Title: Hard Code
Author: Misha Bell
Publisher/Year:  Mozalka Publications 1/12/21
Length:  200 pages
Series: Hard Stuff #1

Overview

My new assignment at work: test out toys. Yup, that kind.

Well, technically, it’s to test the app that controls the toys remotely.

One problem? The showgirl who’s supposed to test the hardware (as in, the actual toys) joins a nunnery.

Another problem? This project is important to my Russian boss, the broody, mouthwateringly sexy Vlad, a.k.a. The Impaler.

There’s only one solution: test both the software and the hardware myself… with his help.

My Thoughts

The compilation book that i’m finding all these recent reads is definitely not the normal style of book that i’d read – right genre, but maybe a bit too generic for my liking. doesn’t mean that others won’t like it. it was an easy read and something to read on the train and subway through my commute yesterday and this morning.

So, what we have here is a little story about Fanny (yup, Fanny – last name Pack) who’s a coder by profession and who likes things in the quirky sort of way. She’s trying to move ahead in the company that she’s at by trying to work her way into the development team – and to do that she’s created an app that’s she’s submitted for review. While she’s waiting on anything to come of that, she’s got an assignment to work on a new project – testing sex toys for her boss.

Enter Vlad. the owner and founder of Binary Birch, the company that this story centers around. He’s a bit elusive to some – not much information to be found about him online, no social media presence and really most of the people in the company have never seen him so they don’t know what he looks like. Just that there are rumors and nicknames given to him. Makes for an awkward introduction between our two main characters – when he over hears what she has to say about him and doesn’t realize who he is.

Anyway -back on track here – we watch as this story progresses – how Fanny is put into a situation that’s quite out of the norm for her (big surprise in this genre) and she’s forced to be the tester rather than have the person she was going to pay to be the tester. What makes an even better dynamic is that there are both male and female toys, so that means that we have to watch her try to recruit a guy to participate as well.

Low and behold, through circumstances, Vlad becomes that person. And the story unfolds from there. We watch how they bond over shared interests (oddly enough computers, college, guinea pigs…..) and then we see the attraction build between them while they work through the testing, especially since this is an incredibly important project for Vlad – we learn that the toy company belongs to his sister and that’s why it’s even more important that all goes well in the needed amount of time.

What happens in this story is some really good foreplay at least – we watch the interactions between them with the toys turn into something that’s quite real in reality – assuming that they let themselves go down that path. There’s usually a dynamic of boss / employee that we have to watch out for but shockingly that’s not a thing here. Instead its just cattiness from others who are there and rumors that are started to make work uncomfortable.

Family plays a role, friends play a role and we see how things can all be resolved in a nice fast way in this installment of what I gather is a series. We’ll get to learn more about Vlad’s brother and sister if I read the other books properly. I don’t know that i’ll dive into them yet, I need something a bit deeper to read for a while, but i’m sure i’ll come back to it at some point. enjoy!