by Alexa Wilder
We pulled into the grocery store closest to Sam’s house and I pushed my problems out of my mind for a while. There was nothing I could do in the next few hours except try to relax by cooking a nice dinner in Sam’s amazing kitchen. So that’s what I was going to do.
Mentally rifling through recipes, I almost didn’t notice when Sam slid his arm around my shoulders as we entered the store. I thought about shrugging him off, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. However wrong my brain said it was to take a risk on Sam, something deep inside me thought it was very, very right.
10
Sam
So far the day had been a frustrating combination of one step forward and two steps back. Chloe was keeping the clothes I’d bought her, and she’d agreed to stay in my house, but she’d shut down my overtures so completely at first I’d worried that she had no interest in ever letting me break through.
I wasn’t going to accept that. Not after the way she’d kissed me the night before. Chloe never would have kissed me with so much passion if she didn’t want me. I knew she cared for me. I just had to find a way to get her to trust me. If she wouldn’t accept that I was serious about her, I’d maneuver around her. At least that was my plan. It had been working so far.
I went in for a kiss, she’d push me away. So I stuck with the little things. Small touches. My arm around her. I’d figured out that she liked my easy affection, even leaned into me for more, as long as it wasn’t too overt. I was going to prove to her that she was mine. No matter how long it took.
We got home from the grocery store, and Chloe went to change, trading that sweet pink suit for a pair of stretchy dark green pants that hung loose around her legs but hugged her curvy ass so well I had to fight not to touch her. With it she wore a matching hoodie and tank top. It was comfy and fine for wearing around my Dad, but still undeniably sexy.
She was in the kitchen seasoning the chicken when Dad got home. At the sight of her cooking, he raised his eyebrows at me and gave me a look. He’d liked her for me from the start, but I’d always told him I wasn’t interested. I don’t know how he does it, but the second my feelings for her changed, he knew. He’d been on my ass ever since. I was doing this my way. As much as Dad liked Chloe, he didn’t know her like I did.
What came after was one of the best dinners we’d had in a long time. I had a professional grade kitchen, but neither of us cooked. We ate a lot of takeout, more than half the time sitting on the couch watching a game. With Chloe there, we ate at the table which Marte had cleared of her things while we were gone.
I’d been very pleased to find that Marte had made space in my closet for Chloe’s new wardrobe. More clothes had arrived while we were gone. Chloe hadn’t said anything, and I wondered if she’d noticed.
I was almost there. I had Chloe living in my house, her clothes in my closet, and she was sleeping in my bed. I just needed to join her there, and my life would be perfect. But we weren’t that far yet. And I had a feeling the conversation that took place after dinner had set me back. Again.
My guard was down when she left to change for the pool hall. I was full of the roasted chicken, veggies, and garlic mashed potatoes. The woman could seriously cook. It wasn’t why I wanted her. I’d eat takeout happily if I could eat it with Chloe. But her skills in the kitchen were a definite bonus. We’d tried to talk her out of the plan to find Feliks during dinner, but she’d dug in her heels. Dad and I were both a little mystified.
Chloe was smart. She was reasonable. Sensible. And reserved. Shy. Barreling into a pool hall was the last place she should want to go. She should have backed down and agreed to let Axel handle everything. It was the intelligent thing to do.
Instead she was insistent that she find Nolan herself. I understood that she loved her brother, but she was putting herself in danger she didn’t understand. Maybe she was right, maybe I didn’t get it. Because as far as I could see, Nolan wasn’t worth all this trouble, brother or not. He’d never done anything but take from her. She deserved more. When we found him, I planned to make it clear that his days of freeloading off Chloe were over.
I was sitting at the table thinking about what I was going to do to Nolan when we caught up to him, when Chloe walked out into the kitchen dressed for the pool hall. I almost swallowed my tongue.
