Free At Any Price (Gaming The System) by Brenna Aubrey

against mine, his head angled down to reach me, for I was at least five inches shorter than him.
    I opened my mouth to him then and his tongue slid in easily. Nothing tentative in this kiss. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was telling me I had the control, declaring the decision mine and then swooping in and taking no prisoners.
    His hands stayed put. I was glad of that though I wanted his touch everywhere—my aching breasts, the throbbing between my legs. Goose bumps prickled up and down my arms. His tongue explored my mouth with surety, easy possession. And—to my utter humiliation—I let loose a small whimper at the back of my throat.
    The arm around my waist tightened when he heard it, responding immediately, almost instinctively. He pulled his tongue back, as if inviting me to follow him with my tongue. And tentatively, I did.
    I’d been kissed before—back in high school when I was normal and I actually dated. But it had been years, now, and I’d never, ever been kissed like this. My tongue entered his mouth and he made a noise at the back of his throat, not quite a growl, kind of more like a huff. It emboldened me. Empowered me. I thrust my tongue, lacing my hands around the back of his neck. Our heads moved together for long minutes and I felt like I hadn’t breathed in a lifetime.
    Everything was spinning around me and I—I was spinning too, delirious with want. Like a woman drowning in the middle of stormy sea, in desperate need of a life raft. That sea was Adam Drake and he was pulling me adrift, stranding me in some strange and forgotten land.
    When finally he ended it, he pulled away so slowly that I could hardly tell our lips had parted until cool air passed between us. It was then that I saw that he was as affected as I was—flushed cheeks, his breath coming fast, his eyes dark and drunk with desire.
    I licked my lips and took a step back, but I didn’t remove my gaze from his. He stared at me for a long moment and then fished his sunglasses out of his pocket.
    Before speaking, he coughed into a fist, as if consciously trying to affect that previous cool demeanor and knowing he was failing. “It was…That was just something else to consider. I hope you make the right decision.”
    And with that, without even waiting for me to say good-bye or reply in any way, he was gone.
    I fell back against the wall, aware of my aching, awakened senses. Every time I thought about his smell or the feel of his mouth on mine, a new shard of arousal cut me to the bone.
    Thank goodness I was already decked out to run. I had planned on 5k but I ended up running twice that before I could even begin to feel the sexual energy burn off. This man had fired me up, intoxicated me. And why? Because of his gorgeous face? His solid, masculine body?
    Because of his confident manner? He possessed maturity beyond his years. He seemed much more experienced than other twenty-something men I knew in college. Could life have changed him so much since his college days or had he always been that way?
    I found questions like this sliding through my mind constantly for the rest of that day—all through the night as I worked. They harangued me on my day off, too. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and wanted to call and ask him to come over and give me a good night kiss like the one he’d given me the day before.
    I laughed at the thought. How silly. But I surprised myself with the realization of how much I really wanted it. On day three after The Kiss, I called Heath and told him to throw away the New Yorker’s contact information. We would proceed as planned.
    Still, my feelings were mixed. I had a hard time reconciling the behavior of Adam Drake at the hotel conference room the day we met and the man who’d come to my place and bought me lunch and, thanks to his perceptiveness, dinner, too. I’d told Heath, but I waited a few more days to tell Adam that I’d decided to go through with it. I didn’t want to appear as eager as