Free Leveling The Field (Gamers #4) by Megan Erickson Page A

exes too. After the accident…well, he stopped returning their calls and emails until they moved on with their lives.
    He was so out of practice that this thing with Lissa was throwing him off balance. This thing. Yeah, he didn’t know how else to describe it, because he didn’t know what it was. It’d been two weeks since he’d visited her at her studio, and the distance had done nothing to curb his interest in her.
    His body heated when he remembered the tickle of the glitter and the soft brush of that bearskin rug on his skin. Her fingers and her lips and her soft moans.
    That mouth.
    And that fucking glitter, which he was still finding in odd places on his body at odd times. Just the other day, he’d been in his office and a piece fell out of his hair. He’d showered many times since the afternoon in her studio. That fucking glitter was like herpes.
    He shook his head and glanced at the dark TV. It’d been a long time since he’d thought about E-Rad. Today’s streaming services had changed the game of video game commentating a little bit, but at the time, he’d been king of the YouTube gaming community. Software companies sent him games by the truckloads. He had advertisers paying top dollar for a thirty second spot on his videos.
    All he had to do was videotape himself playing video games and…talk. He’d been good at talking once. Charming, even. He snorted to himself. That was another life. Chloe didn’t know what she was talking about. He didn’t have it in him anymore. Hell, he barely remembered what he’d done. It’d been so long since he’d seen one of his videos. Because of the speed at which the community moved, he was forgotten. And he liked it that way. No questions. He was only Ethan Talley, co-owner of Gamers magazine and local shut-in.
    His iPad sat on the counter, and with one finger, he slid it over in front of him. His videos were still there. He didn’t bother taking them down when he still got advertising money from them. Nothing huge, because he wasn’t a household name anymore.
    He pulled up his channel. His most popular videos were for World of Warcraft . His finger hovered over the play button for a video as he stared into the small thumbnail of his face in the lower left corner. In the screenshot, he was smiling, all white teeth and blue eyes and dark hair. He had stubble, but that didn’t hide the fact that his face was unblemished.
    That was back when he hadn’t known how much he could fuck up.
    That kid had no fucking clue.
    With a stab, Ethan closed out the browser and shoved the iPad away. It nearly went skittering off the counter, and he had to catch it before it fell. Placing it down gently with a calmness he didn’t feel, he walked away.
    He couldn’t stand to look at that guy. He hated that guy.
    Pacing in his living room, he ran his hands through his hair. His nerves were shot after the conversation with Chloe and the close call of watching his old videos.
    He needed something to calm him, to make him forget. To make him fucking happy for once. And all he could think about was Lissa.
    Her laughter and the smell of her skin, and that silky voice. He’d been trying to stay away from her, worried they’d both get too involved, but fuck it. He wanted her.
    He stared at his cell phone on the coffee table, just sitting there, daring him to pick it up.
    He could call, just to feel her out. Maybe after he’d left so oddly from her studio, she’d be cold. Or maybe she’d be happy.
    The sex had been amazing. She’d be happy. Right?
    He snatched the phone up and dialed the number he had memorized from her business card before he chickened out. Sweat beaded on his temple and he ran his hands through his hair, gripping the strands and squeezing until the pain in his scalp centered him.
    One ring.
    Two rings.
    Then the click of someone picking up. Ethan sucked in a breath and held it.
    “Memories by Lissa, how may I help you?”
    The voice was decidedly male and decidedly