14
“I’m telling you,” I say as Anders hands me the cue stick he just chalked, “I am humiliatingly bad at pool.”
“Nobody is bad at pool,” he swears, placing all the balls in a triangle and centering them.
“Well, I can’t wait to prove you wrong.”
He smiles as he finishes setting up, then gestures for me to take the lead. “You know the rules, right?”
“I do,” I mutter, “but it doesn’t help.” I break the balls—barely. The white one moves at a snail’s pace, and the impact scatters them scarcely an inch from their original positions.
Anders coughs into his hand.
I point the cue stick at him. “Don’t you dare laugh at me. I told you I was bad.”
“Not laughing,” he says, taking over my spot and moving so quickly I barely have time to prepare. He hits the white ball with a resounding smack, and two stripes slap into opposite pockets.
I lean on the side of the table. “This feels like a humiliation ritual.”
He smiles. “I won’t go again.” He reaches for me, positioning me by the white ball. “Even if I get a stripe, I’ll just hit it once. We’ll go back and forth.”
“Oh, so you want to prolong my suffering?”
“I believe in you,” he says, rubbing a hand over the small of my back—and it’s more of a distraction than encouragement.
“That makes one of us,” I say, and I hit the ball at an angle that causes the stick to slip from my fingers.
When I turn to face him, he grips my cheeks. “No more frowning.”
“This is my resting face.”
“It most definitely isn’t.”
“You stare at my face enough to know if it isn’t?”
At that, he spins me around to look at the table.
His hands wrap around my waist, his fingers resting on my belly underneath the fabric of my shirt.
Anders bends slightly and positions the stick in my hand.
“First,” he says, his lips brushing my ear as he speaks, like each vowel is a hidden kiss against the skin, “your body should face the direction of the cue.” He uses his knee to bend me over more.
“And you need to reposition your fingers. Only use your index and thumb to form a bridge for the cue to rest on. Gives you better control.”
I swallow to combat my dry throat, trying to focus on his instructions, but his fingers caress mine, and he positions them so delicately around the stick. All I can focus on is the feel of his large palms on my flesh—think about how they would feel over more sensitive places.
“Practice,” he whisper-kisses into my ear, moving me—and us—so that my fingers travel up the stick in a way that sends my imagination spiraling. “You don’t have to strike it until you feel ready.”
He’s entirely too close and not at all close enough.
Each time Anders gets near to me, physically and emotionally, my first instinct is to welcome it, welcome him into my life like I’m writing his name in damp sand.
Then a wave of logic smacks into me, sweeping his name away before it can be permanently imprinted on my heart.
“You’re”—I clear my throat—“very near. We don’t have to play up the act.”
He hums in my ear. “No acting here,” he says softly, “but if you need a reason, Valerie’s bartender friend keeps glancing our way.”
“And why is that?” I can’t help but ask. “One of your many flings?”
He chuckles, and the sound sends a dizzying warmth through me. “Don’t be jealous.”
“I’m not,” I lie.
His lips lightly press into the skin below my ear. “Ready?”
I can only nod. When he moves away, I genuinely try to focus, but my grip is shaky without his guiding touch, and I miss the white ball entirely. I sigh, then face him again.
“You know, it’s unhealthy of me, but I do better under pressure.”
He cocks his head slightly. “Do you?”
“Want to make a bet?”
“You,” he says, pressing the side of his cue stick to my chest, “want to make a bet against me?” He presses it to himself. “At pool?”
“Yes.” I keep my chin up. “If you help me a bit more.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I breach the space between us. “The look you’re giving says you don’t think any amount of help will make a difference.”
He grips my chin between his finger and thumb. “I just don’t want to take advantage of you.”
I most definitely want him to take advantage of me.
I know that thought remains in my head. Yet, the way Anders gives me a once-over makes me think he heard it loud and clear.
My fingers hook into his belt loop, and I pull him even closer. “Are we betting or what?”
“What would you like, Lucinda?”
“What are you willing to do, Anders?”
