Only for the Night (If Only Book 2) (7 page)

“Wait a minute.” Hank snagged a pool cue from the rack, eyed it, and put it back. “You’re not reneging on Alice’s promise, are you?”

It took her a moment, but a dim light finally dawned in the back of her mind.
He gets to play the winner.
“Technically I didn’t win,” she told him despite the curiosity surging inside her. She’d been living with him a week and was no closer to knowing anything of substance about him—except that he loved her cooking, always a plus in a man. Not that she should notice. Or want to know anything else. Still…

Hank shot an exaggerated look around. “You’re the only player left on the field. That makes you the winner.”

Laughter escaped. “I’m also the only player still standing solidly on her feet.”

“Close enough.” There was that teasing grin she couldn’t resist. “Stay awhile.” He turned back to the cues, selecting and eyeing another one as if the request didn’t matter. Her innate sarcasm wanted to offer him a tape measure to help with his selection, but she quashed it in favor of putting him out of his misery.

“Okay.” What would one game hurt? She began racking the balls. “What does the winner of this round get?”

“What should they get?”

Sage watched him chalk the tip of the cue he’d selected. “Since I’ll be collecting, it should definitely be something I want.”

“Is that right?”

She couldn’t help but grin. “Yep.”

“Okay.”

Despite his not so easy to read face, Hank’s skepticism was obvious—and he was about to make the same mistake most men made; she could see it coming a mile away. Anticipation fizzed in her belly.

His gaze was more than a little indulgent. “How about you break?”

And there it is.
She hid her triumph by circling the table to lift the triangle away from the neatly arranged balls. “You got it.”

Calling each move, she proceeded to clear the table. When the cue and eight balls chased each other into the left side pocket last, she propped herself on her cue and lifted an eyebrow at Hank. “Again?”

His eyes were the size of saucers. “You’re a ringer.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

There was that laugh again. Sage felt it all the way down to her suddenly wet core.

This crazy attraction will eventually fade, Sage. Just gotta hold out a little while.
She hoped, anyway. She refused to risk her newly established future by giving in to temptation with Hank. He was a flirt, that was all. And a rock star. Just the thought of all the groupies his girlfriends had to compete with made her queasy. She had enough self-esteem issues to deal with right now.

Not to mention getting way ahead of herself.
Flirt, remember?

“Fine. Again, Ms. Smarty Pants.” Hank’s smile was warm, at ease. Definitely a flirt. “But this time I break.”

She gaped at him. “Chivalry is dead.”

“I’m smart, not dead.”

She shook her head at him, though the laughter escaping sort of ruined the effect. So did the sudden warmth in all the parts of her that noticed him as a man, which was pretty much all of them. When Hank’s back turned, Sage closed her eyes and gave her libido a stern talking to. By the time he missed a shot, she had them open again.

This game lasted more than ten minutes. Hank was good, just not as good as Sage. She’d been playing a long time, since she’d been tall enough to peek over the edge of the table. Her dad had loved pool, and before he’d died when she was fourteen, he’d taught her everything he knew. That and a natural talent meant she beat most of her opponents—except when she held back, as she had with Alice and Merry. Unlike most dates, Hank seemed to take her ability in stride and still have fun. The way he laughed off his mistakes and crowed over her best moves…she liked it. She liked him.

Surprisingly, she also liked the even footing. She’d feared once she’d accepted her desire for submission that she’d never feel equal to a man again, but there was a freedom with Hank, the freedom not to be defined by a role. They were just two people having fun, nothing else. The realization was a huge weight sliding off her shoulders, leaving her more than a bit wobbly. She eyed her margarita with suspicion.

“Tell me what you did before you moved here,” Hank asked between the fourth and fifth games. Sage watched him rack the balls while she gathered her thoughts.

“I’ve lived in and around Los Angeles all my life,” she finally said. “Went to culinary school right after graduation.”

“Really?” Hank set the triangle to the side. “Why cooking?”

Sage took her first shot, noting wryly that the distraction of her past offed her aim. “My father was a restauranteur. I got my love of the kitchen from him, my love of food from my mother.” The weight of both their losses settled on her chest, making it difficult to draw a full breath for a moment.

Hank seemed to sense what she couldn’t put into words. “What happened to them?”

Sage forced a smile. “I lost my dad when I was a teen; car accident. He had a heart attack early one morning on his way to work. My mother died last year of cancer.”

A sympathetic frown settled on Hank’s mouth. Even the man’s frowns were attractive. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” She nodded toward the pool table. “Your turn.”

Hank circled the table, scoping out his shot. He passed within inches of her, close enough that the faint spice of his aftershave warmed her blood. The scent always lingered in the bathroom after he shaved. It took everything she had not to suck in more.

“What made you decide to come here, then?” He lined up his cue and the number-two ball.

A lot of things she didn’t want to discuss, but… “I’d been working as head pastry chef at LesMiz for a little bit,” she said, ignoring his startled look. LesMiz—the five-star restaurant, not the play it was named after—was well-known even outside the city. “I loved it, but after my mother…” She let the clack of Hank’s shot cover the pause she needed to swallow the knot in her throat. “I took some time off. Deirdre and I have been friends since high school, and I’ve always been fascinated with her tales of the rocky cliffs of Citrus Pointe. When she explained about her parents… I don’t know. It sounded like an all-new adventure—just what I needed.” An escape. Sage fought to keep her thoughts from wandering too much farther down that path. “What about you?”

She was lining up a shot, but she caught Hank’s grin from across the table. “I’m pretty sure Alice has told you all there is to know about me.”

Not an answer. She took her shot. “I know you’re in a rock band.” And what band it was—and okay, she did have at least one album, maybe more, on her iPod. She hadn’t been able to resist when Alice mentioned who Hank was. Not that she’d admit the fact except under extreme duress. “Why music?”

