Читать книгу Just Once More...: Once is Never Enough / One More Sleepless Night / The One She Was Warned About - Lucy King, Lucy King - Страница 13

NICHOLE SANK THE six and watched the cue ball come to rest neatly behind the four. Nice.

Across the felt landscape Maeve tapped her foot impatiently against the leg of her stool, watching as Nichole adjusted her stance and lined up her shot.

“Wow, your form’s really improved.”

Nichole paused, glanced up. “Huh?”

“No, really.” All nonchalance, Maeve waved toward the pool cue, the twitch at the corner of her mouth a warning of what was to come.

Hard to believe it had only been a week with the amount of ribbing she’d taken. But there it was. A week since she’d had the hot press of Garrett’s mouth against hers, the weight of his body—

“You’ve got a firm grasp on that butt … while the shaft just glides through your fingers. I don’t know … it’s almost like you’ve had some practice with the wood lately.”

Mouth hanging open, Nichole fought the slow burn spreading across her cheeks and neck … and lost. “Seriously?”

Maeve smirked. “Ohh, shoot! Your alignment just went to hell.”

“You wish.”

Leaning over the table she straightened out the shot, drew back, focused—

“Gentle with the tip.”

—and scratched. “Maeve!”

Her friend looked less than chagrined. “What? This is pool. I was working the lingo. Whatever your depraved mind does with it is on you.” Jumping from the stool, she winked. “Plus, I really want to win!”

Nichole waited until Maeve was all lined up before settling a hip at the side of the table. “You know, Maeve, there’s more to the game than your stroke. The stick you choose, for example.”

An expression of horror crept over Maeve’s face. “You wouldn’t.”

No, she wouldn’t.

Well, maybe just a little. “I recently had my hands on a nice hard wood. I think I’ll tell you about it. In detail. Let’s start with—”

“Enough!” Maeve’s frantic squeak was punctuated by the one-two thud of the eight and the cue sinking in short order. “You win! Oh, my God, I feel dirty.”

Nichole tossed her hair over her shoulder, reveling in the victory. “As you should, cheater.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Maeve grumbled, too competitive to let any loss go without at least a brief sulk and most likely one more go at retaliation. Only she seemed to shake it off in a blink, her smile returning to full blast. “So, what do you want from the bar?”

“Whatever. You pick.”

Maeve leaned in and craned her neck in an exaggerated manner. “Garrett? You want something too?”

Nichole froze in her spot as the skin across her back began to tingle and burn.

“Hey, Nikki, maybe Garrett would like to hear what you thought about that stick you were using? How much you liked the feel of that hard wood and all? Heck, maybe he could even help you perfect your hold!” And with that she darted off for the bar.

He wasn’t there. He couldn’t be.

And yet even as she turned she knew.

Her gaze started at the floor and the size-twelve boots planted in a wide stance less than a handful of feet away, crawled up the saddle-brown twill of cargo-style pants and followed the gray long-sleeve tee stretched to perfection over his torso before making the unsettling jump to firm lips slanted in an off-kilter smile and the single raised brow demanding clarification.

“Maeve just being Maeve?” he asked, and the breath Nichole hadn’t realized she’d been holding rushed out in relief.

No lie necessary. “Exactly.”

Only those too intense blue eyes narrowed the slightest bit. “So the wood you guys were talking about was really … wood?”

She hadn’t believed it was possible to choke on words that weren’t her own, but there she was, sputtering as though she’d swallowed a string of oversized letters cut from rough stone. They blocked the pathway from her lungs to her mouth, making the intake of breath an impossible thing.

Lie. Simple. Just lie now and everything would be fine.

Except she could already feel his gaze following the hot path of her heated skin over her cheeks, down her neck … lower.

Clearing her throat, she dug in the front pocket of her jeans, pulling out a couple of quarters. “We were talking about pool. Sticks. Cues.”

The corner of his mouth twitched and his eyes flashed back to hers. “Shafts and butts?”

“Technical terms.”