“Anything.”
“Anything, then,” I repeat. “Winner gets a wish. Anything is on the table.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
I move to the table, bending over. I turn and glance at Anders, whom I catch admiring the view.
“Are you going to help me?”
He positions himself behind me at an almost respectable distance, leaning over with one hand around my stomach to steady me. His other hand reaches for mine, tightening my grip on the cue stick.
I arch my back, pressing it against his front.
I already feel him there, as if he was waiting for me, but when I grind myself deeper against him, he hardens even more.
He muffles his groan into my neck, his body pressing against my ass, gripping my stomach tighter—as if he needs to steady himself before losing his balance.
His reaction snuffs out any lingering doubt that this thing between us is one sided. And the way he reacts to me—instinctively, helplessly—fills me with an unfamiliar confidence that spreads along with the heat flooding my body. My heart pounds against my chest; I feel it beating in my eardrums.
It awakens a wildness I didn’t even know existed within me.
“Sorry,” I say sweetly, grinding against him once more before pulling away. I position myself incorrectly and ask, “Is this better?”
His hands move from my stomach downward, to just below the top of my skirt, as he pulls me back against him, pressing me against his body. He’s so hard, and if he slipped a hand beneath my skirt—and I ache for him to—he’d find me wet, ready, and waiting.
Like an afterthought, he stills the pressure of his hands over my crotch and maneuvers us correctly. “Like this,” he says, his breath raspy and dark.
I hit the ball, and it moves fast this time, but I miss every other one in sight. I turn into him, lifting the cue stick until it’s pressed between my breasts. “You know, maybe a bet wasn’t the best idea.”
His gaze travels to my chest, so I lean in more, pulling at the fabric so it nearly slips from my breasts entirely. Anders tears his gaze away from my chest, then digs his fingers under the sides of my straps, lifting so the cotton covers the entirety of my nipples.
“I’m not taking the bet back.”
I hum, my hands traveling up his chest. “Okay, then.”
He swallows—I only know because his Adam’s apple bobs—and peels himself away to take his shot. It’s another point. If he keeps up this pace, the game will be over in minutes.
This time, I move around the table, away from him. From the angle I bend, he has a full bird’s-eye view of my chest. Even without looking up, I feel the heat where his gaze scans every exposed area of skin.
I take a deep breath, hold it, then smack my cue into the white ball, which hits a red ball into a corner pocket. “Oh,” I say, trying not to smirk. “I think I get it now.”
When I lean over again, Anders places a hand on the table. “What are you doing?”
“Huh?” I say, then laugh. “Oh, no, it’s my turn. You’re the one who said you’d only go once after a hit. I never agreed.”
I meet his gaze, and he catches on in seconds, lips pulling into a smile.
The next two minutes I spend smacking every ball I need into the pockets. I barely take a moment to position myself before moving on to the next shot. Only the eight ball remains.
I haven’t looked up once since my first shot. Though Anders is watching me circle the table intently—especially when I bend over directly in front of him, sinking the eight ball.
Finished, I turn, lifting myself onto the edge of the table, and press a kiss to the space just below the tip of my cue stick. I drop it on the table behind me and tuck my hair behind my ear.
“Well,” I say, “I think that’s game.”
I send a quick thank-you to the college ex-boyfriend who forced me to play beside him every Thursday night for seven months.
Anders crosses the small space between us, his knee separating my legs so his thigh presses against my crotch. I inch myself off the table, and the feel of his muscles against my center sends tiny fireworks exploding through my brain.
“You played me,” he says, and of all things, it sounds like adoration.
“I did,” I say, nails digging into the edge of the table to keep from climbing on Anders. “And I believe you said if I did exactly what I did to the bartender to you, you’d give me your bank account number. You can text it to me.”
He throws his head back and laughs so freely that my heart is the one setting off tiny fireworks now. When he settles, he brings one hand to my neck, lifts until his thumb is under my chin.
“You are so incredibly beautiful,” he whispers.
