Because I’m afraid of what I will say.
“No,” I said. “Because I met you. You all.”
Brock smirked at me. Damnit, he fucking smirked at me. I’d tried to cover up my slip, but he’d picked up on it.
He knew what was going on. He knew my mind had gotten the words out of my mouth before I could filter them. He knew the truth—not like he didn’t already.
Really, was it any surprise he’d picked up on how I felt about him?
“Steele’s greatest gift—and his greatest weakness—is that he shifts way too quickly from thinking he could do something to he will do something. I would guess that makes him attractive at first, but when you realize some things need to be thought through, and he sucks at that, I could see it being annoying.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “You’re the smart one. You don’t have that.”
Brock laughed as I drank from my can.
“I don’t know about that,” Brock said. “Zack’s the smart one in the group. I’m a little smarter than Steele—”
“You’re smarter in a different way. In a more mature, grounded way.”
I took another sip of my drink before finishing it. I stared at the can, surprised. Had I really gone through one drink that fast? Was I that eager to get some alcohol into my system and to indulge?
Yes, apparently.
“You’re done already,” Brock said, arching an eyebrow at me.
“Yeah, I guess someone got me a beer I couldn’t keep track of. I’ll go get a second one.”
I rose from my chair as Brock finished his beer. I passed by closely enough that I could have done something—touched his shoulder, ran my hand through his hair, anything, but…
I didn’t.
Not because I’d somehow lost attraction to him. Heavens, no, that was only increasing. I just needed to catch my breath, to make sure I wasn’t going off the deep end too fast.
I got to the bar, ordered a Sam Adams, and waited.
And then I felt a very strong hand wrap around my side—Brock’s. That touch—the way his hand snaked around my lower body and stopped at my hips—was the sexiest thing that had happened all night.
I had to keep looking straight ahead at the bar, or I’d turn around and move too fast.
“Let’s go play some pool,” he said. “We can put a little bet on it.”
“I’m down,” I said.
I more purred the words than I said them. Brock was slowly putting me under his spell, a spell he’d really worked on me for the last two-and-a-half years without him realizing it. There was slow-playing romance, and there was so slow, it was barely noticeable.
But the moment of truth was rapidly approaching.
I took my beer over to the pool table, where Brock had already racked everything.
“Loser buys the winner next round,” he said. “We’ll keep it small to start.”
“And what will the bigger bets look like?” I said, leaning against my pool stick.
Brock stuttered. It was the first moment he’d looked like he was falling over himself for me. It excited me.
“Guess we’ll have to see,” he finally said.
The pool game that ensued was less about the actual game and more about chances to play with each other. I bumped him with my hips when he was trying to focus, he would say arousing—but not blatantly sexual—things into my ear, and I would get into suggestive poses with the pool stick. At one point, after I had landed a shot that knocked two balls into the sockets, Brock came over and gave me a high-five that turned into a happily buzzed embrace. But instead of pulling away, we kept our arms around each other and looked into each other’s eyes.
