Page 28 of Wicked Player

It was too much. Too distracting. I’d fought through polite necessities all through dinner, attempting to focus on the speech, all while trying to remember my questions for later, but also trying to forget the man from last night.

The sex had been incredible, and Gage was clearly the hottest man alive East of the Mississippi. Since it’d been awhile, that sex had just turned on my libido and it was now focusing on Gage.

There was no way the man who had me blindfolded and restrained last night could have been the same man.

My recently invigorated sex drive was simply confusing Gage’s appeal with the rough and dark stranger.

But even as I tried to tell myself that, I wondered.

Why else would I react to him so sharply? Even when he spoke, there was a roughness that hinted at familiarity as it filtered through my ears. Being blindfolded increased other senses, which was one of the reasons I didn’t mind wearing it, even around men I hadn’t played with before.

But was his voice the same? It was hard to tell when he wasn’t growling commands in my ear in a quiet room, but speaking through a microphone in a vast ballroom.

Still…there was something. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was distracting me enough I hoped five minutes of peace, quiet, and cool air would help me refocus.

Connor’s continued presence only made everything worse. We dated for almost a year, dinners out and evenings at Velvet. It was where we’d met. We recognized each other as reporters from rival television networks and saddled up to the bar to enjoy a drink. He’d had me in hand immediately, strapped to the cross hours after the first teasing, verbal jab thrown about which nighttime news show was better.

I’d screwed that all up by falling in love with him.

God.

Why hadn’t I anticipated him being around for this?

“Stupid, so freaking stupid.”

“You’ve always been a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”

My eyes closed and a shiver rolled through me

Speak of the devil and he appeared. “Go away, Connor.”

It was like I hadn’t spoken at all. He came up next to me, close enough the light, tender scent of his cologne wafted toward me, far enough where I could reach out and touch him. Except he wasn’t mine to touch anymore.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.

I’d never known him to be a sadist, not in all the time we spent together. So why was he torturing me now?

I turned away from him, gathered my courage which had somehow scattered to a puddle at my feet, before facing him.

The man I’d loved. The man who, when I told him, not only didn’t return it, but had looked at me in the most pitiful way.

“I’m not avoiding you,” I lied. “I simply don’t think we have anything to say to each other. Not anymore.”

Not now that he was engaged to another woman. A woman I’d seen him talking to a few times before we spent that last, heartbreaking night together. He assured me he’d never cheated.

I’d always believed he was a good enough man he wouldn’t have done that to me. And maybe he didn’t cheat physically, but emotionally?

Breakups happened. I understood. People dated, they broke up, they found someone new. It was life, as much as it sucked, and I’d tried moving on.

But why was this all happening the very week I decided to return to Velvet? The universe had a sick sense of humor and I wasn’t amused.

He lifted out a glass of champagne and sipped his own while he waited for me to take it.

“No thank you. I’m here working.” And I was smart enough to keep my senses about me. My mind was cloudy enough.

Connor set it on the railing close to me. I tried not to stare at him, but it was difficult. His hair was dark, not quite brown, not light enough to be blond. It had a wave to it even when he styled it. A former college baseball player, he still had the body of one, tall, muscled but not bulky. Beneath his tuxedo coat and white shirt, there’d be the hint of a six-pack. Not bulging and in your face, but just beneath the surface, appearing only when he thrust into you over and over.

Shit.

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