by Meghan March
“Balls,” I blurted. Oh no. I did not.
Both my brother and Rhett stared at me.
“What?” Rhett asked, probably thinking he heard me wrong.
I pointed to the table. “Dick and balls. Good work. Nice shape. Could use a few more veins.” Oh sweet Jesus, someone shut me up before the verbal mudslide starts.
Heath’s laugh boomed through the bar.
Why am I talking about penises? My gaze darted to Rhett’s lap, and my cheeks burned as I looked away.
Great, now I’m going to be as red as my hair. I had to distract myself from the disaster. I snatched Heath’s glass and tossed back the liquor.
Oh shit, that burns too. I coughed as soon as I swallowed, trying to mask it by clearing my throat. At least now I have an excuse for the tears in my eyes.
“Good stuff,” I said, attempting nonchalance as I set the glass back down on top of the bar version of a dick pic.
The corner of Rhett’s mouth tugged upward in a semblance of a smile.
Heath choked, sounding like he was hacking up a lung as he tried to stop laughing, slapping the table and nearly toppling the bottle of whiskey. “Damn, my little sister is all grown up, and I missed most of it.” He grabbed the glass and sloshed another measure of booze in it.
Rhett’s partial smile disappeared.
“I swear,” Heath said to me, “I spend more time talking to your assistants than I do with you. I’m tight with Erik and Esme.”
Deep slashes appeared between Rhett’s brows. “You have two assistants?”
Before I could reply, Heath jumped in. “Yeah. In case you didn’t know, my little sister is kind of a badass these days.” He gave Rhett a quick rundown of my accomplishments over the last few years, stunning me by how much he knew about my adult life, considering he hadn’t played much of a role in it.
Rhett’s expression was unreadable.
Oh, great. Now I was the geeky girl who also happened to be a workaholic.
At that moment, I would have given anything, even my prized Funko Pop! collection, to know what was going through Rhett’s head.
5
Rhett
Little Ariel grew up, not that I needed a news flash to tell me that. I saw it with my own two eyes just fine. Who the hell was I kidding? I’d seen it the last time she’d come home and knocked me on my ass just by stepping out of a car in her dad’s driveway.
Everyone knew about her crush in high school, including me. Then and now, there wasn’t jack shit I could do about it. There were lines you didn’t cross in life, and your best friend’s little sister was one of them. Those lines put her completely off-limits.
Back then she was a brainiac with a case of social anxiety who carried a stack of books that probably weighed more than she did, but not anymore. Now she was a frigging CEO who could no doubt buy and sell me. That made her just as untouchable, in my book. If I’d been out of her league as a popular high school jock, she was out of mine as a loaded businesswoman. Apparently, that was my type lately. Valentina Noble had been one too. Learned my lesson there, and was happy as hell she and Rix had made it work.
There was no question now, though—high-class women like that weren’t for me.
But watching Ari toss back two fingers of whiskey like she was an old hand and blurt out something about a dick and balls somehow made her seem more attainable. Or maybe it was knowing that she’d carried a torch for me for years. By the way she rolled her eyes at her brother when he referred to anything from the past, I had to assume she’d gotten over all of it, including me. She’d moved on.
Probably for the best. I’d honed plenty of pretending Ariel doesn’t exist skills over the years. An eighteen-year-old had no business thinking about his buddy’s fifteen-year-old sister the way I had. So I’d cut it off. Put on blinders where she was concerned. Heath would have ended me with his dad’s service pistol, and I would have handed him the bullets to do the job.
Tonight, those blinders slipped. I couldn’t stop noticing just how sexy she was. The dress she’d worn to the funeral still hugged her curves, but that wasn’t the sexiest thing about her. No, it was how real she was.
She didn’t put on a show. Didn’t preen. And surely didn’t have a clue how gorgeous she was.
Ari had wandered into the bar ignoring the attention that followed her every step, including mine. That was a refreshing change for me, and damn if it wasn’t sexier than everything else combined. Well . . . maybe not. There was that wild mane of red hair that she tamed into loose waves, the legs that I didn’t remember being quite so long, and that big brain of hers I’d always found fascinating.
A quick glance around the bar told me that the eyes that had followed her hadn’t looked away yet. Plenty of them watched as she accepted a glass from the waitress and poured herself another two fingers from the bottle. She held it by the neck and read the back of the label while she lifted the tumbler to her lips. As long as I’d known her, the girl read everything she could get her hands on. Some things never changed.
Apparently satisfied with her study of the label, she returned the bottle to the table and scanned the room before looking from me to her brother. “Who wants to play pool first? Table’s free.”
I groaned inwardly. I wasn’t sure I could keep my eyes to myself if I had to watch her stretch and position herself with a pool cue.
“Rhett’ll take you on. I’ll play the winner.” Heath’s words were proof that my best friend had some of the worst ideas.
Didn’t he know I was doing my best to keep my hands off his sister?
“Nah, you go on—”
Ari stiffened. “Fine. If you don’t want to play me, I’m sure there’s someone in this bar who will.”
