by V. K. Sykes
“Kind of.” Aiden found it both interesting and a bit alarming that she was trying to manage him.
“Really? Because I can think of something a lot more entertaining to do,” she purred.
Okay, maybe he was in favor of a program change after all. He took a step forward, crowding her a bit, letting her know he knew how to play the game too. “What do you have in mind?”
Her lush lips parted in a seductive smile. “How about a game of darts?”
Chapter 3
Aiden stared down into emerald eyes just as bewitching as he remembered—eyes that now also held a depth and maturity that sucked him right in. As much as he might have liked to deny it, he felt the pull toward Lily as strongly as he ever had, and he’d be willing to bet his parcel of land she felt the same.
But frigging darts… really? If Lily had no intention—sadly—of leaping his bones, he would have expected her to get down to business right away, pumping him for info about his position on the development project.
He glanced away from her challenging, amused stare to take in the avid gazes of the crowd, waiting with bated breath for his answer. And his destruction, he suspected, given the nasty smiles of anticipation that lit the faces of at least half the people in the bar. It was Thunderdome, Seashell Bay style, with Aiden tagged as the loser.
Just swell. Nothing like a little ritual humiliation to cap off his fabulous homecoming.
Lily Doyle had always had a touch with darts, just like Aiden had the God-given ability to hit baseballs. Most people thought it was simply a matter of natural coordination, but there was more to it than that. Lots of people had great coordination. Damn few, though, could hit a ninety-five-mile-per-hour fastball or throw a dart with perfect precision.
Lily had coordination in spades and a sweet, sweet form.
Aiden clapped a hand to his chest, trying to look like a wounded puppy. “Such a coldhearted way to welcome a native son back to the island. Since you’re the top dog in these parts, I reckon you have some ulterior motive for wanting to whip my ass in front of the entire damn town.”
Her gaze cut off to the side for a few seconds, surprising him. Lily was never one to dodge a question or a direct challenge. But then she looked back, dazzling him with a glorious smile that fried the logic part of his brain.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied with a throaty purr that made Aiden want to lift her over his shoulder and haul her out to his truck. “I guess I’m pretty good, but you’re a professional athlete, after all. You’re not afraid of a little old game of darts, are you, Aiden Flynn?”
“You tell him, Lil,” Boone Cleary said, leaving his bar stool long enough to weave over and see what the fuss was all about. “Nobody walks away from a challenge on Darts Night. Not on this island, anyway.” He belched as if to emphasize his weighty intervention, which prompted a whack to the back of his head from Miss Annie and a lecture on minding one’s manners in public.
Bram whispered into Aiden’s ear, “He’s right, bro. Look, just keep saying stuff that’ll get her rattled. You can start by reminding her of that time when you and me tailed her down to Bunny Tail Trail and saw—”
“Shut up,” Aiden said through gritted teeth.
Lily had crossed to the dartboard but now came back to Aiden, still giving him that sexy smile that said, What are you afraid of, big boy? His brain might have been addled by waves of hot lust, but he couldn’t shake the feeling she was somehow trying to manipulate him.
“Well?” She held her palm out, daring him to take the three darts that lay there.
Instinctively, he reached out, his hand swallowing hers and the red-tailed darts. Her skin felt hot and almost as smooth as he remembered from that long-ago night, when her hands had been all over him. That surprised him, given the work she did. Of course she wore gloves on the boat, but she set and hauled traps all day long. Both his dad and Bram had always suffered from unending cuts, scrapes, and chewed-up hands from snapping lobster claws.
He froze for a few seconds, her small hand trapped in his, and his mind became swamped with images of the battle-hardened warriors who fought the cold sea and the unforgiving elements to eke out their living. He could only imagine what Lily had gone through all these years he’d been away. While he’d been playing and partying in the glamor of big-city pro baseball, the slender, fine-boned woman before him had toiled long and hard on her lobster boat, facing down the dangers—and the dangers were real and ever-present—of a brutally unforgiving family trade.
