Page 3 of If You Dare

He’d leaned in, his nose almost touching hers, and had given her a sexy half-smile. “I knew it.” Then he straightened, taking her breath with him, before focusing on the table.

“I’ll bet you I could,” she’d found herself arguing. Her voice had been smaller than she would’ve liked, but she boldly met his eyes. Sort of.

He grinned, and her gaze trickled down to the dimple indenting his left cheek. She’d stared at it a beat too long, wondering idly how a guy with whitened teeth and supple lips could still look rugged and manly.

“All night?” His innuendo-loaded question had sent her blood pumping fast through her veins. She briefly envisioned what he would be like all night—in her bed, under her or on top. It’d been a while since she’d been in bed with anyone other than her vibrator, so that had been a tempting thought.

So, she’d imagined. Just for fun. Just for a second.

She wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to learn that he took his time exploring her body. Or if he drew long, slow lines down her limbs with his tongue like he did when he set pencil to paper. She’d noticed the way he savored each and every line he sketched. The careful way he cradled the pencil, the smooth way his hand slid over his design. The sound of the lead scraping the paper had made her imagine his stubble scraping her neck the same way…

Or my breasts.

“Your break,” he said.

She snapped out of the fantasy.

“You didn’t answer me.”

It had taken her a full five seconds to recall what they’d been talking about. Her imagination had snagged on the vision of his mouth on hers, and she was having a hard time letting it go. Dragging her eyes from his face, she chalked the end of her cue stick with way, way too much concentration. “Yes. All night.”

“You’re on.” He slid past her, his chest brushing her shoulder. “Hundred bucks.”

She moved away from him, palming her throat to catch her breath. The scratch of his voice, his very presence, had thrown her majorly off-kilter. With a renewed sense of purpose, she leaned over the billiards table.

Infusing her own voice with confidence, she said, “Come on, Marcus. We just made thousands of bucks from our bonuses on the London account. A bet like this one calls for higher stakes.” She cracked the cue ball into the center of the arranged balls. Her shot did little more than roll the colorful orbs a few inches from their original resting places.

Lame.

He’d grasped her hips with his wide, warm hands to move her to one side. That had danced on the line of “inappropriate” but it hadn’t felt inappropriate to her. She’d wanted to back her ass into his crotch. Drop her head onto his chest. Maybe rub against him a little bit… When she might have done just that, he moved to her left, robbing her of his heat and attention, and positioned himself over the cue ball.

A fine sheen of sweat had lingered on her brow, and she reached for her drink, unsure if the beer would help or hinder her at this point, but not caring either way.

“Fine.” He shot her a look laced with dark promises. “A thousand bucks.”

She had cleared her throat and adjusted her skirt as if she could wipe away the twin heated imprints of his hands on her body. The look in his eyes made her wonder for a split second if she wouldn’t regret sleeping with him after all. Even if it was one stolen night. Then she reminded herself of her last workplace tragedy and decided that sex with a coworker was so not the move.

He leaned over the table, his dark jeans outlining his perfect butt. She noticed the way his snug cotton T-shirt molded over one muscular shoulder as he drew back the pool cue. She couldn’t help herself. And she’d further justified that, as a card-carrying member of the I-like-men club, it was her duty to appreciate a specimen as fine as Marcus. So long as she kept her clothes on when he was around, no harm, no foul.

Proving his body was for more than just admiring, his shot smacked into the balls and scattered them across the table with a satisfying crack! A solid red ball sank into one corner and a solid blue one dropped into the side pocket.

But of course.

“You have big ones.” A smile tilted his lips.

“Excuse me?”

“Stripes,” he said. “They look bigger than the solids.”

“Oh.” She shook her head to get her brain back online. Note to self: Tequila makes attractive men appear infinitely more attractive.

They’d been discussing something before she’d lost time ogling him… Oh, right. The bet. If not money, what? Then she dug an idea out of the part of her brain not marinating in Jose Cuervo. “Hawaii.”

His aim slipped, sending the white ball into the corner pocket. He straightened, his smile vanishing as if dry-erased from his face. “I won that trip fair and square.”

“That’s debatable.”

Joanie and Clive had intended the trip as a second honeymoon, until Clive learned he’d be at a work-related conference that weekend. The Camerons put their trip on the line as a reward to the designer who won the most accounts in two months. Both fierce competitors, Lily and Marcus had been neck and neck the entire time…until Marcus won by one account.