Free All That She Wants (Connor's Point of View Part 1) by Olivia Thorne

and exploit what they tell
you to win the hand, and the game.
    That look of wistful happiness was my ace in
the hole.
    “What?” I asked.
    She woke from her reverie and looked at me. I
could see the worry seeping back in, which I absolutely didn’t
want, so I spoke quickly. “What were you thinking?”
    She sighed. “That I wish I wasn’t freaking
out, because…”
    She stopped and looked abashed. Afraid to
tell me.
    But for one bright shining moment, she looked
like the woman I’d brought up here, and not the one who had just
had a meltdown.
    “Because what?” I prodded gently.
    She looked at me in pain, like a drowning
person might as they saw their last hope of being saved slip
away.
    “…because I was having the best night of my
life.”
    My heart leaped in my chest – and broke a
little bit, too.
    I wanted her.
    I wanted to show her that it didn’t have to
be like this.
    I wanted to set her free from this goddamn
prison she called home.
    I wanted…
    …hell, more than anything, I just wanted to
sleep with her again.
    I smiled at her and held out my hand. “Walk
me down to my car?”
    She hesitated for the longest time…
    …but eventually she nodded, and reached out
and put her hand in mine.

     
19
     
    We walked out together, and I pushed the
button for the elevator. I smiled to myself as she fussed over her
reflection in the black marble walls, trying to smooth out her
hair.
    If I get my way, Lily, it’s going to be a LOT
more tangled in, oh, another hour or so.
    We got in the elevator.
    “Still freaking out?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Let me see if I can take your mind off
it.”
    I smashed every single button on the panel I
could hit with one swipe of my hand. They lit up in a smear of
glowing circles.
    “What did you do that for?!” she cried
out.
    “So I’d have a little more time for this,” I
said, and moved in and kissed her.
    And not just any kiss – this was a full-on
‘sweep her off her feet’ play, a kiss you’d see from movies back in
the 40’s or 50’s, where the men were men and to hell with
propriety, they wanted what they wanted right now. The kind
of kiss that was sometimes preceded by a slap, but which almost
always ended up in bed, with the woman as a very willing
participant.
    I could tell she was surprised, so I started
off slow – but I ramped up fast, until every ounce of my passion
for her shone through. I was trying to make love to her through a
kiss, in the hopes that maybe I could lure her back to where we’d
been up in the boardroom.
    Metaphorically speaking, of course.
    Mission accomplished. She basically just
melted in my arms. At first she didn’t resist – and then she
actively matched me, running her fingers through my hair as she
sighed and moaned.
    But all good things must come to an end. As
we got closer to the main lobby, she started to fidget a little,
until she finally pushed me away.
    I looked over at the control panel. “We have
five more floors,” I insisted, then kissed her again.
    She giggled and let me go on for another
moment, but then she fought me off and started straightening her
clothes, apparently worried what Stanley the night guard would
think.
    I was about to suggest a possible strategy –
walk slowly and chat about something work-related – when the doors
opened and she took off like a rocket.
    I almost had to run after her.
    “Hi, Stanley,” she shouted when she was still
a hundred feet away from the guy. A deaf man would have been able
to pick out the nervousness in her voice.
    Stanley looked up, obviously taken aback. He
lifted one hand hesitantly, as though unsure whether he wanted to
get in the middle of whatever weirdness was going on.
    I caught up with her in a few quick strides.
“Very slick,” I whispered good-naturedly. “Very under the
radar.”
    “Oh, shut up,” she whispered back – and I
wanted her more than ever.
    But she suddenly turned away. I didn’t know
why; at first I thought I had really offended