needed to pace herself with the beer or, the way her mind was buzzing all around from the nearness of Gunnar, she might get into trouble. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was only eleven.
Midway through the game, she made a decent shot but, feeling a little tipsy, lost her balance. She leaned against Gunnar since he was close by, and since he felt so darn nice, she put her head on his chest for a second. He wrapped a hand around her waist but immediately let go once she was back on her own two feet.
Do not make a fool of yourself. It’s dishonorable to act foolish. Her father’s mantra drilled through her thoughts. Concentrate on the game. Win!
The game progressed. They spontaneously bumped hips after his next good shot and high-fived on hers, but he cheated. He pulled his arm in just enough so her chest touched his when their palms met. Dirty trick, but zing-oh-zing! She liked touching his chest with her breasts.
So Officer Dudley Do-Right played dirty with a few beers under his belt. But she’d also noticed he’d forgotten about his last beer. She needed to do the same, to stay on her toes, but unfortunately his sex appeal was throwing her too far off balance for that.
He won the game, and came around the table grinning to collect a winner’s high five. She had an overwhelming urge to forget the victory slap and surprise him with a full-on mouth kiss, but fortunately came to her senses before she acted on it.
As their palms slapped together, and he didn’t pull his dirty trick a second time, their eyes met and held for several beats, the pool game all but forgotten. After lowering their now-interlocked fingers, neither of them moved, instead they stood staring at each other.
“Come on, come on, come on, you gonna play another game or stand there drooling on each other?” One of the guys impatiently waiting for a pool table broke the magical moment, which—considering Lilly’s continuous urge to kiss Gunnar—could have gotten out of hand at any given second.
Gunnar cleared his throat, gestured for her to take the first shot then racked the balls. Thank goodness he was a gentleman because right about now she couldn’t begin to remember what it was like to be a lady. Sorry, Mom. She must be out of her mind to think about making out with a practical stranger in a bar on her first Friday night in town. Yet it was foremost in her mind and completely doable if she deemed it. Wasn’t that what Daddy had always taught her? Set a goal. Go for it. Let nothing get in the way.
Between her and Gunnar’s lips?
“Okay, okay,” he said to the impatient guy, sounding diplomatic as all hell. “The last game.” But he nailed her with a heated look—it melted into her center and spread like warm fingers stroking her hips.
“Let’s do it,” she said, breathless, thinking she could be up for almost anything tonight as long as it included Gunnar Norling. “Can we get another round here?”
Olaf’s wife was passing by but Gunnar intercepted and ordered a couple of waters and coffee instead.
Okay, she got his point, but that was taking his job too far. Was the guy ever off duty?
Truth was Lilly had no intention of drinking another drop of beer anyway—she knew her boundaries—but she needed Gunnar to get a little looser-lipped. Not that his lips and everything else about him weren’t doing a great job already. But maybe next time when she brought up the meetings, if he had another beer, he’d at least admit to taking part in them. That would be a start. Then she could begin to slowly and meticulously strip him down to the truth.
She leaned on her pool cue as the journalistic euphemism morphed into pure, unadulterated sex thoughts with Gunnar stripped down and standing buck naked at the center of them. Almost losing her balance and falling off the stick, she swallowed and looked at her shoes, hoping he hadn’t seen it, or couldn’t read her mind, or notice her tell—burning, red-hot ears.
He scratched the corner of his mouth.
Before the water and coffee came she reached for her beer, but soon realized Gunnar had moved hers far out of reach. Was he worried about her? Heck, she was a big girl, could handle her liquor. If his gesture hadn’t seemed so darn sweet and protective, she might have flashed her feminist membership card, ripped into him about being a chauvinist and suggested he mind his own business.
Instead, she took her sexual frustration and went all competitive. In the heat of the faster-paced game, they touched a lot, whether intentional or not, she couldn’t tell and definitely didn’t mind, but each and every time it kept her nerve endings on alert and craving more.
In between pool shots, she tried to dial things back a notch by bringing up old family pets. She told him her favorite pet story from when she was a kid. Her favorite pet was a Chihuahua from a puppy mill store that won her over with the offering of a tiny paw. She’d named it Chitcha, then explained that was Japanese for tiny and her grandmother still called her Chitcha to this very day. She liked how he repeated the name, Chitcha, as if memorizing the word.
His favorite pet turned out to be a stray cat named Smelly, whom he’d found while he walked home from school one day. The homeless cat was half-dead and hosting a dozen abscesses. According to Gunnar, that red tabby lived fifteen years with his family.
Knowing he was the kind of guy to rescue a stray cat made her go all gooey inside.
They played on, and she enjoyed getting to know a bit more about this man who, despite a couple of close calls, continued to act the gentleman—except for the high-five incident, which would really be unforgiveable if she hadn’t enjoyed it as much as he apparently had.
Good thing he’d ordered the coffee because the drinking had definitely caught up to her. The bar had taken on the appearance of golden-warm tones, fuzzy around the edges and a little distant, and Gunnar looked like the sexiest man on earth—probably was.
Something about Gunnar made her edgy, though, like he was the kind of guy a girl could fall really hard for. Most men his age would already be married if they wanted to be. Her journalistic intuition told her he wasn’t the committing kind. Nah, he was too charming and smooth around ladies, well, around this lady anyway, proving he’d had a lot of experience. Which would be par for the course in Lilly’s world, since none of her boyfriends ever had the least bit of interest in commitment.
Nope. This guy could be trouble.
The best way to deal with Gunnar would be professionally, journalist to cop. She had to break him down, and after this game she’d make her move. She’d invite him somewhere closer to her hotel for coffee and quiet conversation. This time, instead of relying on a pool hall and beer, she’d use more of her hard-earned journalistic prowess and throw in a few more naturally acquired wily ways to get him to open up.
Charm didn’t come second nature to her, like it did with him, but she could pull it off if she had to. For the sake of her story.
He won the game and since she was still feeling pretty darn good from her last beer, and was in close enough proximity, she decided to give him another high five. In order to do that, she had to move toward him. Shifting from where she stood to Gunnar felt the way slow-motion photography looked, with streaks of light trailing the object. Boy, she should have eaten more of the chips and salsa. She stopped, shook her head and regained her balance.
“Whoa, hold on there, Chitcha.” He steadied her with hands on her shoulders. “You okay?”
Amused, she chose to think he’d
