Hard Drive Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Books by Erin McCarthy

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  About the Author

  Copyright Notice

  Click the series title to learn more!

  Murder By Design

  Nashville Nights

  South Beach Bodyguards

  Finding Chris Evans: The Rockstar Edition

  Fast Track

  True Believers

  From Every Angle

  Cosmo Red Hot Reads

  Vegas Vampires

  Ohio’s Most Haunted Town

  For a full list of over sixty books available visit:

  www.erinmccarthy.net

  www.facebook.com/ErinMcCarthyBooks

  “I want to lick your nipples until you…”

  Kindra jumped in her swivel seat as a low voice spoke over her shoulder.

  Please don’t let that be who she thought it was.

  She turned. It was. “Ohmigod. Mack!”

  Whipping the mouse around on her desktop, she tried frantically to close the email that was up on her computer screen.

  The dirty email from her online friend, Russ. The dirty email that was being read by her real live crush and co-worker, Mack Stone.

  God, where was the minimize button?

  “Come like a rocket, hot and wet…” Mack’s amused voice trailed off as he read the words out loud. “What is this?”

  “Spam,” she managed to say, a sweat breaking out under her white blouse and black jacket. “I get all kinds of junk emails. This is my personal email address.”

  Kindra clicked the close button as Mack’s finger touched the screen.

  “Then why does it have your name on it?”

  “I don’t think it did,” she lied without compunction. There was no way she was admitting to Mack “different girlfriend every week” Stone that she had been engaging in an online affair with someone who very well could be catfishing her.

  “Yes, it did,” he insisted.

  Annoyed, she looked over her shoulder at him and gritted her teeth at his total and utter perfection. Why? Why did she have to spend every day for eight hours looking at this paragon of masculinity? From his short black hair, past the strong jaw, down to the broad chest and gorgeous pecs covered in GQ inspired clothing, and continuing on down… lower, he was perfect.

  And very out of her league.

  She glared at him, willing him to back away from her chair and take his arousing aftershave scent with him.

  A grin spread out across his face, showing off perfect white teeth. He probably never even got cavities. “Kindra Hill, are you having talking dirty to someone online? While at work? I never would have guessed.”

  Her impulse was to just push him out of the way and run down the hall and hide in the ladies’ room until he left the building. But that hadn’t worked in ninth grade when Tommy Slade had pantsed her in front of her geometry class, and she didn’t think it would work now.

  Two choices here. Deny. Or brazen it out.

  Being a proverbial wallflower, she had never brazened anything out in her life. It was time to try.

  Taking a deep breath to gather some courage, she said, “So what if I am?” Okay, what was meant to sound seductive came out defensive. She sounded bitter. Like she went through a vibrator battery a week. Because if she did, what of it?

  His ice-blue eyes went wide. “Then I’d say there’s more to you than meets the eye.” He shook his head, clearly curious. “But I figure, why talk about it on your computer or your phone, when you can be doing it live and in person?”

  Yeah, if she had him to do it with. But Kindra’s choices had never been so appealing. After a few mishaps that had ranged from yawn inspiring to borderline gruesome, she had decided she was better off snuggling up with the words on her screen every night. No fuss, no muss. Take her phone to bed and boom, she was satisfied and wouldn’t get murdered by meeting a stranger off a dating app.

  “It’s easier this way… safer, cleaner,” she mumbled. Then she straightened up and turned back to her computer, on the verge of collapsing from mortification. Had she said that out loud? Cleaner? That sounded so damn prude.

  She had said it out loud, unfortunately. Mack leaned over her, his hot breath tickling across her ear. His tie fell forward and brushed against the back of her hair, sending a shiver through her.

  “But it’s so much more fun going old-school.”

  “Sometimes. And sometimes it’s messy and complicated and just plain lousy.” She gave a shrug that was meant to be worldly and nonchalant, as if she’d sampled men aplenty and found them all lacking. Instead she managed to clip him in the chin.

  He grunted. “I think you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t care.” She scooted forward, away from him. Hint, hint, take it please. Go away and take your hot bod with you.

  “I can prove it to you.”

  She froze. He couldn’t possibly mean… no. Mack Stone had never given her the time of day before.

  But if he did mean that, did she want to take him up on it? Her head said of course not, you naïve and greedy slut. Her inner thighs had an altogether different answer, one that had her panties turning into a mini-oven.

  He wasn’t serious though.

  “I’m serious,” he said.

  Help.

  Kindra opened her mouth, knowing full well her brain had ceased to exist and her crotch was in complete control.

  “What kind of proof are you talking about?”

  She fought the urge to clap a hand over her mouth.

  Now she’d done it.

  He’d think she was actually interested.

  Which, of course, she was.

  But she shouldn’t let him know that. Or should she? If he was as good as he claimed to be, she’d trade self-love for a Mack Attack.

  Mack was still leaning over her. He said in a low voice laced with amusement, “I think you know what kind of proof I’m talking about.”

  Well, she thought he was talking about having sex with her. But if she said it out loud, and she was wrong, she would have to quit her job and move to Antarctica.

