At Any Price (Gaming The System) (31 page)

The thought of never seeing him after this weekend cut a deep and painful trench into me. But I knew it had to happen—and it had to happen before these feelings made me dependent on him. A wave of sudden pain lanced through me like a lightning bolt. The feelings would pass. They were fleeting, I reminded myself. I would stand firm to my decision.

And after all, what the hell were we doing here? He didn’t want this any more than I did! There was no reason for me to feel guilty. He was an empty, loveless workaholic who got his needs seen to by fuck buddies. My heart was racing again. I left the shower on shaky legs—and only because my fingers and toes were starting to shrivel.

You aren’t going to sleep with him in St. Lucia, are you?
Heath’s words came back to me like a sharp slap. I froze, placing my own addendum to Heath’s admonition—
because that would be a big mistake.
I shook my head—it was too late for self-recriminations.

But I still had a choice. We could enjoy our last day and a half here and call it quits after. I was no longer getting paid for the job but I had enjoyed it nonetheless. There was nothing wrong with enjoying another day of it.

When I dressed and went out to the main room, almost dreading to see him again, I could tell by his quiet demeanor that similar thoughts had run through his head. He was dressed in khakis and a red T-shirt bearing a
Star Trek
logo and the word “expendable” printed across his chest. His feet were bare and he sat in front of the open laptop, typing away at that maddening pace, the glow of the screen falling across his handsome features.

Without looking up, he asked, “You hungry? I was going to order room service.”

I didn’t answer, but walked over to the menu to look it over. Nothing looked appetizing but I knew—I
knew
—that if I didn’t order, he’d think I was pining or regretful or whatever. The key was to act natural. Act like nothing had happened.

Fuck. As if.

“It all looks froufrou.” I said by way of excuse.

He looked up. Maybe he felt insulted. He was an owner here, after all. “You can order whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be on the menu. You want a steak or something? That’s probably what I’m going to order. I’m famished.”

I shrugged. “Sure.” But the thought of a heavy steak in my stomach right now made it twist with disgust.

He went back to typing. “I’ll send the order in right now through the web page.”

I hesitated, hit with a wave of irritation. “Are you working?”

He didn’t look up. “Yup. Just thought I’d peek in at what’s going on with the progress our European launch.”

I frowned. Work hadn’t been on the schedule for this evening. Yet he’d logged in the first chance he could get after we’d—after…

What was this heavy feeling in my chest? I shot a glare at him. He was pulling away from me, and he was using work to do it. Just like he had with everyone else in his life—his friends, his beloved family members. Why did I think I would be immune from this treatment?

His behavior stung. He went back to typing, clicking away on his keys, never pulling his head away from his work, giving his complete attention to it. I wasn’t the type of person who needed someone’s undivided attention all the time. In fact, since I’d never desired a relationship, I was pretty low-maintenance when it came to that.

But given what had just happened between us for the first time, and my first time
ever,
I would have thought he’d be more attentive. Or at least, that’s what I would have liked. Instead, I got a wall of silence. He was a tortoise retreating into the hard, impenetrable protection that was work.

The worst came minutes later, however, when dinner arrived. The majordomo laid it out at our table just at the edge of the patio overlooking the bay. Adam ignored both of us as he continued to work. I busied myself by trying to get my e-mail to finally download on my phone. Nothing from Heath at all.

When the majordomo left, I sat down at the table and looked at Adam. “Your food’s getting cold.”

He typed for just a minute more and then approached the table. “I’m starving,” he muttered. Then he picked up the plate and his utensils and took them back to his desk, leaving me there to eat alone.

My jaw dropped but he didn’t notice because he cut a piece of steak, popped it into his mouth and returned to his work. From my angle, all I could see on his screen was a bunch of incomprehensible symbols and commands. He was working on some kind of program.

