Who's on Top? (7 page)

Jane said nothing for a moment. When she spoke, the words came out slowly and quietly. “I don't have any preconceptions or a hidden agenda.”

He shot her a sardonic glance.
Bull.

“Come on,” she said in a sudden burst of energy. “Let's get out of this place. I don't think we're going to get anywhere with this in an office setting. You're too defensive here.”

Dom eyed her warily. “Where do you want to go?”

“You play pool?”

“Do I play pool?” Dom snorted. “I have an uncle who makes his living at it. It's a genetic skill in my family.”

T
HE
T
HREE
-L
EGGED
D
OG WAS A
mangy joint that catered to drunks and fleas, as far as Jane could see. Dom had probably brought her here to knock her off balance, but in reality it was no worse than the mildewed basement in which she and Gilbey had had their nine-ball battles. And hey, it took more than superskeevy shag carpet to intimidate her.

Jane stripped off her suit jacket, rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and requested a pint of any decent beer on tap. Dom lifted a brow and headed for the bar while she inspected the serviceable old pool table in the far corner, noting only one regrettable cigarette burn in the felt.

She found the rack, set it in the middle of the table and began piling balls into it. Jane loved the heft of them in her hands, the cold smoothness of them, the solid
clack
of them as they jostled one another.

She tried to focus on that and not how big Dominic Sayers looked in this tiny joint, how his head almost brushed the rafters of the place and his shoulders seemed to strain against the fabric of his very well-made shirt. She wondered briefly if it was
tailored and more at length about the muscles underneath it.
Oh, Jesus, Jane! You're here to beat the pants off him in pool, not ogle him.

She smoothed her hands over the fifteen balls in their triangle formation before her.
Pants off, pants off. Interesting phrasing, Jane!

“You handle them well,” said Dominic's sardonic voice behind her.

She jumped; glanced at him sharply to see if he'd meant any double entendre. But his expression gave nothing away. She took the proffered beer with thanks and tipped a healthy amount of it down her silly gullet. She needed to chill out and focus.

As she selected a stick, tested its length and weight and suitability, she felt his dark gaze on her. She fought with a blush as she ran her hands down the smooth, polished wood and slipped it back and forth, back and forth through her fingers on the felt. The thing was impossibly, inescapably phallic.

Resisting the urge to drop it and flee like a schoolgirl, Jane gripped it firmly and reached for more beer to calm herself. What was wrong with her? This whole venture had been her idea, her way of getting Dominic to relax away from the office.

Dom selected a cue for himself and then held it between his knees and the table while he rolled up his own sleeves. The stick jutted toward her at an outrageous angle and made her even jumpier. Jane gulped some more beer and inspected the barkeep's luxurious belly and extra chin.

Better to look at that than the way Dom's forearms flexed with muscle as he chalked his stick.

“You want to break 'em?” Jane prompted.

“Oh, ladies first, I insist.”

She shrugged, ignoring the disturbing silk in his voice, and made her move. The balls scattered over the table, but not a single one found its way into a pocket. Embarrassing. And uncharacteristic for her.

“I knew you'd be a powerful ball-breaker,” Dom said. This time there was no mistaking the double entendre.

She glared at him. “Yeah, well. It remains to be seen whether yours are solid or striped.”

He grinned and raised his beer to her. “Touché.”

She tried hard, really she did. But she couldn't not look at those positively sculptural buns of his. Especially when he cocked one hip to shoot. She should have been analyzing his technique. But no, her eyes remained glued to his glutes, at least until the
thunk
of him dropping ball into pocket snapped her attention back to the table. Solid or striped? Little ball or big? She did a quick analysis of the numbers left on the table.

“Striped,” he said softly. “Big,” he added with a devilish quirk of his lips. And then, after a thirsty swallow of beer, he said, “Long.”

Jane reminded herself that these terms all technically referred to
playing pool
. Not to anything else. Her right hand tightened around her cue stick. With her left she drained her beer. Whew, that was fast.

“Nice…grip, by the way.”

She almost dropped the stick.

