by Lexy Timms
“Well, hell, I do live here,” Hawk groused.
“Brah, you haven’t even turned back the covers on your bed yet.”
“Oh,” Hawk laughed. “I thought you did that.”
“I’m not the help, asshole.”
“Really, ‘cause you’re doing a good imitation by all that broom-pushing you’re doing.”
“Fuck you.”
Against his better judgment, he pulled a domestic from the cooler and set it on the table next to the couch. But Hawk was persistent.
“It’s that chick,” Hawk said, “isn’t it?”
“What chick?” Saks said, with as much disinterest as he could muster.
“That blonde at the hospital.”
“Was there a blonde?”
Hawk snorted. “I’ve never seen you grin, until today, when that woman showed up at the elevator.”
“What are you talking about? I smile all the time.”
“Bro, you make Spock look emo.”
Saks scoffed. Hawk’s charms were fast wearing thin, especially since Saks was on edge waiting for Chrissy to show.
For a woman who had flown seven hours on an intercontinental flight, she’d looked hot. Dressed in a very business-professional gray suit with a scoop-neck cream shirt, she’d appeared every inch the librarian type. But her shapely legs in black hose and black spike heels were definitely not that. An image of Chrissy’s legs wrapped around his waist made him grip the broom handle tight enough to make his knuckles turn white.
In his dirty flash fantasy, he tore open the crotch of her hose and buried his face in her sweetness, lapping her cream, and breathing in her sexy musk. And just as it had done all day, his cock twitched. It grew hard as he imagined her head tossing, and her fingers curling in ecstasy around his bedpost while she called his name.
A sharp rap on the door snapped Saks out of his reverie.
“I’ll get it,” Hawk said as he pushed off the couch with a groan
Good. The kid should do something other than sitting around on his ass.
Saks put away the broom and the dustpan in the closet in the step-up alcove recessed from the main bar. Here, painted on the furthest wall, was the logo for the Hades Spawn with was a skull with wings. Two pool tables sat here, tables he’d taken to keep himself occupied while he waited for his life to straighten out.
It was taking a long fucking time.
“Well, hello,” Hawk greeted in an overly-solicitous voice.
“Is Saks here?” a woman queried.
His heart raced in his chest. Chrissy. Damn, she came.
“Yeah. He’s in the pool corner.”
“Where’s that?”
“That way, darling.”
Chrissy’s heels clicked on the laminate flooring. Quickly Saks whipped a cue off the wall in an attempt to act nonchalant, and pulled the triangle off a rack of balls.
“Hey,” she said, looking up from beside the bar.
“Hi,” he said. Saks smiled when he saw her, and he realized that Hawk was right. He did grin like a fool when she was around.
“Playing pool?”
He shrugged. Like a teenager speaking to a girl for the first time, he got tongue-tied.
“Can a girl get a drink around here?” She smiled, and he melted. What he would give to wrap his arms around her right now.
“Is that all you Serafini say?” he said with a grin.
“Hey. There are only two good purposes for a man. One of them is liquor.”
“That sounds sexist.” He stepped out of the alcove and behind the bar. “What’s the other?”
“Lawn work,” she said, a saucy glint in her eye. Hell, anything she said was provocative. Saks suspected that she could read him the phone book, and he’d get hard at the sound of her voice.
“What do you like? Craft or domestic?”
“Anything wet.”
Oh, damn.
Come over here, baby, said his cock. I got something for you here.
Shut up and act like a grown man.
I am. Why aren’t you?
Saks popped the top on a high-end craft beer and poured it into a glass.
“You’ve got those bartending skills down,” she said.
“I should. I’ve helped at the Red Bull enough times. Family business.”
She took a pull on the amber liquid. Chrissy wore red lipstick, a sexier color than she usually wore, and her flesh pressed the outline of her lips onto the clear glass. He swallowed hard as his prior fantasy of her lips wrapping around his cock filled his head.
“How have you been?” Chrissy asked. “I mean, after the shooting.”
And the entire month you abandoned me? Chrissy’s perfume wafted to his nose, sophisticated and sexy, and thinking became difficult.
“Fine,” he said. Words weren’t coming easily. “And you?” he managed to ease out.
“Great,” she said. But her voice didn’t carry the enthusiasm her word implied. So, things weren’t “great” in James Pearson land?
“How’s your boss?” he pressed.
Chrissy looked away. “It’s a temporary job. My contract is only for a year. I’m earning enough money that I don’t have worry about anything until I find a new one.”
This Saks hadn’t known. It gave his besotted heart a smidgeon of hope. “And then?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been too busy to think about it.”
“Oh.” Saks, on the other hand, had been saddled with way too much extra time that had left him consumed with thoughts of her.
“Have you learned anything about who sent those goombahs to shoot you?”
Saks shook his head. “The leads have grown cold. The guys the police arrested bonded out and disappeared. My cousin’s still working on it, though.”
“Your cousin?”
“Louis Anglotti, one of Westfield’s finest, detective division.”
“Oh. That guy?”
“Yeah. You’ve met him?”
She nodded. “Let’s just say he didn’t leave a favorable impression.”
