“I’ve been hacked!” Halley Connors stared at her computer screen in shock. She prayed she was having some sort of hallucinogenic episode brought on by lack of sex, or from the dangerously high level of caffeine in her bloodstream.

Normally the picture on her website showed her wielding a tray of hors d’oeuvres for her catering business. Today the tray was gone. So was her dress.

“What?” Her assistant, Nora, came up behind her.

Halley couldn’t answer. She was sick. No, this picture was sick. She hadn’t been this grossed out since walking in on her parents horizontal on the kitchen table when she was sixteen.

“You’re naked!” Nora exclaimed.

Very. And that body wasn’t even hers. She’d never seen those breasts in her life.

And what was that blob between her legs? She peered closer. It was a cherub with wings, leaning forward and… finger fucking her. The little man and his chubby fingers were actually animated. In. Out. In. Out. “Holy shit. That’s disgusting.”

“That’s Cupid,” Nora said in awe.

“Ohmigod, call Evan.” Halley grimaced at the screen and hoped like hell that Evan, her investor, tech support, and best friend, would know how to fix this. “We’ve got to get this off.”

“I think you’re the one getting off.” Nora snickered. “That is a serious orgasm face.”

It really wasn’t. Halley glared at Nora. “I was happy when this photo was taken. That is just a smile. I’m not rolling my eyes back in from head. Now get Evan or you’re fired.”

She didn’t mean that. But she didn’t appreciate Nora’s giggles in her time of crisis.

Nora hustled off to her desk and grabbed her phone while Halley’s shock was replaced by fear. This could ruin her business, send it straight into the catering toilet where many a good company had landed due to the occasional cockroach or salmonella outbreak. Those were inherent risks in the business and well understood.

But this was unfathomable. She was naked with a perverted cherub between her legs. Even one day of an image like this on her website could have disastrous effects on her bottom line. It had to go, and pronto.

Why hadn’t she just gone with a simple site that she could update herself? Why had she let Evan talk her into a big pimped out site that he had designed? She didn’t need big pimpin’, she needed control.

“Evan’s not answering.”

Halley groaned, a mental image running through her head of one of her conservative clients like Mrs. Brockmorten catching a glimpse of this debauchery. A sweat broke out.

“Who else can we call? Can’t we just shut down the site? It can’t be that hard.”

“We have a couple of tech guys we could call, but do you have the passwords to allow access to your site?”

“Passwords?” No, she didn’t. That was the whole damn problem. “Uh… Evan takes care of all that stuff.”

And she had been spending as little time as possible with Evan for months, having come to the shocking realization that she wanted his body. Best friends weren’t supposed to lust after each other, and he would probably laugh hysterically or blanch in horror if she told him, so she had taken the easy way out.

Total avoidance.

Her naked image grinned at her. She looked really happy with that Cupid down there. Not an orgasm face, but Nora was right. To the outside observer who didn’t know the origin of the smile, she looked pretty happy getting rubbed out by Cupid. She shuddered. Geez, she was going to have to find Evan. Without her knowing the passwords, he was the only one who could restore her catering dignity. Not to mention restore her clothes.

With that lowering thought, she flipped off her computer with a trembling hand and headed for the door. “If anyone calls about this, explain we’ve been the victim of a hacker.”

“Okay.” Nora looked at her wide-eyed, her red hair tumbling around her face. “Where are you going?”

“To Evan’s. He’s probably sleeping and not answering his phone.” Since Evan was a genius and a self-made millionaire, he worked long and crazy hours. She never knew what exactly he was doing currently but he had sold multiple apps he had developed, along with some social platforms. He worked well past midnight most days and tended to sleep in. He was not a morning person.

Which meant he would be sleepy, adorable, and pissed off at her for waking him up. Which was good. If she were fending off angry barbs, she wouldn’t be thinking about how desperate she was to want to see him naked.

The mere thought of him without clothes set her nipples standing on end in a double-gun salute. Crossing her arms over her chest, she frowned in annoyance. It should be illegal to react like that when thinking about someone you had known for years, who trusted you not to act like an idiot and get delusions of relationship grandeur.

Forcing her mind off Evan and her nipples’ reaction to him, she left the office wondering who could have done this to her. She was a really nice person, dammit. She treated her employees well, never succumbed to road rage, and gave mittens to the homeless shelter. It wouldn’t qualify her for a halo, but she didn’t think she was doing too badly.

Halley didn’t see how someone could be so deliberately cruel, and it didn’t seem arbitrary. That placement of the cherub was intentional and seemed, well, personal. By the time she found herself pounding on Evan’s door ten minutes later, she was on the verge of noisy tears. All her years of hard work in the food industry could disappear faster than it took Cupid to shoot his arrow.

