Wicked Pleasure by Nina Bangs

know a little about electronics. Don’t think I can do much more damage.” From the looks of Fo, he’d have more luck with Humpty Dumpty.
    â€œWho would’ve thought I was so attached? I mean, Fo drove me crazy most of the time.” She shook her head and then bit her bottom lip.
    Probably trying to control her emotions, but the damp sheen of her full bottom lip brought a low growl from the sexual beast within him. A beast that never roused itself except when compelled. He forced himself to concentrate on Fo.
    â€œYeah, friends do that sometimes. Now be quiet so I can concentrate.” He thought his suggestion that Fo was her friend shocked Kim into silence. Good.
    Brynn had a powerful mind, made more powerful over the centuries, but he’d never tried interfacing with a sentient machine. He poured his mind into Fo and searched among the ruins for anything that remained of her. “I don’t know how to fix you, Fo, unless you tell me how.”
    At first he saw only blackness, and then a screen opened within the darkness. It faded in and out, but he could see some sort of schematics. Hopefully Fo’s. Too bad he didn’t have a clue what to do with it. While he was pondering where to start studying the maze of parts and letters, a cursor appeared. It blinked beside a small, distinctly shaped piece.
    Brynn studied the piece and where it was. Then he looked down at Fo. It took him a few minutes to find the piece spread among the others on the table, but when he did, he put it back into Fo according to what he’d seen.
    Once that piece was in place, he glanced at his watch. Uh-oh. This was going to take longer than fifteen minutes. He pulled a few dollars from his wallet. “Would you do me a favor and get me some coffee? Black. Helps me concentrate.” Once Kim was out of the room, he was safe until she returned. And then the countdown for the next hour would begin. He didn’t think it would take longer than that to get Fo’s innards back in place.
    Kim waved off his money. “Hey, you’re trying to fix Fo. I’ll be back.”
    She left, and he went back to painstakingly accessing Fo’s memory to find where each piece belonged. Somewhere along the way Kim returned because a Styrofoam container of coffee appeared on the table close to where he was working, and he felt Kim ease down beside him. But he was too focused on what he was doing to stop long enough to even look at his watch.
    He’d just completed all the things he’d seen in the instructions, replaced the back of Fo’s case, and was considering going down to his room for some tape to make sure the crack didn’t get worse, when he felt it. The warm flow of desire he hated, couldn’t control. The lengthening and thickening of his cock—automatic, attached to no emotion, only ravenous physical hunger. Unstoppable.
    Brynn didn’t need to look at his watch. He was too late to stop what was about to happen. He closed his eyes for a moment of deep regret. His budding friendship with Kim was over. She’d either accept his body and what it could offer her, or she’d turn from him in disgust. Either way, he lost.
    He carefully closed Fo, pushed her away from him, and then stood.
    The compulsion washed over him.

5
    Kim was reaching for Fo when Brynn got up and strode away from the couch. Was Fo okay now? Kim was almost afraid to look. Would she see huge purple eyes or a blank screen?
    And then she forgot about Fo. Suddenly, everything in the room seemed to shift. Not physically. The couch was still in place, but it was as if the room swirled with energy, an energy that warmed the air around her and changed the reality of what had been just a few seconds ago. Did that make any sense? Uh, no.
    What the . . . ? Kim looked up and automatically sought Brynn. But Brynn had evidently left the building, because the man standing in the middle of the room was not Brynn. Oh, he had