“Experienced,” he said inexorably. “Delicate but firm. Just what I like to see.”

“You know what I'd like to see?” Jane asked.

He cocked a brow.

“Another beer, thanks.” She dropped her empty glass into his hand and studied the table. Sure enough, he'd sunk the fourteen ball. It was a stripe, it was a big number and, to put it in that particular pocket, he had indeed shot long.
Still.
Surely she hadn't imagined that teasing, sex-drenched tone of voice. She wasn't stupid. She was trained to pick up on such things.

The man was flirting with her. Flirting with intent. The question was, why? Jane didn't kid herself that she was the sexiest woman on the planet.

The next question she had to ask herself niggled at her: why was she tolerating the flirting? Even responding to it?

Obviously he had decided to use his looks and his masculinity as a weapon against her. Obviously he thought her that gullible. She walked around the table, sizing up various shots, and Shannon's words came back to her.
Let him think he can use you for his own purposes.

So…did that mean she should pretend to enjoy his attentions? Giggle like a schoolgirl and melt into a puddle at his feet? Sorry—it went against her character.
But…

A slow smirk spread across her face; she could feel it.
Better wipe it off before he-man comes back with my beer.
She modulated it into seductive, subtracting the smug element that would alert him to what she was up to.

So Dominic Sayers thought he could play her, did he? Use her for his own purposes. Fine. Jane would play
him.
And if she got a…a…vigorous sexual experience out of the process, then more power to her!

Hussy,
said her conscience.

Oh, shut up. It is the twenty-first century.

Ssssssslllllllluuuuuut.

Hey! It's not as if I'm dating anyone. And I haven't had any sex for, uh…
Had it really been seventeen months now? Surely she was due some.

Nice. Your mother would be so proud.

She had no answer for this one—just pushed the thought away.

“Your beer,” said Dominic behind her, the timbre of his voice tickling her eardrum. “By the way, that was a very effective dismissal. You neatly sidestepped the innuendo and reduced me from wolf to waiter.”

She flashed him a sunny smile.

“Your gamble wouldn't have paid off, though, if I weren't a gentleman.”

She widened her eyes. “I don't know what you mean.”

“You damned well
do.
”

“Surely a gentleman doesn't curse at a lady.”

He laughed softly. “I'm not
always
a gentleman.” His eyes roved over her body. “And I'm willing to bet you're not always a lady.”

Her mouth fell open and her pulse kicked up despite herself. “Take your next shot.”

He set his beer down and did so unhurriedly. Elegantly. With a little English. He sent the cue ball high into the seven, which thwacked the ten into the side pocket and then spun the six into the corner hole. “See,” he told her. “I'm an excellent…kisser.”

Jane knew
kiss
was a pool term for contact between balls. She lifted her eyes coolly to his. “Yeah, maybe. But how's your follow-through?”

“Without equal.” The words slipped from between very white teeth.

“We'll have to see about that.”

Dom sank three more balls before he finally scratched.

She plucked the heavy white ball from the foot end and hefted it a couple of times in her palm while she contemplated where to set it on the table.

The subtext under the surface of their match wasn't subtle: the move was literally called
ball-in-hand.
She squeezed it deliberately and watched him inhale. After a long moment, she placed the cue ball exactly where she wanted it.

“The center spot.” His teeth gleamed again, even in the low lighting. “So you like—” she watched him moisten his lips “—playing from the center.”

Speaking of her center, did it have to throb like
that? Tingle? She ran her tongue over her own lips and nodded. She positioned the shaft of her cue stick and stroked, successfully pocketing two balls. She walked around the table, brushing past him (he closed his eyes) and sank another ball from the head. Then another. And another.

“You're gonna kill me,” he said, taking a swig of beer.

“Oh, I hope so.”

“You've done this before.”

“You bet. I'm no virgin at this game.”

“Little hustler.”

“Oh, no—I never play for money.”

“Just power.”

Jane flashed him her best inscrutable smile, positioned her shot and scratched. Dom emitted a low growl of satisfaction, and Jane reluctantly ate her smile, inscrutability and all.
Darn it.

