Chapter 3
Bailee let go of the illusion completely. She wasn’t in control and it had nothing to do with alcohol. He was getting to her.
She needed to move. “Let’s take this to the battlefield.”
For a moment he didn’t move. The silence of his eyes carried more than desire.
It carried heritage, a weight as old as the plains, as unyielding as the ground itself.
She’d had relationships before, all of them surface, and now she knew why.
She finally understood the power of Dakota Locklear.
He was of her blood, tied to her through generations of people who belonged to the earth, who belonged to each other.
There was nothing else like it on the planet.
His gaze struck deep, into the part of her that ached for her people with a pain that never went away.
Her pulse stuttered. She shoved the thought down and rose, grateful for the excuse of motion.
Grabbing a cue, setting it against the side of the table, she racked the balls with sharper force than necessary, each clack of wood and ivory a cover for the tremor in her hands.
If he noticed, he didn’t show it. He just watched, steady and devastating, that silence following her like a touch.
Her whole body reacted when he moved in close. “Are you all right?” he asked, the heat of him almost unbearable. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, but oh, did he make her weak.
“Bailee?” He reached out and slipped his fingers under her chin. “That look in your eyes makes me a little crazy.”
Her knees almost buckled when she met his gaze. That look stripped her down more than words ever could. How could she pretend otherwise? Her lies stacked into walls meant to keep her safe, but instead they boxed her in, keeping her from stepping toward him, trapping her in unrelenting heat.
“I’m just shaking in my boots and trying not to show it,” she managed sarcastically. “How about we lag to see who goes first?”
His face shuttered, and she wanted to take her words back and her defensive tone. She shut him down and it hurt like hell. How was she supposed to concentrate? Buck came over, and the team followed. She couldn’t possibly lose her shit now.
“Another?” he asked, holding out a bottle. She took it and knocked back about half. Blitz did the same for Bear, but he shook his head.
“Shot. Tequila straight.”
“I think we have ourselves a match here?” Buck drawled.
Bailee set the bottle on the ledge that ran around this section of the bar. She grabbed two balls and handed him one.
He nodded. They each rolled a ball down the table, both hitting the far rail and drifting back. Bear’s stopped just shy of the head rail, Bailee’s bumped his by an inch.
Her smile widened, her skin buzzing. “Looks like I win.”
Bear only arched a brow, stepping aside. She chalked her cue like it mattered, like she could focus on anything but the man across from her. She cracked the rack with surprising force, scattering balls across felt. One dropped into the side pocket.
“Stripes,” she announced, working for composure.
“We haven’t talked about stakes,” he murmured, still too close to her, still looking at her like he wanted to fold her into his arms.
Her belly was full of butterflies, her bones feeling liquid. She had to take a breath, pressing her hands against the table as if she was studying the placement of the balls.
“How about the winner makes the choice,” Bear said.
“Blind?” Those butterflies started to swarm. “That’s risky.”
His eyes shone with the power of his lethality. Risk for sure, but the kind of risk that would burn her down to her core. “That’s why they call them stakes.”
She forced a smile, leaning on her cue like it was a prop instead of a weapon. “Winner makes the call. Any call.” She’d just wagered tomorrow.
Blitz let out a low whistle. “Careful, CIA. That’s dangerous ground.”
“I deal in dangerous ground every day,” she shot back, though her pulse betrayed her, beating fast and frantic.
Bear’s silence stretched, steady as ever, his gaze never leaving hers. She’d given him the answer, but what had she really offered? A crack in the armor. A sliver of permission. She wasn’t afraid of losing a game of pool. She was afraid of what he’d do with her surrender once he had it.
His head tilted, the faintest acknowledgment, eyes dark and burning. “Then play it out.”
Bailee leaned over the table, sighting her shot. Her heart hammered in her throat, hands slick on the cue. All she had to do was breathe, line it up, and let the geometry do the work. Easy.
Except he was watching her. Too close. Too steady. The heat of his silence curled around her like touch, and it made her skin spark, her body ache, her focus splinter.
The cue slipped just enough, the angle skewing. The ball kissed the lip of the pocket and rolled wide.
She straightened too fast, her pulse wild. Damn him. She could’ve made that shot in her sleep.
At that angle, she couldn’t help noticing him where he stood.
