“I’m fine. Why?” He busied himself wiping down the clean bar.
“Because your eyes glazed over and you got a dopey grin on your face.” Sid lowered the last chair, then took a seat on a bar stool. “Same challenge as yesterday?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?” She actually looked petulant. His chest tightened, as did something lower.
“Your tips are your tips and my tips are mine.” No way would he give her another reason to skim down to a tank top. His lower half didn’t like the decision, but his brain was still in charge. For now. “You need a challenge, find a new one.”
Sid huffed, turned her back to the bar, and glanced around the room. Then she spun back. “Pool.”
“What about it?” Lucas asked, stacking beer glasses.
“Bet I can take you before it’s time to open.”
Despite himself, Lucas was tempted. He’d grown up in that poolroom, had snookered his fair share of money from the regulars over the years. Probably wasn’t fair to take her on, but then she hadn’t played fair the day before.
And playing pool wouldn’t involve taking off articles of clothing. Unless they played strip pool. Then they could find out how much weight those tables could hold.
A glass slipped from his hand, nearly sending a row to the floor.
“You need help back there?”
The glasses saved, Lucas mentally scolded himself. There would be no strip pool or climbing on pool tables with Sid Navarro. Not today. Not ever.
“So what do you say?” His current temptation hopped off her stool. “I’ll rack ’em. How much you want to play for?”
Lucas dropped his rag on the bar and headed for the poolroom. He could win back the money she’d taken from him yesterday, but that would be cruel. “Twenty-five.”
“I was thinking fifty,” she said, swiping a cue off the wall. “You got some quarters?”
He slid three coins in the slots. The rumble of balls rolling out of the table echoed in the empty room. Seemed weird playing in silence. “Hey,” he said. When Sid turned he tossed two more quarters her way. She caught both. “Put something on the jukebox. I’ll rack ’em.”
“I can do that.” Sid crossed to the jukebox in the corner. “Is it fifty then?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Fine,” she conceded with little enthusiasm. He heard two buttons being pressed, then a smooth male voice filled the room.
“Is that that Bubble guy?” Lucas asked.
“It’s pronounced Boo-blay. And yeah. I like this song.”
The song choice took him by surprise. He figured Sid for Metallica maybe. Old standards, never. “I know how to say it. I was just teasing. Mr. Bublé isn’t what I expected from you.” Lucas stepped back from the table. “Let’s get this going. You break.”
“What did you expect?” Sid asked, before striking the cue ball and dropping four balls into various pockets. “Three stripes and a solid. I’ll take stripes.”
“Of course you will,” he said, settling on a stool. “I figured you for hard rock. Something loud and dark.”
The ten ball dropped into a side pocket. The cue ball rolled up behind the fifteen.
Sid moved around for her next shot, putting herself between Lucas and the table. Chalking her stick, she shot him a look over her shoulder. “I can go that route, when I’m in the mood.”
Replacing the chalk on the side, she bent over, giving him a clear view of prime posterior real estate. His brain nearly melted. The fifteen banked off the right rail, then dropped into the far corner pocket. She was down to two balls and he’d yet to take a shot.
Though losing didn’t matter much so long as he could keep watching her. She moved with complete confidence. An air that made her seem taller. More potent. More desirable.
She must have every man on the island after her. A thought that made Lucas want to barricade the door, though he warred with the question of which side he’d be on.
She bent over again and the fourteen flew up the table, clipping the side of the pocket and remaining on the felt. “Damn it.”
He took several seconds to realize it was his turn. “About time,” Lucas said, his voice steadier than the rest of him. “Three in the side.” The ball dropped and he moved to the next one. “One in the corner.” A little bottom-right English and the ball dropped, sending the cue ball right where he’d intended. This game needed to end before he got any more ideas about his pint-sized opponent.
“I thought you’d be rusty,” Sid said, leaning on her cue, a hand on her hip. “Why didn’t you go for more money?”
“You may not think you’re a lady, but I do. I told you yesterday, a gentleman doesn’t take money from a lady.”
“At this rate, you’ll take twenty-five dollars.”
“Five-six combination.” He dropped the balls as called, but the cue got away from him. “I had to agree to something to shut you up. And you owe me for yesterday.”
“Really?” The spitting Sid returned, as he knew she would. Keeping her angry meant keeping her at a distance. “I don’t owe you shit from yesterday. I won that challenge fair and square.”
Lucas sized up his next shot. He couldn’t get the two in the corner without glancing the eight, which could send it into the side. The four wasn’t any better. He’d have to float the cue down the table, away from her remaining balls.
“You won yesterday by using what I estimate to be two D cups, which I don’t have. That qualifies as an unfair advantage.” He looked her way and let his eyes linger somewhere just below her chin. “Not that I’m complaining.”
A subtle shade of red crawled up her neck. He’d already vowed not to go there, so why was he being a jackass? To make up for the comment, he sailed the cue ball past the two, leaving her a perfect position on the eleven. “Your shot.”
With stiff movements, Sid took her place behind the cue and dropped the eleven in the side. But she’d left herself a difficult shot on the fourteen. Lucas slid up next to her and bent over to see the line. “Go high left on the cue and you can make it.”
Liquid caramel eyes locked on his, that now familiar line forming between her brows. She looked to the ball across the table, then back to Lucas. “High left?”
“High left.”
He gave her room, moving out of her peripheral vision to avoid being a distraction. She suffered no lack of determination or skill. It seemed whatever Sid Navarro attempted, she did well. His new-found admiration had more to do with the person he was coming to know than the killer body she inhabited.
The fourteen careened across the table, dropping cleanly into the pocket. Sid gave a triumphant “Yes!” then turned for a high five. He complied, but something told him to hold on. They stood there next to the pool table, hand in hand, eyes locked. Sid licked her lips and Lucas nearly gave into the urge.
Instead he dropped her hand and sauntered to the other side of the table. “It’s not over yet. You still have to make the eight ball.”
Sid continued to look dazed for several seconds. Lucas gave her time to recover, since he needed a moment himself. This was only their second day together and he was already struggling to keep his hands off her. A complication he did not need.
“Right,” she finally said, her voice low and unsure. She stared at the table while chalking her stick, presumably figuring out her shot, though Lucas saw her eyes dart in his direction more than once.
“I’d go for the side,” he said, anxious to finish the game. He didn’t give a shit about the money. He’d pay twenty-five hundred to break the spell she was weaving around him.
With a nod, Sid bent to take the shot. Lucas had replaced his cue on the wall before the ball dropped. “We need to open in five. I’ll hand over your winnings this afternoon.” Before she could respond, Lucas headed back to the bar.