

  But he hadn’t and now he would burn for it. Every time he saw her, he would burn. Because now he knew the truth.

  “Here,” he said without preamble, shoving her laptop into her hands. “I gave you mine by mistake.”

  “Yes, Mr. Trillo.” She offered a small, impersonal smile. “I noticed. I put yours on your desk.”

  “Oh. Um. Thanks.” He stood there, not sure what to say, not sure it would be wise to say anything, and then he blurted, “Were you able to finish the quarterlies?”

  Their gazes met. Her eyes were wide and thickly fringed with dark lashes. He wanted to sink into them. She appeared slightly amused but her response was as prim and professional as usual. “Yes. I finished the edits and printed out copies for the staff meeting.”

  “Okay. Good.” Still he lingered, loath to leave. For some reason. “Did you make the coffee?”

  She dipped her head to hide it but her amusement was now utterly undeniable. “Yes, Mr. Trillo,” she said like a schoolgirl reciting a classroom welcome, and he cringed.

  In five years, Shannon had never once failed to make coffee before a staff meeting. It had been a stupid question, a question designed to prolong this interaction. Which was, in itself, stupid. Stupid with a hint of desperate.

  But he didn’t want to go into his office and stare at her through the blinds.

  He wanted to stare at her from right here. The view was better.

  “Can I get you some?”

  Tristan blinked. “Huh? What?”

  Shannon glanced at him from beneath those extraordinarily long, thick lashes. “Coffee.” The hint of a pink tongue dabbed at her lush lips. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  Hell. If he didn’t know better, he would think she was flirting. But that was nuts. No. This impression was nothing but a delusional backlash from last night’s revelations. Now that he knew the truth about her steamy side, his horny subconscious would likely invest every casual word, each indifferent action, with lurid sexual underpinnings.

  “No. Thanks.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I have to go into my office now,” he said. “And work.”

  Her lips twitched, a tiny, knowing smile. “Of course.”

  He knew he was acting like a doofus but he couldn’t help it. At the moment, he was a doofus. He stormed into his office and with a brutal twist of his wrist closed the blinds. The last thing he needed was to watch her sitting there all day long. Looking so damn sexy.

  He watched her, sitting there next to him at the conference table, looking so damn sexy, and tried like hell to control his raging hard-on. Thank God Jack Maris was the one giving the bulk of today’s presentations. Tristan had only been responsible for the quarterly update and he hadn’t had to stand for that. Thank God. Not even a blind man could miss his hard-on if he stood right now. Hell, he’d probab
ly knock the blind man over with it if he got too close.

  So instead he sat there, ignoring Jack’s presentation, and fantasized about Shannon bending over the conference table wearing nothing but a dog collar and vinyl boots.

  It was torture. Sheer torture.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the scenario that had sent him to the moon last night, or the others he’d found once he’d recuperated from the most draining orgasm of his life. Visions of Shannon seducing him at a grocery store and fucking him silly on a tropical beach and giving him head as he piloted a spacecraft through the Crab Nebula danced through his head. And more.

  What was worse, her fantasies had fired more of his. He would need a month online to create all the scenarios crowding his mind.

  She crowded his mind. He wondered if he would ever be able to concentrate on work again.

  It dawned on him that Jack had finished talking and everyone was staring at Tristan, waiting. He cleared his throat and glanced around the room. Having no clue what had just transpired, he said what he always said at the end of one of Jack’s presentations. “Thank you, Jack. Adam, do you have anything to add?”

  Adam frowned at him and cleared his throat. “Yes, Jack’s presentation was very thorough. We certainly appreciate all your support in beta testing the Virtual Life program. Sara, would you like to talk a little about the marketing plan?”

  “Sure…Adam.” With a quick, curious look in Tristan’s direction, Sara stood and began to outline the sales points and release dates for the new program. Before long, people turned their attention to her and Tristan was left to the luxury of his private musings. Which returned, of course, to Shannon.

  He could smell her, sitting next to him. Her perfume, her shampoo, her body oils, whatever. It was intoxicating. It was alluring. It was distracting. Every time she moved, he got a waft. Like a worm invading his nasal cavity, it burrowed in deep, became part of him.