on her cue. “Like what?”
He stood, looming over her, forcing her to tip her head to see his face. Well, the underside of his chin at least. God, it was gorgeous. A gorgeous chin. “How about…a dare?”
That shimmy again. A cold-hot ripple through her womb. “A-a dare?” She forced herself to appear blasé, though she felt anything but.
“Sure.” He bent closer. So close she could taste the earthy beer on his breath. “You seem like a daring sort. Besides…I owe you.” A whisper. Then he grinned. It was a wicked offering that made dread crawl up her spine. Or maybe not dread…
Whatever. The heat made her uncomfortable, so she snorted. Glanced away.
It was as though he knew her. Knew she couldn’t resist a dare. She never could. She fiddled with her cue. His eyes tracked the motion. His tongue peeped out to wet his lower lip. As though he was thinking about tasting…something.
“Okay,” she said at long last. “What kind of dare?”
He cleared his throat. “If I win…” his lips curled up at that. “You tell me your name.”
Tara blinked. That was not the dare she’d been expecting. She’d been expecting him to ask her to finish what she’d started the last time they tangled. Anticipating that, perhaps. “My name?”
“The whole name and nothing but the name.”
“And if I win?”
He shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
She studied him for a moment running scenarios in her head. Oh, there were a couple things that leapt to mind. Crowded her mind, in fact. She pressed them away. She was still infuriated with him over that piss poor review. He should suffer a little bit; a mere fraction of the mortification she’d felt when she’d read that blog. What would mortify a big, manly man like Devlin Fox? Ah, yes.
“The Macarena.”
He blinked. “The…Macarena?”
“Yup. Here. Now. In this bar. You do the Macarena.” She leaned in and hissed, “With no music.”
His chin firmed with what she imagined was determined resolve. He moved closer until they were nearly nose-to-nose, until she could see the sea-foam flecks in his irises. “I can handle that.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
She nodded. “Let’s play.”
“Let’s do this thing.” He bent over the table and took his shot. The crack of the break echoed in the room. Three striped balls rolled into pockets as though he were the puppet master and they were on strings.
Tara frowned, suspecting he’d been sandbagging her in the last game. When he missed the next shot, she stepped up to the table. Concentrating hard, she took her shot. S he sank the seven, five and three in succession, but the one banked of the edge of the corner pocket. Damn.
He aimed for the eleven and sank it. Then the fifteen. And the nine. He had one ball left, not counting the eight ball. Sweat beaded her brow. She wiped her palms on her jeans. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. They were only playing for a name. Her name. But she desperately wanted to see him dance the Macarena. She desperately wanted to beat him.
When he missed on the twelve, her breath came out in a whoosh. Marshalling her reserves, she focused and dropped the four, two and six. Then the one. She rounded the table heading for the eight, her final ball. With flawless form, she nailed it.
The crow of victory was probably not necessary, but it felt damn good.
She turned to him with a smirk. Drew a saucy circle with her finger. “Dance.”
A blush crept up his cheeks. He laid his cue on the table and launched into a credible version of the Macarena—one arm out, then the other, palms upturned—then to the hips. All the while, whispering the words to himself.
Her response was a barked laugh, a trill of exhilaration—because he was doing it. And damn, was he cute. But when he got to the hip wiggle, her laugh petered out as another emotion engulfed her. Another vision—a fantasy—filled her muddled mind. A vision that had been hovering there,