Page 1 of Tristan’s Temptation

Chapter One

Tristan Trillo burned. He leaned forward in his lush leather chair, hiding his hard-on behind the big mahogany desk as his assistant Shannon Weiss entered his office.

She looked particularly enticing today. Her adorable corkscrew curls were swept back in a ponytail, revealing the delicate features of her heart-shaped face—wide, brown, fawn-like eyes, turned-up nose and sweet bow lips. She wore a tight leather skirt and form-hugging belly shirt. Slick leather boots encased her calves.

“You wanted me?” A throaty purr.

Did he want her? Dear God, yes. “Care to take some…dictation?”

Her response was a cheeky smile. “Of course.” She closed the door with a sharp click and strolled to his desk, steno pad in hand. “Where do you want me?”

“Here.” His heart pounded. “Come here.”

She grinned and tossed the steno pad heedlessly to the floor then rounded the large desk in a seductive saunter until she stood before him, luscious legs spread shoulder-width apart. The light from the window cascaded over her body, forming shadows, highlighting the peaks and valleys of her small upturned breasts. He caressed the soft skin of her thigh between the top of the boots and the hem of her skirt. His fingers curled around the warmth and drew her closer. She murmured soft encouragement.

“Take off your shirt.”

She complied without reservation, revealing a wispy push-up bra that cupped her breasts with exquisite precision. It was sheer and scant. He could almost see the coral rings of her nipples.

His grasp tightened on her flesh. “On your knees.”

She smiled at the command and knelt before him, placing a hand on his thigh. It drifted slowly up to the buttons of his jeans. In a heartbeat, she had them open and his cock in her hand. Tristan shifted restlessly as she bent her head, took him into her sweet mouth and began to suck. Her head moved up and down as her tongue and lips milked his erection.

The sight was alluring, seductive and damn arousing. It always was.

But today, for some reason, it just didn’t cut it. Normally the image of Shannon on her knees before him with his cock in her mouth was enough to drive him wild but today it was just frustrating. It simply wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

With a snort, Tristan slapped his laptop closed and spun around to glare out the windows overlooking the parking lot. When Jack Maris created Virtual Life, a high-resolution role-playing game, Tristan, as CEO of Trillo–Maris Software, had been excited about the prospects. It hadn’t taken long for him to realize the potential of a game where players could create their own reality and interact with avatars that looked and sounded just like people they knew, or people they wanted to know. The game could be played as a single player, as a private group or as an MMORPG interfacing with internet players across the world—all of which boded an extraordinarily promising market share.

But for Tristan, the game had an infinitely more personal draw. Using Jack’s little-known code to access the Green Door application, he’d created a seductive scenario featuring Shannon Weiss in hope of exorcizing the ill-conceived passion he felt for his prim little assistant. However, as time passed, Tristan had developed racier and raunchier scenarios. Delving into his darkest desires, making them come to life in the virtual world, only whet his appetite for the real thing.

Now he thought of very little else.

What he really wanted—pretty much more than he wanted to draw his next breath—was the real thing. He wanted Shannon there on her knees before him, her warm hands on him, her slick mouth tormenting him and bringing him to climax. And he wanted it so badly he could practically taste it.

But there were three major problems with this obsession.

The first problem was Tristan’s dedication to his business. When he, his brother Adam and his college roommate Jack Maris started the company, they’d agreed on several critical rules. The mandate at the top of the list—don’t fish in the company pond. That meant no romantic entanglements with employees. There were many reasons why this was a sound policy. Most specifically, when these kinds of relationships went sour, it could ruin a business.

Adam had no compunction about breaking the rules, Tristan noted with disgust. He’d recently become engaged to their very best financial analyst, much to Tristan’s chagrin. It didn’t seem fair that Adam could circumvent the rules and get laid every night—which he wasn’t in the least shy to report—while Tristan vented his frustration with his cock in his fist, obsessing over a digitalized version of the woman he desperately wanted.

It was damn frustrating. But it was his rule and Tristan always followed the rules. So despite his ever-growing fascination with Shannon, Tristan kept it in his pants and controlled his desire, turning instead to Jack’s version of virtual reality porn and feeling a little sleazy in the process. He kept telling himself he should just quit doing it—he realized it was a crutch for a very unwise addiction—but he always came back.

The second reason his fixation on Shannon was unwise was because she had a boyfriend—a handsome, muscular hunk whom she adored. Of course Tristan had never discussed Bosco with her but he’d overheard snatches of conversation between the women in the office mooning about how cute he was, with “those dreamy brown eyes”, “such big, muscular shoulders” and an “adorable ass that wiggles when he walks”. In his mind’s eye, Tristan had created a vision of Bosco as a big, dumb, muscular jock. It was pretty annoying to think of Shannon in bed with a douche bag like that, especially since Tristan wanted her in his bed.

The final reason his obsession with Shannon was idiotic in the extreme was the simple fact that Shannon Weiss would never, ever do any of the things Tristan fantasized about her doing. She was excruciatingly meticulous and reserved and ever so proper. She would be revolted by his carnal desires. Deep and dark and unrelenting as they were. When he was in his right mind, he couldn’t even imagine her having a sexual urge, much less acting on it. The prospect of the real Shannon, aloof and modest, on her knees sucking the sanity right out of a man was wholly absurd.

This obsession was wholly absurd.

Tristan swung around to glare at Shannon’s desk, which he could see through the floor-to-ceiling windows flanking the hall. She sat primly in her task chair, back straight, intent as she transcribed their most recent meeting minutes from the recorder to the computer. She was dressed, as always, with exquisite taste—no thigh-high vinyl boots and belly shirts here. No. She wore a perfectly tailored business suit and had her wild hair tamed into an elegant little bun atop her head—though wayward tendrils had escaped to caress her swanlike neck.

He’d had dreams about those tendrils curling around his finger, dancing along his thigh as she dipped her head again and again…

Damn.

Tristan yanked his imagination away from the abyss and opened his laptop again, forcing himself to concentrate on work. He would not think about Shannon or her unruly hair or her sweet face or those tantalizing ruby lips and how they would feel stretched around his…

Damn.