Saks’ brow pinched. He wondered where she could’ve met him, but by the way she was staring into her beer it didn’t seem there was a chance she was going to explain. “Might explain why he’s still single. Too much ‘on the job’ even when he isn’t.”
“I guess when you’re a detective you have to be. Still, I didn’t make him out to be a Rocco.”
“No one does, not even his bosses. You hear anything more from the Serafini side on this mess?”
“No one’s talking. My grandfather, however, has gone fishing.”
“Fishing?”
“My father would use that word when Grandpa disappeared for a while. So, since my father is in the hospital, I’m thinking it’s the family business type of fishing.”
“Your grandfather is trying to find whoever hired those goons?”
“That’s my guess.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“He’s full of bad ideas. And it worries me. But you can’t stop him, so...”
“Yeah, you can’t stop Uncle Vits either.”
Her face drew into a pensive expression as she ran a manicured finger around the rim of her glass. “Well, I should go.”
Go? When she’d just gotten here? Saks scrambled for an idea to keep her here.
“Come on,” he said. “How about a game of pool?”
She shook her head. “I’m not any good at it.”
“I’ll be playing with a handicap. My shoulder is still stiff as hell.”
“Saks,” she sighed.
“Come on, one game. Hawk over there can barely move off the couch. You’d be doing a good deed for the disabled.” He gave her a grin, and his heart stilled while he waited for her answer.
She shook her head and sighed. “One game.”
He took a breath when his heart started to beat again. “All right, one game.” If he had anything to do about it, though, it wouldn’t end there.
�
��And no funny business,” she scolded.
“Funny business? I’m very serious about pool. What do you want? Eight-ball?”
“Eight-ball is fine.” She stepped into the alcove and examined the pool cues.
Saks watched her beautifully rounded ass move under her skirt, and his cock twitched again. “Hmm, you didn’t bat an eye. Are you hustling me?”
“Moi?” she said, batting her eyelashes. “There’s no cash on the table, so how could I be hustling you?”
“I suspect I’m in trouble. But you know what? I’ll take that bet.” He pulled a twenty from his wallet and put it on the edge of the table.
“Whoa, a big, bad twenty,” Chrissy taunted.
“Let me see your money.”
Chrissy reached for her purse, pulled out a fifty, and laid it on top of Saks’ money.
“You gonna match it?” she said, a competitive glint in her eye.
“Sweetie, I can match you dollar for dollar, and,” he said, pulling a ten and twenty from his wallet, “move for move.”
CHAPTER NINE
Standing next to Saks, Chrissy felt lightheaded. Maybe it was because she hadn’t had much to eat, or maybe the travel was to blame, or seeing her father after surgery... Or maybe it was just from seeing Saks in the flesh.
For once he wasn’t wearing that damn jacket. She got a good glimpse of his muscled biceps and broad shoulders, with his abs tapering to a perfect ‘v’ on his hips under his jeans. Not because she could spy that part of his anatomy, but because burned into her memory was every inch of his naked self. It was if he’d taken a smoking etching tool and carved every taut muscle on his tall, lean frame on the neurons of her brain. Her stomach fluttered at the memory of Saks naked under her, and moaning with pleasure.
Damn it. She didn’t come here to simmer in a sexual stew of want and desire. It was bad enough that her heart thumped against her heart, chanting, “I love you, I love you” with the regularity of a Timex watch.
“Tell you what, Miss Big Money, I’ll give you the break.” He turned his back to her to pick a cue from the wall, and her breathing hitched. Saks had one fine ass, and if there was one thing she appreciated in a man it was round, firm glutes. She held onto her pool cue, her knuckles turning white while she fought for control. Saks was the only man who could turn her into a puddle of mush. Her overly-damp panties were evidence of that.
She was so fucked. Chrissy counted off the reasons she should leave.
No good could come of this. Serafini and Roccos did not mix. The two families had tried to come together, but it just didn’t work. Her grandfather and her parents wanted her to stay away from Saks Parks, the further away the better. They didn’t want her associated with a Rocco who was also involved in a motor cycle gang with a history as fucked up as either of their families. They didn’t want the complications of the Hades Spawn who were at odds with the Rojos, an incendiary one-percenter motorcycle gang. A gang who, if rumors had it right, hired two goombahs from Jersey to make it look like the Serafini wanted to take out Saks and start a gang war.
But Saks turned and aimed a bright smile at her. It flashed sexy and innocent at the same time, as if there was nothing he wanted more in the world but to play a game of pool.
Chrissy stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, fixed in place as surely as the moon circled in orbit around Earth.
“So,” he said, “you going to break the balls?”
Chrissy almost whimpered, because everything he said was turning into sex show in her lust-fueled brain. When he said the word “balls,” she flashed on the time when she’d tasted his. Then the scent of his cologne filled her nose, making her squirm with anticipation.
“You’d like me to,” she said in a husky voice. She didn’t intend this, but her vocal cords had other ideas.
“Well, not my balls, but those balls there,” he said, flashing another sexy grin. He pointed his cue to the carefully racked balls on the table.