When Lily tilted her head, her half-smile curving with an unspoken question, he released her.
“You go first,” he said, sliding his hand across the swell of her hip to gently turn her toward the throw line.
“You are such a gentleman, sir,” Lily said over her shoulder, flashing him a mocking yet heated smile that went straight to his dick. “Okay, we play the usual rules here—501, straight start, double finish.”
In that sultry voice, even the scoring rules sounded like an invitation to bed boogie. “Fine. Say, who’s that girl keeping score?”
He nodded toward a tall, young woman at the side of the board who was staring intently at him as she gripped a black marker. She had cropped, dark hair and wore a black T-shirt and leggings so tight she couldn’t possibly have been wearing a scrap of fabric underneath them. Though he didn’t recognize her, she sure seemed to know him.
Lily swung around and shot him a look somewhere between puzzlement and annoyance. “That’s Jessie Jameson.”
Aiden couldn’t hold back a disbelieving laugh. He remembered Jessie as a scrawny, preteen tomboy who hung around the boatyard. It was yet another lesson that not everything on Seashell Bay Island had stayed the same.
As Lily turned into the throw line, positioning her flip-flops at a slight angle, Aiden’s eyes automatically locked onto the way her beautifully rounded ass filled out the little denim skirt. Nice, his libido muttered, imagining how easy it would be to slide his hands underneath that well-worn fabric and—
“Good one, Lily!” a blond woman said from a table near the board. “You give him holy hell!”
He jerked his attention away from Lily’s very fine ass to the board. Her first dart had landed in the double twenty ring, no doubt exactly where she’d aimed it. She didn’t turn around and gloat, though, instead giving her arm a little shake as she set up for her next throw.
Aiden glanced at the woman who’d shouted out the encouragement. “I know that blonde’s a friend of Lily’s, but I can’t dredge up her name,” he said to Bram at his side. It was starting to piss him off that he couldn’t remember the names of people he’d known all his life.
“That’s Morgan Merrifield,” Bram said. “She’s a teacher up the coast now, but she comes back every summer to help her dad at the B&B. Hell, she and Lily are so freaking close they might as well be married.”
Aiden’s mind went blank. “You don’t mean that they’re…”
Before he even finished his sentence, Bram looked at him like he was a freak. “What the fuck, bro? Did you get hit in the head with a baseball and not tell me? Lily isn’t gay, and neither is Morgan.”
“Nothing wrong about it if they were,” Aiden said defensively. He didn’t give a shit one way or another about anyone’s sexuality, except for Lily’s. That seemed to matter a lot to him at the moment, way more than it should.
Mumbling something that sounded like fucking bonehead under his breath, Bram turned to watch Lily while Aiden glanced discretely at Morgan. Now he remembered her. She, like Lily, had been a couple of years behind him in school. The girls had been close back then too. He probably hadn’t recognized Morgan right off because she was thinner than she’d been in high school and because she’d worn wire-rimmed glasses back then.
Aiden returned his focus to Lily and watched as her dart just missed the double ring. A couple of seconds later, she sent her last one on a perfect arc into the double twenty ring again. Scoring one hundred on her first set was pretty
sweet.
“Woo-hoo!” Morgan yelled. “Let’s see you top that start, Mr. Big Shot.”
Aiden ignored the taunt, just as he’d learned to ignore far worse from opposing teams’ fans as he patrolled the outfield. Morgan was trying to rattle him, just as Bram had wanted him to do with Lily. But Lily’s easy mastery of the game made it plain he was in over his head.
Story of his life, when it came to Lily Doyle.
“Let’s go, Aiden! You can do it!”
He glanced to the bar where Laura was pumping her fist. He grinned at her, thankful that he had at least two supporters in the bar tonight.
Aiden held his first dart lightly in the pencil grip he favored. Don’t think, man. Visualize the tip of the dart hitting the target and just let it go. He repeated that mantra twice and let the dart fly, a part of his mind jeering that he was taking a darts game so seriously. But it was Lily and it was Seashell Bay, so it mattered.
