At Any Price(57)

“Fuck me, Adam,” I said, between clenched teeth.

Another groan and he shifted. He was about to enter me. The tip of him brushed against my heat, but then he stiffened, tearing himself out of my arms.

I sat up, watching him in shock as he grabbed his boxer briefs and khakis, pulling them on with a face frozen in something that looked like disgust.

“What the hell?” I said, still completely naked under the blanket.

He shook his head, grabbing his shoes and standing up—his shirt still completely open and exposing his perfect chest.

“This isn’t happening,” he said in a distant voice. “Get dressed. You can stay in a guest room.”

And without waiting for me to reply, he spun and moved down the stairs to the lower deck, leaving me with my mouth hanging open in shock. I watched him go, utterly lost. My whole body shook and my face burned with humiliation. My breath came fast and anger shot a heated streak down through my entrails. How the fuck dare he?

With jerky movements I pulled on my clothes, trying to ignore the sinking sensation that made me wish the sea would rise up and swallow me here and now.

Had I done something wrong? Had I not responded to him the way he wanted? In my mind I retraced everything that led up to the moment where he’d stiffened and pulled away. Had I touched him in a place he didn’t like or—oh, God—had he been fantasizing about someone else? My hands shook with fury as I dressed.

***

What the hell was that? I couldn’t help but wonder. It wasn’t even ten o’clock when I checked the clock in my room—the guest room just down from his. His door was open, light off, so I assumed he wasn’t in his quarters.

What had made him react so strongly? Why that look of revulsion on his face? Was Adam screwed up about sex? Maybe he’d been abused as a child or teen. The thought turned my stomach but alleviated some of my anger. What if he couldn’t help it? But he’d obviously had sexual relationships with other women—at least one of whom I’d met, Lindsay. But maybe it was something about my being a virgin? Of course if that repelled him, why bid on the auction?

I paced in a tight circle for a while before deciding there was no way I could keep still. I slipped on my shorts and running shoes and headed down to the yacht’s little gym. Adam had showed it to me on my tour that afternoon—a room with a treadmill, elliptical machine, weights. I could use a nice long run to clear my head.

With my trusty mp3 player and earbuds in, I descended a deck and—after a couple wrong turns—finally found the room I was seeking. I had the light shining from the doorway to thank for being able to find it. So this was where he’d run to.

Undeterred, I queued my music to my running playlist and headed straight for the unoccupied treadmill. I caught a glimpse of him in the corner—in running shorts and a black tank top—at the pull-up bar. So I wasn’t the only one who had decided to burn off my sexual frustration with exercise.

His head jerked toward me just as I turned my back on him and mounted the treadmill.

I turned it on and quickly got my pace up, upping the speed probably faster than I should have. I wanted to burn off the energy as quickly as possible. Maybe, exhausted, I could find the courage to talk to him after that.

I was all-out sprinting—Christina Aguilera’s “Keeps Getting Better” pounding through my pulse—when he entered my line of vision, standing just in front of me and mouthing something, shaking his head sternly. I shook my head and looked down. He wanted to talk now? Hell no. He could wait. Just like I’d waited up on the top deck while he’d checked in on work.

He didn’t move when I refused to stop running or look at him. Then he reached out and turned off the treadmill. The safety mechanism kicked in and the slow was gradual. If I turned it on again, I’d only fall, because it would start with a much slower speed than the one at which I was running.

When it came to a stop I yanked out my earbuds. “What the hell was that?”

He scowled at me. “You’re going too fast. You didn’t even warm up.”

“I’ll thank you to keep your fucking nose out of my exercise routine.”

“I’m not going to sit back and watch you hurt yourself. You can really fuck yourself up that way.”

“Well, maybe I’m pissed off and I need a good run.”

“Then at least do it properly.”

Heath had told me that Adam was once a runner—probably still was—but that didn’t give him the right to butt in.

I got off the treadmill and was about to walk off—wishing I had my computer and an Internet connection so I could log on to the game and go hack a few hundred orcs. “Emilia.”