"Just give me a minute." Or twelve or thirteen.

"Evan!" She adjusted her tank top and flushed pink. "I can't just stand here when you're… hanging out."

Hanging was the wrong word. Rearing up was a better way to phrase it. He felt the start of annoyance. She was acting as if he had shown her a box full of worms and tried to make her touch them. "It's not like you haven't seen one before."

"Yeah, but I haven't seen yours."

Actually, she had once when she'd walked in on him changing, but Evan didn't think now was the time to point that out. Instead, he asked her seriously, "Why do you think that is?"

Halley had responded way more enthusiastically to his kiss than he ever would have imagined, which was exactly why they had ended up standing here like this. She had kissed him back so hard and hot that the next thing he'd known, they had been grinding into each other.

Her lips pursed together, and she fanned herself. "Because friends don't show each other body parts."

Evan grinned, feeling relieved despite the grimace on her face. For years he had been afraid that Halley thought of him like a big platonic buddy. That kiss told him differently, and that was all he needed to know. "Maybe we should change that."

To appease her, he moved his cock and gave it a painful shove back into his shorts, where it made a nice tent, stretching the fabric as far as it could go.

"Button the little button."

Now she was pushing it. "No, those things are a pain in the ass. If I button it, then I'm fumbling around trying to unbutton it. When you're in a public rest room, it looks like you're playing with yourself."

She rolled her eyes. "Just keep it where it belongs then."

He grinned, giving her a cocky tilt of his head and a hands-out gesture of acquiescence. "Sweet stuff, I can't think of any better place where it belongs than"

She cut him off, looking more flustered than angry. "That's not funny."

She moved back, away from his reaching arms, and tripped over his garbage can. "Eew. Your apartment's disgusting, by the way. Don't you ever clean?"

Nothing was alive, as far as he knew. That was good enough for him. "Sure, I clean. I cleaned everything top to bottom in May."

"It's August."

And her point was?

"Listen, can we get back to why I'm here?" She tucked her blond hair behind her ears.

"You're the one talking about my cleaning schedule."

"Why… why did you just do that?"

"Do what?"

"Kiss me and everything," she whispered, turning a pretty little pink color.

"I told you. I was comforting you." He smiled slowly at her, watching her eyes go wide and her mouth drop open. He suddenly felt really damn good about his options with Halley. "Did it help?"

She nodded, obviously too stunned by his prowess to speak.

This was it. He could move in for round two. Now that his cover as asexual pal was blown, he might as well take advantage of the situation. He took a step forward, eager to touch her again. "Should I comfort you some more?"

Her head flew back and forth in a vicious shake. Okay, that wasn't good. Maybe her speechlessness was terror that he might touch her again.

"No, I have to get back to work. Now." Halley twisted her earring in her ear and darted her eyes, avoiding his gaze.

Evan sighed. For five years he had been keeping a tight lid on his emotions, and in one morning, he had lost control and gone at her like a sex-starved lunatic. Which he was.

"Halley, I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything. I was just trying to make you feel better." He mentally groaned. Crap, that sounded awful. Like he just whipped out his dick whenever anyone was upset.

She blinked. "Oh, well, I do. Feel better. Thanks."

Halley turned and left the kitchen, heading for his front door at a fast clip.

"Give me a couple of hours and I'll have your site fixed."

Her head bobbed up and down, but she didn't look back at him. "Thanks, I really appreciate it."

"No problem." He stood silent, in agony, trying to formulate a better apology. He wouldn't be able to stand it if he lost Halley as a friend. She meant everything to him.

Rubbing her palms on her brown pants, Halley stopped and turned in the front doorway. She opened her mouth, then closed it, probably just to torture him.

"What did you mean about revenge?" she asked.

Something that had seemed like a fun, friendly kind of thing to do together. Before he'd buried himself in her thighs and blown their friendship forever.

"A friend of mine knows who the Three Commandos are. He's going to e-mail me the URL for their website. I thought we could do a little hacking of our own. Fix his website up the way they did yours."

On any other day, one where he hadn't kissed her senseless, Hailey would have said yes. He just knew it. But that frown on her face showed him how much he had risked and lost by listening to his libido.

"I really have to get back to the office. Maybe… later."

No surprise there. She wanted to get away from him and he couldn't blame her. But it would have been fun to screw around with those guys with Halley next to him, giggling and coming up with evil reverse-hacking suggestions.

His heart ached painfully. He missed her already and she hadn't even left.

Hey, he would just have to do the hacking on his own then. He couldn't stand those cocky shits who ran around the Internet messing with people's heads and/or their websites. Halley didn't deserve to have her business screwed with just for some geeks' jollies, and it was the least Evan could do in the way of an apology.

"I'll call you when I get the site fixed," he said.

"Great," she said with a nervous smile. Then she edged out the door backward as if she were afraid he might make a grab for her and fondle her silly.

"Bye, Evan." With a wave, she took off running, the sound of her sandals slapping down the stairs echoing in his miserable heart.

"Yeah. Bye, Halley."

Kicking his nasty, festering, overflowing garbage can, he sent a half-filled fountain drink skittering across the floor. As it leaked three-day-old Coke on the vinyl, he stomped out of the kitchen and down the hall to his bedroom.

The only reason Halley had come to him, her old friend Evan, was to cover up her tits on her website, not to be tortured with his clumsy seduction attempts. He should just fix the site and be done with it.

Or he could stare at the screen all day and fantasize that Halley really was naked in front of him, and he was the cherub.

Evan blinked at the image still on his computer and swore out loud.

Damn, he was hungry.

Comforting her. Evan had been comforting her.

As she ate her lunch, Halley tried to force Evan's kiss out of her mind. She would have had more luck lifting a semitruck with her finger. It was all she could think about.

Evan had been comforting her, and she had leapt on to him like a nympho in a sex video. Admittedly, he had responded after all, she'd felt that thing between her legs and had seen it in all its glory. Impressive glory that it was.

But Evan was a man. And it was hardly surprising that he would get an erection when she was dirty dancing on him. She had long ago determined that men's penises acted independently of the rest of their body, including their brain and heart.

That was why she had gotten the hell out of there. If she had pushed it, pulled out the breasts and a few other tricks, she probably could have convinced Evan to sleep with her.

Which was comparable to throwing ten years of great friendship down the toilet.

Geez, maybe she needed to go home and rent When Harry Met Sally to remind herself that sex between friends was a major no-no.

Of course, Harry and Sally had gotten together in the end.