The dart headed straight for the top of the twenty but clanked against the double ring and dropped to the floor. Bounce-out.
Amid hoots from the crowd, Lily made a little shrug that held a lot more mockery than sympathy. Undaunted, Aiden launched his second dart. This time it angled perfectly between the wires for a double twenty.
Lily’s eyes narrowed as she gave him a golf clap in response—all motion and almost no sound. Her cheering squad suddenly went quiet. Apparently the game mattered to them too.
Aiden took a deep breath and held it as he threw his last dart, this time aiming for the more difficult triple ring. How better to set sweet Lily Doyle back on her heels than to score a triple twenty the first time he was up?
And… thunk.
He did it. To the sounds of breath being sucked in from all sides, Aiden casually strolled over to the board, plucked out the two darts, and then bent to pick up the bounce-out. When he straightened, he gave Lily a deep, exaggerated bow. Damned if he didn’t feel as good as if he’d just thrown out a runner at the plate.
“Jackass,” Morgan Merrifield muttered from behind him.
Lily simply tilted her head, looking more intrigued than worried. “Decent,” she finally said, then eased up to the throw line for her second turn.
Aiden moved in close, practically whispering in her ear. “Not to blow your concentration or anything, but why the hell was Miss Annie so freaked out just now? It’s not like the stuff with the developer and the car ferry vote is a big secret.”
Okay, maybe he was trying to blow her concentration, but as he inhaled her scent, the years melted away. He swore her hair smelled exactly the same as it had that last night in his car, when his lips were trailing kisses over her long, perfect neck and his hands were exploring the gentle swells of her breasts and ass. Her gleaming auburn hair was as sweetly fragrant as the roses that bloomed all over the island.
He couldn’t hold back a smile. Yes, Lily had changed, had grown up. But she’d also remained essentially the same, and he found that incredibly appealing.
Clearly unfazed by his comment—or by the fact that he’d crowded her sweet bod—Lily launched her dart and then turned to face him. “I’m sorry about that. Granny’s memory isn’t what it used to be, and she sometimes thinks people are keeping her in the dark. You remember how much she hates not being in the know about absolutely everything that’s happening on the island.”
“Got it. But she sure still looks and sounds sharp to me.” Annie Letellier might be in her eighties, but she looked like the same fireball he remembered from when he was a kid. He hated to think it might be otherwise.
Lily shook her head, her hair gently brushing over her bare shoulders. “She’s definitely still our Miss Annie, but you’ll notice some differences in her, for sure.” For a nanosecond she looked sad, but then she lifted an eyebrow. “If you stick around long enough, that is.”
She was probing for clues again, but he wasn’t ready yet to give up that kind of info. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here. Depends on a lot of things,” he said.
But after seeing you, babe, I may not be out of here quite as quick as I’d thought.
Lily let out a derisive little snort and turned to throw again, scoring a twenty.
“This match could be close,” she said over a shoulder that Aiden wanted to caress.
“Don’t count on it,” he replied absently, letting his gaze drift down to her shapely ass.
She turned to him and blinked, as if startled that he stood so close. A faint blush washed over her cheekbones, but then she put her hands on her hips. “Then maybe we should make a little wager before we get too far in. What do you think, city boy? You up for the challenge?”
The gentle taunt in her voice tweaked his competitive instincts. “Name it,” he said.
Lily tapped an index finger on her chin, as if pondering a weighty question. “Let’s say if I win, my tab tonight is on you. If you win—like that’s going to happen—I pick up yours.”
“Even if I stay and close the place down?”
“Even if. In fact, be my guest. On Darts Night, I usually don’t go home too early.”
Which means you do every other night? He liked that idea. Lily tucked up in her bed safe and alone—preferably in a skimpy nightie that only he would ever see.
“You’re on, then,” he said.
Lily thought she’d done a fairly respectable job preventing Darts Night from deteriorating into full-blown war. Not that Bram would ever lay a hand on a woman, much less one almost three times his age, but Granny had lots of supporters in the Pot. Any one of them would have been more than willing to throw a punch on her behalf.
