Free The Player Next Door by Kathy Lyons

about the other choices. The life choices where he hurt someone or forgot something or… Damn. There were a million.
    “Not a single regret?” he pressed. “Really?”
    “I’ve been stupid. Lots. I’m not even sure a year with the Dalai Lama was the right choice.”
    “That can’t be true.”
    “Gave up an internship with the Gates Foundation.”
    Okay, so maybe there were choices there. Career paths that could have gone one way or another.
    “But regret doesn’t change the choice. It just distracts me from the cool things right in front of me now.” She set her hand on his chest, small and so white. He took it in his, wrapping her fingers around two of his. White on brown. Small and large.
    Lust surged through him, hard and hot and…
    “We’re drunk, Tori. We can’t — ”
    “No regrets.”
    “For you, baby,” he said as he pressed his mouth to hers. Just one kiss. One slow, drugging taste. And maybe a little more. After all, what was one more regret to him?
    She kissed him back with her whole body. Not just her mouth and tongue, but her breasts as she arched into him, and her hands as they roved across his chest. She clutched at him and would have climbed on top of him if she’d had the angle.
    “Whoa, baby,” he said, trying to hold her back. His heart was pounding and the need to take her was nearly overwhelming. But he was a big man and he’d learned to be careful with his strength. “Wait a second.”
    She was licking along his jaw, nibbling up to his ear. The feel was hot and wet and made his fingers clench in hunger, but her pace was too fast, her need almost frantic. So this time he did use his strength. He grabbed her shoulders and gently set her back from him.
    The look of her dazed eyes and red wet lips weakened his resolve. But then she blinked and focused on him. “I’m of German descent,” she said.
    He almost chuckled. “Another non-sequitur?”
    “I process alcohol very quickly.” Then when he didn’t answer, she huffed and pulled the tie out of her hair, letting the straight blond hair drop around her shoulders. God she was beautiful and he wanted her more than he wanted his next breath.
    Meanwhile, she pressed her head against his shoulder. Her breath was warm where it cascaded over his chest and he wrapped her tight in his arms.
    “Tori—” he groaned.
    “Will you wait here? Just for five minutes?”
    What could he say to that? Of course he’d wait. He was dying to know what she’d do next.

Chapter Six
    Tori spit out the toothpaste, rinsed her mouth, and then took a good long look at herself in the mirror. She absently noted that her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was a mess. But rather than focus on those trivialities, she stared into her own eyes and did something she absolutely hated to do: she thought about what she was about to do.
    As a rule, she hated weighing pros and cons, thinking her actions through, and all that ponderous head stuff. Her mind was better suited to philosophy and comparative religions. Ask her to describe the different myths attached to the Egyptian god Set, and she could recite them from memory. Ask her to plan her next week, and she was hopeless.
    Ask her to decide exactly what she wanted to do with her next door neighbor, and she broke out into a cold sweat. But not thinking about her relationships is how she’d ended up with Edward for so many years. It was time to change that pattern. Besides, she got the feeling that Mike was worth the extra work.
    So she thought.
    She thought about the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. And that he laughed often with her. She thought about running her hands down his entire ripped torso — front and back — and seeing if she could name every single muscle as it popped under her fingers. She thought about how very big he was, and yet she didn’t feel dwarfed or stifled around him. If anything, he was too careful — physically — with her and she found that really sweet.
    She tried to think