Read Toeing the Line (The Complete Serial) for Free Online

to pretend I know what I’m doing and that you’re just more pro than me,” he said.
    “Unless something’s changed, you really can’t.” Her tone was playful, and her smile had returned. She grabbed a couple of different cues, tested their weight, and then handed him one, before pulling hers from its case and piecing it together.
    He fumbled to hold the stick right, but her cringe told him the impossible positions he kinked his fingers into weren’t the right ones. She set her cue aside and covered his hand with hers. A pleasant warmth rushed through him at the contact. She positioned his grip in a more natural way. Her touch lingered, palm soft and inviting against the back of his hand.
    “It was for ethical reasons.” The admission slipped out before he could stop it. “Me turning down the CIA job.”
    “Oh.” She dropped her hand and stepped away. “I think you’ve got it. Want to try taking a shot?”
    “Not really. You show me how.”
    He shouldn’t have said that. It was going to be tough enough to get things back to normal between them. Now a secret that really only needed to haunt him was trying to force its way out. She knew he’d been on the front line overseas, but for the most part, they never talked about the details. He tended to change the subject, and she never pushed.
    She racked up the balls and set the cue ball a few feet back. The way she moved was flawless, as she slid into the correct posture and lined up her angle. She knocked off her shot, and colored balls scattered across the table to bounce off rubber bumpers. Three of them slid into pockets.
    At least he knew she’d kick his ass. It almost took the edge off. Zane snorted. “That was the equivalent of showing me a scribble next to a Rembrandt, then telling me to just add shading, to make one into the other.” He dropped his stick on the table. “We should go back to the air hockey.”
    “You’re overthinking it.” She maneuvered next to him and put the cue back in his hand. “Relax, and just take your shot.” She grabbed the white ball from where it had landed, inches from a pocket, and set it back in the center of the table.
    She stood close enough he felt her heat and smelled the sharp tang of cherry. He tried to ignore his body’s response, as he bent at the waist. “It’s war, right? Things happen.” Great. She was within pin-her-to-the-wall-and-kiss-her-until-they-couldn’t-breathe proximity, and he was talking about his demons. Rather than dwell on the past, he pushed the stick toward its target. The cue head bounced off the felt and jumped over the ball instead of hitting it.
    “Try again.”
    He sighed and repositioned himself. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so picky about the job. I don’t have any actual qualifications to do what I do. Not like real-world experience.” The words tasted foul. What the fuck was his problem?
    “Because what you did doesn’t count as experience? I mean I know you can’t give me specifics, but to keep you interested for so long, it had to be intense.”
    He’d tried to make the same point to the interviewer. Sort of. “That’s the problem. It’s not really the kind of thing I’m able to go into detail about. You know, they say, tell me about a time you solved a really big problem that saved an employer money. I’m not exactly allowed to share those kinds of details, so when I say, I did some stuff with computers, and it was really high-end, I promise, the claim is a bit hard to swallow.”
    He held up the cue in frustration. “Are you going to show me how to do this right, or not?”
    “Fine.” She let out a mock sigh. Moving next to him again, she positioned his left hand properly. She settled her right arm against his and rested her chest against his back. She pressed her cheek against his bicep, helping him line up the cue. “I’d go on about angle and trajectory and all that, but for me it’s instinct.” She pulled back his arm and helped him take the