Page 11 of Tricky Puck

“Sing something for me.”

“I would, but I’m not a singer.”

“Nice way to deflect a dare.”

She shakes her head, not rising to the bait. Good thing I like a challenge. In fact, I’m fucking excited about the challenge of Delaney. One way or another, I will get her to sing for me tonight. The idea takes hold of my balls and ratchets up my already interested cock. Fuck. I glance at my empty glass of whiskey, but I don’t pour another measure. I want more control over myself, not less.

She takes a slug of her whiskey, draining her glass, and I know she’s taunting me by the gleam in her eye.

“I haven’t given a performance since I sang in the church choir when I was ten.”

Studying her, I calm down because she’s playing this game and playing well. “Church choir, eh? Shit. I don’t remember the last time I was in church except for a wedding or a funeral.”

“Same. It’s been a minute. Now, the only place I sing is at my family’s bar—and that’s only by special request of a limited few.”

I ignore the bait of the so-called limited few because I intend to be one of them, and something tells me she reads my intentions. “A family bar? More my speed than a church choir.”

“Same.”

“So, you can sing, but you have no aspirations to be a singer?”

“I didn’t say I could sing. Besides, I like writing songs. That’s where the money is, don’t you know?”

She’s holding back. There’s a story here. I take a gamble and tell her what I think.

“You don’t care about the money. Underneath your barstool exterior, you’re a poet.”

Four

DELANEY

He called me a poet. A frisson of excitement strikes deep—deeper than the mind-blowing strike when I first saw him, the strike that landed me in the fight or flight mode—and I mean flight straight into his arms, attached to him like a cat in heat, like a girl verging on dying of thirst seeing a blue lake of possibilities and not worrying that it could be a mirage.

Needless to say, I chose the fight impulse.

Apparently, to no avail, because here I am at the same spot, wanting to leap at him as the sole source of thirst-quenching relief for the seriously underestimated parched state of my pussy.

Licking my lips as I stare into his eyes like he’s a snake charmer—or a charmer of women committed to bachelorette-hood—same thing—I gather up all the self-preserving snake poison I have in me to repel him.

“Suppose I am a poet, what of it?”

“Touché.” He leans in, his hands moving across the table past his empty glass toward my hands, but not touching. I fight the impulse to pull my hands back—or to grab his and pull myself over the table. He adds, “It means we have nothing in common.”

He pretends not to care while I alternately cheer in agreement and despair at the lost chance to mate with my one true lust partner. Either way, I recognize out-of-control hormones taking control when I feel them and attempt to impose my drowning power of reason, throwing it a lifeline made of the scraps of memories from recent experiences.

“If you believe that, I sense you’re the kind of guy who’d have up and left by now—on some pretense that would’ve saved you from seeming like a total asshole, of course.”

“So you think I’m a total asshole?” He pauses for a blink, presumably for me to clear up his misunderstanding, which I don’t. “Then why are you still here?”

Touché. Fuck. I open my mouth out of respect for the rules of the game of sparring that we’re engaged in, hoping with the damaged vestiges of my optimistic origins that something brilliant will pop to mind—no, make that pop past my compromised mind and straight to my mouth—in response.

Blinking in hopes that his triumphant smirk, with its dangerously deep dimple, is about to disappear on the heels of my yet-to-materialize brilliant repartee, my pulse ratchets up. I can only hope some of that racing blood is going to my empty head.

Instead of speaking, I jump to a stand, my flight response finally kicking in for real, self-preservation winning out over my sexual arousal.

His eyes widen slightly and very temporarily, and for one single quick beat of my heart, I see his surprise, his disappointment, and his admiration before his unprecedented confidence banishes it all with skepticism.

“Going somewhere?”