Chapter Fifteen
Cassie was still a little breathless.
Not from the booze or the trail of Kings she’d left sulking around the pool tables—but from the playful exchange with Nash at the bar. And that look he’d given her… It was a look that used to send her running, giggling, straight into his arms, their mouths fusing first, skin second.
God, shut up, she chastised. Shut your stupid horny mouth.
But she couldn’t.
Not when she’d spent half the night pressed against Nash’s broad, muscular back.
And on the Beast, no less—the bike that had seen more sins than a million Sundays could ever wash clean—half of them hers. Even now, she could feel it—the deep, thrumming echo of the ride, the buzz of the engine still alive between her thighs.
“You takin’ notes over there, Cas?” Crusher hollered over the racket. “Or just admirin’ the view?”
Cassie whipped around and busied herself chalking her cue. “Depends. You actually gonna make a shot this century?”
Snickering, Crusher bent over the table, lining up with exaggerated care—tongue out, brows drawn tight. “We could call it now, or you gonna give me a mercy shot?”
“Sorry, Crush, mercy ain’t really my thing.”
He fired. The cue ball skidded left, kissed the edge of its target, and spun useless into the rail. “Guess I’ll just hand you my ass, then—save everyone the spectacle.”
Cassie stepped up beside him. “If I may?” Crusher shuffled back, mock-bowing. She leaned in, sent a ball flying clean across the table, dropped it neat into a pocket. Then another. Then a third.
Crusher let out a low whistle. “You teach lessons on the side, or just like showin’ off that stroke?”
Cassie lined up again, eyes flicking toward him. With a slow, deliberate motion, she sank one more ball—dead center—then straightened, resting her cue loosely in her hands.
“Looks like I’m the only one here who knows how to finish a stroke.”
The boys howled, someone yelling, “She’s got you limp, Crush!”
“Fuck you,” Crusher shouted back. “I stay ready—ask your sister!”
“Joke’s on you,” they barked, “she’s your cousin!”
Another voice cut through the laughter: “Crusher’d fuck a tailpipe if it had lipstick on!”
Crusher pressed a hand over his heart, grinning wide. “Now, wait a goddamn minute—I ain’t as freaky as Rook!”
Rook just lifted his beer. “Ain’t hearin’ a no, though.”
That did it—Cassie’s laughter spilled out. She folded around her cue, shoulders shaking. “Y’all are goddamn animals,” she gasped. “Every last one of—”
As she straightened, still wheezing, she went still. In Crusher’s place now stood Nash, rolling the cue between his palms with that slow, practiced ease that had always meant trouble.
“What’re we playin’ for?” he asked, eyes locked on hers.
Cassie glanced toward Crusher, who shrugged. “I ain’t fightin’ for a game I was already losin’.”
“Chicken,” she muttered.
“A chicken with his dignity intact,” Crusher replied with a smack of his lips.
Nash leaned forward over the table, sweeping the balls into the pockets one by one. “New game,” he said. “You and me.”
Cassie folded her arms across her chest. “Who said we’re playing?”
“You’re holdin’ a cue,” he drawled. “I’m holdin’ a cue. Looks like a game to me.”
A few hoots rose from the onlookers; more bodies drifted in, drawn by the sight of Nash stepping up to the table. A dollar slapped the rail, then another, a crowd forming around them.
“I’m shootin’ pool, not puttin’ on a show,” she tossed back.
Nash gave her a long, lazy look as he set the rack in place. “You sure about that? The girl I remember always loved puttin’ on a show.”
Despite the uptick in her pulse, Cassie shrugged. “You want a show—fine.” She glanced at the growing crowd of leather cuts. “Get ready to watch your president lose his shirt.”
As a ripple of “oooohs” rolled through the room, Nash gestured toward the table. “Ladies first.”
Rolling her eyes, Cassie bent and broke hard. The crack tore through the noise, balls scattered, three dropping fast.
“Oh, fuck yeah!” Crusher shouted. “Mop the floor with him, Cas!”
Click—another solid dropped, then another. She lined up her next shot, breathed, struck. The cue kissed the target, sent it rolling, teetering—then falling clean.
When only the eight remained, the bar quieted beneath the jukebox’s slow beat. Cassie chalked the cue, bent low, and took the shot. The eight dropped with a soft, perfect thud, the crowd exploding in cheers and laughter.
“Goddamn, she wiped that table clean!”
“Hey Prez—that what you meant by ‘ladies first’?”
Cassie straightened slowly, laughter bubbling with adrenaline. Across the table Nash was wearing that look again—the same heated one he’d given her at the bar.
“Another?” he asked, voice rougher than before, something raw flickering beneath it.