Garrett stepped closer, resting his hand at her waist as he bowed his head toward her ear, close enough so she could smell the clean masculine scent of him. Soap and skin and the barest hint of lingering sawdust. Close enough so fingers of warmth from his body could reach out and touch hers. Close enough to send her senses reeling as his breath washed over her ear, carrying his gruff, taunting words. “Yeah? Why don’t you tell me about it?”

Nichole’s eyes flew wide with her mouth. “No—nothing,” she managed, stumbling back only to be steadied by Garrett’s strong hand.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” he laughed in challenge. Then, with a conspiratorial wink, added, “Red.”

And with a word she was back to that night.

To the flirtation, the slow pulling need, the fast-rising hunger. Dim hallways and dark shadows. His mouth, his hands, his body … his name.

Garrett.

Her eyes pinched shut as she cleared her mind and drew a cleansing breath. “What are you doing here?”

“Jesse.” He nodded toward the table across the bar where she and Maeve had been sitting with the guys before starting their game of pool. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

And, though he hadn’t tried to avoid her, it was pretty clear if he had known, he wouldn’t have come. She got it. That was how one-nighters went. One night.

“I didn’t know you were coming either.” If she had she might have glanced at her hair before she left home. Gone for the cherry ChapStick instead of the original. She might have worn a skirt.

And not with the expectation that those big hands would find their way under it. No!

She cleared her head with a stern shake.

“It was a last-minute thing. Deciding to come out. But …” His jaw cocked to one side as his gaze slid over the second-floor bar before returning to search her eyes. “I don’t have to stay if this is uncomfortable for you.”

Nichole was already shaking her head when a tall glass of what was probably rum and Coke cut between them, followed by Maeve’s disgusted voice. “Didn’t I tell you to get over yourself? Nikki couldn’t care less about you showing up here.”

Not exactly true, but at least it was Maeve saying it instead of her. And, judging from the glint of amusement in Garrett’s eyes, his little sister’s biting words didn’t faze him.

His focus shifted to Maeve. “How’d that job in Denver work out?”

“Same ol’, same ol’.” Maeve shrugged, snaking an arm around her brother’s waist for a quick hug. “I’m scheduled to go back next week.”

Nichole watched the two fall into the conversation she knew one side of by heart, and wondered how it was possible she hadn’t recognized Garrett for who he was.

Only on some level she had. She’d seen his face at least a hundred times in photos in Maeve’s old albums. And, though most of those pictures were of a kid rather than a man, some of them had been recent. Which had to be the reason for that sense of connection. The immediate click.

Watching them together now, though, there was one thing she couldn’t miss. Being around Garrett wasn’t going to be a problem in any sense. His focus on Maeve was utterly complete.

There wasn’t any lingering tension—at least not from his side. He’d showed up, said hello when he saw her, been friendly and then moved on as though nothing had happened between them at all.

Maeve had been right about her brother being the expert in keeping relationships simple. And lucky Nichole to have the Panty Whisperer for her mentor.

Garrett stood with his back to the bar, his eyes focused on the pool table across the room where Nichole was lining up her shot, his tongue lodged somewhere halfway down his throat.

She moved from one spot to another, bending at the waist, bracing her weight with a hand on the table, widening her stance until—

Until every damn guy in the bar was leering as she took her shot. Just like him. The only thing setting him apart from the rest of the hounds panting after her was he knew just exactly what he was missing. He knew what it felt like to kneel between those legs. He knew what it felt like to spread his palm over the flat of her belly. To run his tongue the length of her.

Which meant, right then, he envied them. At least they could tell themselves it probably wouldn’t be as good as their imagination was making it.

Nichole let out a whoop, high-fiving Maeve as two guys he didn’t know took losing with dopey grins and an offer of more drinks.

Garrett’s eyes narrowed as he started sizing them up. They looked harmless, but guys put on a lot of façades.