  Kindra cleared her throat. “Maybe, if you explain it to me?”

  Mack’s hands gripped the back of her chair and she found herself slowly being turned around. Since grabbing the desk and clinging for dear life would be rude, she settled for crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap.

  Perfect position for a woman claiming to be disinterested in live action sex.

  Except that somehow Mack had managed to place a leg on either side of her chair and his… pants were eye level. Fascinated, she took a long look. Kindra licked her lips. Mack’s pants, or rather the thick bulge those stylish and slim blue pants covered, jumped.

  Oh, my.

  She forced her eyes upward. He no longer looked amused. His legs and other body parts took a large step backwards, removing the masculine scent of him from her personal space.

  “If I’m going to prove to you that one-on-one sex is better than just talking about it. I can only think of one way to do that.”

  Here it was. It was coming. “Oh?” she squeaked.

  Mack nodded, his hands sliding into his pockets. “Yes, that’s right, Kindra. It looks like I’m going to have to have sex with you.”

  Wow. Why hadn’t she thought of this strategy before? Lure Mack, the man who had never glanced at her twice, by giving him a sexual challenge.

  If this was a dream, may she never wake up. Or at least not until after she had an orgasm.

  Mack watched shock cross Kindra’s face and he fought the urge
to smile. Because behind the shock, right there in those fascinating green eyes of hers was… interest.

  He had her interested.

  Strolling into Kindra’s office to ask about the Henderson project had been a much better idea than he could have ever anticipated. It was a pure stroke of luck to find her staring intently at her screen, biting her lip as she read a dirty email. An unoriginal dirty email, in his opinion.

  He had read about half of it before he had announced his presence by speaking out loud. He would have expected Kindra to blush, but she hadn’t, even though she had clearly been flustered.

  Kindra Hill was a mystery. One he had been studying for a year, since he had accepted the position to lead a team of designers at Visual Elements, a graphic design company in Cleveland. Kindra gave every appearance of being shy and quiet, but when she thought no one was looking, he had been watching her.

  Instead of being demure, Kindra rolled her eyes a lot and snorted to herself. She crossed her arms and slouched in her chair when she was alone. If he was quick enough, he could catch her green eyes spitting fire sometimes.

  But she always banked it.

  And he wanted to know why.

  Was it because he was her boss? Was it because she thought he was an idiot? He didn’t know.

  Kindra closed her mouth then reopened it. Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you want to do that? You can’t possibly be attracted to me.”

  “Are you kidding?” Now he was the one in shock. Hadn’t she looked in a mirror lately? “What guy wouldn’t want to have sex with you?”

  She appeared to mull this over and nodded. “That’s probably true. Guys just need enthusiasm. I’m learned that online.”

  Her feet pushed on the floor, inching her chair back further away from him. “But, so you know, to prove what you want to prove, well… you’re really going to have your work cut out for you.”

  Damn. His groin tightened painfully. Somehow he didn’t think he’d mind the extra effort. Besides, he had twelve months worth of spontaneous hard-ons caused by Kindra to ease. He stuck his foot behind the wheel of her chair so it stopped moving.

  Gripping each arm of the chair, he bent over and murmured alongside her cheek, “I think I’m up for the challenge.”

  She shivered and leaned back in her chair as if she needed distance. Her eyes were half-closed and Mack reminded himself to ease up. Take it slow.

  Kindra wanted this, he sensed that. But he wanted to make sure nothing changed her mind. Or hell, if she didn’t, he was going to convince her she did.

  Just because he had a year’s worth of frustration wasn’t a good excuse to throw charm and finesse out the window and just attack her in a fit of adolescent lust.

  If he wasn’t careful, he would screw up this perfect opportunity. And he didn’t want that. What he wanted was to see what Kindra kept hidden under those prim and proper skirts and blouses she always wore. He wanted to pull down that hair she kept tightly bound in a clip and see if it really had auburn highlights like he suspected.

  He wanted her.

  “You’re my boss,” she said. “I don’t want to get fired over this.”

  He didn’t this shit to get complicated. “I’m not technically your boss. I’m the team leader. That’s it. And this has nothing to do with work.”

  “Except that you caught me reading personal emails at work.”

  With deliberate steps, he moved a few feet over to her desk and leaned against it. “I have no intention of blackmailing you. If you want, I will show you how I’ve been dicking around looking up stats for my fantasy football team when I was in our meeting this morning. That way we’re on even footing.”

  She gave him a grin. “Yes, let me see.”

  Mack pulled out his phone and showed her his browsing history. “I couldn’t help it. That meeting was boring as hell and my team sucks this year. I need to draft a new quarterback.”

  Kindra studied his phone and nodded. “You’re right. You need a new quarterback.”

  Why the hell had he brought up football? The only balls he wanted to discuss were his, rapidly growing blue. “So, what do you think? Can I prove you wrong? Or are you perfectly satisfied with what you’re getting right now?”

  He eyed her, curious what she would do.

  “Well…” She fiddled with the clip on her head, forcing her jacket to rise up a little and give him a hint of her curves. “So, what did you have in mind?”

