Read Gamemaster for Free Online Page A

fingers sink luxuriously into the shape
    of her, and the material of the white skirt provided minimal protection.
    The audacious caress brought a moan to her lips. The sound was half a response and half a protest, but he wasted
    no time trying to analyze it
    "Oh!"
    The instant her lips parted on the soft cry, he was seizing the opportunity, plunging deftly inside to find the warm
    dampness of her mouth. Shelley's eyes shut tightly against the reality of the passionate invasion. She didn't want to
    think about what all this meant, not yet The palms with which she had tried to maintain her balance were moving softly
    on the material of his jacket now, seeking the shape of his shoulders. When his tongue found hers, the
    iced-watermelon nails curved abruptly into the fabric she had been smoothing.
    As if that were the signal he had been waiting for, Joel moved, bending to lift her easily into his arms.
    "Joel, no, I won't let you . . ." Her words were cut off as he closed her mouth once more with a kiss that he didn't
    break throughout the process of carrying her across the champagne-colored carpet to the deep-cordovan-brown
    couch.
    Shelley knew a swirling sense of vertigo as he lowered himself to the cushions, settling her across his thighs. His
    lips never released hers.
    Joel held the drugging kiss a moment longer, and then, with a hungry groan, he broke it off to begin a nuzzling
    exploration of her throat Shelley gasped as his palm began simultaneously to glide over the curve of her hip and up
    toward the fullness of one breast
    "Shelley, I want you," he rasped against the exquisitely vulnerable skin just behind her ear.
    "Joel, no," she protested weakly, compulsively turning her face into the safety of his chest. "It's—it's too soon, and
    we hardly know each other, and we're not"—she gulped for breath—"we're not exactly each other's type."
    "None of that matters," he whispered. "Shelley, it can happen like this between two people. Let it happen to us. I've
    been wanting you all evening. I think I started wanting you when you walked into the shop this afternoon." He nipped
    persuasively at her earlobe, and she flinched.
    "I know it can happen like that for a man," she mumbled. "But I'm just not interested in a one-night stand, Joel."
    "Hardly that," he murmured, his tongue drawing erotic circles on the interior of her ear. "We're business partners
    now, remember?"
    "There's an old and firm injunction against combining business with pleasure," she managed with a brave attempt at
    flippancy.
    "So you admit there is some pleasure involved in this for you?" he asked, pouncing on her statement
    "Joel, don't you dare try to trick me into saying what you want to hear!" She lifted her head for an instant, glaring up
    at him.
    He raised his head to smile wistfully, hungrily down at her. "The key to winning the game is to learn all the tricks
    and patterns," he whispered.
    When she opened her mouth to protest further, he sealed the words in her throat with his lips and in the same
    moment shifted the hand that had been lying in wait along her rib cage to cover her breast
    The deliberate, sure and possessive way he fitted the shape of her into his hand sent a tremor through Shelley's
    body. He drank the moan that rose in her throat, and then he began consolidating his advance against her senses by
    letting his fingers rasp the peak of her breast through the thin black silk and the lacy fabric of her bra.
    "My God, woman!" he muttered a little shakily against her mouth, "do you know what it does to a man to get this
    kind of response from a woman he wants?"
    "Joel..."
    But she couldn't say anything else as the urgency rose in her body. She felt the tautening ache in her nipples and
    knew he was fully aware of it As if he couldn't resist any longer, he began undoing the turquoise buttons of the black
    silk blouse with fingers that trembled slightly in passion.
    He did want her, she thought dazedly. Whatever else she could say about