She rose from the bar stool and smoothed her dress down her thighs. I swore it looked longer at the cemetery than it did right now, inching up her toned legs. The shoulders and chest were sheer black lace, as sophisticated as could be, but the lace took on a sexier edge in the dim light of the bar. I’d lay money on her being the classiest thing this place had ever seen. And damn, what those heels did for her . . .
I ripped my gaze away from her ass to focus on her face.
Her lips flattened in obstinate challenge before she strutted toward the pool table. And yeah, I used the word strutted because there was no other way to describe how she walked in those stilettos now that her attitude was flaring.
Heads turned to follow her progress, and two guys jumped off their stools to follow her.
Oh, hell no. Not a chance, assholes.
I pushed off my seat and stalked toward her. Ari’s back was to me when I stopped behind her at the cue rack. She spun around, unaware of my presence, and smacked into my chest, a pool stick trapped between us. She sucked in a breath, jerking her head up.
“Sorry. Didn’t realize you were so close.”
Years ago, she never would have lost track of where I was if we were in the same room. The realization was a blow to my ego, although not unexpected. I no longer made the cut on her priority list, and that stung.
Rather than move and give her space, I reached around her to snag a cue off the rack, letting my arm brush her shoulder.
Ah . . . there it is. Her facial expression remained static, but her involuntary shiver gave her away. Maybe I’m not off the list completely.
I didn’t know why it mattered, but after the last few brutal days, I needed something good to distract me from the shit show that was my life. And there was no doubt in my mind that Ariel Sampson was everything good.
Her spine straightened and she bobbed around me, avoiding contact in favor of racking the balls and lining them up.
“Do you want to break?” she asked.
“Ladies first.”
Ari rolled her eyes and reached for the chalk. With her stick prepped, she leaned over the edge of the table, her ass jutting out and the hem of her dress riding up her thigh.
Lord . . . I groaned silently. This was torture.
/> Haven’t I been through enough? I tossed the question skyward and received no sign the big man had heard me.
I tore my gaze off her ass and scanned the bar. Mistake. My fist tightened around the pool cue as a reflex, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t use it to smack every jerk in this bar back into line if they didn’t quit staring. Double standard? Sure. But I didn’t care.
With a step behind her, I blocked the most direct view and turned to glare at all of them. Thankfully, Heath’s interest was hooked on the waitress working our table. One by one, the gazes dropped away, and I turned back to Ari, marginally satisfied that they picked up what I was throwing down. Off-limits, assholes.
Ari cursed and stood up straight, leaning lightly on her pool cue. “Dammit. I had that shot.”
I scanned the green felt and found half her balls were missing. “Jesus, what were you doing? Trying to clear the table?”
Her nose went up in the air. “Trying? If I wanted to clear the table, it would be clear. It’s just angles.”
“Brainiac as always.”
Ari shrugged, but I caught a hint of a smile. “Didn’t you hear? It’s cool to be a geek now.”
I had no doubt that wherever she lived in California, she was exactly what was cool. Shit, she had every man’s attention in this bar.
“You were always cool in my book, Red. My turn.” Even though I wanted to wait for her smile, I chalked my cue and sank two shots before missing the third.
“Not bad.” Her nonchalant tone made me grin.
“I try.”
Her eyes finally locked on mine. “I succeed.”
Hell. Why was that statement so damned sexy coming from her lips?
She pushed off her pool cue and spun around to face the table again, her dress sliding up another inch as she bent over the table.
My dick pulsed against my jeans.
Heath is going to kill me.
6
Ariel
I could feel his eyes on my ass. I knew it was impossible to truly feel someone’s stare, but I didn’t care because I knew it was there, just like I knew for the first time in my entire life, Rhett Hennessy was seeing me. I made one shot and deliberately missed the next because I didn’t want to end the game too quickly.
Spinning on my heel with something snarky on my tongue, I slammed into Rhett’s solid chest again, just like I had when I’d grabbed my cue. I wasn’t saying I didn’t do it on purpose.
Wham. My heart slammed against my ribs as it sped up about twenty beats per minute.
The heat and delicious woodsy citrus scent radiating from his body did good things to me. Things that made me want to do very bad things to him. I wasn’t a seventeen-year-old virgin anymore. I knew my way around a man, but I had to admit, the hipsters in Cali had nothing on a homegrown Louisiana man like Rhett.
When he spoke, he leaned in so close that I could feel his breath on my ear. “You missed that shot on purpose.”
My gaze jumped from the sexy five o’clock shadow shading his jaw to his piercing green eyes.
“Wha-what are you talking about?” I smacked myself mentally when my old stammer kicked in. Of course he would cause it.
“That shot. You missed on purpose. I saw you adjust at the last minute. Why?”
I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth and decided to take the safest exit from this situation. Lying.
“Cue slipped.”
His eyes narrowed on me. “You’re lying and you’re terrible at it, just like you’ve always been.” He reached up and pressed his thumb to my left eyebrow. “You get a twitch right here.”
Oh my God. Rhett Hennessy is touching me. And what’s more . . . he knows my tell. He noticed me!
The fifteen-year-old inside me did a terrible cartwheel at the realization. Okay, more of a round-off. With a tumble in the grass to finish. Whatever.
