"You shoot first," Flint invites his opponent. I see that Keating is already prepared to kick us off, so he nods and repositions the ball on the table. I hop up on the side and cross my legs, one over the other, to watch, in what I hope is a manner that sexy women in pool halls are known to take up. My efforts are for nothing, because almost as soon as I've settled myself down to observe, I feel a pair of hands grasp my waist, clenching down on my soft curves like steel clamps and yanking me off my seat.
"Hey!" I exclaim. Several heads in the bar turn, and I realize I've voiced my protest louder than I intended. If I doubted I was drunk before, I'm certain of it now...but that doesn't mean I need to let the brute manhandling me now in on my secret.
It's Flint, of course, who has his hands on me once more. If I didn't know any better, I would think he almost looks for any excuse to deal with me physically. I let him pull me back down to the floor, but he doesn't let go of me until Keating makes his first shot. He holds me firmly rooted in place, almost as if he expects me to try for my perch again.
"Get off the table," he orders me belatedly. My throne has already been usurped. "You'll disrupt the game if you sit there."
"Here." I thrust another 'adult' Shirley Temple toward him. "I brought you this. You’re welcome."
"Quit burning my money on these ridiculous concoctions," he commands, even as he takes it from my hand anyway. He flicks the straw off into some corner of the bar and lowers his lips to the ruby-red glass. I narrow my eyes.
"You don't seem to have a problem drinking them," I point out. "In fact, I think you actually might enjoy them."
"They remind me of you," he responds.
This surprises the hell out of me, and I know it shows. I blink, almost as if I could banish my disbelief and know for sure that he isn't just messing with me. "In what way?" I demand, once I've gathered my faculties once more.
"In the way that they taste. I imagine a similar taste when I look at you." He levels his dark eyes at me, and the stirring in my belly explodes into butterflies. I'm too mesmerized by the conversation unfolding to immediately notice that he still keeps one hand firmly planted on my waist. "And in the way that it's inevitable my lips will taste yours," he says quietly. He wraps his lips around the edge of the glass and drops his head back. I watch in mixed horror and fascination as the purposefully too-sweet liquor is drained in several languid gulps.
"You forgot the cherry," I mention. My voice has also grown quiet. I can hear the clacking of the pool balls behind me, signaling that Keating is continuing a streak of scoring, but the noises of the bar seem to fade into the background as Flint fishes the ripe red fruit out of his glass and offers it to me. I want to refuse him. I should refuse him.
He steps closer, until his chest brushes against mine. At the same time, the hand on my waist draws me in against him. He holds the cherry pinched between his fingers. I open my mouth to protest.
And he takes advantage of the literal opening that I've provided him by pushing the little red Maraschino past my lips and into my mouth. I clamp down on it immediately, but he still holds the stem pinched between his fingers.
"Suck it," Flint whispers huskily. I comply almost without thinking, pulling my cheeks in to accentuate my cheekbones and the line of my jaw as I savor the fruit. It tastes sweeter than candy, with a hint of lubrication that I enjoy running my tongue along. Once I've sucked it dry, I bite down, and he begins to draw it back out again. At the last instant my teeth sever the connection, and he is left holding the stem.
I am breathless with how erotic the exchange was. Flint looks likewise winded. After I've chewed and swallowed my treat, I run my tongue along my lower lip to sweep the residual sticky sweetness away. I watch as a pair of dark, deliciously predatory eyes track the movement
"Hey, save some of that for me!" Keating calls from across the table. "And by the way, it's your move, boss."
"What are you getting from him?" I ask in a low voice as Flint moves to position himself by the cue ball. "What is this about? And why does he keep calling you 'boss'?"
"It's no 'Captain Carter'," he allows as he leans his long body over the table. Yet again, he has failed to answer my question. Just when I feel like I am starting to finally get closer to the real Flint, he throws another wall up and pulls back from me.
I study the man as he lines up his shot. My gaze trails down from his T-shirt to the straight edge of his bare, extended arm. I would expect tattoos, I think, but there is nothing save tanned skin roped with veins. I know for a fact he doesn't wear ink on his chest. Still, I can't help but wonder about the rest of his body.
Flint thrusts forward suddenly, fast as lightning, and sends the cue ball shooting across the table to pocket his first solid. I watch, fascinated despite myself. These are two extremely skilled men. Despite my words, I never had a doubt that Flint could win this game if he wanted to. While Keating is a decent man in looks and manner, there is just something superior about Flint Carter; it's an undefinable quality that I can't quite put my finger on.
Is it his money? I wonder. I am used to dealing with men of wealth and means in my old life, but none of them carried themselves with the same bearing as Flint, who, for all intents and purposes, has been disinherited by his own company. I suspect that he still might be a billionaire, but it seems somehow less important to him now than it must have been when he was first coming into his wealth.
Maybe, at the end of the day, and despite his efforts to appear otherwise, he is just a good man—intelligent and charismatic and unafraid to take action, even when life's odds are stacked against him. And I know he's good, because he gave me a chance, didn't he? A chance to escape, to be free, without ever asking anything of me in return.
It's Keating's turn. The number of pool balls still on the table is diminishing significantly. I watch as Keating chains and pockets three more. He is playing well…maybe a little too well. My eyes dart to Flint once more to glean something from his expression, but he is withholding. There is nothing I can do but watch and hope…but hope for what? For every one of my secret positive opinions of him, I feel as if I have three negative impressions. I'm so twisted and tangled up in my feelings for this man that I can barely see straight, much less follow the game. I'm sure the alcohol coursing through my veins isn't helping matters.
Keating is nearly there. He has two balls left to go, and one of them is the eight. He misses his next shot, and I hold my breath as Flint resumes his turn.
It's a good thing I am already holding my breath, otherwise it would have been stolen from me with the next sequence of events. Flint angles his body and fires away, repositioning himself from one side of the table to the next before the balls have even settled. One by one, they hurtle into the darkness of the table's pockets.
I'm so confused, still dwelling on what it is I think I want, that by the time the game is over and Flint has won, I feel as if I have missed out on most of it. My head is spinning with how dizzyingly fast he has managed to throttle Keating.
Keating retires his pool cue and raises his beer in salute to Flint's skills. I can't help but think he looks disappointed, especially when our eyes meet and he nods in assent of his loss. He's a hard man to read, but I have a feeling he wanted that kiss.