Aiden had done his bit to keep the situation under control too. He’d reacted calmly and decisively, keeping his stupid brother locked down and treating Granny with a sweet, old-fashioned respect.
And she had to admit that his understated confidence turned her on a little too.
Okay, he was pretty much melting her panties.
Once a high school hunk, Aiden had now matured into an incredibly sexy man with a laid-back assurance and masculinity that vacuumed up the attention of every woman in the bar but Granny. Every cell in Lily’s overheated body was telling her that he felt the pull between them too, and that he was more than willing to act on it. Should she use that attraction to get closer to him and probe for info? She hated the idea of using such sleazy tactics, no matter how just the cause, and the idea of getting involved with Aiden was even more anxiety provoking. She felt pretty certain that would be a one-way boat ride to a whole lot of heartache.
But Gramps had made her mission crystal clear—find out where the boy stood on Seashell Bay’s future. Would he honor his mother’s inheritance, or would he side with his jerkwad of a father? From the few clues Aiden had dropped, she sensed that he had yet to make up his mind. Aiden wasn’t the kind of guy to let his father—or anyone else—force him to make a decision before he was ready.
So there was time to push back, especially if he hung around for a while. And if he did, Aiden just might be a temporary fix for the other problem that was keeping her awake at nights.
If she could get him to agree to it, and that was a very big if.
She flashed him a bright smile when he hit the double ring to score another twenty-six points with the third dart of his turn. “Very nice.”
Lily didn’t need to fake her compliment—he was damn good. Now it would come down to the first person to hit the double needed in order to check out.
He casually rested his hand on the base of her spine as she took up her position. His hand, big enough to nearly span her lower back, sent heat through to her skin. The sensation forced her to lock her knees to hold her stance.
“Feeling the pressure yet?” His deep voice made her want to press her thighs together. “You must really hate the thought of losing in front of the home crowd.”
“Lose? In your dreams.” She mentally winced at the squeaky note to her voice.
He was teasing, but his words contained an
element of truth. Lily hated losing, and there were a few people watching who would find pleasure in rubbing it in. Folks in Seashell Bay took their darts seriously, and she’d been whipping their asses for years. Still, she’d developed a game plan, and she had to stick to it.
Think big picture and get over yourself, girl.
“Put him away, Lily,” Morgan shouted, her face lit up with loyal enthusiasm.
“She’s gonna bust,” Bram retorted.
Lily shut everything out and threw three straight darts just outside the double nine, scoring zero for her turn. Perspiration prickled along her spine where Aiden’s hand had rested only moments ago. It took skill to throw a game and not look suspicious.
“Ah, so close,” Aiden said with a mock sigh as he moved up to the line.
“Let’s see you do better, pal,” Lily shot back, secretly hoping he’d put his first dart straight into the double seven to check out.
Deputy Micah moved in close, just off to her right beside Morgan’s table. He scowled at the board like he wanted to pull out his gun and blast it. Given Micah’s long-standing antipathy to the Flynns, she knew he was going to be pissed when Aiden won the match. Lily and Micah were old friends, and he wouldn’t take kindly to Aiden beating her.
Despite the noise and catcalls, Aiden’s hand was steady as he tossed his dart to score the double he needed. Just like that, the match was over, and Lily was on the hook for his beer tab.
Small price to pay.
“Yes!” Bram leaped out of his chair, knocking it to the floor. Once he finished pummeling his brother on the back, he swung around to sneer at Morgan and Micah. “How about that, huh? A Flynn wins!”
Aiden hauled him back. “It could have gone either way, bro. Lily just missed by an eyelash. She’s a great player.” Then he flashed her a seductive smile, turning her brain to fish bait. “Want to go again, Lily? Get your revenge on the city slicker?”
Morgan jumped up from her chair and whispered urgently in Micah’s ear. Clearly, she’d figured out that Lily had tossed the game and wanted to keep Micah from acting like a bull-headed deputy.