Page 63 of Double Bucked

“Chaps?” James interjects.

I click my tongue. “Wasn’t talking to you, Mary Poppins.”

James has an uneasy expression on his face—but he can get fucked, honestly.

Claire and I are locked in battle, and she’s only got eyes for me right now.

Her pale cheeks have a soft, red glow. The rickety ceiling fan blows a tassel of unrestrained hair against her pouting lips.

What I would do to those lips.

Claire at her worst is, unfortunately, the Claire that makes my heart beat the fastest.

We were good at loving. At fucking. But, damn?—

We were always best at fighting.

I rack up the balls. When she looks at me with those intense, gray-sky eyes, I feel her gaze singe the hair up arms like an electric current.

Being this close to her hurts. In my chest. In my groin. Cock and heart swelling to the limits of their confines. I know better. I know I ain’t doing anything but hurting myself by testing these lines. Yet, like some idiot dog choking itself on its own leash, I can’t stop pulling.

“Bitches break,” I tell her.

She motions to the rack. “Then be my guest.”

I take off the rack, line up my shot, and hit it.

Balls click and go scattering. I’ve got solids.

Claire might have the mean streak of a perfectionist robot…

But I’ve got the slow grind of someone who had nothing better to do with his free time than come down to Maeby’s and play round after round of pool.

And I’m fucking good.

I sink three balls before I miss. Claire rounds the table like a lioness on the hunt. Her fingertips graze the green velvet.

“Wiley, Wiley, Wiley,” she muses. “What should we play for?”

Wiley. I bite back a cringe at the nickname. Goddammit, Jade. Stop helping.

“You tell me.”

She finds an angle that suits her and lines up her shot. “Money wouldn’t be fair. It means more in your pocket than it does mine.”

“Whatever you say, princess.”

Fun fact: Claire’s got a kink for arms.

At least, she used to.

I test my theory by unbuttoning my wrist cuff and rolling the sleeve up over my elbow. Sure enough, her eyes flicker from the table to the dark hair that climbs my exposed forearm.

She hits. It’s a miss. My turn.

As I line up my shot, she asks, “What about Miss Penny?”

The cue jumps in my hand. It knocks the ball out of place, sailing past its target. “You said you wouldn’t get rid of her.”

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