Page 17 of Bad Blood Wolf

“I think you got it,” she called back. “Just make a hole with your fingers and put the stick in it. Slide it back and forth a few times, and take your shot.”

There were snickers all around the table, and Brody gave her a sideways look.

Anton said, “I hear he’s been waiting a long time for someone to explain that to him.” More laughter.

Brody had been going for an easy shot, but at Anton’s words, he changed his mind and lined up his cue for a complicated bank shot.

Damn it, why did men always let their egos get in the way of their good sense?

Face taut with concentration, Brody lined up his cue stick and shot. The 9 ball caromed off the bank, hit the 11 ball, and they both thumped into opposite pockets. He proceeded to run the table, moving surely between shots, calculating angle and force so precisely that the cue ball always bounced back to exactly where he wanted it.

It was one of the sexiest things she’d ever seen. And watching his jeans stretch over his ass as he bent over the table didn’t hurt either.

Bite it, her jag suggested.

Shut up.

“Eight ball in the corner,” Brody said, gesturing with his cue. He made the shot perfectly, finishing the game to stunned silence.

“Look at that,” Jasmin said. “Virgin’s luck.”

She reached for the money lying on the edge of the table, but Bastian slapped his hand down on it. “Rematch,” he ground out. “Y’all got lucky.”

Jasmin had the wild urge to whip out her claws and take his hand right off. She had no problem with all her money having blood on it.

But she couldn’t. He was playing right into her hands. She needed him to play again, and she needed to up the ante.

“Winners own the table,” she said, baiting him. “Maybe we should play somebody else.” She looked over at Brody, hoping he had the sense to pick up on her intentions.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said carelessly. “These guys weren’t much of a challenge.”

Bastian snarled. “Double or nothing,” he said.

There you go. So easy. Bastian turned away, and Brody winked at her.

Bastian racked up the balls, shoving them viciously into the triangle. Good. If he was pissed, he’d be easier to beat.

Brody came around the table and stood close to her, murmuring in her ear. “You can still show me where the stick should go, if you want,” he said. “I’m always open to learning new techniques.”

It was a cheesy line, but it still set her nerve endings jangling.

Finish this. Get out. Before this whole damn night turns into one big regret.

Bastian had to hit up his friends to come up with another four hundred dollars, to match what was already on the table.

He must have spent some of last night’s haul already, or maybe it was home in his piggy bank.

Brody didn’t fucking care. Bastian was going down.

The more he focused on the game, the more the whole table started to look like one vast grid of lines and angles. His mind was automatically calculating the probabilities, possibilities, which shot would lead where, even which ones the others might miss.

Math was his superpower. It always had been, from the time he was a little kid. Algebra, geometry, physics, statistics, you name it, he could do it—in his head, if he had to. It was how he’d earned his way through college playing pool—angles, force and trajectory. It was why he had a cushy job in the Nashville pack’s finance company, handling their investments.

He was a whiz at picking stocks and predicting the market.

The one thing he couldn’t do was lose his focus. The problem was, every time his partner came within three feet of him, he started to feel breathless and a little bit high.

He couldn’t let her down. Even more than wanting to get his damn money back, he still wanted to be her hero. Stupid, but there it was.

Jasmin broke this time. She sank the 4 ball on the break, so they took solids, and she sank three more before missing a shot.

Bastian sank three of the seven stripes, and then it was Brody’s turn.

He didn’t have much to work with, and to run the table from this position would be too suspicious. He could probably do it, but it would take the kind of skill nobody saw outside a world championships.

He made two balls before he came up against a shot no one but a pro could make. It killed him to miss one, but it wouldn’t help their cause if he were called out as a ringer.

Luckily, Trace just wasn’t that good.

Trace sank three more balls. He came damn close to sinking the final one, too, and Brody’s stomach clenched before the ball shuddered against the edge of the pocket and bounced away.

It was Jasmin’s turn now, and she easily sank their last two balls and called the pocket for the 8-ball. It was a tricky shot, and she took her time lining it up.

Brody was so busy watching the table, giving her a murmured “a little to the left,” that he didn’t notice Anton easing up behind her until it was too late.

Her stick jerked, and the cue ball clipped the 8-ball on the wrong side. It bounced off the corner of the pocket, and the cue ball went straight in. Scratch.

They’d lost the game, and all Jasmin’s money.