Not that she wanted to be reminded of the naughty Cupid between the legs that weren’t even hers. But frankly, right now not much could make her forget it.

The door opened.

She forgot Cupid.

Evan Barrett blinked at her, his chocolate eyes heavy with sleep and his caramel hair tousled. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, showing off his summer tan and broad shoulders. His hand lazily scratched his chest.

Halley’s mouth went dry. Her eyes lowered to his boxer briefs, which were snug. Above the waistband there was a soft tuft of chestnut hair that went down to that fabulous cock. She’d never had this particular view, where everything he had was so clearly outlined, a veritable dick tease.

Damn. He was gorgeous. And while technically not naked, he was close enough to set her skin on fire and dampen her cotton panties.

“Halley?” He squinted and leaned forward a little, like the lighting was bad or he had forgotten who she was.

God, what was she wearing? She realized she hadn’t seen Evan in a few weeks, and she had just stormed over here without even doing a makeup check. Glancing down, she gave a sigh of relief. All right. Skinny jeans and an aqua-blue tank top. Not the stuff of fantasies, but not cellulite-displaying running shorts either.

Then she concluded her mental inventory by reminding herself that until six months ago when she had lost her mind and started panting after him, she would have thought nothing of letting Evan see her wearing bulky flannel pajamas and a serious case of bed head.

Little reality check. She could be wearing a toga and it wouldn’t be relevant to the situation at hand. Which was her catering in the nude website.

Her anger returned, plus a little irritation just because Evan looked so good. If he wasn’t so damn cute, none of these confusing feelings would ever have surfaced and their relationship could have stayed on solid, non-naked footing.

Evan looked confused. “What the fuck? Am I dreaming?”

“What?” Now she was confused. “No, you’re not dreaming.” And she knew she wasn’t either, because if she was, he would be all over her like a cat on tuna right now.

His eyes raked over her, sharpening as the sleep receded. “Damn, that’s weird. This is exactly like the sex dream I’ve been having lately. I open the door, and you’re standing there… only you’re usually wearing a bikini and high heels.”

Her jaw dropped. Was he serious? A sex dream? About her? Of course he wasn’t serious. He was joking, something he did a lot with her. Which was what friends should do. Not lust after each other in secret.

In fact, a lot of his teasing was sexual in nature, but until recently she had never even noticed. But now that she suddenly wanted more from him it had the effect of a furnace turned on full blast. Sweat popped up in unpleasant places.

She tried to smile and forced a rusty laugh past her lips. “Sounds like a nightmare to me.”

He shook his head, a slow sexy smile crossing his face. “Not the way I had it playing out.”

Her eyes rolled so far back in her head she practically fell over. It wasn’t funny as far as she was concerned. Because she really wanted him to mean it. And he didn’t.

“Dreams are often better than reality.”

Evan laughed and ruffled the top of her hair like she was his favorite terrier. “I’ve missed you lately. Where have you been hiding?”

At work, far, far, away from him and his lethal grin. Away from Evan, she could pretend her feelings were the result of not having had a date in two years. Standing in front of him, she knew better. She had inexplicably developed the hots for her best friend.

“Business is crazy. You know what this time of year is like.” She breezed past him into his apartment.

Evan grinned, pushing his hair out of his eyes as he followed her. “So if you’re not here to act out my recurring sex dream, what can I do for you? And just in case you were worried, I don’t mind that you woke me up. It wasn’t a late night last night—I stayed home alone.”

Halley hid a grimace behind her hand, pretending to scratch her lip. Yuck. She hadn’t even stopped to think about the fact that Evan might not be answering his phone because he was with someone. Having walked in on that twice in the past, she was glad she had been spared that kind of vomit-inducing scene today. Or jealousy-inducing. She had enough reasons to be annoyed with the day, she was grateful she was spared the sight of Evan pumping deep into a woman who was not her.

Not that she had seen Evan with a woman lately. In fact, it had been months since he had mentioned dating anyone. What a shame. It was wrong to be thrilled at that thought, but there it was.

“I wasn’t worried about it.” She shrugged. “Because I had to see you.”

“Missed me, huh?” he teased.

If he only knew. She whirled around to face him, hands on hips. “I need your brain.”

“I can think of better pieces of me for you.” He gave her another wink. “So what’s going on?”

She couldn’t even consider any of his pieces/parts. “I’ve been hacked,” she said in an outraged voice. “Can you believe it?”

