Powerplay Read Online Free PDF Page A

baby.” He brushed her hair off her face. “Tell me something. Does he make you feel the way I do?”
    No, never. But she couldn’t say that aloud. It would be a betrayal to Kevin. Not that he wouldn’t deserve it after what he’d done to her, but his night with the stripper had been about drunken sex, nothing more. She feared this thing with Mark went far beyond physical pleasure. He satisfied something in her soul that she didn’t even realize had been hollow until tonight.
    “Kevin is…”
    “Don’t say his name again,” he said through gritted. “Don’t say it—don’t even think it.”
    She recognized the warning in his tone. Mark was fierce on the ice, often throwing down his gloves to challenge an opponent. She knew he would never hurt her, but she wasn’t stupid enough to try and push him beyond his limit.
    “Fine, let’s not talk at all,” she whispered.
    He dropped his head, taking her face in his hands. “Shit, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to talk to you that way. It’s just the thought you with another guy is making me crazy.”
    “There’s something you need to know about Kevin…”
    “Don’t say it,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to hear it.”
    Mark was going to put his fist through a wall if she dared to tell him she was in love with this guy. She was standing there naked, offering herself to him; minutes ago she had been feasting on his shaft. She couldn’t do that if she was in love with some other guy, could she? Why the hell not? He’d been in love with her, and that hadn’t stopped him from fucking other girls not more than a month after she stopped taking his calls.
    He had two choices. He could pretend he’d never heard the guy’s name and carry on with their evening, or he could demand answers and watch her walk out the door. He couldn’t let her go back to him. He didn’t care who this guy was, whether she thought she loved him or not; he was determined to make her forget. “Fuck him,” he whispered, lowering his head to take her mouth. The kiss was hard and demanding, his tongue unrelenting as he tried to drive all thoughts of him out of her mind. She was his, dammit. After tonight, there would be no doubt in her mind that he was the man she needed.
    She tried to walk him down the hall to his bedroom without breaking the kiss, but he pulled away.
    He drew a breath. “Just give me a minute. You go ahead, last door at the end of the hall. I’ll be right there.”
    She smiled. “Why? What’re you up to?”
    “Just trust me, okay?”
    Her smile faded and she looked into his eyes. “I do trust you.”
    He didn’t know why, but he sensed she was trying to send him a message. He watched her turn and walk down the hall to his bedroom as he grabbed the counter, stiffening his arms as he dropped his head. He had to find a way to get his head back in the game, but he couldn’t help but think about him and what he meant to Jen. 
    Reaching into the drawer, he grabbed a box of matches. Stopping in the bathroom, he snagged a bottle of oil and headed toward his bedroom, determined to show her he intended to put her needs first, always.
    She lay in the middle of his bed, her arms over her head, her legs spread slightly, waiting for him. She eyed the items in his hand. “What have you got there, handsome?”
    He set the oil on the nightstand and bent to kiss her. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but the words were trapped in the ball of fear lodged at the back of his throat, so he said nothing.
    He set about lighting a few candles. Taylor had placed them strategically, insisting candles enhanced the romantic ambiance in a bedroom. At the time, he couldn’t imagine using them, but tonight he was grateful she’d had the forethought he’d clearly been lacking.   
    He’d never known a woman worthy of putting forth that kind of effort, until Jen. He’d do whatever it took to make her his. It irritated him knowing he had millions of dollars sitting in the