four guys, he muttered under his breath—and, freakishly, without moving his lips, “Knock it off.”
When Lucas looked into my face, I pointedly rolled my eyes at him and his olive-toned skin darkened with a flush of… irritation? Anger? Oh boy, that reaction was catnip to my inner troublemaker which felt very gratified in this moment.
I poked my chest out and widened my grin. Then I waggled my eyebrows, scooping up the virtual rifle. Striking a sexy badass warrior-girl pose, I aimed it at Lucas, Lara Croft-style.
“The fake gun is for first-person shooter games, which is by far the most popular type of game being used with virtual reality equipment at the moment. We call them FPS,” Lucas started.
“They know what FPS is… They’re all gamers and in the military for that matter,” I said. Hey maybe after this secret-marriage gig was up, I could get me some of that. Mia didn’t have to be the only one of my acquaintance to score a hot nerd. I could one-up her billionaire with an astronaut.
Lucas responded by turning on the game system and turning up the volume so I would only hear him when he spoke on the voice-over mic. Petty of him, of course, but I was warmly satisfied that I’d pushed his buttons enough to crack the veneer of his control. It had become like a game to me.
I’d feel worse about that if he didn’t take the same satisfaction in regularly doing the same.
So I hammed it up for the guys… demonstrated the software on the simple demo game. The software had been ported over to the Virtual Reality operating system in order to show how someone could use this equipment with a Massive Multi-Player Roleplaying game—MMO RPG. I threw my everything into it, for the business, of course. I even included extra dramatic hip swings, butt waggles and movements that would make me extra, uh, jiggly in my t-shirt.
Just imagining Lucas’s face getting redder by the moment was enough to keep me going.
I ran down virtual trails in the woods, sauntered through desert sand, where the treadmill made it harder for me to walk, simulating trudging through unsteady ground. I swung a rod in my hand that appeared in the game as a simulated sword. The guys, presumably, watched my every move interacting on the screen.
“We’re done, Cranberry.” Lucas’s voice cut through to me on the voiceover. “You can stop hamming it up now and let the guys have a chance to try.”
We both helped the guys get into their equipment. There were enough demo rigs for each of them. Let’s just say it was no hardship getting up close and personal with all of that hard muscle. Commander Ty had a famous actress girlfriend, Keely Dawson, as their romance had been detailed all over the news. He was still hotter than lava and rather kind to boot. A regular guy for all that he was world famous as an international hero.
Lucas and I stood back and watched the astronauts get involved with the gaming environment, exploring tentatively. With their headphones on, they couldn’t hear me so I smacked my lips obnoxiously as if enjoying looking at their hard butts. Beside me, Lucas appeared more and more annoyed. Ahh`, sometimes it was just too easy.
“Just remember that you are not available,” he muttered, his arms folded and his posture tense.
I looked up at him. Lucas was so tall, it was a strain to my neck to meet his gaze when we stood this close. I could smell him—a subtle scent like suede with a tinge of bergamot. “How could I forget, husband dearest?” I batted my eyes at him and he jerked his gaze away quickly.
Buttons. Buttons. Between the two of us, we had more buttons to push than the cockpit of the Space Shuttle. And sometimes we risked igniting an explosion as monstrous as something that could shoot you into orbit. It was this constant back-and-forth and I couldn’t put my finger on why—no pun intended.
I cocked a brow at him. “As long as you keep remembering that you’re not available, either.”
He smirked as he continued to monitor the guys’ progress on the large screen near us. “How could I possibly forget that?” But he mumbled it in such a way that it was obvious that that phrase had way more meaning for him than for me.
“Well if that’s supposed to mean you’re sick of the blue balls, maybe you should bend your own rules and go