His gaze shot over to his sister, who seemed to be handling the attention fine, passing on the drinks—good girl—and whatever else the guys were offering. Same as Nichole. Only there was something different about the way the two women handled it. Maeve leaned into the conversation, taking the flattery with grace even as she rejected it, while Nichole simply didn’t seem to register it at all. She was smiling freely at the guys, but without any kind of sexual recognition whatsoever.

Even when one of the guys reached for her hand, trying to angle in for some eye contact, she just wrapped her free hand around his fingers and basically handed them back to him … with a smile.

She was friendly.

Like he’d never seen “friendly” done before. Some girls played at it. Used it like a kind of game of push-and-pull. But Nichole … she was completely open and available only in one clearly identifiable way that said “not a chance” without ever having to say it at all.

“What’s up, man?”

Garrett shot a look over his shoulder to where Jesse was moving in beside him, his brother Sam a step behind.

“Just wondering how in the hell I ever got past that,” he answered with a nod in Nichole’s direction.

Jesse’s hands came up with the corners of his mouth. “Don’t look at me. I thought about asking her out back before I left, but she ‘friended’ me so fast there was no point in even trying.”

Jesse was one of the few friends Garrett had maintained regular interaction with over the years. He’d been a mellow, genuine guy from as far back as Garrett could remember. And through those first years after losing his dad, when it had seemed like the world was going to collapse around his shoulders and there was no way he’d be able to be everything he needed to be for everyone who needed it, Jesse had unrelentingly been there for him, refusing to let Garrett be alone no matter that the life he’d been a part of—the one with sports and chicks and hanging out—was gone. He’d been the guy to get his twenty-four-year-old sister to babysit once a month so Garrett could go out for a couple hours. The one who hadn’t crowed about cheap conquests. The one who’d understood. Maybe his artist’s mentality gave him more insight than the other meatheads. Whatever. He was a good friend—one of the only ones he truly felt comfortable confiding in.

An hour later Garrett was having to put significantly more effort into not feeling like a stalker than he generally cared to. But, honest to God, he just couldn’t keep his eyes from working their way back to that auburn tumble of hair and contagious laugh.

“She like this with everyone?” he asked Sam, watching as she yucked it up with yet another group of what he’d bet good money had been strangers until just that night. It seemed like she could talk to anyone about anything.

“What do you mean—friendly, easygoing?” Sam flagged the bartender for another round. Then, at Garrett’s nod, he shrugged. “Pretty much. But she can take care of herself. With one recent exception, nobody gets past her ‘friend’ zone. Some jack-off burned her pretty bad a few years ago and she’s been avoiding the flames ever since. So you don’t really need to worry about looking out for her. Aside from doing a damn good job of it herself, she’s got a lot of people who care about how she gets treated.”

There was an edge in those last words that had Garrett’s head cranking around to where Sam was watching him, a matter-of-fact look in his eyes. “You talking about me?”

Jesse covered his mouth with his hand, but a low laugh escaped regardless.

There was no way Jesse’s little brother was warning him off of Nichole? But, sure enough, he was.

“Relax, man. I’m not going anywhere near her.”

“You’ve already been near her. And the way you’ve been watching her all night….”

Garrett was about to tell Sam he was nuts when that same sort of gravitational pull had him turning around again … and locking eyes with Nichole. Who’d been watching him.

Her lips parted, and from across the room he could actually feel the catch of her breath in his chest.

And then there it was—that blaze of heat working up her neck and cheeks. The one that made him wonder if he would feel the change it brought against his lips if they were positioned in just the right spot.

The corner of his mouth edged up as he tapped his cheek, mouthing the word red to the woman he was suddenly alone with across the expanse of this crowded bar.

Her answering smile was too many kinds of different to count from what she’d been giving to every other guy there tonight, and it hit him like a pile-driver to the gut, effectively knocking the wind out of him as he turned back to his closest friend and shook his head in genuine bewilderment.

Jesse let out a low chuckle. “I’m starting to wonder if the real question isn’t how you got past her, but how she got past you.”