“Good, good, good. Now let’s see if you boys can get it in the hole,” Megan chuckled, drawing the attention of both men.
“I don’t know how to play,” I grumbled while I watched Luke pick out a cue. Neil already had his, and he stood there looking bored, waiting for us to be ready.
“Here, take this one.” Luke came up beside me and handed me a cue. It was a different size than his, and I frowned questioningly at him.
“Each player needs to use a cue that’s appropriate for their height,” he explained with a shrug. I took the opportunity to get a better look at his leather jacket; it was black and had a skull wreathed in red flames on the back. Luke had an aggressive sense of style that clashed with his milder affect.
“Are you calling me short? Thanks,” I joked, and someone cleared their throat. I turned Neil’s way and found his golden eyes watching us. He had his elbow balanced on his cue and looked irritated with us.
“Are you going to get a move on?” he asked harshly.
“Don’t start, asshole,” Luke muttered with a huff.
“Prepare to lose, Parker,” Neil chastised with an expression of such confidence that it immediately punctured any hopes I had of winning.
Hopes that were already pretty meager, as I had never played pool and had only watched friends play a few times. Slightly worried about breaking something, I examined my cue and considered how to position it.
“Hold on, let me show you.” Sensing my discomfort, Luke approached. Not for the first time, I wondered how a nice guy like him ended up with the Krew. He was unquestionably a member of the gang, but the way he acted was nothing like Xavier or the girls.
Then he put a hand on the base of my spine, and I froze. “You need to lean slightly forward.” He urged me to follow his instruction with his hand, and I did so automatically even though I was a little afraid my dress would lift up too high in the back. Not to mention my heels, which were decidedly uncomfortable. “Hold the end of the cue in your right hand and balance the narrow end on your left,” he continued patiently. His breath grazed mycheek, and his chest was pressing into my back, and it occurred to me that I couldn’t tolerate physical contact with any man but Neil.
I couldn’t even focus on what he was saying because my body was rebelling against his proximity.
“Luke, I think she gets how to hold the fucking cue,” Neil cut in, irritated. I looked at him, noticing his tightly contracted jaw. He peeled off his leather jacket in a hurry and threw it on a nearby stool. Then he rolled the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows. Pronounced veins traveling all over the backs of his hands were the only thing I could see. My grip on the cue went slack and I forgot all the rules of the game Luke had just explained to me. The power of that Adonis’s body was unreal.
“Just giving her a hand,” Luke told him with a sly smile.
Neil just licked his lips and gestured for Megan to rack the balls, not even giving me a chance to do a practice shot.
The game began.
Neil took the first turn, and I stood there, admiring him. He was nothing short of dazzling, leaning forward intently with that serious frown on his face and a lock of chestnut hair tumbling down over his forehead. He ran a hand through his hair to push the strands back up before going back to the colorful ball he’d decided to go for.
Seconds later, he hit the ball with an expertly controlled strike.
“Wow.” Megan patted his shoulder flatteringly, but he just stared at the table, adjusting his back like a cat. He looked at Luke with a grin of defiance. Rather than a simple game, it was looking more and more like a competition between the two of them.
I looked to Megan for some female support, but she just shrugged.
“Men,” she snarked, rolling her eyes.
Half an hour later, the other team was clearly in the lead.
“Well, Luke? What’s going on? Don’t tell me you can’t get it in the hole.” Neil sneered at his friend after he’d missed several shots in a row.
“Maybe I’m distracted,” Luke answered, and there was something wicked in his tone. I looked at him and caught him ogling my ass as he circled me like a predator. For the first time, I recognized another side to him: perverse and dangerous. I supposed that was the reason he was withthe Krew. Despite what I’d foolishly thought, he couldn’t be that different from Xavier if he was hanging out with him all the time. Luke cut his eyes at Neil and gave him a challenging smirk while my Disaster stared at him, unmoving, not remotely intimidated.
Instead, he seemed a little antsy.
Abruptly, Luke stationed himself to the left of me and stopped checking me out like he was trying to undress me with his eyes.
“Your turn,” he smiled, and I bent forward, immediately breaking eye contact with him.
I positioned the cue where he’d suggested, but I wasn’t feeling very confident. Our opponents were clearly more at home on the green felt. They held the cues correctly and knew all the lingo and the rules, while I could barely hit anything. I tried not to grip the cue too tightly, just enough to keep it steady as I took my shot. I kept my wrist soft, just like Luke had told me, and I concentrated.
“Come on, Selene. You’ve got this,” he murmured, but my eyes immediately sought out Neil and found him watching me. His eyes crawled hotly over me and made it very difficult to maintain my concentration.
I struck, but weakly and inaccurately.
