I nodded, satisfied that everything was in place and going to plan.
Now we just needed the fucking cartel to show up so I could break them. They’d tell me who our rat was and then I’d kill them all slowly.
“See? Lots of work. Now can I pull your dick about falling for a woman?” Moose said, and I stood up and frowned at him.
“You want to pull my dick?” I asked him, and his grin fell.
“What? No, that’s not what I meant, motherfucker!”
Bear, JD, Swampy, and Gods—who had just come over from talking to a woman—started to laugh.
“Fuck off, that’s not what I meant,” Moose protested again.
I picked up my beer and began walking over to where Rowan was, but not before I gave Moose the middle finger, knowing the guys were going to be giving him shit all night now.
“Hey,” I said to Rowan as I drifted over to her. She’d grabbed a cue and lined up her first shot like she’d done it a thousand times before.
“You any good?” I asked, already knowing she was because I’d seen her play the first night I’d gotten back into town.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Watch and learn, cowboy.”
The crack of the break shot echoed through the bar as balls scattered across the table. She sank two in the first turn, and then missed the next one but only by a fraction. Then I pocketed three and then missed one.
This was how it went for the next hour.
She refused to let me buy her a drink, but offered to buy me one every single time. And every time she went to the bar, theguy from earlier made a move to talk to her. My hands clenched at my sides, the urge to do something growing increasingly difficult, though I knew it was ridiculous.
She wasn’t mine, and I wasn’t hers. She could see who she wanted—eventually, when this was all over. Yet my body hated the thought of her anywhere near him, or any other man. The urge to go around gouging the eyes out of every man’s face was becoming harder to ignore the more they stared.
I leaned against the edge of the table watching her move around it as we played a new game, the curve of her hips shifting as she lined up another shot.
The barmen sent over another drink for her and she waved a thank you to the guy from earlier before downing the last of her current beer and taking a long drink of the new one.
The drinks had warmed her cheeks slightly and her laughter came easier now. And damn if my eyes didn’t keep drifting to her lips.
She missed the next shot and groaned. “That one was supposed to go in.”
I stepped closer behind her, resting my hand lightly against the small of her back. Her body stilled for half a second at my touch, and then stiffened completely as I leaned in, my mouth close to her ear.
“Your angle’s off, sweetheart,” I murmured.
She glanced at me. “You offering lessons to me now?”
“Maybe.”
The warmth of her body through my palm made my focus slip for a second.
It was becoming all too easy to imagine pulling her closer. And far too easy to imagine what those lips would feel like against mine.
Even easier to imagine slipping her panties down and sinking myself inside of her. How warm she’d feel. How wet…
“Tex?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah?”
“I think they just called your name.”
I stepped back from her, putting some distance between us. Needing the distance before I lost my goddamned mind over this woman. “Guess I’m heading on stage in a minute then.”