Chrissy walked to the other end of the table, aware that Saks watched her every movement as if he was a jungle cat stalking his prey. She put the cue ball off center, and she noticed Saks’ eyebrow arched. He knew what she was going for, and it took a steady hand and deadly accuracy to make the shot. She chalked the end of the stick and stretched over her cue exactly as her dad had taught her in the basement of their house, where they’d had their own pool table. Lord, it had been years since she’d done it, but she hoped it would be like riding a bike. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Saks studying her ass jutting from her stance, his eyes a mixture of lust and longing. She almost broke then and there. Her only thought then was to drop the cue and fling her arms around his neck and do whatever he wanted her to.
“Hey, guys,” Hawk said. “I’m going to hit it.”
“Hey, before you do, shut the gate and set the codes,” Saks requested.
“Sure thing,” the younger man said. He went to the door and fiddled with a panel. The lights in most of the bar turned off, leaving them in the lighted alcove with the bar only lit from light spilling from it.
“Goodnight,” he said.
“’Night, Hawk.”
A door opened then shut.
“I guess,” Saks said, “we’re alone. Take your shot.” He moved in closer and leaned on his cue, watching her intently.
“You can’t distract me, Anthony Parks,” Chrissy warned.
“I’m not trying to distract you,” he said.
Oh, but you are just by standing there.
Chrissy focused on her shot, recalling everything her father had taught her, trying to shut out Saks standing close to her. She pulled back her arm, and with a sure and swift jab sent the cue ball crashing into the triangle of balls. They shot off, and one of the two she hoped would land in the side pockets did.
“Yep,” Saks said. “You lied to me.”
“How?”
“Told me you were no good at this.”
“Beginner’s luck,” she lied as she studied the balls on the table. She put the cue to the balls, one after another, hitting balls into the pockets, and laying up shots as she did so. She put three into the pockets before she looked over her shoulder at Saks, who stood with the cue on the floor watching her.
“Beginner’s luck?” he said. “You’re hustling me.”
“Naw. A good hustler would lose a game or two and build the pot.”
“Okay,” he said, pulling another twenty out of his wallet. “Let’s make this interesting. Make that shot there and you can have this.”
He pointed his cue to the red ball sitting forlornly on the bumper.
She shook her head. “I can’t make that shot. Not yet.”
“Sure, you can,” he said, an evil glint in his eye. “Someone with your talent can do it easily.”
“And I suppose you can?”
“I’ll show you how it’s done. See the purple ball? Hit that on its side and it’ll hit the red.”
She shook her head. “I’m going for the yellow ball.” She pointed to the yellow that she had positioned close to the corner pocket.
“Oh, come on. That’s an easy shot. A five-year-old can make that.”
She waved him off.
“Bok, bok, bok,” he clucked.
“Are you going to be quiet, so I can make this shot?”
“No.”
“Fine. Red ball, corner pocket.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Be quiet.”
Chrissy leaned in to target the purple ball, when Saks moved in close and bent over her.
“No,” he said to her ear. His sexy rumble sent shivers through her body. He lay his hand on hers and positioned the tip of her cue so that it would hit the cue ball at a different angle.
“The thing about pool,” he said in a low, panty-melting voice, “is that it’s all about finesse.”
“I can see that. I can also see one Mr. Anthony Parks trying to finesse me.”
Saks pressed his body against hers, flooding her
body with a jolt of electricity. His shaft, hard and unyielding, pressed against her bottom. “Am I?”
Chrissy bit her lip and let go of the pool cue. “Yes.”
Saks kissed the spot behind her ear, and she sighed. Then he licked it, and she breathed in sharply.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “I can’t help but miss you. You’re under my skin, Christina Serafini, into every part of me.”
Chrissy closed her eyes against the wave of emotion that swept over her. Need. Desire. Love.
“Saks.” But she didn’t know what to say.
“Shh,” he whispered, causing a shudder to run through her body. Gently, he tugged at the collar of her suit jacket and she moved her arms back and let him pull it off her. She tried to stand but he splayed his fingers on her back, keeping her in place.
Saks kissed the nape of her neck, his body stretched over her. He cupped his hands over her breasts.
“I love these,” he said. “Perfect size. And shape.”
His fingers sought and found her stiffening nipples, and she bit the inside of her lip to keep from making a noise.
“You like that,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“I like it, too. How your body responds to my hands. I love how your body quivers when I stroke it. You’re the sexiest thing alive. You know that, right?”
“No,” she said.
“Well, you are. I bet you’re wet right now, sopping wet.”
She made a little noise, because right now she felt like she swam in her own juices.
“Let me see,” Saks said. He pushed her skirt to her hips.
“What?” she said.
Saks dropped to his knees and kissed her thighs.
“Shh,” he said. Gently, he pushed her legs apart—widening her stance. Saks kissed and licked her upper thighs, first one, then another, and then pressed his lips to the juncture between her legs.
“Yeah, baby,” he said. “I can taste it even through your stockings. But they’re getting in the way.”
Chrissy put her hands to the stockings and pulled them down. She looked down at him. “How’s that?” she breathed, unable to manage much more.
“Beautiful. But I think we can do better.” Saks pulled her stockings to her ankles, then stopped, leaving them stretched between her legs.
