Two Can Play (Entangled Ignite) by Dawn Atkins Read Free Book Online

paused. “Wait. You get points for—?”
    “Sex? They count for Social Interaction Points.” She ran a finger down his chest as she talked. “There are other activities. You can host a blog or guide EverLife players, or whatnot—anything with at least two people involved is social, but sex is the most popular.”
    “How does that, uh, work?” Sex for points? Too weird, though his equipment didn’t seem to mind. His zipper was about to undo itself.
    “The points, you mean?” She arched a brow. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t know how sex works.”
    “Never had a complaint.”
    “Good to hear.” She tugged him closer by his waistband. “A same-level hookup gets you four K, but if you’re with a higher-level partner—”
    “Like you, for instance?”
    “Like me. Then it’s ten K.”
    “What’s in it for the higher-level person?”
    “Just two K and that feeling. You know, for doing a good deed?” She smiled wickedly. “So, are you up for it?”
    “Oh, I’m definitely up.” He liked the spark in her eye, the challenge in her half smile, not to mention that body of hers—tight and strong, with everything in the right place and then some. He was pretty sure it was her hair that smelled of coconut.
    “Get comfortable, then, and I’ll be right back.” She turned for the door to the left of the bed—the bathroom, he assumed—moving her tightly muscled ass back and forth with a tantalizing hip roll. God, she was killing him. Before she disappeared into the john, she plugged her phone into a charger on her desk.
    Taking advantage of her absence, Gage went to Rena’s computer to see what he could access. A mouse click erased her flying galaxy screensaver and gave him a sign-in box. Shit. He’d need to watch her type her password, then hope for alone time at the keyboard later on.
    Her desk held programming manuals, tech and gamer zines, and a stack of brochures that said “Girl Power Project.” He skimmed one. She was after equal rights for girl Lifers—recruiting more girls, getting them higher in the Life, making the carding job gender-neutral. So she was a reformer… He might be able to use that. He put back the brochure and snooped some more. Her cell phone was locked, he found, surprised by how beat-up it looked.
    In a drawer, among office supplies, he found a stuffed rabbit with dingy yellow fur and a tattered pink ribbon. Here was another story.
    A corkboard beyond her desk held various NiGo flyers, a printed receipt, and a photo of the Blackstones, hands up in formal greeting. Both wore tunics and had long hair, Nigel’s white, Naomi’s auburn and shiny as a doll’s. A medallion on Naomi’s chest caught a star of light, suggesting holiness.
    Was this like a shrine? The News Day News story made the Blackstones out to be gurus the Lifers worshipped, though the piece was meant to titillate. On the other hand, they controlled the housing, jobs, belongings, entertainment, and, evidently, the sex lives of Lifers in twelve Lounges across the country. If that wasn’t worship, what was?
    Pretty impressive for a company that had come out of nowhere just ten years before. NiGo Interactive’s lead game, EverLife , had been light years ahead of other online role-playing games and swiftly topped the charts. Gage himself had gotten hooked early on, whiling away far too many hours of free time in the absorbing fantasy world.
    Within two years, NiGo opened the first arcade in an old factory in Seattle, launched the second in Phoenix the following year, and had steady growth after that. Twelve more arcades were to open after the much-heralded release of EverLife II in less than a month.
    He returned to the bed, pulling off his shirt as he went. His foot struck something sticking out from under the bed. It was a book. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness . Crouching to investigate, he found dozens more—all nonfiction—on martial arts, meditation, the Napoleonic Wars, handguns, and more