The corner of Evan’s mouth pulled up. “That sounds like a personal problem to me, sweet stuff.”

The amusement in his voice didn’t bother her nearly as much as the silly nickname he used, with no idea whatsoever what it did to her. He’d been calling her that for almost ten years, and now unexplainably, it had the effect of a blowtorch between her thighs.

Which was not what she needed to be thinking about. Focus. She needed to focus on business.

“I’m serious.” She forced herself to visualize Cupid between her legs, and felt appropriately horrified again. “My website has been hacked and you’ve got to fix it before clients start seeing it.”

Evan flopped down onto the couch with his legs spread and said, “What did they do to it?”

Halley paced back and forth and cleared her throat. “Well, um, it’s kind of hard to explain.” Like dryer sheets. She’d never been able to figure out how those things worked.

Evan pushed his unkempt hair out of his eyes. “In my dream, this is the part where you walk in and stand in front of me, and I pull on the bikini strings…”

Evan’s voice was low, charming, and brought goosebumps over his skin as she walked over to him.

If only he knew how turned on that made her, he wouldn’t find it so funny anymore. More likely he’d leap out of his window to get away from her.

Halley cleared her throat for emphasis, ignoring the way that his boxer briefs rolled up his leg and showed her a fabulous glimpse of his assets.

Giving what she hoped was a casual grin, she said, “Me in a bikini is a lot better in fiction than in reality.” In real life, she wasn’t exactly giving Gisele Bundchen a run for her money. She was slacking on her yoga classes lately.

Evan patted the seat on the couch next to him, which she totally ignored. Standing was much safer.

“Why do you do that? I hate it when you’re down on your body.” He raised his eyebrows up and down and glanced at her chest. “You’ve got great tits, sweet stuff.”

That was so close to what she wanted to hear, yet so damn far.

“Well, I haven’t made it into the Great Tits Hall of Fame yet,” she joked, then could have kicked herself. She shouldn’t be extending a conversation that dealt with body parts. Especially hers.

Evan threw his arms over the back of the couch and laughed. Then he shrugged on a grin, causing his chest to ripple in an attractive distraction that made Halley feel like a virgin at a Chippendales strip show.

Inspired. Eager. Amazed.

Then he ruined it by talking. “That’s because the nominating committee hasn’t see you right now. Geez, are you cold or just happy to see me?”

Considering it was August and he had no air conditioning, she would only give him one guess.

“Can we just focus here?” Fighting the urge to cover her enthusiastic nipples with her hands, she dug her phone out of her purse. “I’d say leave my chest out of the conversation but it’s bound to pop up again once you see my website.”

Not that she was jealous or anything of those huge melon-dwarfing breasts the hacker had stuck under her chin. Okay, so she was jealous, but only a little. At least she could do gymnastics or ballet if the urge ever struck her. Let’s see a double E-cup woman do that.

Going to her site on her phone, she was grateful the image was smaller and whatever her hacker had done was not mobile friendly. The cherub’s finger was not moving. But her gratitude was short-lived. Honestly, she needed Evan to see this on his desktop, so that he could get the real scope of the problem.

“What did you say the problem was exactly?”

Uhh. “Someone photo-shopped the shit out of my picture. You need to see this in your room.” Halley slapped at Evan’s arm. “Get up, please.”

“Fine. But then you need to make me coffee.”

“Sure. I’ll buy you breakfast too if you fix this disaster.” Not waiting for him to respond, she strode off in the direction of his bedroom, where he kept his serious computer. Not his tablet or laptop, but the big one, that did mysterious things she, in her tech ignorance, had no clue about.

Halley winced as she walked into Evan’s bedroom. The queen-size bed wasn’t made, since she had clearly just dragged him out of it. Gazing at those crumpled, still warm sheets made her flustered. And aroused.

Evan let out a yawn next to her. Good to see he was as affected by her as she was by him.

She forced herself to turn away from the bed and walk to Evan’s computer area. At least a third of his room was consumed by all kinds of computer equipment, wires, and other things she had no clue what to call.

“Well, it can’t be too bad. I designed the site myself, you know, and it’s completely protected from hackers.” He sat down at his computer desk and turned the machine on.

Halley came to stand behind him, careful not to get too close. She braced herself for the image that was going to pop up any second now. She wasn’t sure having Evan fix it was worth the humiliation of having him see it. Then again, it was either Evan or potentially hundreds of customers, and hey, it wasn’t actually her. It was fake naked her, not real naked her. That counted for something.

Closing her eyes, she swallowed and waited for Evan’s hysterical laughter to fill the room.