Cassie snatched the rack and started clearing the table. Of course he wanted another—he hadn’t shown her up yet.
“You already lost your shirt,” she said slyly, brushing past him. “You wanna lose your pants too?”
Nash’s smile only darkened. “Depends,” he replied. “You plannin’ on helpin’ me outta ’em?”
Catcalls and whistles rose from all around. Cassie didn’t look up. “You sure you want me anywhere near your pants?” she shot back, dropping the last two balls into place with a sharp, deliberate clack.
He laughed low and stepped in beside her—close enough that she could feel the heat of him. “Still rack ’em the same way,” he murmured, his hip brushing hers. “Solids left. Eight dead center.”
Without looking at him, Cassie finished racking and began chalking her stick, feigning nonchalance under the overwhelming weight of his full attention.
“You really gonna let her break again?” Crusher called. “Thought you were supposed to be good at this.”
“Ladies first, Crush,” Nash replied. “How many times I gotta tell ya?”
Snorting, Cassie bent over the table, lining up her shot. “Don’t let him fool you, Crusher. It’s not so much chivalry as it is self-preservation.”
“Still got that back foot off.” Nash leaned in again, his boot knocking against hers. Her pulse jumped as his breath grazed her ear. “Told you a hundred times—you’re losin’ power that way.”
Lips pressed together, she lifted her eyes to his, then dropped her weight back, slid her hand down the cue, and rotated her wrist—an adjustment Nash hadn’t taught her. One she’d picked up in a basement bar in Prague from a hustler that made her look like a novice.
Still holding Nash’s gaze, she fired.
The cue ball exploded forward with vicious precision; the crack echoed like a gunshot as balls scattered violently. Two solids dropped immediately; a third rolled to the corner and fell.
The crowd went silent…then exploded.
“My foot’s exactly where I want it,” she murmured.
Nash, much like the rest of them, had gone quiet, though his burning stare had begun to blaze.
His jaw flexed, his stance tightened, his mouth curving slow.
“All right then,” he said, straightening.
“Let’s see if you can keep it there.” His tone turned provocative, growing louder for the crowd.
Pulling a wad of bills from inside his cut, he slapped it onto the rail.
“Two hundred says you can’t run this table. ”
Cassie tilted her head. “Make it two thousand,” she snapped back, “and you’re on.”
A ripple moved through those gathered. Someone hissed through their teeth. The number hung there, out of place in a bar like this—in a town like this—and Cassie suddenly felt every eye on her.
“Never said it’d be cash,” she added quickly, with a flash of teeth and a flip of hair. “Could be favors.”
The crowd erupted again, laughter and howls bleeding together as bills changed hands.
Nash bent down, close enough that his words brushed the edge of her jaw. “Still runnin’ that mouth without thinkin’. Still talkin’ circles when you’re cornered."
She didn’t answer. Just shifted her grip on the cue, stepped around him, and lined up her next shot like he hadn’t said a damn thing. It dropped—another solid, clean and quick. The cue spun back just enough to line her up perfect for the next shot.
“You always did like corners,” Nash said from behind her, their bodies brushing. “Still predictable.”
She drove the next ball in with more force than finesse.
“Though you used to clip your follow-through,” he added. “Looks like someone fixed that. What’s his name?”
“Oh god,” she sighed, all mock suffering. “There’ve just been so many—I’d hate to bore you with roll call.”
Whistles and laughter erupted; Crusher choked on his beer.
While Nash laughed with the rest of them, there was nothing humorous in his expression. If anything, that goddamn greedy look of his only intensified.
Doing her damndest to ignore him, Cassie circled to the far side of the table, eyes narrowing on the layout. One shot was tight, and the eight was worse—sitting close enough to taunt her.
She took the tight shot and sank it clean.
“Bold,” Nash muttered.
“Calculated,” she corrected.
She dropped low again—and found Nash had shifted into her line of sight.
Not blocking her. Just there. She ran through a litany of quiet curses—he’d always known exactly how to piss her off—how to bend her emotions to his will, whether through pride, provocation, or those long looks and crooked grins that still—stupidly—made her pulse stammer.
“You tryin’ to psyche me out?” she ground out.
“Is it working?”
“Nope,” she lied, and shot.
It dropped. The cue spun back clean, leaving her lined up perfect for the eight.
“You remember Wytheville?” Nash asked, his body suddenly angled toward her like he might very well close the distance if she said yes.
Her grip on the stick tightened. The rally in Wytheville came back in flashes—bikes lined up for blocks, bands on every corner, her and Nash running wild.
“I remember gettin' six hundred off those dentists,” she muttered, not looking up.
“Did we? I only remember that dress.”
“What dress?”
But the memory was already there.