I’d never seen her dressed like that. She wore black spike heels with an open toe that displayed shiny red toenails. Tight jeans cupped her ass the way I wanted to and a dark red clinging top with a scoop neck that showed way too much cleavage. They were completely un-Chloe clothes.
“What are you wearing?” I asked, my voice strangling in my throat. She looked down at herself and then back up at me.
“What? I don’t have much that’s casual. Unless you think I should wear a cocktail dress? Or what I was wearing during dinner?”
“No. Of course not. But that’s too-” I cut myself off and her face fell. She tugged on the top, pulling it out where it clung to her rounded waist. Shit. I should have known she’d think I was saying she looked fat. She was always worried about being overweight.
I didn’t think she was overweight. I thought she was just the right weight. But the one time I’d told her that, she’d skewered me with a look and asked if I thought bigger women were beautiful, why did I date skinny models all the time?
I hadn’t had a good answer. The truth was that I liked them too. I liked all different shapes on women, though too skinny had always been a turn off. And the other truth is that I’d been lazy. The model types were the women who came on to me. They were there, they were beautiful, and they were easy. But neither of those truths made me look particularly good, so I’d kept my mouth shut, probably making it worse. Exactly like I was doing just then.
Dad came to my rescue and said, “You look gorgeous, Chloe. I think what has Sam’s panties in a twist is that he doesn’t want to take you to a scummy pool hall where you’re going to attract attention from a bunch of men he normally wouldn’t want anywhere near you.”
She looked at me and I shrugged helplessly. “I know you’re going to say I can’t tell you what to do. But every man in that pool hall is going to be all over you, even with me there. Axel specifically said it wasn’t the kind of place I’d want to take you.”
“You already told me that,” she said, shifting her weight as she opened her small purse and began to look through it. “I’m still going.”
“I know.” Unfortunately, Axel said that the place wasn’t Tsepov’s as I’d thought it would be and I’d lost the upper hand on insisting we give it a pass. “I wish I still had your other suit.”
She looked up from her purse and met my eyes in confusion. “You said it was ugly.”
“It was. I wish you could wear it tonight.”
She shook her head at me as if I was a silly child and went back to looking through her purse.
“Clo,” I said, “have you ever been to a pool hall before?”
“No,” she answered absently. “We had a pool table at home when I was growing up so I always played there.”
This time I shook my head at her. She had no idea what we were getting into. I’d never been to Balls and Sticks, but I recognized the neighborhood. This wouldn’t be an upscale club with spotless felt on heavy wooden tables. This was going to be cracked neon signs and crappy bottled beer. I’d dressed down too, in the jeans and boots I wore on site, an old t-shirt, and my nine millimeter at my back. Thanks to Axel I’d gotten a license to carry concealed, and I’d never been happier about it.
Finally finished with whatever she was doing with her purse, she slid her ID and a small red tube into the front pocket of her jeans and looked up at me. “Are we going?”
“I guess we are,” I said, positive I was going to regret it.
11
Chloe
Sam drove us to the pool hall in silence, the whole time looking like he’d swallowed a toad. I didn’t get what the big deal was. For one thing, I wasn’t dressed to attract guys. I was wear
ing a knit top and jeans. Okay, the heels were sexy, and the top showed a little cleavage, but only a little. It was tasteful cleavage, not prowling-for-a-man cleavage. Same for the shoes. They were awesome, but I could have worn them to work with the right suit. Sam was either trying to flatter me, or he had a warped sense of what other men would find hot.
As we traveled through the streets of Vegas, we left the areas I knew and ventured into a darker side of town. Literally. Here every third streetlight was out, and more than a few of the stores were closed down. What had Nolan been doing on this side of the city? This was Vegas. If he’d wanted to play pool there were plenty of places closer to our apartment.
Finally, we pulled into a strip mall and parked in front of a building with a flickering neon sign over the door reading “Balls a d St cks”. This must be it. I couldn’t get an impression of what the place was like because the street facing windows had been covered with dark plastic from the inside. I was suddenly very glad I didn’t have to open the door and go in by myself.