In less time than it normally took her to tie her shoe, he'd sunk all of his remaining stripes and then called his shot on the eight ball.

Tough shot,
thought Jane as she downed some more of her beer.
He'd be lucky to make it.
Without warning, two ounces of the lager unexpectedly poured down her windpipe instead of her gullet. Her lungs went haywire and forced the liquid back up with a vengeance—right as Dom stroked through.

The cue ball hurtled completely off the table as his stick hit it low down and center. It made a single dull bounce and then rolled under a couple of tables and
all the way to the bar, where it hit a contractor on his paint-spattered heel.

The man and his two buddies turned and sent Dom a scathing glance, even engaged as he was in slapping Jane on the back. Their opinion was clear: what kind of moron sent a billiard ball sailing across the room?

Dominic scowled and
thwacked
her with a little too much gusto. “Are you okay?”

Jane nodded and panted, then resumed coughing.

“Did you—”
whack
“—do that—”
whack
“—on purpose?”
Whack.

“No!” Jane was pretty sure she'd already coughed up one lung, but she tried valiantly to keep the other one down.

“Are you sure? Because you realize that you just won the game.”

“I don't—”
cough, hack
“—play that dirty!”
Cough, cough.

“But you admit to playing a
little dirty,
then.”

Cough, hack, cough, hack, hack, cough.
“Look, will you just get me some water?”

“Sure, if you'll promise to drink it and not breathe it.”

“Bite me—”
hack, hack
“—Sayers.”

He brought her the water, which she accepted gratefully. Once she was breathing normally again, she cleared her throat and worked up a good glare for him. “I can't believe you think I did that deliberately.”

He pursed his lips.

“I suppose you're going to demand that we play that shot over? That's just
soooooo
convenient for you.”

“Excuse me?” His eyes glinted dangerously.

She cleared her throat one final time. “How do I know,” she asked, “that you're not taking advantage of
me?
”

He loomed over her, coming so close that she was forced to back up against the pool table. For punctuation, he slapped one hand on either side of her. She almost squeaked, feeling like a ball in a pocket of Dominic.

His jaw angled, his mouth swooped closer and he seemed to inhale her.
God!
What was the man going to do? Bite off her nose? Sink his teeth into her neck, vampire-style? Kiss her?
Oh, yes, please.

His voice stroked her spine and tickled her ears again. “I don't need,” he growled, “to take advantage of women. Understand?”

Um. Yeah. Message received, loud and clear.
But…would he change his mind about that if the woman in question were to, say,
beg?
Again she restrained an unseemly squeak.

Dominic, satisfied that he had made his point, flashed her a wolfish grin and stepped away, leaving her bereft of his heat. Hoo, boy. Her heartbeat spiked in a musical crescendo and took off again in some sort of crazy Dixieland swing. If she were indeed a ball, one stroke from Dom's shaft would send her caroming all over the bed and into the rails.

Really, Jane—you shouldn't be thinking about
strokes from Dom's shaft.
The whole concept left her a little breathless, even in terms of pool.
Mind over matter.
Especially when the matter is on the verge of delicious, decadent mutiny.

“I'll give you that game,” Dom said, “if we play best of three.”

“Hey, hey, hey! You're not
giving
me anything, thank you very much. You screwed up and I won.”

Dom shot her a look that said clearly,
I know what I'd like to give you. And it starts with a big O.

She squirmed.

“Fine,” he said. “Let's see who wins the next two. And I think we should each bet on the outcome, just to raise the stakes.”

“I don't play for money.”

“You mentioned that. So what
will
you put on the line if not your wallet?”

She took a deep breath. “What do you want?”

“Oh, Jane. You know what I want.”

“That's not a game to me.”

He raised a brow. “You sure have been playing something. What is it if not a game?”

You. I've been playing you.
But she wasn't going to say it aloud.
And you've been playing me. And God only knows where it'll land us, but I intend to win.

“No answer for me, Jane?”