My gut burned. I tried to examine the reasons behind my anger. I felt brushed aside, used. He’d gotten what he’d wanted and moved on. I was a nonperson now. Couldn’t I at least be a friend? Why shower all this attention on me and then the minute we were intimate, ignore me? It made me wonder if that’s what it had been like with my mom and the Biological Sperm Donor. He’d used her, too. And then he’d set her aside like she’d never existed when he had no further use for her.

With a jolt of fury, I stood up from my nearly untouched plate, unwilling to mull any of this over in silence and watch his weird way of brooding. I went to the bathroom and grabbed my swimsuit.

When I came back, he glanced up from the screen questioningly but said nothing. I pretended not to notice.

I waded into the pool, which really was too short for laps, but I couldn’t think of any other way to work out this restless energy short of leaving the room. If I did that I’d be sending him a signal. That I resented or regretted what had happened between us. And I didn’t. But I
did
resent his current behavior. If he wanted to ignore me, fine. I could do the exact same thing.

I pondered all of this, as I continued my short lapping—four strokes, turn, catch breath, four strokes turn. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was starting to make me dizzy and I had no idea how long I’d been at it when I felt a strong hand wrap around my upper arm, pulling me to a halt. I came up sputtering. He was standing beside me in the pool.

“What the hell?” I said.

“I kept calling you and you wouldn’t stop. How long do you plan to keep at this?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. How long to you plan to blow me off?”

He shot me a sharp look. “I’m blowing you off? Why do you think that?”

I wiped the water out of my face. “Maybe because you wired in the first chance you could get and you’re eating dinner over your keyboard. You might do that all the time when you’re alone, but in company, it’s pretty bad manners. And because you’re not talking and I have no idea what is going through your head.”

He looked away but not before I noticed irritation on his face.

I continued. “Please don’t tell me you treated your other fuck buddies that way.”

“You’re
not
a fuck buddy.”

I pulled my arm free, turned and pushed over to the edge of the infinity pool, looking out over the dark bay. The distant crash of the ocean and smell of salt rose up on the breeze. From behind me he sighed. “I’m sorry you thought I was blowing you off.”

My face flushed hot with anger. “Not an apology. Don’t bother wasting your breath with that bullshit. Do you have any idea how it makes me feel that you would just ignore me like that after we—after what happened between us? Like yesterday’s forgotten trash.”

He came up beside me, hooking his muscular arms over the edge, careful not to touch me. He looked into my face, I kept staring out over the bay. “I’m sorry,” he said after some long, tense moments. “I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose. It’s something I do when—when I’m thinking.”

I took a deep breath, the tight anger only easing a tiny increment. I looked at him then. He’d shucked his shirt and pants and it looked like he’d jumped into the water in his underwear. “Then talk to me. Tell me what you are thinking about.”

He paused. “I was thinking about how I never intended for it to go this far.”

A band tightened around my chest. “So you
are
feeling regretful. Guilty that it happened.”

“No,” he said, turning to me. “I’m feeling regretful and guilty that I enjoyed it so much I want to do it again.”

A new tension thickened between us. I struggled for breath, because I felt the exact same way. “But you won’t?”

He looked out over the bay. “It was never supposed to go this far,” he repeated.

Though I hated how he dealt with his inner conflict by shutting me out, I found that inner conflict utterly a reflection of his goodness. He wasn’t using me. He was
afraid
of using me. He wasn’t disregarding me. He was holding my feelings in such regard that he was denying his own. How could I be angry with that?

“But it did. And there’s nothing to regret in that. There was no ‘deal.’ There were no principles violated. The money—”

“To hell with the money, Emilia. I don’t give a shit about the money.”

I turned to him, clearing my throat. “Here’s the deal, Adam. You are acting like you did something wrong, like you ‘took’ something from me or somehow despoiled me. You know what? It’s our culture that leads men to think like that…that purity in a woman is the ultimate prize.”

He grimaced. “You sound like your Manifesto, now.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t just write those words for the hell of it. I believed them. My purity was worth no more than yours or anyone else’s. I just happened to be a lot older than most when I finally—”

“Gave it up?”

“Gave it
away.
And it means nothing more than that. You did me a favor.”

