he asked, his eyebrows shooting upward. “By yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Not with friends?”
She frowned. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, if you must know.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody likes a tattletale, Luke,” she said, not meaning to echo her sister’s words. Not meaning to reveal so much about herself. But echo them she did.
Her stomach sank, her hands getting a little bit clammy.
“Were you a tattletale, Olivia?” he asked, humor in his voice. Clearly, he didn’t understand that they were treading on very bad memories for her.
When everything she had wanted had been at odds with everything she had been. When she had tried so hard to be both good and accepted, and found that she could only be one.
“Yes,” she said, her teeth locked together. “I was. And so I played alone a lot, so I spent time at my parents’ house in the basement playing darts. And I threw them and threw them and threw them until I could hit a bull’s-eye every time. So you’re never going to beat me. You’re never going to throw me off my game, Luke Hollister. It’s going to take more than invading my personal space to throw me.”
“You were pretty thrown, darlin’. I just think you’re that good at darts.”
“I wasn’t,” she insisted, “not at all.”
“You sure about that?”
Ugh. That cocky smile of his. It made her want to... It made her want to something, and she didn’t know what. That was Luke in a nutshell for her. He made her feel restless and strange. Made her feel like her skin was too tight. And she had no idea what she was supposed to do with any of it.
Worse, she had no idea how to ignore it.
“Yes. I’m completely sure.”
“Want to place a wager?” he asked, his grin getting that wicked bent to it that never failed to make her stomach a bit tighter, never failed to send a little shot of adrenaline through her.
She couldn’t predict him, that was the problem. Because as they’d discussed earlier, he didn’t answer to anyone.
This was dangerous, and she knew it. He was playing games with her, and she felt as though they were the kinds of games she might not actually know the rules to. But she was also angry that he had affected her, and angry that he had stepped on vulnerable places inside of her.
That anger propelled her forward.
“Sure.” She tried to sound casual. Unconcerned, even.
“All right,” he said. “We are going to do a little experiment. And then you’re going to throw the dart, and try to hit the bull’s-eye.”
“Fine.”
He held up the shot of whiskey, extending it to her. “You want me to throw the dart after I take a shot?” She laughed. “First of all, are we in high school? Are you peer pressuring me to drink? And second of all, that’s not even a challenge.”
“Oh, kiddo.” He lifted his glass and pressed it to his lips, tilting it back, taking the whiskey down in one swallow.
She gaped at him, confused.
His mouth turned up at the sides in a smile she was sure was meant to be an answer, but only raised more questions inside of her.
“You’re a lightweight, I assume,” he continued, “since you claim you don’t drink often. It wouldn’t be very sporting of me to expect you to throw a dart after you take a whole big bad shot of whiskey. But I do think you should have a taste.”
And before she could protest, before she knew what was happening, Luke had wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his body, where she was staring at those lips again. And then, he was closing the distance between them.
LUKE HOLLISTER WAS kissing her.
He was only the second man to kiss her. The second man to ever put his mouth against hers. But at the moment, she couldn’t even compare the two experiences. She was frozen, and Luke was still, too, but he was... Him.
He tasted like Luke. Like sunshine and hard work. Like whiskey that lingered on his lips. And like a whole lot of trouble.
It was more than just taste, more than just the strange sensation of a mouth that was an unfamiliar shape pressed against hers. It transcended those physical things.
And it went somewhere deeper.
She was on fire. Melting. Her legs were weak, her stomach trembling. It was as if she had never been kissed before at all. That’s how different it was.
His hand was so big, and it was pressed against her lower back, like he owned her. His other hand came up to cup her face—rough, callused—skimming over her cheekbone. He didn’t take the kiss deeper. Didn’t part her lips.
It was over in less than a second.
A chaste kiss. A simple kiss.
That left nothing chaste or simple remaining in her entire body.
There was a pulse pounding insistently between her legs, a slick wetness that had built up in defiance of everything she knew about herself. Her heart was pounding, her breasts heavy, her nipples tightened into painful points.
It was over. Over long before she was able to move or think or react at all. Over long before she realized they were still standing in the middle of the Gold Valley saloon, rather than in some moment that existed outside of space and time.
Luke Hollister had just kissed her in front of everyone.
Bennett was there. She remembered that too late. She remembered everything too late. Including why they were doing this. Of course. He was making a show, as he had promised he would do. And he was definitely trying to get a rise out of her, which she expected, because he was Luke.
All of that made sense. Except none of it made sense. Not inside of her anyway.
“Throw the dart,” he said, his mouth so close to hers it would take nothing for her lips to touch his again. Nothing at all.
Then he withdrew, taking a step back and leaning against the table again, all cocky arrogance and that kind of masculine swagger she hated. She did. She hated it. And right now she was pretty sure she might hate him, too.
She turned away from him, drew her arm back and threw the dart. And it missed.
She hadn’t missed a bull’s-eye without meaning to in more than ten years.
Hot, angry tears pricked her eyes but she refused to let them fall. Because that was just stupid. This was a game. That