But outwardly, I was trapped in that green gaze until he decided to let me go—or until I came to my senses.
I cleared my throat and sidestepped him. “Whatever you say, hotshot. I need another drink.”
Focusing on putting one four-inch heel in front of the other without biting it, I escaped to the table and reached for the whiskey glass I’d left behind, interrupting my brother and the waitress. They both stared at me as I chugged the contents.
I’d always wondered what it would feel like to have Rhett’s attention, and now I knew. In a word, it was . . . unnerving.
“How’s the game going?” my brother asked.
“Fine.” Keeping my answer short meant he couldn’t tell that I was lying. Heath wasn’t nearly as observant as Rhett.
“You winning?”
Thanking the Lord that Heath obviously hadn’t been watching, I shrugged. “I guess.”
He glanced toward Rhett and then back to me. “The sister I know and love doesn’t lose at pool. Ever. Even to Rhett Hennessy.”
I lowered the glass to the table and straightened my shoulders. “Like they say, things change.”
He nodded slowly. “That may be true about most things, Flounder. But you’re a pool shark and we both know it.”
Before I could respond, Heath’s attention jumped back to the waitress. I took another ten seconds to gather myself, also known as drinking offensively in my mind, before I crossed the floor to face off against my former obsession.
“You all right, Red?” Rhett asked.
“Don’t call me that. And I’ve never been better.”
His gaze dipped to my feet and dragged up my body. “I can agree with that statement.”
Whoa. Who is this guy with the innuendo? A glance at his empty whiskey glass told me he was drinking heavily as well. Was this the booze talking? Or was Rhett Hennessy not just noticing me, but noticing me?
Either way, I had to play it cool. Or at least pretend to play it cool, since it seemed I might fall short.
“Your turn, hotshot. Better not miss, because I’ll clear the table next time,” I said, but my cocky attitude backfired.
Rhett didn’t miss. He sank his balls and then the eight, ending the game almost as quickly as it started. He returned his cue to the rack and turned to face me, all traces of the earlier heat banked, his expression shuttered.
“Game over.”
What the hell just happened?
7
Rhett
When you play with fire, you get burned.
I knew the rules, and I saw the line. I wasn’t breaking them, and I wasn’t crossing it.
But damn if flirting with Ari hadn’t made me say things I shouldn’t even have been thinking. How many times did I have to tell myself she was off-limits before I got it through both my heads?
Standing next to the pool table with a hard-on, watching her walk across the floor to talk to her brother, my best friend, did the trick faster than you could say bad plan.
I knew what I had to do—end the game and get the hell out of this bar before I did something stupid, like get close to her again and catch a hint of the coconut scent coming from her hair. Or maybe it was her skin. I didn’t know, but the fact that I wanted to know firsthand was bad enough.
Shutting it down was my only option. A shaft of regret stabbed into me when I sank the eight ball and Ari’s expression deflated. It reminded me of how she’d looked when a kid in her class picked on her, and I had to go make threats to ensure it never happened again. Except this time, I was the one who caused it.
It made me an asshole. Not surprising, since that’s what I was good at being now.
“Here, I’ll put your cue up.” I took it out of her fingers, careful not to breathe again until I stepped away.
Heath held out Ari’s phone to her as I returned. “Your boyfriend texted. Might want to tell that douchebag to fuck off once and for all.”
Wait. A. Goddamned. Second. Ari has a boyfriend?
Her gaze slammed into mine, a thin veil of guilt slipping over her features. That answered that.
If my hard-on hadn’t already b
een gone, it would have died right then. Never again would I make the mistake of turning my attention on a woman who was involved with someone else.
Ari strode to Heath, yanked the phone from his grip, and unlocked the screen to read the text.
Even though I wanted to walk out the door, I followed them back to the table, and Heath took that as his sign to fill me in on the situation.
“You’ll never believe this jackass. He’s not nearly good enough for her. I don’t get why she doesn’t cut ties for good.”
Ari stiffened at his words. “You know I can hear you, right? I’m standing right freaking here.”
“Good. Then hear this—Carlos is bad news. You need to drop him.” Heath was acting like the protective older brother he’d been on occasion, but there was one difference now. His little sister wasn’t all that little anymore.
Ari turned her icy gray eyes on him. “When I want your opinion on my love life, I’ll ask you for it.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Besides, I was going to tell him we were over the next time I talked to him anyway. I was going to do it before, but I—”
“Didn’t have the nerve to break it off?” Heath asked.
“Look, I was busy, okay? This isn’t exactly something I can delegate to Esme or Erik and have them deal with it.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t suck it up and get him out of your life. For good.”
Heath’s adamant tone surprised me. This Carlos guy had to be an asshole for Heath to hate him this much. I would have said it was a case of no one being good enough for his little sister, but this felt different.
“Is he abusive?” I didn’t intend to ask the question, but it came out anyway.
Ari’s gaze cut to me. “No. Of course not.” Her eyebrow didn’t twitch, so I knew she wasn’t lying.
“Then what the hell is wrong with him?” There had to be something, otherwise Heath wouldn’t be talking about him like he needed killing. Even without having met the guy, I didn’t like him. No one was good enough for her. Especially not me.