Sam did the job for me, wrapping his arm tightly around my shoulders as he ushered me inside. Subtly, so no one would notice, he whispered in my ear, “Do not leave my side, Chloe. Understand me?”
I nodded. I’d been fighting with him all day, but now that we were here, I had no intention of arguing. We went to the bar where Sam ordered us two domestic beers in bottles, exchanging a few words with the bartender. I hated domestic beer, but it didn’t look like there was any other option. I knew better than to ask for wine.
The pool hall didn’t look anything like I’d imagined. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I’d had a picture in my head of the pool table we’d had growing up, with its dark green felt and polished wooden frame. More of those and maybe someplace for people to sit, some couches and chairs.
Balls and Sticks was nothing like that. A dank, acrid haze of smoke hung in the air. The tables were made of plastic and metal, the felt damaged and uneven. The cues looked ancient and warped. The floor was concrete, cracked in places, and far from clean. Light years from clean.
A few people were sitting at the bar, and here and there along the far wall there were stools pulled up to ledges for bottles of beer and ash trays. But mostly, men were standing, playing pool or watching others play pool. There were a few women, but none of them looked like me. I saw one who had bleached blond hair with inches of dark roots, a cigarette handing out of her mouth and an orangey spray tan. In the back, a woman was wrapped around a man, whispering in his ear while he slipped his hand up her shirt. I looked away.
Balls and Sticks was definitely a guy’s pool hall. And a lot of them were staring at me. I still didn’t get it. The other women here were showing a lot more skin. Nervous, and inwardly cursing my brother for getting me into this in the first place, I turned to lean into Sam, tucking my head into his shoulder.
“Now what?” I asked. He wrapped his free arm tightly around me and said in a low voice,
“What do you mean? I thought you had a plan, honey.”
“Sam,” I said, willing to admit I was in over my head. “Seriously, how do we find Feliks?”
I knew he was laughing at me after the way I’d insisted we come here and now was hiding in his chest, asking for help. But I wasn’t the most outgoing woman, and while the idea of coming in here and demanding to see Feliks had seemed like a good plan in my head, now that I was faced with a room full of strange men who all seemed to be staring at my breasts, I was terrified. Shit.
Sam held me tighter and whispered, “The plan is that you drink your beer. We’ve got the next open table, and I asked about Feliks.”
“When?” I stared up at him.
“When I got our beers.”
“Is he here?”
“The bartender didn’t say. We’ll hang out for a while and if he doesn’t show, we go home.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t crazy about that plan. It seemed too passive. But I wasn’t going to leave Sam’s side to interrogate every man in the place, so I was stuck with it. I knew I was being a wimp, but most of these guys were creepy. There was a lot of long stringy hair, too many missing teeth, and way too many leering gazes for me to feel good about wandering around by myself. Not that Sam would let me. His arm around me gave no question as to whom I belonged.
Our beers were almost empty when a short, skinny man sidled up beside Sam and asked “you look for Feliks?” He had a low, accented voice that sounded too deep to belong to such a narrow body. Sam nodded once and waited. The man’s eyes moved to me and he said,
“So, here I am. Who is asking?”
“Do you know Nolan Henson?” I asked. Feliks’s eyes narrowed.
“Maybe. Who is asking?”
“I’m his sister. He’s missing and-”
“Yeah, I know he’s missing,” Feliks said, the words choking out on a laugh. “Missing or running is what they say.”
“Tell us what you know,” Sam said, cutting in.
“For what?”
“Some of this, if what you have is any good,” Sam said.
Feliks’s eyes fell to Sam’s hand and gleamed at the sight of folded bills. Sam was so much better at this getting-information-stuff than I was. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d need money. Again, I cursed my brother for putting me here in the first place.