Denim hugged his hips, rough and faded, the placket at the front pulling just enough to make her imagination rebel.
Heat flushed through her chest. What was beneath that sturdy fly?
Hard muscle, lean power, the shape of him that haunted her in the dark?
He called to her body, her nipples tightening, aching, her skin lit with sparks off the soil-dark depths of his eyes, steady as stone yet alive with something waiting to grow.
How could one woman ache this hard for a man, knowing that all she had to do was reach out and touch him? Take him? What was she waiting for?
Bear didn’t move, didn’t gloat, didn’t say a word. He just stepped in, calm as stone, filling her space with quiet inevitability. That silence was worse than a taunt. It was possession.
He chalked his cue without hurry, bending low, lining up, his shoulders rolling smooth under the cotton of his shirt, barely contained power.
One clean stroke, and a solid dropped into the corner pocket.
He headed for the other side of the table but had to pass by her.
It was a tight fit. She didn’t move; something stubborn and needy refused to allow it.
His eyes burned into hers as he slid past, brushing the full length of all that man against her, a whisper of sound, he moved so silently.
Before he was fully past, he bent down and whispered. “You playing dirty pool?”
“I need all the advantages with you,” she said back as he let out a hard breath and went to the other side of the table.
She couldn’t be more thankful that the Navy had given special dispensation for religious purposes to men who served.
Bear’s face was always beautiful, but with his hair sliding over his shoulders, calling to the majestic nature of the Lakota, he was breathtaking.
His eyes held her as steady as his silence, carrying more than desire, carrying lineage, history, belonging.
That ball he lined up perfectly went into a side pocket.
He didn’t take the shot. He took the room.
Damn, unshakable Navy SEALs.
“See, Dakota? I was right.” Her stomach jumped. She’d never called him by his first name before. She’d shied away from it, away from the intimacy of it.
His cue stilled for a fraction of a second, eyes flicking up to hers. Just a blink, but it landed heavily.
He dragged his eyes from her, studied the table, moved around again, his pace slow and measured. He had to lean over—the shot was difficult, trapped in a cluster in the middle.
“That’s a tough one,” Buck murmured.
Bear grunted, elongating that magnificent body. His dark skin showed at his waist, then…a raised, white circle came into view low on his abdomen, above the waistband of his jeans.
Her breath caught. The past put a hand on her throat. The world narrowed to that mark. Everything else vanished.
Rio tore through her in jagged flashes, the hotel hallway, men cut down by Bear’s fury, Flint a shadow with teeth at his side, Bear throwing himself over Zorro’s nieces without hesitation, taking fire with no thought for his own life. Man and dog, shield and fang, a wall of devotion and sacrifice.
Those nightmares never stopped. She swore she could still feel the hot rush of his blood against her palms, slick and terrifying.
His eyes dimmed, and she re-lived that unbearable second when she thought she’d lost him.
The despair that followed had gutted her more than any bullet ever could.
Nothing she’d faced before had ever come close to that kind of heartache.
She’d been so relieved, so shaken down to her core that he was alive, that this man with the big, broad-shouldered body, the narrow hips, the rippling abs, the big, gentle hands was still here.
“Damn,” Buck crowed. “That was something to see.”
D-Day leaned over. “Don’t look so scared. I’m sure you can beat him. I’ve got my money on you.”
She snapped out of it, her chest heaving, working at making her pulse slow. She’d missed the whole thing, so lost in that blood-soaked moment.
It was then she met his gaze. She wasn’t sure if that memory was in her eyes, but he blinked, tilted his head. “You up for the rest of the game?”
She clenched her jaw. His eyes were like burning twin bark, and there was no mistaking his concern. He called to her soul, to the part of her that craved the connection she had never been granted, the one her ancestors had withheld.
“You’re not going to get off that easily,” she murmured. “It’s still your table.”
He turned back to the game, shot two more balls, then missed on the next shot. He was halfway through clearing the table.
He stepped back. Bailee leaned over, trying to focus on angles and geometry, but her body knew better. Her hands trembled on the cue, her pulse a sharp, erratic beat. She sank the stripe by luck more than skill, missing again as that memory intruded. Her heart pounded.
D-Day murmured, “It’s all right. We’re all tired and drunk.”