The Player - By Rhonda Nelson Page 0,29

take anything without asking first.

And two, there was no action without consequence and sometimes those consequences weren’t your own.

As a result of his stunt, his mother had had to pay for that thirty minutes of lost time with an extra shift, or lose her job. Though his grandmother had insisted that he go to bed that night, Jamie hadn’t slept, and when his mother’s tired footsteps had brought her into his room later that evening and he’d felt her fingers brush his cheek and glimpsed her weary loving smile, his chest had ached with the weight of guilt.

Curiously, though tasting Audrey—savoring her sweet breath and the plum-soft texture of her lips—was one of the most phenomenal gut-wrenchingly perfect experiences of his life, that same weighty ball of guilt he’d noted at eight had taken up residence in his belly. The meaning was clear—he might not have taken her kiss without permission, but he had a grim suspicion that she’d be paying for the consequences of his actions.

A better man would stop now, wouldn’t be dragging her closer to him, angling her head to more fully devour her. A better man would stop, or more importantly, would have never have started. And let’s face it, a better man wouldn’t have agreed to the Colonel’s scheme at all, admiring the purpose but refusing to participate.

But if being a better man meant he’d never feel these small hands pushing into his hair, tasting the gentle pleasure of her breath, the silken slide of her tongue into his mouth, then Jamie would simply have to resign himself to being a self-serving bastard. Because he couldn’t stop now if his life depended on it.

Unlike a lot of men who merely used kissing as a means to an end, Jamie had always enjoyed it. While he wouldn’t go so far as to say that kissing was as good as sex, he would say that it was second in line to the most personal…and telling. A guy could learn a lot about what sort of lover a woman would be by her kiss. In fact, a sorry kisser almost always resulted in a sorry lover.

It was no surprise then, given how potent his initial attraction and curiosity about Audrey had been, that the meeting of their mouths could be anything short of extraordinary.

And it was also no surprise that she was the single most talented kisser he’d ever had the pleasure of tangling tongues with. Kissing her was a full-body experience. He felt the effects of her lips in every cell in his being. His hands shook, his dick throbbed, his belly inflated with what felt like fizzy air and the rest of him seemed to be melting. Her technique was flawless. She was ardent and energetic, sensual and sure.

But most importantly, she didn’t try to pretend like she wasn’t equally affected.

He could feel her beaded nipples through the flannel, raking against his chest. Flannel suddenly became his favorite fabric, Jamie decided as he slid a hand down her tiny back, then over her sweetly curved rump. She slithered and squirmed, positioning herself as closely to him as she possibly could. Her hands alternately kneaded his scalp and shaped his jaw, forcing him to accept her ministrations. Every mewl and sigh of pleasure echoed off his tongue and it took every iota of willpower he possessed to not topple her to the ground and bury himself inside her.

Just like their kiss, he knew it would be instinctively explosive.

Jamie wouldn’t have thought a bolt of lightning could have startled them apart, but ironically, a single ring of his cell phone did.

Audrey stilled in his arms, then quietly stepped back. In a second, he watched the passion fade from her gaze and a cloud of worry and regret take its place.

He inwardly swore, checked the display, then swore aloud when he recognized the caller.

Garrett.

The man clearly had some sort of psychic connection, Jamie thought, resisting the ridiculous urge to scan the tree line. “Flanagan,” he finally answered, his voice a bit rusty to his own ears.

“Where’s my granddaughter?”

Jamie’s gaze slid to Audrey. “Standing right here,” he replied. “Would you like to talk to her?”

“Now that was subtle, Flanagan,” he said, annoyed.

“Sorry, sir,” Jamie lied dutifully. “What can I do for you?”

An exasperated sigh hissed over the line. “I just wanted to check in and see how things were going. Are you making any progress yet?”

Oh, yeah, Jamie thought, his gaze sliding over Audrey’s slightly swollen lips. He could say