Penetration Testing
A high-heat MM romance featuring enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, and a D/s dynamic that will melt your e-reader.
He’s here to break my system. I’m here to watch him fail.
Silas Vance is the best penetration tester in the industry—cold, controlled, and utterly unflappable. When he’s hired to crack my network, I’m ready. I built this system from scratch. It’s impenetrable. I’m impenetrable.
Julian Thorne is everything I’ve been warned about—brilliant, chaotic, and insufferably smug. He’s also the most beautiful disaster I’ve ever seen, and he’s determined to make this test personal.
When a real cyber attack triggers a catastrophic lockdown, we’re trapped together in a subterranean server room with rising temperatures and no way out. The attack is siphoning millions. If we don’t stop it, we both go to prison.
But as the hours stretch on and the heat becomes unbearable, the battle between us shifts. Every barbed comment. Every stolen glance. Every moment where Julian pushes my control and begs me to push back.
He wants someone strong enough to handle him. Someone who won’t back down. Someone who’ll give him exactly what he’s been asking for.
I’ve never lost a penetration test.
I’m not about to start now.
Penetration Testing is a high-heat MM romance featuring enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, competence kink, brat taming, praise kink, D/s dynamics, and a guaranteed HEA. This book contains explicit content and is intended for readers 18+.
Tropes You’ll Love
🔥 Enemies to Lovers • 🚪 Forced Proximity • 💻 Competence Kink
😈 Brat/Tamer • ✨ Praise Kink • ⛓️ D/s Dynamics • 🔄 Power Exchange
🔥 Bonus Content
Get “Full System Access” — an exclusive bonus scene that’s TOO HOT for Amazon!
One year later. The same server room. Zip-ties, blindfolds, and a very thorough anniversary celebration.
Read Chapter One
Chapter One: Initial Access
The elevator dropped like a slow execution.
Silas Vance watched the floor numbers tick backward—B1, B2, B3—and considered, not for the first time, that there was something deeply unnatural about descending this far beneath the financial district at eleven o’clock on a Thursday night. Four stories of reinforced concrete between him and the Manhattan skyline. Between him and the rest of the breathing world.
He adjusted his cufflinks. Charcoal suit, Italian wool, tailored within an inch of its life. Some penetration testers showed up to jobs in hoodies and energy-drink-stained jeans, leaning into the hacker aesthetic like it was a costume party. Silas had always found that approach tedious. When you were about to systematically dismantle a corporation’s security infrastructure, you should at least have the decency to dress for the occasion.
B4.
The elevator settled with a hydraulic sigh. The doors parted onto a corridor of raw concrete and humming fluorescent tubes—the architectural equivalent of a threat.
Welcome to The Core.
Nexum Financial had spent eleven million dollars building this subterranean fortress. Silas had read the specs: seismically isolated foundation, electromagnetic shielding, independent power supply, and enough cooling capacity to keep three hundred server racks running at optimal temperature even if the surface of the earth caught fire. The company stored transaction data for half the hedge funds on the Eastern Seaboard down here. They’d hired him to prove it was impenetrable.
He was going to enjoy proving them wrong.
* * *
“You’re late.”
The voice came from somewhere between the third and fourth row of server racks—flat, unimpressed, already hostile. Silas followed it.
Julian Thorne was exactly what his file had promised and nothing like what Silas had expected.
The file said: twenty-eight years old, MIT dropout, recruited by Nexum straight out of a freelance consulting gig that had reportedly saved a Fortune 500 company from a ransomware attack. Lead Hardware and Network Architect for the past three years. Reputation for brilliance. Reputation for being difficult.
The file had not mentioned that he looked like that.
Julian was slouched against a server rack with the boneless insolence of a man who’d been waiting too long and wanted everyone to know it. Lean build, wiry, all restless angles and sharp edges. Dark hair that looked like he’d been running his hands through it for hours. A worn Depeche Mode t-shirt stretched across narrow shoulders, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with muscle and a sleeve of technical tattoos—circuit patterns, binary code, what looked like a schematic for a motherboard. Dark jeans hung low on his hips. His jaw was smudged with something silver-gray.
Thermal paste, Silas realized. He’d been working on hardware.
Julian’s eyes swept over Silas with open contempt—cataloging the suit, the posture, the deliberately expensive watch. His mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Let me guess.” Julian pushed off from the rack. “You’re the penetration tester.”
“Silas Vance.”
“I know who you are.” Julian’s gaze flicked to the briefcase in Silas’s hand. “I’ve read your file too. Very impressive. All those companies you’ve compromised. All those systems you’ve cracked.” He said cracked like it was a slur. “Must be nice, getting paid to break things other people spent years building.”
Silas let the silence stretch. Counted heartbeats. Watched Julian’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly as the quiet accumulated.
Then, mildly: “It’s a living.”
Continue reading…
Frequently Asked Questions
How spicy is this book?
🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ — Five flames. This book features explicit MM content including D/s dynamics, bondage with improvised materials (zip-ties, ethernet cables), praise kink, edging, and multiple on-page scenes that will fog your glasses.
Is there a happy ending?
Always. This is a romance novel—the HEA is guaranteed. Silas and Julian walk out of that server room as partners, start their own security firm, and build a life together.
Do I need to know anything about hacking/cybersecurity?
Nope! The tech elements are there for flavor and tension, but the story is about two stubborn men falling for each other under impossible circumstances.
What tropes are in this book?
Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Competence Kink, Brat/Tamer, Praise Kink, D/s Dynamics, Power Exchange, Touch Starved
Who is Chase Power?
Chase Power writes high-heat MM romance featuring emotional depth, swoony moments, and guaranteed happy endings. Check out more titles here.
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