“I just scammed you for your bank info, and you’re complimenting me?”
“I’d like to do far more than just that.”
I suck in a breath. “Anders.”
“Lucinda.”
“You’re drunk.”
“And you’re sober,” he counters, his hand reaching under my skirt, pressing against the skin of my thigh, higher and higher until he reaches the curve of me. “But you still want me. Like I want you.”
My pulse speeds up enough that I worry Anders is going to give me an actual heart attack.
I press my hand against my chest, rubbing the skin there as if it’ll slow the beating.
“This is . . .” I struggle to speak as he moves his hands around to my ass, pulling me against his thigh so that my wet panties press against his leg.
The relief and pleasure the pressure gives slips a moan out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Messy.” I moan again as Anders’s fingers dig into my skin, positioning me to ride his leg once more.
“It doesn’t have to be,” he says, leaning forward and flattening my body against his, moving in a hard, patterned rhythm.
“You’re drunk.” I feel the need to say it again, but the words are pathetic whimpers timed with every grind of our bodies. My center throbs, each pulse jolting through my entire body, desperate for more. “Let’s revisit this when sober.”
My vision grows hazy, tiny lights bursting at the sides, like lost planets trying to find the right orbit. It feels so good. My panties are drenched enough that Anders’s jeans will be soaked through. But the thought of stopping feels impossible. I don’t want to stop. I need to stop. I can’t stop.
“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice jolts through the mind-blowing pleasure running through me. Anders barely pulls away; I turn my head to see the girl, wide eyed, in front of a man. “It’s, um, our time slot at the table.”
“Oh my God,” I say, slamming my palms against Anders, who barely budges. I nearly fling myself off him. “Sorry, really sorry,” I tell them, pulling my skirt down and rushing toward the exit as fast as my shaky legs will take me.
Mindless lust is what that was. Now I feel like someone dunked me under a bucket of ice water. Dummy. A horny, deprived dumbass is what I am.
“Lucinda!” Anders calls, grabbing my arm.
As he pulls me to a stop, I realize I’ve made it to the parking lot. “Give me the keys.”
“Lucinda,” he says again.
With the floodlights illuminating the area, my gaze catches on the damp patch I left on Anders’s thigh. “Oh my God.” I press my hands over my face. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
“We,” Anders says. “That wasn’t just you.”
“I remained sober to have some self-control,” I say into my hands. “This isn’t appropriate. We’re basically coworkers.”
Anders pries my hands from my face and replaces them with his own. “There’s nothing wrong with what we just did.”
I open my mouth, then bite my tongue. Clearly, even sober, I can’t act rationally around Anders.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?” I ask.
“Whatever thoughts you’re having, wishing you could take it back.”
“I don’t want to take it back,” I say without thinking.
“I’m not some naive virgin, Anders. We’re two consenting adults who, under any other circumstance, could hook up without a second thought.
This—this is just messy. And sober Anders will agree with me.
Drunk Anders—well, I don’t even know who you are at this moment. ”
He chuckles, and the sound somehow eases the worry seeping into my bones. “Lucinda, I think you’re overreacting,” he says. “And for the record, when I’m sober, I’ll want you just the same—I have since the day I met you.”
“No!” I shout, making us both jump, then laugh. “No, I told you. You can’t say things like that to me. Don’t be romantic. Or sexy. Don’t be anything. Just—just be quiet.”
Anders brings his thumb up, tracing my bottom lip. “Let’s do what you wanted before. You’re too frantic right now. I don’t want you to feel rushed or panicked. We can revisit this conversation.”
“I wish you’d agreed to that before I dry-humped you on the freaking pool table.”
“That was far from dry,” he says, and my jaw drops open.
He presses a hand against his mouth so I won’t see the shit-eating grin I’m sure is there.
“Shut up,” I say. “Stop laughing!”
“Stop making me laugh.”
“I’m not being funny,” I say, but the laughter spills out anyway.
“Let’s go home,” he says.
I groan at the use of the word home. I am, already, in way too deep.