Read Online Command by Sierra Cartwright - Free Book Online Page A

Global Strategy, but my focus is on the consumer level. There’s a whole geek language I can’t speak.”
    “Well, you can’t have everything. And after all, you are fluent in dessert.”
    Aria smiled at him, and he was a goner. Her green eyes turned the color of molten jade, seducing him in a way that was beyond sex. He already liked her quick wit and her curiosity. It wouldn’t be long, he surmised, before the urge to live a little more dangerously called to her. When it did, he’d happily be the one to introduce her to its seductions.
    He pressed his hand fully against the palm plate. “A lot of this never makes it out of testing. And some of it’s done on a proprietary level. Certain companies don’t want anyone to know what they’ve got.”
    “You trust me with this?”
    “Julien sent you here. That’s all the endorsement I need.” The scanner cleared him and the door slid open.
    “That looks like something out of a science fiction movie.”
    “It is.” He grinned. “When I was growing up, watching Star Trek , I dreamed of having a door like this. So the first chance I had, I installed one. At first, I would go in and out. Just because I could.”
    “So why the keypad?”
    “I thought it looked cool.”
    “It’s nonfunctional?”
    “You’ll get a jolt from it. Want to try?”
    She curled her hands at her sides. “What is it with you and electricity?”
    “It has sixty-three thousand different uses. Four of them are sensual.”
    Her breath seemed to catch, and he watched the way she forced the air out of her lungs.
    “After you.”
    She seemed drawn to the middle of the room, and she slowly spun while he sealed the door closed.
    “Part of it looks like an operating room,” she observed. “And the other…” She looked at the piles, the glass, the broken pieces, the half-finished prototypes, designs sketched directly on tables with marker.
    “I call it Idea Heaven,” he said.
    “It’s… Your workspace has an institutional feel to it. I mean with all the metal, the bare floors, no paintings or knick-knacks, mementos… You don’t even have plants. Do you spend a lot of time in here?”
    “Most of my waking hours.”
    “The view is incredible, but the surroundings seem a little sterile. Austere maybe.”
    “Maybe at first glance. But it reflects my moods.” When he thought of it. Lately that hadn’t been often. More and more, he was seeing how right Julien was in his assessment. How long would he have been willing to go on that way? Work had become his life. And at some point, it had stopped being fun. “Molly, why don’t we show Aria the Caribbean.”
    A wall shimmered as an image of white sand appeared. An island followed, taking shape, with palm trees and a hammock, a bird he couldn’t name. Then came the water, three different shades of blue, the color intensifying the farther it moved away from shore. Yellow fish darted beneath the surface. In the three-dimensional distance, a yacht drifted.
    “Well. Wow.”
    “Don’t worry. I can switch it to the arctic if you prefer.”
    She wrapped her arms around her, warding off an invisible chill.
    “Or San Francisco, if you’re homesick. Or my dungeon, if you’re brave.”
    “Are you ever serious?”
    “Almost always. You want to think I’m joking because it seems safer for you that way.”
    “Ah…”
    “You’re wondering. What it would be like if I kissed you. In fact, outside, in the hallway, you were hoping I’d lean in.”
    “Dreamer.”
    He shrugged.
    “I bet in high school you were able to talk girls out of their panties.”
    “I rarely tried.” He met her gaze.
    She was frowning skeptically.
    “Wasn’t till college, and I met Julien and our other friends that I got invited to parties. Before that, I didn’t mingle much with the opposite sex.”
    “You were a fast learner.”
    “Not really.”
    “You went from not really dating to wanting to be in charge. Isn’t that a big leap?”
    “No. There was a