Hank waited until her next shot cleared the table, then grabbed the triangle to rack back up. “I was a cop in LA.”

Whoa. The initial shock hit her like a punch, though as it settled, the information fell into her perception of him like the last remaining puzzle piece she hadn’t known was missing. Most people wouldn’t see it—Hank wore his flirty, laid-back persona like a second skin—but the way he carried himself, how hard he was to read, even the way he took care of Alice and Merry and Knight… Yes, she could definitely see it.

An uneasy twinge of yearning, far too close to the hunger she associated with the need to submit, lit inside her. No way. She’d almost rather want him because he was a rock god than because he’d been a cop. At least with the former she could keep things shallow.

How sad was that?

Hank circled the table, seeming oblivious to her sudden quiet. Or maybe just waiting for a reaction.

“So…you went for something totally opposite, huh?”

His surprise had her grinning. She shrugged. “Seemed to fit.” The puzzle-piece thing again.

He stepped back to allow her room for her turn. “Something like that,” he finally told her. Reluctantly—very reluctantly. Something about the set of his shoulders, maybe. Hank hid a lot, but being a sub had taught her to watch for subtle cues of pleasure or disappointment. She paid attention to things most people ignored, which was how she knew he wouldn’t welcome questions. She understood that feeling too, and let it lie.

Hank didn’t seem to need to fill the silence either, not until she’d cleared the table. “So…no one significant back in the big city?”

The words were casual, but his eyes, when she met them, burned with intensity. “I—”

She cut off her answer, but as the silence dragged on, Hank didn’t relent. His startling eyes bored into hers, commanding her, demanding her answer, her compliance. The wall of her resistance shook to its very foundation.

“No,” she finally admitted. “No one.” The truth, or close enough.

Satisfaction glimmered in the gaze trapping hers. “Good.”

She was turning that word over, examining the tone with a fine-tooth comb, when a yawn sneaked up on her. Hank’s snort of amusement twisted the yawn into a weird openmouthed smiling thing she couldn’t quite control. He chuckled as he gathered their pool cues. “Someone needs to get in bed.”

“Yeah, well, I was up before dawn.”

“Yeah, well,” he shot back playfully, “being onstage till two a.m. tends to make being a night owl a necessity.”

Or not needing much sleep. He was often up when she left for work or came in the market soon after to steal bear claws. The man’s sweet tooth was a thing of legend. “Excuses, excuses.”

Hank stuck his tongue out at her but ruined the gesture by motioning her forward. “Come on; I’ll follow you home.”

She retrieved her purse from the chair near the box holding the cues, trying hard to push thoughts of Hank and home and bed and
dear God, could she not just stop thinking about sex?
away. The three tries it took to snag her keys from the middle pocket with shaking fingers told her she was as ineffective at blocking sexual thoughts as she was at ignoring Hank’s sex appeal. It was embarrassingly like being in high school all over again, anticipating a good-night kiss at the door.

“Right.” She had to be blushing—her skin was hot, and not in a too-much-alcohol way. “Uh, let’s go then.”

“Okay.”

He waited for her to precede him, which she finally made herself do. “Okay.”

Even walking ahead of him tangled her nerves in knots. Was he staring at her butt? She’d worn her favorite pair of butter-soft, skintight jeans that molded to her every curve, and a white dress shirt tied at her waist. He could see anything he wanted to see. If he wanted to see it. Did he?

Lord.
Yes, Sage, you are back in high school again, or at least you’re acting like it.

The drive from Killian’s to the market took less than five minutes. In LA she’d have walked it, but not in this rural, not to mention unfamiliar, area. She was grateful Hank had security lights around the building so she didn’t worry about going to and from the upstairs apartment without daylight. She really needed to be looking for somewhere else to stay; she just hadn’t had time.

Maybe that was why Hank hadn’t brought home any female company since his return—because he had a roomie horning in on his territory. The thought caused her stomach to take a sudden trip south.

He was waiting as she locked her car and moved toward the staircase. Gaze on her own feet and not his delectable ass, she listened to him climb the stairs ahead of her. “Hank, I—”

When she didn’t continue, he paused. A quick glance up caught him looking down at her from over his shoulder. “What?”

“I forgot to ask about the apartment, my room?”

Hank grunted, which wasn’t really an answer, and continued up the stairs. At the door he opened the screen and slid his key into the lock. “What about your room?”

As he pushed the door open, Knight shot through the narrow gap, nearly bowling Hank over. “Watch it, dog!”

A laugh bubbled up at Knight’s complete unconcern for his master in his run for the stairs. Either he really needed a potty break or he was already sniffing out prey. Either way, he wasn’t waiting.

When she turned back, Hank’s eyes met hers. In the shadows she couldn’t read his expression, but she could feel the intensity of his focus, the heat of his body just a little too close.

Yep, far too much like having a date drop her off on her porch. Her breath choked off in her throat when he seemed to move closer.

“Hank?”

He blinked as if waking from a spell. A flash of disappointment filled her as he straightened. He’d definitely been leaning.

“The apartment?” she reminded him.

“Oh. Right. You’re staying.” He narrowed his eyes. “Right?”

“No. I mean, of course not. I’m sure you want your space back to yourself. I haven’t really had time to find someplace yet, but I don’t want you to think—”

“I don’t.”

“But—”

This time Hank didn’t lean; he reached for her. One broad hand, the fingertips calloused from hours of playing a musical instrument, tilted her chin until she had no choice but to stare into his eyes. So gentle, so careful, but somehow she knew better than to resist. “I don’t want you to be looking for somewhere else to live, not right now. I’m not using the space. And you have enough on your plate. Besides”—he flashed that sexy grin—“I kinda like having a roommate.”