He gritted his teeth so that the muscles in his jaw bulged.

I continued. “I enjoyed myself. You said you enjoyed yourself. What is there to regret or feel guilty over?”

“What comes next,” he stated flatly. “It’s the way I think. I’m a programmer before I’m anything else. Everything in programming is cause and effect. What are the possibilities that spring from each and every line of code? What will spring from this?”

“Stop thinking fifty steps ahead of this one. Just think about the one thing that comes next. What do you think that is?”

His eyes roamed my face. “If I had my way? It would be me fucking you again.” His eyes lowered to my lips.

I stopped breathing, heart rushing with excitement. We stared at each other in silence for a long moment before I spoke. “I think that sounds like a pretty good step.”

He hooked his arm around my waist, jerked me flush against him. My body came alive with the feel of his hardness. We held each other for long moments. Then he slowly, sensuously began to kiss my neck.

“Damn it, Emilia,” he breathed. “How did you strip me bare so quickly?”

I reached up, holding his rough face in my hands and we kissed

He kissed me long, tenderly. Our tongues slowly played against each other. Desire arced through me like lightning across a mountain sky. The touch was jagged, searing. His hands were on my back, untying my bikini top, sliding to my breasts.

“How is it possible that I want you more now than I did this afternoon?” he growled against my neck.

I pulled myself up, hooking my legs around his waist and we continued to kiss. The tightly packed muscles in his back roiled under my hands.

“We were
both
very eager.”

He pulled back to look at me. “I’m not sure how eager you were,” he breathed, a smile quivering on his lips. “I got the sense that you were lying back and thinking of medical school.”

I laughed. “Hardly.”

“I had to fight with myself not to start again the minute it finished. I wanted you so much that I knew once wouldn’t be enough.”

His words stole the air right out of my lungs. My body was responding with scorching fire, tightening tension.

“I’m going to do it again, Emilia. And again.”

His hands were on my hips and I freed my legs so he could yank down my swimsuit bottoms. Would we even bother to leave the pool? His fingers rubbed my sex as he sucked my nipples. I fell slack in his arms, focused on the searing pleasure commanding all my senses. The taste of his wet skin, the feel of his taut muscles, the smell of him. He continued to rub and I began the inevitable climb toward orgasm. My hands clamped on his shoulders and I threw my head back, calling his name.

He stopped. I suppressed a yelp of frustration. He said, “Turn around and put your hands on the edge.”

I stepped back and looked into his face. An animal hunger—something I hadn’t seen in his eyes before—glowed there.

“Do it.”

The thrill of anticipation jacked up several notches with his command. I turned and placed my hands on the edge of the pool, feeling very exposed. I was naked, looking out over emptiness. No one could see us. We were in total privacy. Adam bent and kissed the nape of my neck, my ears, my back, his hands coming up to cup my breasts and knead them gently, rolling the nipples over in his hands. I gasped and arched against him, reaching behind me to hook my arms around his neck.

“Back on the edge, Emilia. Keep them there.”

Slowly. Very slowly. I obeyed. He grabbed my hips and pulled them against him. He was naked, now, and his erection pressed against me. I gasped.

But when I thought he would enter me, he didn’t. He slid his shaft along the seam of my sex, reaching around my front with one hand to press down on my swollen flesh, now fully aroused. And he began to rub against me both from the front and from behind.

The feeling was exquisite and soon the quick build of tension between my legs increased, bunching in my belly, heating my insides. I was about to come—the orgasm just beyond my reach.

He stopped again. “Adam!” I cried.

“What?” he whispered hoarsely in my ear.

“Stop playing around, for fuck’s sake,” I growled.

“Tell me what you want. Exactly what you want.” He punctuated the command by pressing down on my clitoris again, as if I needed reminding that it was there. I stiffened against him.

“I want your cock. I want it inside of me.”

“And then what?”

“I want you to slide it in and out until I come,” I panted.

I stopped breathing when I felt the tip of him at my entrance. “Ask me nicely.”

“Fuck me.”