“Well, well, well. Looks like I’m already winning, wife.” He straightened slowly, that smirk back as he locked his eyes with mine. Like he knew exactly what he was doing—to the tableandto me. “You planning to play tonight or just stand there looking pretty while I run the table?”
My blood began to boil. Not from embarrassment. Not from the crowd watching us with barely concealed grins. No, my response was all thanks to him and that cocky tone and that cockier smirk. All thanks to the sheer audacity of this man thinking I had any intention of sitting back and letting him win.
He bent for another shot, confidence rolling off him in waves. The cue slid through his fingers, smooth, deliberate—then the ball grazed the corner and spun uselessly away.
I didn’t bother hiding my smile as I glanced at him. Then I made my way over, studying the table.
“I’m not just planning to play.” I leaned over the table, giving him an unobstructed view of my ass and absolutely knowing his gaze was locked on it. “I plan towin.”
I took my shot, a sudden crack splitting the air, and the striped ball sailed into the corner pocket. With a grin on my face, I straightened slowly. And sure enough, Lincoln’s gaze was glued to my ass like he’d forgotten where he was.
I tapped two fingers under his chin. “Eyes up, husband. You’re drooling.”
And that was how the entire game went. Back and forth, like a dance.
I brushed against him on my way around the table. He murmured filth in my ear anytime he was close enough. I leaned too far across the felt, giving him a clear view down my neckline. He stared at me like he was envisioning fucking me right here, damn the consequences.
Every move we made was a dare, every glance a challenge. And somewhere between the flirting and the fighting, I forgot we weren’t alone.
“You sure you’re still up for this, Linc?” I asked when he had three solids on the table to my one stripe. “You’re looking a little…distracted.”
“Oh, I’m up, all right,” he murmured, lining up his shot with maddening precision. Then he lifted his gaze to me. “And you keep bending over this table like you have been, I’m gonna forget we have an audience.”
Chloe snorted from somewhere behind me. “This game is either gonna end with a bar brawl or sex on the pool table.”
“My bet’s on Willa beating him and Lincoln dragging her outside. Possibly by her hair,” Sutton said.
Lincoln and I didn’t look away from each other. The thoughts flooding my mind thanks to Sutton’s words were pure filth. Lincoln’s fist wrapped in my hair, him fucking me over this table or the hood of his car. And from the way he stared at me, eyes heated, lips parted, shoulders tense, I knew he was thinking the same thing.
Which meant it was my chance to pounce.
I shoved the indecent thoughts from my mind as best I could and lined up my shot. Took a deep, calming breath, pulled back my cue, and let it go. My last striped ball dropped, and then the eight ball followed, sinking cleanly into the corner pocket like it knew I needed this win as badly as I needed oxygen.
Cue in hand, I straightened and sent him a saccharine smile. “Looks like I won, husband. Time to get back to work.”
With his gaze locked on mine, he crowded me against the table, slow and deliberate, until the edge pressed against my ass and there was nowhere to go that wasn’t into him. “Keep acting cocky, wife. You’re about thirty seconds from being bent over the nearest surface.”
Flames licked across my skin, hot and all-consuming. My thighs clenched, and my mind went blank except for his words, which repeated like a taunt, over and over.
I should’ve backed down. Should’ve laughed it off.
Instead, I met his gaze, begging him without words to make good on every filthy word. “You think that’s a threat? Sounds more like a promise to me.”
Lincoln didn’t tear his gaze away from me, and somehow, we’d gotten closer, our noses nearly touching, our lips millimeters apart. I was three seconds away from grabbing him and kissing the hell out of him, or climbing up his body and?—
“Oh mygod,” Chloe groaned. “Take it outside, newlyweds! You’re gonna get everyone pregnant just by looking at you.”
Lincoln didn’t flinch, didn’t smile. He didn’t even blink. Instead, he reached down, wrapped his fingers around my wrist, and tugged me behind him. Away from the group, down the darkened hallway, and straight out the back door.
To my doom or my salvation, I wasn’t sure.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
LINCOLN
The door slammed behind us,muffling the thrum of music and conversation from inside as I steered Willa around the corner of the building.
We were alone. Technically.