“I’ll talk to you. For that.” Feliks shot his eyes to the money in Sam’s hand. “But only if she plays with me.”
Sam’s eyes went dangerously hard, and the man back peddled. “Pool. She plays a game of pool.”
A shot of icy adrenaline tinged fear went through me. He wanted to play me at pool? Here? I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to move from the safety of Sam’s arms and go out in the middle of the room with all these men watching and play pool against this creepy guy who might know where my brother was.
But I could do it. I was good at pool. Really good. I’d grown up playing all the time at home. It was one of the few things my father would do with us, so Nolan and I both played a lot in the hopes that he would join in and notice that we were there.
The worst thing that could happen was that I’d lose and we'd know what we knew now. Nothing. But if I won… Before Sam could open his mouth to answer, I said, “I’m in.”
12
Sam
My heart stopped for a second when Chloe said yes. It took everything I had to stop myself from dragging her out of the place. But if I did she’d never forgive me. And the table that was opening up for us was close to the door. If the Russian guy had tried to lead us deeper into the pool hall, I might have dragged her out anyway. More than half the men in there were armed and most of them were looking at her like she was fresh meat and they were starving.
Chloe was the best looking women in that room by far. Probably the hottest woman who’s ever crossed the threshold. As I walked her to the table, I kissed her temple and said “be careful.”
I was assuming she knew how to play pool. Feliks was counting on her desperation to find her brother to goad her into playing, but I knew her. She’d answered with too much confidence for a woman who’d been scared shitless a few minutes ago. My Chloe was going to clean the floor with this guy. Then we could find out what he knew about Nolan, and we’d get the hell out of there.
I didn’t have any question in my mind why Feliks would want to kill some time playing pool with Chloe. For one thing, he probably thought it would be funny to mess with her, to take advantage of her clear concern over Nolan and watch her squirm in the hopes that he had useful information, which I doubted.
But that was only part of it. The real answer was that no man, unless he was gay, would pass on the chance to see Chloe bent over a pool table. Either way, I already knew the view would be a killer. Between those tight jeans and the scoop neck shirt, the whole place was about to get a show.
I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that she wanted to do this. She hadn’t missed the looks she was getting. She had to know she woul
d draw attention, and I knew it wasn’t attention she wanted. Yet she’d jumped to say yes in the hopes she’d find out something useful about Nolan. I was going to back her up even if it killed me.
No one would get to touch her. I knew that. More importantly, she knew that. I didn’t have any definite plans to shoot anyone, but my gun was loaded, and if we got into trouble I’d have no problem using it. But I doubted it would come to that. Watching Chloe select a cue stick, her eyes assessing and knowledgeable, I didn’t think the game was going to last long.
I was right. Chloe shyly offered to let Felix break, then took over the table. It was almost worth enduring the greedy leers of the crowd to watch my sweet, beautiful girl destroy the weaselly little Russian.
His break was pathetic, leaving half the balls clumped at the far and of the table. Without comment, without even looking at Feliks, she walked around the table, surveying the placement of the balls. Then she struck, leaning over to sink the first ball, a stripe, with an efficient, direct stroke of the cue. It was almost as beautiful as the sight of her top gaping down to display her breasts, creamy and lush, spilling out of the black lace bra she wore.
My dick went rock hard so fast my head spun. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I planted my feet on the concrete floor and glared at every other man in the pool hall, aware I couldn’t kill them for staring at her breasts. And I couldn’t force her to leave. She had to do this, and I had to let her. I reminded myself of that about fifty times between her first shot and her second.
In the minute since Chloe had bent over the table the two nearest games had stopped, the players coming over to watch Chloe and Feliks. My glare intensified until I was surprised laser beams weren’t shooting from my eyes.
She rounded the table to stand in front of me and bent over to take her third shot. The sight of her gorgeous ass in those tight jeans almost made me groan. I had a very brief fantasy of fucking her over the pool table at my house before I dragged my attention back to the room.
