it had been darts.
She had spent hours fiddling with them down in her dad’s man cave in their house. Countless times when Vanessa had decided that she was too cool for Olivia and all of her rule following, when she had gone out with her other friends. When she had decided that drinking and sex were far more important than having a bond with her sister.
When Olivia had ended up grounded because she’d come home a few minutes too late, or her grades had slipped and it had caused her parents to tighten their restrictions on her, while Vanessa ran absolutely wild, uncaring if she was grounded or not.
Olivia had thrown any kind of silent frustration she had felt into sticking that sharp pin into the corkboard. Into watching that dart fly straight and true and land exactly where she wanted it. Control. Even in all those muddled, mixed-up feelings, she had found control. Had found a way to channel them. And God knew that had to be better. Better than simply exploding and getting messy emotion all over the people that you were supposed to love and care about. Better than going off and doing whatever you wanted.
Her parents had been hard on her. Harder, in the end, than they were on Vanessa. But hadn’t she turned out better for it?
Olivia hadn’t disregarded their parents’ warnings.
Olivia had played darts.
“Okay,” he said. “Now you have to tell me where you learned.”
She tossed her hair, shooting him a smile. “I don’t have to tell you anything, cowboy. Because I hit the bull’s-eye. And I’m going to keep hitting the bull’s-eye. All night long.”
A strange crackle of tension arced between them and she felt as though she was electrocuted by her next breath.
She looked away from him, and her eyes automatically went to Bennett’s table. He was looking at them. He really was. He was looking at her and Luke and he was not happy.
Their eyes caught for a moment and her breath hitched. It wasn’t the same kind of tension that she felt standing there with Luke, but it was a strange adrenaline rush. That she was accomplishing this. That she, Olivia Logan, who was quite possibly the polar opposite of a femme fatale, was somehow managing to draw attention. To cause friction. Make a man jealous.
She noticed then that Kaylee was looking at Bennett, and then that she looked up at Olivia. The look was filled with so much anger that it made Olivia’s breath catch in an entirely different way.
She flicked her attention back to Luke. “I’d say that we’re drawing the focus of the crowd,” she said softly.
“Good,” he said, not looking over at Bennett’s table at all. “That’s what you wanted.” He leaned back against their table, resting his forearms there, his hands dangling loosely over the sides. His green eyes were fixed on her. “You going to go again?”
“Of course,” she said. She whirled around and faced the dartboard and brought her arm back one more time, zeroing in on that bull’s-eye. Letting go of everything except for the target. She threw the dart and it landed satisfyingly right where she wanted it.
If only life were like darts.
“Good,” he said, “one more, and then it’s my turn.”
“Yes, I do know how it works, Luke. Thank you.”
“Bull’s-eye,” he said, “or you have to tell me how you learned to play.”
She snorted. “I’m not even worried.”
She turned away from him, facing the dartboard. And suddenly, she felt heat at her back. And then a large hand resting on her hip. He leaned over her shoulder, his lips near her ear. “I just want to see how it’s done. How exactly you’re standing. You know, I’m not anywhere near as good at this as you are. So, it would help if I could observe. If you could teach me.”
She froze completely, her whole body going rigid like a board. The place he was touching her, on her hip, felt like it was on fire. So hot, the press of his palm against her so heavy that she could hardly breathe. That was reasonable, right? That it was the weight of it on her hip... Affecting her ability to breathe?
Her heart was thundering erratically, and when she lifted her hand again, it was unsteady. Her pulse was fluttering hard at the base of her throat, and more disturbingly there was an answering pulse between her thighs.
“I’m not distracting you, am I?” His breath was warm on her neck, and that was a very strange sort of intimacy. His breath against her skin. She could honestly say there was only one man whose breath she had ever felt. And it was not Luke Hollister.
“I’m fine,” she said, not willing to admit that he was affecting her at all. She didn’t want to give him that satisfaction. But then, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to throw a dart when her entire person was trembling like she was an overly excited rat terrier.
Olivia had never been accused of being overly excited in her life. She was hardly going to start behaving in such a way now.
She took a deep breath, her stomach twisting sharply. Then she lifted her arm, raising the dart back. She tried to zero her focus in on that little red dot at the center. To block out everything around her. But there was his heat. His lips so very close to her ear, his hand resting all proprietary and possessive on her hip.
Possessive.
What an odd word, except it was the one that fit. That’s what it felt as though he had done. As though he had walked up and claimed possession of her in some way. And she should be okay with that. It should be what she wanted. The kind of display she was after.
But it felt terrifying and somehow outside the bounds of the game she knew they were playing. Somehow different than what they were trying to accomplish. She didn’t like it at all.
And if she showed him that he was affecting her, if she missed the shot, there was going to be a lot more of it and she knew it. He might be claiming to help her out, but somewhere underneath all of that, she had a feeling that it was more of Luke messing with her. Why, she didn’t know. She only knew that he seemed to take joy in it. And if nothing else she wanted to deprive him of a little bit of joy.
She let out a long, slow breath and ignored the fact that it was a bit shuddery. A bit shaky.
Then she drew the dart back and let it fly. She gave out a whoop of triumph when it hit the bull’s-eye, even though it was resting just on the edge of that red, it was definitely there.
She whirled around without thinking, and brought herself nearly nose to nose with Luke.
“I hit it,” she said, all the breath leaving her body as she stared into those green eyes. As the nerves in her face lit up like a power grid, every part of herself feeling electric and bright with him right there. She was conscious again of those whiskers that covered his face, just evidence of a long day spent working, a shave that had happened some twelve hours before.
And the shape of his lips.
The way the top lip dipped sharply in the middle, and the lower was fuller.
“I played darts in my father’s basement,” she said in a rush, taking a step backward from him.
If she
