At Any Price(96)

What if we agreed to get together occasionally for sex—and maybe dinner once in a while? Would he even want it? I glanced at him as he cut into his pecan-encrusted snapper.

He was so damn handsome in that suit—or who was I kidding—in just about anything he wore, and even better naked. And he was kind most of the time—the times that he chose to act like a human instead of a robot.

I was ready to make a tradeoff for more time with him, on my terms.

We lingered over our crème brulée dessert, which apparently was on the menu. He darted a pointed look at me from where his head was bent, scraping out the last of the custard with his spoon. I set aside my barely-touched dish, folded and refolded my hands on the table. It was time to stop being a coward.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t think I could’ve picked a more perfect night for our last night together.”

He didn’t look up but his features chilled. Setting down his empty dish, he stared at it for a long moment. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said in an even, quiet voice.

Maybe he’d been thinking the same thing I had. Maybe he was ready to bargain for a little more time, too. He looked up and fixed me with that intent, dark stare. The air pressure thickened between us, making the barometer soar as I struggled to find my breath, to find my will. I wanted to be with him again so much scared me. If it happened, it needed to be on my terms, not his. “It needs to be,” I said, my voice faltering.

His brows lowered just a fraction over those piercing eyes. He took no other action but to enfold one of my hands inside his, running a thumb across my wrist in a sensual, possessive move. I swallowed, struggling to ignore the desperate thumping of my pulse.

He seemed to be wrestling with himself, coming to some unknown decision. I braced for the myriad of possibilities of what it could be. Of them all, I could never have predicted in a million years what would next come out of his mouth.

“We are more to each other than you realize, you know,” he said.

My wrist trembled inside his hand, feeling so vulnerable, so delicate, so trapped. Cold fear clamped at the base of my throat. Was he about to admit to feelings for me? It was time to push him away. Far away. “Adam, we’ve had a lot of fun together and I’ve had an amazing time. But we hardly know each other. It’s only been a month—”

“No.” He swallowed. “It hasn’t.”

I clamped my mouth shut and waited expectantly for him to explain himself. He gave a short nod as if reassuring himself and then glanced away for a split second, his hand still wrapped around my wrist. “You once asked me why I bid on the auction. I never answered you, but I assume you still want to know.”

I nodded.

“I can tell you the exact moment I knew I would win that auction. Win it, not just bid on it. You’d sent me the rough draft of your Manifesto to read and we’d been up discussing it in game chat past two a.m. I’d spent most of that time trying to talk you out of the whole thing, but you wouldn’t budge and when you started to get upset, I dropped the subject. That was the moment I knew I’d prevent it in another way because I could.”

I grew cold inside and dizzy with disorientation. What the hell was he talking about? I never had that conversation with him. That was months before we’d even met! I’d stayed up talking that night with…My jaw dropped. I shook my head.

“What—?” I gasped.

He watched me intently, like a child might watch a firecracker after lighting the fuse and waiting for it to explode.

I shook my head again. “That wasn’t you. It was—” Fuck. No. No. This couldn’t be happening.

I remembered that conversation. He’d been so adamantly against the auction. He’d tried to pick apart every single argument I’d made in the Manifesto and it had hurt my feelings. We’d sent in-game messages back and forth for hours, my wrists growing sore from all the furious typing.

And my mind flew to the times before. When I’d poured my heart out to him about my mom and how sick she was. About how helpless I felt being too far away to care for her, to drive her to all her appointments. He’d consoled me then. Had told me I was making her proud by staying in school. That I was so close and that he believed in me.

I was shaking and pale and static crackled behind my ears, the only other sensation where his fingers tightened over my wrist. I struggled for a breath as if I’d been underwater a hundred years. “You’re FallenOne.”

And, almost imperceptibly, he nodded, his obsidian eyes never leaving mine. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes fluttered closed. I pulled my arm back and felt only the tiniest resistance from his hold before he relinquished it.