Free With Extreme Pleasure by Alison Kent

conversation?”
    Actually, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to revisit her past to the extent answering his questions would require. Curling up her battered body beneath the bed’s blankets, and sinking into the cushy down pillows was a much more appealing option.
    She chose it instead of choosing to talk.
    “Never mind,” she said, reaching for her backpack and the T-shirt and sweatpants she’d packed for sleeping, and then realizing he hadn’t moved.
    She looked up at him then, for the first time concentrating on his expression instead of his looks. “What?”
    His eyes were those of a raptor, keen and piercing. “I’m not avoiding the conversation or running out on you.”
    She dipped her chin, pulled her laptop out of her bag, knew what a field mouse must feel like before a hawk swooped down. “I know—”
    “No you don’t,” he said sharply. “But it’s okay. It takes a lot to hurt my feelings.”
    She hated to admit that she hadn’t considered his feelings at all. It was just that she was used to being on her own, used to having conversations avoided, used to seeing the backs of others running away from the cloud of bad karma that hung over her head like a shroud.
    She shrugged what she hoped passed for an apology. “I’m going to see if the wireless is working. I need to log into my bank and figure out how I’m going to finance my escape from New York.”
    “You’re a funny girl,” he said, still staring at her, though with less of a hooded look.
    “Thanks. Entertaining you is the least I can do.” And then she realized what she’d said, and decided not to say anything else the rest of the night. Not so King.
    “I’ll be back in a few,” he said. “Just sit tight,” he told her. “Nothing bad’s going to happen while I’m gone,” he promised. “It’ll be morning before you know it, and that’s when everything looks brighter, right?”
    All she could do was smile weakly while avoiding his gaze, and nod, because even if nothing bad happened, it was going to be a long time before there was anything resembling brightness lighting up her life.

Eleven
    K ing shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, wishing for his jacket and dry hair. It wasn’t that he’d been in too much of a hurry to grab his coat before leaving the room, but a case of not thinking straight.
    If he had been, he wouldn’t be here now, freezing his balls off, instead of huddled in toasty sheepskin.
    It had taken him forever to finish up in the bathroom because he couldn’t get the hungry look in Cady’s eyes out of his head. Since she’d climbed into his passenger seat in the garage this morning, he hadn’t once thought of her that way. At least not seriously. She’d been someone in trouble, someone needing help.
    Even when she’d rubbed against him during that ridiculous Ferrer photo shoot, he hadn’t considered messing with her any more seriously than he would’ve a Hooters’ waitress leaning over him to serve up his order of hot wings and beer. Enjoying an eyeful of tits didn’t mean a thing.
    Except best he could tell, Cady’s tits really weren’t enough for an eyeful, and she’d never worn anything that exposed her cleavage to prove him wrong. Head to toe, she’d always been completely covered up when around him. Until standing there in the bathroom looking at him with bare, naked eyes.
    What he’d seen of her then had scrambled everything he’d been thinking, as well as the plans he’d been making behind her back to ditch her and get on the road. Best he could do now was talk her out of wanting to come along, let her think it was in her best interest to get rid of him.
    If anyone had been messing with his brand-new wheels and delayed him any longer, he was going to have their hide. But a quick look around the exterior of the SUV, made while he ran his hands up and down his goose-fleshed arms, didn’t reveal slashed tires or smashed windows or siphoned fuel.
    The electronics in