  Yes. Touchdown. Mack mentally spiked a football in the end zone. “Tonight. Dinner. Then your place.”

  She would feel safer in her own apartment, he rationalized. More comfortable. And he didn’t care where he was as long as he was naked with Kindra.

  But her head was shaking no. “I have plans tonight. It’s Friday. I bowl on a league on Fridays.”

  Kindra bowling? That struck him as odd. Maybe because he’d never seen her wearing anything but slim black or navy suits and high heels.

  Bowling was hard for him to understand. You stood there and threw a ball at plastic pins. Now football was a different story. That was a game.

  “Can’t you skip tonight?” Damn, he sounded eager. Maybe he should rein that in a little.

  “No. My team will lose my score if I don’t show. I can’t do that.”

  Fine. It’s not like he was in a huge hurry or anything. He wasn’t desperate. He’d had plenty of ass lately.

  Just not with Kindra. The woman he had been watching for twelve long months.

  He said, “So tell me when.”

  She licked her lips again.

  Soft, plump lips that were made for kissing and sucking and biting. Lips that would feel fantastic sliding across his cock.

  He gritted his teeth in hot need.

  “Okay,” she said, looking like she’d just been given ten to fifteen years in federal prison. “Tomorrow night.”

  She wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm.

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. After all, she was choosing to abstain from sex. There had to be a reason. A reason he had to get around. Even if it took all night.

  Speaking of which, that needed to be stated clearly. “You have to guarantee me at least twelve hours to make my case, Kindra.”

  Kindra blinked at Mack. What the hell? Twelve hours? He was planning on proving it to her for twelve hours? She would have been happy with ten minutes and a wave on his way out.

  “Isn’t that a little long?” She didn’t want to film a porno with him, with seventeen retakes. She just wanted an orgasm. One. That’s all. Actually, she would settle for seeing Mack shirtless. That would fuel her fantasies for a month.

  He was leaning casually against her desk, and when he shifted, his leg brushed against hers. Kindra shivered and recrossed her legs in the opposite direction to move them away from him.

  A slow knowing smile moved across his face. “To get it right, sometimes you need to take it slow. And sometimes it’s so good, you want time to do it again.”

  That hadn’t happened yet to Kindra. In her experience, the first time had never been worthy of an encore performance.

  A sudden vision of Mack coming at her over and over again for twelve hours, determined to squeak an orgasm out of her, flashed through her head. Maybe this was a really bad idea.

  If she slept with Mack and it was just awful, well, then what fantasies would she have left? She didn’t even want to count how many times it had been Mack’s face she’d pictured when chatting intimately with Russ online.

  Plus, if this was a disaster, she would have to see Mack every day in awkward hallway encounters where he would avert his eyes and she would blush. They were designing the coffeehouse website project together, which put them in each other’s company constantly.

  It would be horrid, awful, migraine inspiring…

  “Kindra.”

  “Yes?” She shot Mack a panicked look.

  “Don’t panic. It doesn’t have to be twelve hours. It can be as little or as
much as you want.” He leaned forward and took her hand. ”But you’re going to want a lot, I promise.”

  It wasn’t a gentle caress. Or an understanding squeeze. It was a forceful alpha male pull. With little effort he tugged her to her feet. Kindra swallowed hard as he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her up against him.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  She was in her office in the middle of the day wrapped in Mack Stone’s arms from neck to calf. His body was as hard as it looked, and she put her hands on his chest to create a barrier between them.

  Instead of pushing him away, her traitorous little fingers gripped his crisp dress shirt and rubbed against the solid muscle underneath. His thigh moved across hers restlessly.

  “I have this feeling,” he whispered, his lips brushing against the lobe of her ear, “that we’re not going to need anywhere near twelve hours to prove my point. Everything after the first hour will be the icing on a delicious cake.”

  His tongue dipped into her ear and she gasped.

  “What do you want, Kindra?”

  Kindra suddenly wanted a lot of things, most of all Mack to throw her down on her office floor and put his theory to the test right now.

  With a whimper, she pushed her waist forward, bumping his erection.

  Mack groaned.

  Heat surged through her body. She had made Mack Stone groan out loud. Could there be a bigger turn-on?

  “Shit,” he said fiercely, his hands gripping her shoulders. “I’m going too fast.”

  Said who?

  If she were gutsy, she would grab him and force him to go fast again, but Kindra had never claimed to be gutsy. Not in her career, nor her social life, and certainly not when it came to sex.

  “I want this to be right,” he said, setting her away from him. “After all, I’ve just promised you the best sex of your life.”

  Kindra struggled not to collapse on the floor in an anticipatory seizure at Mack’s words. She couldn’t speak.

  She gulped.

  Mack rammed his hands in his pockets. Then pulled them back out. “Ah, hell. Are you sure you’re busy tonight?”

  He looked desperate. He sounded desperate. Mack Stone. Desperate. For her.

  The words were on her lips. She was about to say screw the bowling and take me, when her office door flew open. She watched in horror as her friend Ashley walked in.